Grant's Rants

So, I have decided to inaugurate a new feature. I have been thinking about it for quite some time, and frankly did not act on it sooner because I wanted to come up with a sufficiently catchy title. So, after much deliberation I have come up with "Grant's Rants." Please, hold your applause until the end of the post. Basically, this is a forum for me to take a particular person, organization, decision, etc. to task. It is kind of a variation on Stephen Colbert's "Tip of the Cap/Wag of the Finger" segment from "The Colbert Report" except that mine will always be a wag of the finger. I will try to post a rant every week and who knows, maybe some weeks I will have more than one. As long as Bush is in the White House that is very likely.

Anyway, my first rant is directed at the fine folks at Comcast, my cable TV, phone and Internet service provider. A few weeks back I came home from work on a Monday to find that my Internet and phone service were out. So, I call Comcast customer service on my cell and explain the situation. After doing some remote testing of my modem the customer service person has me conduct a number of tests, none of which restore my service. So, I am told that they will create a "ticket" so that the technicians at Comcast can continue to troubleshoot my modem remotely during the evening and, in theory, solve the problem.

I get home from work on Tuesday to find my service still out. Back on the cell phone again, this time with another customer service rep. Same tests that don't work. I try to schedule a technician to come over in the evening, which of course is not available because why would you have a service person available from 6-8pm during the week, when most of us have 9-5 jobs and can't sit around all morning or afternoon waiting for a repair man? Despite not scheduling a technician during the day, I get a call on my cell from a Comcast technician on Wednesday afternoon saying he is at my apartment and can I buzz him up. I am like "Why are you at my apartment, I never made an appointment." I call customer service right after that and speak with Leo, who is very helpful and gives me his direct extension for future communication on the matter. "You mean I can talk to the same customer service rep twice? Wow," I say to Leo.

That night, I get home to no phone/Internet. So, I call customer service again and ask for Leo. The woman who answers proceeds to tell me that he is in a different call center (Charlotte? Canada? Schaumburg?) and she can't connect me. So, I go "Alec Baldwin in 'Glengarry Glen Ross'" on her for like 15 minutes before I settle down and agree to do some tests. After we run through a series of fixes on my computer the lady proceeds to tell me that my operating system is faulty and that I should contact Microsoft. So I say "You mean to tell me that the operating system on my computer, which has worked perfectly for 1.5 years, just suddenly failed at the EXACT same time as my Comcast phone and Internet service. That is a hell of a coincidence and I think you're wrong. I want a technician to come here and replace my modem."

This continues to Friday when I get home from work and, magically, my service has been restored. Whoo hoo! I surf the 'net and check my phone, all systems go. So, I call Comcast and cancel the technician I have scheduled for Saturday morning and I go out for the night. When I get home around 10:30p I go to my computer and, lo and behold, both the Internet and phone are out. And this right after I canceled the technician. If Comcast is trying to torture me a la the movie "Saw" it is working. They have slowly broken my will and my spirit and I would now consider cutting off my own arm to have home phone/Internet again. I am back on the phone several more times Friday night before I finally get a technician scheduled for Saturday morning. He determines that - you guessed it - the modem is defective and replaces it. The whole things takes like 20 minutes. Problem solved...a week later.

To the lady who said my Windows XP operating system was defective I say "Kiss my operating system. Your customer service is defective."