I was out of bed and downstairs before 10 a.m., prepared to sit at my computer and keep an eye out on the driveway through the window next to my computer desk. The tech was supposed to arrive between 11 and 2. By 1:30 I was getting nervous so I called Comcast. I’ll probably butcher the spelling of this name, but here goes … Condaway was the tech support person who answered. As expected she said that she didn’t see any notes that would indicate my technician would be delayed. I thanked her and hung up.
At 2:00, he had still not arrived. I called right at the hour and spoke to Michelle. She said that he had an ETA of 22 minutes. “Sounds responsible,” I thought. “Too random to make up.” I thanked her and hung up.
The techician showed up about 2:20 or so. That 22-min estimate was right on the money. But that was where the good times ended. The tech asked me what trouble I was having. When I described my problem, he looked at my modem and asked me if the lights usually stay on when I’m having outages. I said yes and he immediately said “then there’s nothing I can do. That’s a problem with Comcast’s servers and until they fix them, it won’t get any better.”
I was momentarily stunned. Did the tech really just show up after all of this and say there was nothing he could do for me – without touching a thing? I hadn’t mentally prepared for that. I figured he wouldn’t show up, or perhaps throw a couple of fake solutions my way and leave knowing that his work wouldn’t change a thing. Maybe put a “booster” on my line, as a couple of the tech support people I’ve spoken to have mentioned. I had even thought there was a chance the technician would even fix the problem. Never had I contemplated this happening.
“Um … OK. So, what would you suggest I do?”
Blank stare … “well, I mean … until they fix their servers, you’re going to keep having trouble.”
I wasn’t really sure what to do with that answer. “OK,” I said. “Well, if you can’t do anything for me, my only option is to call Comcast back and tell them their technician showed up and said that he couldn’t fix the problem, so what should I do. Is there anything we should look at before I do that? Do you have better suggestion?”
He thinks for a second and says “I’ll take a look at the line strength and see. Do you have a minute?”
I thought that meant he wanted me to follow him outside, but he said that I didn’t need to come outside, he would be right back. Still a little confused at the “do you have a minute” question, I just sat down and waited to see what he would do next.
A moment later he came back inside with some sort of testing device that he hooked to my cable outlet. He pushed a few buttons, read some numbers to me as if I might know what they meant, and said that my connection was fine.
I then spent a few more minutes trying to pull a solution out of him like a bone of out a pit bull’s mouth. Finally he said he would go check my “tap”. Whatever that was, he was back in a few minutes. He came in and said “is it out”, looking at darkened lights on my modem.
“Uh … you never plugged my modem back in,” I told him.
He then walked over and reconnected my modem and watched the lights come back on, looking at me as if he had just fixed my problem.
I tried one last attempt to try to get a solution from him before I finally let him go. I explained that I had tried calling Comcast over and over, and they had painted him as my savior. He was the one who was supposed to take care of all my problems. Was there nothing he could do? I went on to describe how I was detailing my experiences in a blog so that I would have a record of everything that has happened to perhaps put in a letter to whomever I could think of.
This caught his attention. He laughed and said, “can I see it.”
“Uh, sure.”
He looked at it for a second and then asked me if I could print it out so that he could take it with him. He said, “I’ll take this back to the dispatch office.” Though, I’m not sure if that meant to show someone who could help or merely so that he and the boys could laugh about it over drinks.
As he drove away, I picked up the phone and called Comcast back. Feeling pretty defeated, I waited for them to pick up my call for several minutes only to suddenly get a beeping sound as if their line was busy. That’s the second day in a row that’s happened. I called a second time and was able to get through to Mark, from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I told him what had happened and he suggested that I call the local dispatch, but choose the cable TV option. He said that if I chose the Internet service option I would just end up with a random person, but the cable TV people were local.
Sounded about as good of an idea as I had heard today, so I tried that. Unfortunately, the “local dispatch” number he gave me was the same number that I always call. (I didn’t realize until after I hung up because I had programed Comcast into my cell phone long ago and had forgotten their number.
I had to take my best guesses as to which options to choose, but I eventually did get through to a rep, Stephanie, from Georgia (where I am). She listened to my pleas for help and said she was emailing a collegue in “HSI”. Then came back and said that person wasn’t going to be in the office until later today, so she was going to walk over to the office of someone else and have that person call me. Stephanie was very patient and understanding. Hopefully she will be helpful as well. We’ll see. I’ll be waiting by the phone.
