It is this: I see a lot of people reasonably expecting services to work at all times. I work hard for what I own and pay for, so I understand this. But, let’s be real - stuff breaks. And if you are able, think about this - you break, too. What I mean is this:

I have served in a computer repair occupancy for many years. During that time I was amazed at how people think computers should work all the time, the way they want, and without fail. Are we forgetting that things break? Don’t believe me? Look at your car… how about your home… how about you very body??

I like my things to work. I hate it when I pay good money and come home to cable outages. But it happens. Someday I will be perfect. When that happens I will come back and tell all of you how wrong you are in sit in perfect judgment of you. Until then why don’t you join me in realizing things happen. It breaks, I break, we all break. If this world was perfect, it wouldn’t need a savior now would it? We would be without funeral homes and life insurance.

Life is short. I hate companies who promise and don’t deliver. I hate people who think they can insult and attack and they are in the right. What a drag.

The problem we have here is two fold with one common denominator - 1) you have ignorant and demanding people. We live in a day and age where we are told “get it your way” and the like. For reasons I cannot understand we, the consumer, feel like we can treat anyone-nameless-person working for the big-bad-company-who-makes-billions-of-dollars any way we want. Why, because we pay them for service. 2) people working for these companies can be uncaring and self centered. The common denominator is this: People.

See, I can say that Washington Gas did me wrong. But at the same time, they can say they did what they could to resolve my issue and make me a happy customer. But, I acted the ass thinking it was my right, forgetting there is another human at the end of my phone who has feelings, families, worries, and the unfortunate circumstance of dealing with an unreasonable “customer”, whom they are required to treat with respect and empathy, yelling at them and being insulting.

Look, there is a lot to my argument that is being left out. I am doing this for the sake of actually hoping people will read my rant. Let me wrap up with this: People are fallible. If for a moment someone would come to their senses and realize there is more to life than pleasing yourself, we may - just maybe, get somewhere. In the meantime I would cahllenge anyone to deal with the “me first” mentality which has blinded this wonderful country into thinking we do no wrong and it is everyone elses fault.

Simply put, this “lady” should pay for the damaged equipment she took a hammer to and be prosecuted according to the law. Comcast then needs to make ammends for their abvious lack of ability to provide support for this customer’s needs. In other words, both sides need to admit fault and fix their problems. And both sides need to own up to what is their responsibility and settle it. And please do not tell me Comcast forced this lady into acting like a lunatic. Anger can comes to us all, it’s an emotion, one we cannot help but experience. It’s what we do with that anger that seperates us from animals. This woman acted the animal. And I bet if she were a single male of any age between 18-55 she would be in serious trouble, not made into a national sensation.

Fellow consumer, fellow laborer, we cannot applaud what this woman has done. We also cannot say leave Comcast alone. Shoot, I believe this organization needs to step up to the plate and take care of these on going mishaps we read more and more about. But as we do let’s not forget people are people. Let’s have a little compassion for one another. Who knows… the day may come when it is YOU who are the angry customer or the poor sap trying to resovle the angry customer support issue. Regardless, it sure ain’t fun. Like we all have heard said, “You never know what it’s like until you walk a mile in their shoes”. Like anyone else witnessing this sad display of human depravity I am with an opinion and I have already admitted to my hypocrisy. So I say be reasonable.

For all of that annoyance involving 10 tech visits, I got a $60 credit.

I read somewhere that it costs, on average, $75 for an MSO like Comcast to roll a truck.

That’s $750 that Comcast spent for tech visits that didn’t fix the problem.

If Comcast doesn’t have the in-house expertise or manpower to fix the problem, which is/was in their outside plant, I wonder how much a contractor would’ve charged to fix it.

Maybe right around $750? Who knows. I bet I wasn’t the only one who had tech visits, either, so add another $75 for each one of those, too, and it probably would’ve been much cheaper for Comcast to deal with the problem back in May.

Huh. Never had to deal with AOL, have you?

I have me mostly satisfied with Comcast for basic cable and internet. I don’t ask much of it, Comcast doesn’t deliver much.

I had Cox internet for a year and had an outage of five weeks while they tried to get their database in Norfolk to stop telling their database in Fairfax to cut my modem off. To their credit, they refunded me for all of the time where I was without a connection.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
CITY OF MANASSAS PARK, VIRGINIA

Notice is hereby given that the Governing Body of the City of Manassas Park will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 7:00 pm, or as soon thereafter as possible, for the purpose of receiving public comment and considering the following:

An ordinance granting to Verizon South Inc. a cable franchise in the City of Manassas Park. Pursuant to the cable franchise and Sections 15.2-2108 et seq. and 58.1-645 et seq. of the Code of Virginia, the City will receive 5% of gross revenues of the franchisee annually, and a per-subscriber educational and governmental cable television programming grant.

Public hearings are held in the Council Chambers at City Hall, One Park Center Court, Manassas Park, Virginia. The public is encouraged to attend this hearing and provide comments on the agenda items.

Information concerning this hearing is available for review on the City web site at www.cityofmanassaspark.us and in the City Clerk’s office at City Hall between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday - Friday.

check this out…

forgot to mention…it’s not a notion, it’s the truth…they do it all the time

comcast cuts off people who download too much, they wont tell you what their limit is however. There are numerous articles (including a few from the wash post) on the subject. Go to DSL reports, they have the scoop

entirely correct! Comcast is selling services that their infrastructure cannot support. They are so oversubscribed it’s pitiful. What they advertise and what they can deliver are two different things.

Comcast banks on customers not utilizing their services to the full extent that they advertise. For example, they boost internet speeds (and heavily advertise) but then shut people off for using the connection as they wish (even though it’s advertised “unlimited”)

In their effort to compete with Residential fiber services (FIOS) they are going to tax their networks even more. In areas where FIOS exists Comcast boosts internet speeds up to 16mbps. However you’ll get cutoff if you “download” too much. That doesnt make too much sense to me at all. Which is another reason why I left them.

You definitely dont get what you pay for. Check out Dslreports.com, you’ll find tons of Comcast hatred there.

Josh

All I can say is demand English speaking, professional service, and maybe you will get it.

Electric: NOVEC is contractually bound to buy power from ODEC. They have been trying to get out of this contract because ODEC’s power is expensive, being generated more and more by peaker plants (gas-fired).

Water: Manassas Park has shut down one of the wells and is feeding PWCSA water into that side of the city. Long term they are trying to have PWCSA take over the operations of the water and sewer system, which would result in the shutdown of the wells and the water source changed to PWCSA water. Should also result in bills going down due to PWCSA’s economies of scale.

We will see. I had a stove delivered two years ago, the guys did not speak English well enough that I could communicate with them, and when the left it was not level and all the packing material was still inside the oven. When I pay for delivery and installation, I expect the thing to be ready to use when they leave. I called the store and read them the riot act. They sent out different people who spoke English and took care of it to my satisfaction. I hope they learned their lesson. This is Sears last chance. This time I will go over the job with the delivery men before anything is brought inside, and if I am not happy with the crew they send, I will turn them away and cancel the order.

By the way I use Verizon Broadband and it’s good enough for me. Hey, I was still using dial up and this broadband is a whole lot faster.