Brighthouse Cable Internet

This will be an ongoing blog until this problem is resolved. The names have been asterisked out to protect, for whatever reason, the people themselves.

Let me start by saying I have a 10mb cable connection through Brighthouse (cable company in central Florida, maybe elsewhere too? I don't know).

Let me also say that I am an IT Tech by trade, certified for both PC and Networking.

The Issue: I lose connection to the internet at 2:50am and 3:10am every morning.  It usually only takes a couple of minutes for it to come back on, but it's aggravating as hell.

Brighthouse Customer Support Contact

1st attempt: the representative, named L*****y, scheduled me for a on-site visit from a repair tech. Ok fine, no worries right? Wrong. She sent them to an address I have never lived at nor have ever heard of.

2nd attempt: After contacting a rep for the 2nd time, I found out about the 1st attempt problem, which for some reason no longer amuses me but I find it rather sarcastically funny that this is how big business in the States is and it's nothing new...so I chalked it up to lesson learned.  The new rep , names L****e apologized for the last error, and rescheduled the appointment for next week when I was available.  Ok fine. Repair guy didn't show up.

3rd Attempt:  Sent yet another email to brighthouse, getting a bit pissed off at this point....never heard anything from this attempt.

4th attempt:  reminded them about attempt #'s 3,2,1...got L****e again, she set up another appointment, this time the guy does show up.  All he does is stand there, look at the modem, unplugs it, plugs in another one, and leaves.  No testing, nothing.  Now my net is slow as hell and still getting bumped off at night.  The excuse I got is that is sounded like the cable modem was getting a "surge".  I inform him that if it is getting a surge then it's coming in over the cable line and not the power outlet and that I have a surge protector sitting right there everything is plugged in to.  He informs me that surge protectors do not protect from voltage surges.  what??

5th Attempt:  Got L*****y for the 2nd time (the one that screwed up the first appointment), made it ever-so-clear that I was available on Sunday at any time and on Tuesdays before 10am.  What happens? I get an appointment for 6pm-8pm on MONDAY.

6th Attempt:  Got L****e yet again, she can't believe what is going on, resets the appointment for Sunday, 10am-12pm...It's 12:23pm now, no show.  UPDATE: My neighbors informed me that the tech did show up, but at 3pm.  What am I supposed to do, sit here all day and wait? I thought that is what appointments are for.

7th Attempt:  Got L*****y this time via email, tells me that I have a $20 credit on my account because of their on-time guarantee for service work, well, if that is the case, I am owed more than $20.  In any case, She once again asks for my available times for a new appointment, I once again tell her sunday any time and tuesdays before 10am.

8th Attempt: Got D**n this time, they set up a monday appointment between 2p and 4pm.  I AM AT WORK. How can I be home? Sent yet another email to them explaining this once again.

9th Attempt: L*****y sent an email saying I was to have a Lead Technician come to my home on Feb 20th, 2011 between 10a and 12pm (noon)...Here it is, 12:32pm and no tech. Email was sent back to Brighthouse once again outlining their on-time guarantee which can be found here:
LINK: http://support.brighthouse.com/Article/Schedule-Home-Visit-Technician-On-Time-6448

It states:
On-Time Guarantee

Bright House Networks offers an on-time guarantee that a technician will arrive within the time frame scheduled for your appointment.

If a Bright House Networks technician is late or misses a scheduled home visit because of an error by Bright House Networks, a $20 credit is issued to you upon your request.

Article Number: 6448

Update: They say the guy showed up and work was completed at 11:00 am. I never saw the guy and now my net reliability is worse than before.  Every other movie on Netflix either times out or "You're connection has slowed.." blah blah.  I have been turning my computer off at night so I am not sure whether the 3am problem is fixed or not, I will test this week sometime and see. They also issued me a 2nd $20 credit.

10th Attempt: Got a new one named L**a.  New appointment set for Feb 27th 10am-12pm. Maybe?

Questionables...

How long does it take a piece of chewed gum to turn black on a sidewalk?

How many pieces of this gum would it take to pave a 1 mile stretch of asphalt, 2 lanes wide, 1 layer of gum thick?

If they can make gum that doesn't stick to dentures, why can't they make gum that doesn't stick to your shoes?

If they have gum that tastes like just about everything now, why can't they make shoes that smell like other things?  Daisies? Rose Garden? Orange Blossoms?

If you had shoes that smelled like other things, could they have plugins like what Glade produces?

If you had Glade plugin shoes, there would have to be a power source, solar?

If you had solar shoes, could you power your mp3 player while jogging from your shoes?

If you had solar shoes and it was cloudy, could you have a small "Shake Weight" generator that acted like a tidal generator?

If you had "Shake Weight" generators, could you hook them to a belt of an over-weight person and produce more electricity from the "aftershocks"?

If you can produce more energy from the aftershocks, could you then use that energy to make a grilled cheese sammich?

If you can make a grilled cheese sammich with a tidal generator, how many cows would you need to produce enough cheese to keep up proportionally with a 10kW tidal generator?  How many sammiches would it produce per hour?

Murder on the Highway

On my way home from work today I witnessed an ambulance and a firetruck leaving a hotel parking lot with lights-a-flashing.  No idea what had happened until I saw a huge red wet splotch in the middle of the road.  It horrified me to think what could have caused that mess...

The victim lay there helpless on the ground, rolling around haphazardly in a pool of red sticky liquid.

Apparently a car had hit a paint truck and knocked a can of red paint onto the roadway...

...The slaughter of innocent paint cans must be stopped!

Old People and Speed Limits

These are two naturally occurring things in America. Ok, fine, I can accept both of them.  However...

Why the hell do the old people have to drive 10 MPH in a 50MPH when I am late for work??

Any other day of the week they are freaking Mario Andretti  in a parking lot learning to drift around the errantly placed shopping carts and dozens of seagulls looking for even a  modicum of a morsel.

Old people don't be offended, I loves ya.  you can teach us younger morons a lot, and mostly, you are nicer than we are...but don't expect forgiveness because of these facts.

Situation: (fictional...mostly)
Old guy driving 10MPH in a 50MPH zone..in the biggest damn car he could find at the car lot to be sure he cannot see over the dashboard without a pizza hut booster seat and a wool shoulder strap on the seatbelt so that it doesn't cut into his chest at an odd angle because of the booster seat.

I am late, not overly, but if I don't pick up the pace a tad I will be late.  Keeping in mind I do not speed, I usually leave the house with plenty of time to spare and get there easily 15 minutes in advance.  There is just nowhere I have to be in that big of a hurry.

I am not saying to speed, by no means, but damn dude, drive a tad faster?  Yes I know just because it says 50 doesn't mean you have to go 50, but it doesn't mean your land yacht can't use the other outboard motor as well and get up to say...40? 45?  Oh nooo, it's 10 for you, 10 is fast enough thank you.  One day you will meet someone that has had enough, not I naturally, but some joe-bob redneck with a jacked up truck, gun rack in the back windows and beer cans super-glued to his rims because they make a neat-o whistling noise as he drives faster than 10MPH. he is going to be pissed because he can't head his cans whine.  I don't wanna hear it, you have been warned. ( and no I have no idea if the beer can thing would work or not, but in reference to that idea...if the wind crossing the opening were placed at the correct angle, i would guess it would be like blowing across the top of a beer bottle o.O  )...great, now I have to try that one day...

Anyways...moral of this is...
Use the gas pedal, you have one, I know you do and I am pretty sure I know you know where it is....



OH! I just figured out why you drive the way you do.  You are so damn short and raised up from the booster seat that your feet can't reach the gas pedal.  There are 2 solutions for you:

1.)  Get controls put on the steering wheel like some handicapped people use.  Awesome inventions and they work very well.

2.)  Take your car to the mechanic and have your engine idle turned up to roughly 6000 RPM then drop her into drive and watch her go!

Automated Phone Systems

   Yeah ok, I'm so sick and tired of automated phone systems I am ready to rip my ears off and mail them Van Gogh style to the next business I call that has that type of system, which unfortunately for me, is most places that are too cheap to hire a single person to sit in a chair, fetch coffee, and answer a phone to get the customer to the needed department. Bigger corporations are going to be like, "We save a ton of money by not having to hire the staff and let the computers do the work for us." Yes while that may be true, you piss off the customers you have by having us hit 5-10 keys just to get to a live person that wasn't even in the department we hit the keys for to begin with, and only to find out that they cannot transfer your call and you have to start all over wasting the 20 minutes you have already spent on the phone.

   I had a fun idea, lets hook the executives private phone lines within the company in question to an automated phone system so that they can reserve a tee time or order lunch.  Bet ya they would get as frustrated as I do having to deal with them all the time.  I am an IT Tech, which means I frequently call tech support for our customers only to find out I am talking to someone in bum-fuck India who has no idea how to speak English properly or even slow the hell down so we can try to understand what they are saying.

   I called a small LOCAL ISP the other day only to find out their tech support goes to India.  Red faced and all, it took everything I had to not reach through the phone and rip his freaking head off and buy it a copy of Rosetta Stone (awesome program, go buy one) so he could at least learn the pronunciation.

  Add the lovely foreign tech support for an American product that was invented and built in America..cheap ass companies...you deserve a kick in the nuts and no ice pack.

Customer Service + Guv'ment + iRobot

Customer Service
   Customer Service used to be one thing a company could be proud of, how they handle their prospective customer's needs and questions.  What happened to the time that companies were more than just some nameless conglomerate hiding behind automated telephone systems that have outsourced foreign tech support that few can even understand to begin with.

   For those people that despise their job and make a bad example of the establishment that you are employed with to the customers that keep you in a job in the first place, go find a job you are happy with.  Working in a place that you do not enjoy is not only detrimental to your future employment because of job references etc, it is not good for your health and well being nor is it good for me to be on the other end of the phone or standing in your store front while you "can't wait for 5pm" so you can get the hell out of there.

Guv'ment
   Those politicians that believe the best way to help the American people is by protecting them and passing unneeded laws are simply morons.  America has been here for 200+ years and it will remain, but not because of the petty things that get sent in to court over frivolous lawsuits or a public outcry over a pink cat (which I personally thought was hilarious, and it did not hurt the cat one iota).

   Lawsuits have become to status quo of who's right and wrong and in quite a few cases, the decision of something minuscule compared to the massive problems we face in this country.  The national debt...let's tap on that shoulder a second.  You mean to tell me that someone coloring their cat pink (harmlessly) is a bigger story than the colossally over inflated national debt?  How can a country, a state, a county or even a local government operate in a deficit?  I dare all of the people in America to try that sometime, ring up just $100,000 in debt and see what happens and keep on charging away.

   The size of the federal government is a problem to begin with.  Every year they spend more and more trying to do what they think is in our best interest. Curb the spending, tighten the belt, and get off of our asses.  We are, well most of us, adults that can handle a bruised knee now and then without running to Mom to whack the neighbor's kid with a switch.


iRobot
   If you look at the film, you will notice a lot of similarities referencing the path we are headed towards (if we don't blow ourselves up first).  Viki (the master computer), is referenced in this blog as the guv'ment, whereas Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan are the general populous of America.

   The guv'ment grows too fast, has too much power and draws the conclusion that it knows how to protect people better than the people themselves do.  Don't get me wrong, I am all for the military and completely understand it's uses (saving this for a different post). What happens? The citizens essentially revolt and press the proverbial reset button on the guv'ment.  Each time trying to find another way to run things that the central guv'ment can't screw up.  Hasn't happened so far and it likely won't.  Look back through history and see how many times guv'ments have gotten enormous followed shortly by the down-fall of the currently in-power political system only to be replaced by a supposedly better form.

   Man is fallible therefore anything man creates is inherently fallible.

   If guv'ments were to treat society as a preferred customer rather than a statistic the approval ratings wouldn't even need to exist since very very few (can't please everybody) would even be unhappy about the way things are being run.  The debt would not even exist, let alone being in the trillions as it is now.


Summation
   Grow up America.  Stop suing people because their dog crapped on their yard and it caused you mental anguish or because you were too stupid to know that McDonald's coffee is hot and it spills if you don't put it in a cup holder. I could go on and on with this but the point would be moot and we would end up building another stupidity video website of just how smart we Americans portray ourselves to the world stage.

   The guv'ment is here to serve the people.  We do not answer to the guv'ment, the guv'ment was built to answer to the people.  We elect the people that are put into office, even if it is with an unneeded electoral college, but still.  You can sit back and blame the guv'ment all you want, but what it really boils down to is that it is all our fault for letting it happen.  We (in general, not counting myself) believe most of the information that comes out the the blustery guv'ment propaganda about the "needs" of this country that we just blindly accept
whatever is told as fact.

   I am not requesting the American people start a revolt of the physical nature, but stop believing everything that is told to you and do something about the problems we have let happen.  Make the guv'ment actually be a government once again and serve the people.  Stand up and say something when they do stupid shit, it happens. Everyone does stupid shit, I do as well.  The difference between myself and the guv'ment is an easy one.  I overdraw my bank account what happens? The bank charges me a $30 overdraft fee, it's kind of a wake up call that says, oops, I won't be doing that again.  What's the guv'ment do? Borrow $40 from somewhere else to pay back the original $30, but now instead of being $30 in debt, they are now $40...and no better off than when they simply did it the first time.  Any economics professor, if looking at the macro-situation, would likely weep and wonder how the hell the country is still doing anything at all and how it hasn't been repossessed by the creditors.








iRobot name and all respective rights are © copyright 2004 20th Century Fox

Squirrel Between Two Trees

There are time when friends argue or even disagree, it is natural as no two people are identical, therefore thoughts are different and past situations have prepared them to deal with the identical situation differently than each other.  Keeping this in mind...

No two people will ever come to the exact same conclusion about any given situation.

On the good side, this is actually a good thing to have happen since the variety of personalities and perceptions is what makes this a unique and interesting world to be a part of.

Me, being the eternal optimist in a pessimistic environment, makes things interesting for me.  People generally see me as the outcast, the one that is "different" from the pack.  Which is fine with me, I wouldn't want to be the same anyways.

Keeping the above in mind...

When friends argue and you are caught in the middle, it takes about everything you have to try and "fence walk" and keep the peace so that no one person gets offended and calls the friendship off whilst giving you the finger as they drive away. Not saying this has happened, it's more of a metaphorical perspective of individuality and the built-in defense mechanism we all have.   Fence walking is not my profession nor do I choose to do it by any sort of happenstance. However, to keep the friends I hold dear to myself, it sometimes becomes a superfluous substitution of abnormal activity that no one really wants to deal with or should have to.

Being true friends with someone obligates you to be there when they need you and vice-versa; whether it be physical, mental ,or just a shoulder to lean on when the situation dictates the necessity to do so.  You won't mind when that happens either.  The problem here-in lies when the situation exists long past sanity.  Somethings should just be dealt with and be done with, other things take some time to iron out.  But dragging things into a virtual eternity does nothing more than confuse you as to why this is happening, aggravates your friends to having to deal with it from your end, and why they can't figure out why you keep doing whatever it is you are doing to keep the situation rancid to begin with.

Advice, overrated and I no longer give any.  I must be insane or became insane at some point because of the advice I have given in the past seems to have had no impact on any situation I was ever involved in and furthermore, no one listens to my advice.  As rational as I am and as Spock-like rational as I can be, some things just make no damn sense as to why people do the stupid shit they do.  They know full and damn well what is going to happen to them if they do it, and yet t hey do it anyways and then wonder why the consequences had to happen to them, like they don't deserve it. I learned this lesson a few years ago.

I guess all in all we are all morons living in a bowl of cereal with water wings on waiting to be gobbled up by eternity.