Tech visit fun

Tech visit funny bit part one: I got a call at around one pm today from Comcast asking if the cable had started working on its own, and if we still needed a tech visit between four and six. She wanted to know if I'd tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. Really? REALLY!?!?! This is the phone call you want to give me Comcast? I was polite despite my inclination to be a jerk about it. Just to humor her I turn the TV back on and check the channels, nothing. Dead box, still.

Tech visit funny bit part two: The guy showed up at three thirty when we were in the middle of something claiming he showed the appointment as being between two and four. Did I mention that I was in the middle of something?

So drop everything, shuttle the family off to the other room so I can try to explain the deal to the guy and see if we can get some satisfaction. Great. (note: it IS working now, although I suspicious of the methods.)

Now he just turns the box off and than on again and... well, it works. WTF?!?!?! But he goes through a series of tests and checks this and that.

Things I learned from my Comcast tech visit:
1) They don't even use the model box that I have in the field any more. The guy looked puzzled by the fact that I got one from the lady at the Comcast office about a month or less ago.

2) My problem this whole time has been a bad splitter outside? I defy you to go through my list of complaints with the Comcast DVR box and show me, logically, how things like a freezing DVR can have anything to do with the quality of the splitter outside. My internet is through them. The connection is fine. I'm VERY suspicious of it getting any better, but I'll give them a chance and I'll see if it is magically all better now.

3) Comcast just wants more money. He said if this doesn't work we'd have to upgrade to the other box for an extra $6 a month. Are you effing kidding me? No, I don't a more expensive box. I want you to rent me a box, at the price you originally sucked me in with, that friggin' works. I don't want to get the old (pardon a phrase from a previous generation) bait and switch.

4) No one at Comcast can tell me what a "code ACC" means, despite the fact that I've had two of them since using their DVRs. To quote the guy "I've never heard of that one." Gee, thanks. So you have NO idea what the error I got was, yet you expect me to believe that swapping out a splitter outside my house is going to help with this error? Really? My confidence is not soaring.

5) I still hate Comcast, the company, regardless of how nice they train their people to be in the face of very frustrated customers.

So I have a new splitter. He updated the software (why doesn't the software take care of that itself?). And informed me that Comcast will shortly be performing the "switch" portion of "bait and switch."

Pardon me if I feel a little like Captain Ahab chasing a functioning DVR from Comcast.