Over the last couple of years, all the telcos and cable companies around these parts have merged into one supermegaloconglamerate under the Comcast banner. That's what I'm stuck with, at least for cable television. Since I want cable internet, the only way for that is also through Comcast, since it's their line running into the house.

Two days ago, my neighbor had their service installed, and in the process of laying the lines, the techs sliced the line feeding into my house. I got home Friday night to find that I had no television, no internet and (since they do VOIP) no telephone via landline.

At some point, the techs had to have noticed what they did, and rather than fix it, they just packed the hell up and left without any notice. Lovely. I called Saturday morning and started round one with what Comcast laughingly calls customer service.

Before I go any further, I work in customer service. I've done so for over a decade in various capacaties. I know mistakes happen, but I also know that when you make one of this magnitude, you do what it takes to fix it. You acknowledge it, you show some sort of contrition, and you show a sense of urgency about making things right. Comcast did none of this. The only time I heard the words, "I'm sorry" were when they were qualified, as in, "I'm sorry, but we can't…" At no point did anybody say so much as, "boy did we screw up."

The first person I spoke with was Jeremy. It's just Jeremy, since they're "not permitted" to give out last names. Jeremy told me they could send someone out Tuesday at the earliest to fix it…even if it was their fault, he added. I asked to speak with a supervisor, and I was told that there was none. I challenged this notion, and he recanted and told me they were all at lunch. I told him to get one of them on the cellphone or pager, and he told me, "we don't do that." I would have to settle for a four-day outage, and that was that.

I called back and got Anthony the second time. Anthony was no more helpful, but slightly less surly. Again, he denied the existence of the Elusive Creature Known as the Supervisor. Again, I pressed, and he put me on hold. For 14 minutes. A call to another deparment got me hung up on.

At various other times, I spoke to Natalie, Lester, and a couple of others, none of whom were willing to help. When I finally got ahold of someone in dispatch, he claimed that they could get me Sunday, but not Saturday. I told him that this was unacceptable considering that this was quite obviously their fault, and his response was, "what, so you're an expert?" He told me that all the techs were already scheduled on other calls, and that none could be retasked to take what should have been considered a high-priority call. I asked how late the techs worked, and he said 4:30. Okay, a company with any concern for its customers would have paid the overtime and gotten someone out here. I suggested this, and his response was to scoff audibly and say, "that's not gonna happen."

This is why people hate cable companies. They are consistently ranked at the lowest tier of customer satisfaction (along with their evil brethren, cell-phone providers). Perhaps Comcast can get away with this because they're currently a monopoly. I don't know. What I can say is that, in any job I've worked, something like this would have gotten me canned very quickly.

So, just in case anyone from Comcast happens to read this, here's where you dropped the ball, and why I'll be jumping ship as soon as a competitor pops up:

• First, when you screw up, you acknowledge it, and you damn well fix it immediately. Those cables were cut and re-buried. The guy who finally showed up this morning confirmed this.
• Second, if you do screw up like this, and a customer calls you on it, you had better fall all over yourself apoligizing. At least pretend to care.
• Third, you stop what you're doing and get it fixed, no matter who has to work late or get pulled off something else.
• Fourth, if the droids answering the phones can't fix it, hire someone who can. If I have to tell you this, then you've got no place in management. If your phone people can't make decisions and can't get things done, then you need to be reachable. I shouldn't have to spend four hours on the phone fighting my way upstream to get to you.
• Finally, don't f*&$ing lie to me, and don't make the mistake of assuming that I'm stupid.

On the times I've had to call your "technical support" previously (sporadic and extended outages are a fact of life with Comcast), they've given me the standard, "restart your computer and…" line until I told them I've administered Unix systems and I know it doesn't work that way. Each time, they stammer, place me on hold for at least ten minutes, and I end up talking to someone who really knows what they're talking about. It's obvious that you're not training your phone people on anything technical. Their only job seems to be implementing a strategy as follows:

• Tell the customer it's a problem with their computer, not the service.
• Blame it on the customer, claiming user error, and if that fails,
• Place the customer on hold until they get frustrated and hang up.

Stalling tactics might (and probably do) work on a certain percentage of the population, but there are quite a few of us who can spot them–quite a few more than you think. As it turns out, I work for a company that's quite highly regarded by local consumer-advocate Clark Howard (really nice guy, BTW), and I see him from time to time. Cable companies are already on his radar, and you can be sure that I'll relay this to him next time I see him.