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I was going to use a picture featuring a cable guy's toosh but it wasn't noir enough.
I was going to use a picture featuring a cable guy's toosh but it wasn't noir enough.
I wonder if it might be worthwhile to make some sort of checklist for Comcast customers. A kind of \"collect them all!\" checklist for Comcast screwups. Lucky Dave here got two for one, not only the repeated missed appointments, but also the extraneous holes drilled by \"Wall fishing expert.\"
If he's lucky, he can also get the billing screw-up, broken cable box, DVR only available if he picks it up and constant service outage checks too!
The Consumerist is proof that a business like Comcast only exists thanks to monopoly.
The Comcast guy my housemates and I got at one point (putting cable in a fourth room) was Very Excited at the prospect that we might let him under the house to drill holes up into the living room.
We explained to him several times, quite firmly, that we were renting the place and that he was NOT to go under the house, thanks, it'd be OK to just route the cable behind the couch. He did finally relent. Maybe they should train him on the wall fish and send him to Dearborn.
Comcast Denver rules. I had an outage the other night, and called in to Customer Service. I got a rep in under 5 seconds [even though there was an outage - which by the way, was stated on an audio recording before the call was connected].
She was helpful, friendly, and even volunteered to see where/what the reason for the outage was. She then offered to credit my service for the duration of the outage.
I didn't even know that was an option. Needless to say, I asked to be transferred to their quality assurance poll to give my gleaming review of the CSR.
So while Comcast sometimes sucks, at least here in Denver, they rock.
Oh, and they offered to call me when the outage got restored.
I'll tell you what, speaking as a cable guy if you want this type of service done here are a few pointers to know, if you got a crawl space or a basement usually a guy doing this is using a flex bit if he is good at this. It looks like a 4 to 6 ft rod with an auger type bit at the end. For when he is going from the attic down, we usually stick the middle part of the cable refered to as the stinger or copper part through the ceiling as an indicator to feel through where the wal would be go down from. It leaves a harmless tiny pin hole which can easily be spackled over or even be covered up with something simple as white tooth paste. Just keep in mind, if you have a cable company that doesnt pay cable installers for these services, you will get garbage work and people that dont care if you want this or not. Something to keep in mind. You may want to prepare an installer for this if this is the case and get a spool of string and prepare these wall plate holes and just do your attic and crawl space work by tying cable to these strings and pulling them to your cable source if you want to assure yourself of a proper job. If you got a guy that does this work real good, definetly tip the guy a 20 :D.
@LeviIguana: Sounds about right - from another cable tech. The company pressures that so much work be done in a day per tech, so which is more important? Good work or getting to appointments on time? I spend too long on one house doing a clean professional install - wall plates n all - and then have to rush the next 3 jobs to catch up. The problem is the mentality - we offer custom installs, tv, internet, & phone services, etc... and they train well - but in terms of work load, still see it as the old quick & dirty cable installs of 2 decades ago. But then if they allow for a good install - half or more of the techs will still do it dirty cuz they still have the same mindset. On the bright side - training is much improved now (though not perfect), and generally they provide us with good tools to do our job.
As a cable installer, I hear everyone's horror stories when it comes to their installs. This article is a perfect example. None of what this guy is saying makes sense. First of all Comcast has custom installers who do the wall fish. These guys come out to ONLY install the outlet. Also, Comcast usually does not install outlets on apartments. I have worked in several of Comcast's systems and none of them authorize outlet installs in apartments. There is one exception. Apartment owners/management can have their buildings rewired. Usually this happens when the whole building is in need of rewiring.
Often customers want things that we're are not able to provide due to regulations or liability issues, however people can't seem to understand this. Also find that people can be anal about stupid things. I have had customers want an outlet moved two inches over.
Most horror stories are complete misunderstanding of what we do.
Well, this article is not a misunderstanding. I'm the writer of this one. I gave Comcast every chance to do this right, and explained very clearly each and every time I called that this apartment complex only allows wall outlets, and that they should send the \"wall fish expert\" they told me they had.
If they really have such a person, why couldn't they send him? Or if they are not allowed to do wall outlets, why not explain this to me?
Instead, I was repeatedly told that I needed the \"wall fish expert\", and that he would be scheduled to come over, but he was never really sent.
Sorry if that doesn't make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either, but I had to deal with it anyway.
And if most horror stories are a \"complete misunderstanding\" of what Comcast does, then perhaps you can translate the story into \"Com-cast-ese\" for us?
I didn't know Herb Ritts did a series of portraits of hot cable guys.