Moving Part II: Comcast

1. How Comcast kept E* prisoner for 7 hrs.

I took the day off work on Friday and E* was finishing up the 1st week of his vacation. In addition to taking several carloads of boxes to the new apartment, we had planned to have Comcast set up the digital cable and internet on that day. Our appointment was from 11-2. I dropped E* and some boxes off in the morning and then went home to pack more things.
He waited for 3 hrs in the empty apartment mainly by lying on the bedroom floor and reading a magazine by the light of a naked lamp. Finally around 2:30, I rode my bike over to give him a chance to get out of the apt. for a minute.
Our first step was to quickly unload the car in the garage and bring everything upstairs to organize. Well, the force of murphy's law was strong with us that day because just as we arrived back in the apt. about 10 min. later, erich's phone beeped saying he had voicemail. It was of course the comcast guy saying he had come by the building but we didn't answer so he kindly left us a number to call to reschedule. E* immediately called back and learned that the dispatcher has no way of reaching the driver/technician. WHAT!?! They must use the same system as UPS. Our main point of contention was that the technician didn't call us 30 min. before he arrived which is supposed to be one of their policies. Had we gotten that call, he would NOT have gone down to the bunker/garage during the next hour lest he miss the call.

So in addition to have a minor melt down on the phone, E* rescheduled for the following Tuesday. After a few more phone calls to Comcast, he was able to chat with a helpful operator who found a different technician on a job about 2 blocks from us. She said he would visit us right after that job. Which meant E* had to race back to the new apartment and I continued to pack up the old place with just my mp3 player as entertainment.

It's a good thing E* hauled ass to the new place, because it was another 3 hours before the technician finished his other job and made it over to our place. The end of the story is a lot better: technician was nice, hooked everything up, provided some helpful advice, etc.

Things we're most excited about: the music channels for instant playlists by genre, our temporary access to food network HD, and the channel/listings guide so I don't have to keep taping the channel list to the back of the remote.