Incompetent service, incompetent agents

[Edited: "Inflammatory"]

At roughly 5:30 a.m. Saturday, September 26th in the year of our Lord 2026 We lost connection to the Comcast network.  We were watching a movie we rented when all the sudden we got a message saying that the television was having trouble reaching the internet. Fine. We went to bed figuring it was just a glitch. 5 hours later the problem persisted. Both televisions said the same thing: can’t reach the internet. Our wireless gateway was dead. Wi-Fi dead. Cable dead. We can't even access our DVR.

I spent over an hour on the phone chatting and speaking to [Edited: "Inflammatory"]. The first one was convinced it was my fault that I didn’t have a connection because somehow the connection spontaneously loosened while we were watching our rented movie. She was wrong. We’ve already performed all those checks. All connections were finger tight. We unplugged and replugged all the equipment. We rebooted everything we could. It wasn’t us or the equipment inside the house.

It took 20 minutes for this agent to figure out that our house was knocked out of the network because some [Edited: "Inflammatory"], while allegedly performing preventative maintenance in the early hours of Saturday morning, somehow knocked our whole house out of the network. She faux apologized and said she would get us an appointment immediately.

Naturally there’s nothing available until the 29th of September. 3 days. Three blessed days. 3 days without network connection.  3 days without access to any of the services we pay damn near $300 a month for. 3 days without being able to work from home. This is a major problem.

[Edited: "Inflammatory"] goes on to tell me that it’s just a placeholder. She was putting me on a wait list so I would get the next appointment should there be a cancellation. However, every text I got assured me that there would be no one in my area until the 29th of September. Because apparently we live on top of a mountain in western Montana and it's just impossible to reach our house before then.  [Edited: "Inflammatory"] said she was going to do all of this, asked me to wait, then disappeared.

I repeatedly told her I was standing by. Then the chat started all over again with a completely new agent. This one said that the last one didn't do a good job in serving me. This one said that she would be able to get me an appointment much sooner than September 29th. This one confirmed that the preventative maintenance that happened in the early hours of Saturday morning knocked our house out of the network. This one assured me that I would not have to pay for services I would not get for 3 days. Guess what? [Edited: "Inflammatory"] disappeared too.

This happened four times. Four times throughout this chat where a different agent would show up and I'd have to go through the whole thing all over again. Again, this agent said that using the September 29th date should worry me because it’s just a placeholder. Until it wasn't. I was never put on a wait list. Apparently my account was never flagged as critical. That was all [Edited: "Inappropriate Language"] just being told to me.

During each chat, I could tell the asinine script these agents were reading from was written by a [Edited: "Inflammatory"]. Do you know how much it enraged me to be told I was doing a “good job” by making sure the connections were finger tight? I'm not 10 years old. [Edited: "Inappropriate Language"]. 

Let me spell this out for you. My wife will be unable to work from home Monday and potentially all of Tuesday. This means she has to take two PTO days off because of [Edited: "Inappropriate Language"]. Unless she goes to a public library and uses their Wi-Fi to work for 8 hours each day. [Edited: "Inflammatory"]

As I said before, we have absolutely zero access to any of the services we overpay for. We get Hulu through you. Nothing. We don’t have access to the DVR.  We were charged for a movie rental we never actually finished because the network disappeared.  You better be damn sure we’re not charged for a technician to come out and fix what another broke:  THREE DAYS LATER. 

To add insult to injury we get a call from another agent who repeatedly asked us the same questions. Why? I can only imagine because she didn’t comprehend the English language. No! We do not have a basement. We do not have a garage. I had to repeat this five bloody times. And then she had the nerve to act like she was doing me a favor and surpassing my expectations by booking a technician to come out and fix what you guys broke 3 days after the fact!  Yes! You really did me a solid!

I have been a customer for at least 20 years. I know that means absolutely nothing to you [Edited: "Political"]. I know threatening to cancel my services and go to FiOS means absolutely nothing to you. You're making billions and for every one of my kind that leaves your services to go somewhere else you have countless others that are too lazy to do so. So what the hell do you care if you lose me? 

So in conclusion: [Edited: "Inflammatory, inappropriate language"] feel no sense of urgencies to fix it, and treat me like a child.  I better not be charged for the following over the next 3 days when I am offline, out of network, and have no access to these paid services:

Equipment rental

Wi-Fi

Internet

Hulu

Our 9/24 movie rental

And we sure as hell better not be charged for a technician visit.

 Oh, why the hell are we getting charged for ESPN+? I didn't order it. Get that off my damn bill.