Calling the Cable Company: A Humorous Perspective

Calling the cable company involves five distinct phases: the greeting phase, the holding phase, the ringing phase, the trivia phase, and the Simon Says phase. Which one is your favorite?

Life is accompanied by tasks we are reluctantly required to perform, such as cleaning the litter box, visiting the in-laws in West Virginia during the summertime banjo festival, and – perhaps worst of all – calling the cable company.

Calling the cable company typically begins with the greeting phase, when a joyful voice personally informs me what a “valued customer” I am and how the “next available customer service representative” will be with me “shortly.” Yes, “shortly.”

Soon thereafter, the call enters the holding phase. It is during the holding phase that the term “shortly” becomes utterly meaningless, unless, in accordance with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the customer service representatives are moving nearly at the speed of light, creating the impression that 47 minutes of hold time pass in mere seconds from the perspective of the cable company.

Just as the orchestrated Pink Floyd music begins to grow tiring, the holding phase abruptly transitions into the ringing phase. Elated that I’ve reached the front of the queue, I place my banjo down and prepare for human contact, only to hear another voice assure me that my call “will be answered in the order it was received” – instead, I presume, of being answered randomly. The voice also advises me that the call “may be monitored,” which is pretty much a given since the passage of the Patriot Act.

After a second round of holding, a customer service representative, presumably having just emerged from light speed, answers my call. This marks the beginning of the trivia phase. What is my 64-digit encrypted account number? What are my GPS coordinates? Traveling clockwise, what is the complete legal description of my property in metes and bounds? In a desperate, “Hail Mary” effort to locate my account, the representative, after conferring with a resourceful supervisor, finally asks me for my name and, expressing relief, “pulls up” the account, a Herculean accomplishment, for it surely weighs at least five gigabytes.

The call then promptly enters the Simon Says phase: unplug the cable modem for 35.5 seconds; check the modem connection; check the wall outlet. That’s it! While cleaning the litter box earlier in the day, I had apparently dislodged the connection from the wall, depriving me of Internet access. I happily thank the representative for his quick thinking, and the representative likewise thanks me for being a valued customer. We cry together.

Now that my Internet service is back, I can map the directions to my in-law’s place in West Virginia. I plan to visit them – shortly.

Mark