Please Forgive Me, I Know Not What You Do!

So, this has been a rough couple of weeks and I am EXHAUSTED. And the more tired I get, the shorter my fuse. I stumbled across this article on Shine about ways to manage anger. I was particularly interested in #13, which suggests you write a forgiveness letter or e-mail.

In the midst of planning Wee ‘Burb’s first birthday party, during the first snowstorm of the year, after a week of helping Scott with his first trade show for his business, and you know, that whole job thing…Comcast insisted I switch over to their fancy schmancy new Infinity cable. We had this purty little banner floating across the screen INSISTING in big white letters that we need to switch immediately or our TV lives will go dark.

Days of frustration later, I STILL have the banner and my Tivo, Cornelius, has been rendered almost obsolete. So here is my forgiveness letter to Comcast.

Dear Comcast,


I forgive you.

I forgive you for putting the incorrect UFC up on your On Demand, forcing me to call and try to cancel the order…three times. I also forgive you for trying to send a signal to my TV once I got the actual UFC up in attempts to make it work on the high definition channel…that I was later informed doesn’t exist in my area.

It’s totally cool that I had a bunch of people over and I had to stand there on the phone with you…twice. I understand that On Demand doesn’t really mean on demand, so much as “whenever the hell you feel like it, if in fact the channel even exists in my area.” It’s also cool that you charge me the same whether those channels are there or not.

More importantly, I forgive you for the recent two-day circus you made me participate in while converting to your supposedly AWESOME new Xfinity program. Oh how you promoted this as the next coming of cable. It’s understandable that you overlooked the fact that it isn’t at all compatible with existing technology, and that you’ve rendered my brand new Tivo as useful as my Commodore 64.

I get it, you were super busy sending signals to channels that don’t exist. Focusing on things like compatibility with what you have informed me is “sometimes incompatible third-party technology” is hardly as important as giving me the golf channel in HD, but not anything in On Demand.

I forgive you for sending me directions to hook up to my Tivo that didn’t work. And I forgive you for taking five days to send me a tech to fix my caveman-like third-party technology. And please, don’t feel at all bad for sending me a tech who didn’t know Tivo, and didn’t have the part for the Tivo I had.

It was wrong of me to expect that the work order describing the kind of Tivo I had would move that tech to bring the equipment necessary. I understand the stress of not having that part was probably what made the tech lie to my face and tell me my Tivo was working, while secretly hooking everything up through a small cable box remote. It was my fault for trusting him when he told me he was all done, not being aware the whole time Tivo was on channel 3. I never was good at seeing the trick behind the magic.

I should have known it’s like when Wee ‘Burb says “all done” when she sits at the table and baby birds me for more. Clearly he was just proud of a new phrase he’d learned. I was hasty to believe he was actually completing the task. My bad.

Comcast, please accept my heartfelt forgiveness for bothering you again to ask that you bring the tech back to complete the task that was not, actually, “all done.” Forgive me also for telling you what I thought of the tech who refused to call me back.

And you must accept my sincere desire for amends when I screamed at you at howler monkey levels when you told me that occasionally certain techs are unfamiliar with said “third-party technology.” I understand you were just trying to drive home the fact that I do not own a Comcast DVR, as you have humbly suggested I do each time I call you for service. We talk a lot, I should have caught on by now.

Me insisting that if the work order mentions specific “third-party technology” I am unintelligent enough to own, that tech should be familiar with said technology and have the parts to make said technology compatible with your next generation god-like technology was just my anger talking. I’d missed an entire episode of Dr Phil by then. And it was one of the housewives admitting she was knocked up. Emotions were high.

While we are listing my faults, I should not have laughed and mocked the woman when she called to set up a new tech to come for the following day. She was just being nice when she asked when I had to be at work, so when I said at 9 and she said her appointments started at 9:30 and I mockingly shouted “then why did you ASK me what time I had to be there?”…well, that was more anger talking. I had to watch Live TV. I can’t be held accountable for the things I say when I can’t fast forward commercials.

It’s that same lack of Tivo that made me roll my eyes and storm off when you sent me TWO techs the next day who promised they were familiar with Tivo and then told me they didn’t know I had a dual tuner Tivo. Again, I should not have assumed that fact being written on the work order meant that information was imparted. It was my own ignorance that led me to believe your techs could read.

Please try to forgive me for looking up Direct TV while your techs fumbled around and finally informed me that they’d “rigged it” so my dual tuners could work, only one tuner could only record channels 1-22. I know I should be grateful for any tuner that could bring me back to Dr Phil, even though it will be nearly impossible now for me to catch up on the housewives and their drama. I should not have said that I pay enough where I should be able to have Tivo work exactly as it did before you brought this New Light into the cable world.

Lastly, I want to thank you for making it up to me by sending me several On Demand movie gift certificates (I understand now those can not be used in HD and will plan accordingly). It was kind of you to send me ones to mail with my bill, despite the fact that I’ve set up my account to be paid electronically.

And the $30 off of my bill per month for the next year (the introductory rate any new Comcast customer gets before you give them the add-ons necessary to make “third-party technology” work) absolutely makes up for everything that happened in those two days and the fact that I still can’t work my Tivo half of the time.

I only hope this letter serves as the same kind of peace sign you’ve given me.

All my love,


StephanieinSuburbia