The dish ran away with the cable

So as of Wednesday, April 14, I had finally had enough of Comcast Internet and cable service.

In the weeks and months prior that I weighed my options and pondered my decision to cancel my service, I had engaged a fellow Comcasters to get their feedback about their Comcast experiences, just for some man-on-the-street input. Most of those conversations quickly ended after they said agreed they were paying "outrageous" prices as well, which were often half of what I was being charged. I was always to embarrassed to say "I'm a way bigger schmuck than you!"

Mind you, during this time I had called Comcast to give them a piece of my mind. For a split second, I forgot where I was and expected the customer service rep would have a microscopic shred of concern that I may cancel and thus Comcast would lose me forever as a loyal customer. I even threatened to switch to another provider.

But I was quickly again brought back down to Earth. My concerns for my overpriced services were met with indifference. My options were to downgrade my services or to cancel. The guy was borderline rude, although I tend to have a pretty high tolerance for that in the service industries. After all, I work at a newspaper.

Anyway, as I continued to explore my options for Internet services and the most economic way to how to have way too many channels to watch in a lifetime (who watches the Pentagon Channel?), I decided my best option financially was Dish Network. So, I do a little online research and finally order it and book an installation date for April 15 from 8 a.m. to noon. I'm feelin' pretty good. I'm hoping to have it installed to watch The Office at 8 p.m.

The average consumer -- judging from previous cable-type experiences -- would expect a technician to swing by 10:30 a.m., maybe sippin' a Starbucks latte, in his big van with a ladder on top (has anyone ever seen a cable or dish tech use a ladder?). And I'd say 10:30 is being generous.

At 7:30 a.m., my phone is vibrating. Am I dreaming?

"Hullo?"
"Miss McDonald, this is Travis from Dish Network. What time would you like me to get started?"
"Well, what time can you be here?"
"Oh, I'm sitting outside right now."

So, big-van-with-ladder Travis is parked outside my condo. I'm in my pajamas. What day is this?

So, I tell him to go ahead and get started. What else could I do? I'm not sending the guy away. Somebody is paying him to park outside my place for half an hour -- oh did I mention he is not allowed to start working until 8 a.m.? I hope he brought a Gameboy.

Well Travis just can't win. Turns out, there was an issue with placement of the Dish per my homeowners' association rules, so I ended up sending him away, pending a callback from the association prez, who is awesomely named Perky.

Post-Perky callback later that day, Travis returns to scope out the dish-placement situation. We find a place that would work. So Travis sets up an 8-1-1, which I eventually conclude sets the ball rolling to get a green light from the local utility company for him to dig in the ground (punctured underground gas lines are never much fun). He will have to place a pole about three feet down into my flower bed and attach the dish atop. (Although I used the term "flower bed" very loosely.)

I never dreamed it would be this much trouble to be able to watch Sex and the City reruns more cheaply.

So props to Travis from Dish Network, for his mega-patience today, and for tackling the task of calling customers at 7:30 a.m. It was unexpected for me, definitely, but I think I took it pretty well. Sometime I want to ask him about the awesome reactions he must get from calling lots of people that early. I can only imagine the sheer onslaught of profanity he has no doubt encountered for waking up some exhausted guy with huge tattooed biceps who works third shift at an industrial plant. If I were he, I would probably park the van a little ways away from the guy's house when I made the call.

Next Dish experience is Tuesday. We'll see.

Oh, in other news, I opted to go with Clearwire Internet. The girl brought me the modem. Setup took like 8 seconds. Twelve hours into it, I would recommend it to a friend.

Overall, I am pleased with my decisions thus far. I tend to solicit input from friends when making bigger decisions, especially where I would be entering into a contract. But sometimes I hesitate to offer a blanket "tell me your experience with X company," because I often regret the data I collect. There's always the one person who had a completely harrowing experience with X company, and tells EVERYONE. Personally I think most people's bad experiences are exaggerated. People love to tell me about their worst experiences -- I'd like to hear someone say, "Oh I LOVE X company's services. My sales rep just came over for eggnog last night, actually." I want to hear some really positive things about a company -- reasonable cost, good customer service, fast response time to problems, etc. Something. Anything. Just because your experience resulted in years of therapy doesn't mean mine will. I'm looking for constructive, practical advice, such as "I really like Panera Bread, but their tomato soup is a little bland." Instead of something moronic, overly-dramatic and unhelpful like "Panera Bread stole my youth."

Oh, and thanks, but advising me of the situation three weeks after I've, say, entered into a contract with X company is not going to help me a lot. I can't believe how many times I've told a friend about a recent purchase and I get a "You shouldn't have done that" face. (For you SATC fans, I fondly call that a Nina Katz "the face girl" experience.)

Although -- to be fair, I did get plenty of responses that were useful. So thanks for those.

So, in closing, I am considering a purchase of a new (or used) car or small SUV within the next year. If anyone has bought a Nissan Altima, Honda Accord or a Chevy Trailblazer recently, let me know. If I buy car and then a week later you call and tell me "oh by the way" that one fateful day,while driving your own X car, all the seats unexpectedly came unbolted from the floor, your grandmother was ejected from the vehicle into a nearby haybale, and consequently you rear-ended a school bus of full of children on their way to the state capitol, I won't appreciate it. No more "what a horrible decision you just made!" looks.

You guessed it -- They drive me a little bit bananas.

P.S. Does it sound like I totally want Comcast to be eradicated from the planet? I really don't. Really my only complaint was the price. The actual services weren't bad. If you ask me, I promise I won't tell you Comcast represents secret cells of terrorists and your payments fund euthanasia of Boston terriers. It really is an ok company. No hard feelings here.