If I were tasked with rewriting Dante’s Inferno to reflect the modern day, I would make dealing with Comcast technical support a punishment for one of the levels of Hell. As a Comcast Business customer with a static IP address I’m required to rent a model. It’s a stupid requirement. There is absolutely no technical reason why this requirement exists. But it’s there and I have to deal with it.
Over the last several days the modem Comcast requires me to rent became flaky. At first it would go offline around midnight or 01:00. Restarting it would bring my Internet back online. Then it started going offline several times a day, which meant I had to make a dreaded call to Comcast.
Us Comcast Business customers can’t use niceties like the online chat system. We have to call 1-800-391-3000. That number puts you into contact with the most infuriating automated “assistant” that I’ve ever head the displeasure of dealing with. The only thing I can compare it to is Siri with a lobotomy (which is saying something since Siri is none too smart). No matter what I said the automated “assistant” would send a restart signal to my unresponsive modem and, shockingly, nothing would come of it. After five or six times of hanging up and calling back I learned that saying “human” when the “assistant” asked for a brief description of the problem would coax it into connecting me with a human operator. After I finally got a hold of a human being, I was told that a technician would arrive at my place in two hours (two hours specifically, not the usual bullshit of a block of time between 07:00 and 12:00 the next day).
I got a hold of a human being about roughly 8:45 so the technician was scheduled to arrive at 11:00. I got home before that and waited. And waited. And waited. Noon rolled around and the technician still hadn’t shown up. I other things that I had to do so I told my wife what needed to be done and told her to have the technician call me when he arrived. When I got home around 16:00, the technician still hadn’t arrived. So I had to call Comcast again.
My previous trick of telling the “assistant” “human” when it asked for a brief description of my problem didn’t work the second time. However, I did get it to put me into contact with a human by saying “ticket number.” I then proceeded to have a very blunt and stern conversation with the technical support person about my dislike of being lied to and was informed that a technician would arrive within two hours. Marvelously a technician did arrive with half and hour and withing 20 minutes or so after his arrival I had a new modem. Since the modem ran overnight without becoming unresponsive, it appears that the problem has been resolved.
In summary I would just like to say fuck Comcast. Of course the Internet is awash with stories of Comcast’s incompetency so this post is little more than a drop in an ocean. But now you know what I was doing with my time instead of writing posts.