Broadband Curriculum Broadens

Tonight I received a phone call from Ralph Newcomb, VP of Technical Operations at Time Warner Cable here in Milwaukee. He said he had received my letter today in which I detailed the abominable service I had received during the installation of our home broadband service and a copy of our first month's bill, grossly overcharging us by adding in all our credits due us instead of taking them off. The letter was four pages long. He actually read it. He went on to apologize for our cartoon-like service (his choice of words) and assured me that he had a complete copy of our service history and would be following it back through all its twists and turns to its doomed beginning to deal with all the human error and messed up protocol that made our lives hell for a couple weeks back in June. He would erase our entire bill thus far (as he most certainly should) and would use my letter as a teaching tool to represent each and every possible thing that could go wrong with a Time Warner Road Runner home installation and hopefully prevent this comedy of errors (my choice of words) from playing out again in a home near you.

He gave me his direct office phone number, which I will keep on file for future reference should action ever be required. He said he would personally come out to my house to right any wrongs still unresolved. He said he would research my service record and speak with the technicians and the billing department. He would have departmental debriefings. I think free Road Runner for a year or two would do the trick.

I wish to thank my neighbor, Russ, who came to our house more than once to look at our broadband setup and who was the one to actually get it up and running after three Time Warner technicians could not or would not. He also gave me Mr. Newcomb's name so that I could send him a carbon copy of my letter to Billing and Customer Service. You may have this large corporation coming out and promising you all sorts of stuff, but it's the friend down the block who really gets things working. Don't ever forget that. Don't ever forget the power of the pen either. I originally wrote a six-page letter, full of sarcasm and vituperation, but after calming down, pared the thing down to the barest of chronological details - four pages, single-spaced. I removed the nasty words and phrases and acted nice. That probably helped. "You'll attract more flies with honey than with vinegar," it is said, though I wouldn't want to clean my windows with honey-water. There's a time for vinegar, though this wasn't it.