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June 21, 2006
While Comcast was sleeping
Brian Finkelstein of Snakes on a Blog fame was having issues with his Comcast Internet connection.
After several tries, a technician finally arrives to replace the faulty modem. The technician dials the company's support line to activate the replacement modem and... is put on hold for 90 minutes.
While waiting for the activation authorization, the technician falls asleep.
An alert Brian films the napping tech and gives him a starring role is this humorous video.
Comcastic, indeed.
UPDATE (6/22/06): Jim Durbin has some terrific advice for Comcast on how to handle the situation. Also, in the comments, Brian says someone from Comcast has called him about the problem, but doesn't mention the resolution.
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It was a nice touch adding the Eels song to the video!
Thank you for the kind words. I love your blog.
It's interesting to see Comcast contacted Brian. I'm sure that the difficulties of planning out cable service are not a quick fix, but every company ought to be looking at what happens when their customer service is so easily mocked.
Comcast shows it's listening... but is it changing anything as a result?
Nice job on the video, it is really funny.
I guess the laughter has stopped though. The technician lost his job, because of this video.
I hope you had his permission to air it.
If not, I certainly hope he sues you for everything you are worth.
FYI...
From the reports I've heard, this tech was actually a contract worker and not directly employed by Comcast.
I can relate to this guy (sort of)....
I'm a retired SBC cable splicer/repairman. To suppliment my income I applied to become a contract worker for Comcast and spent just one day working for them.
- They demand that their workers work 6 days a week, and every other Sunday (that's only 2 days offa month folks!)
- They demand that they start at 7:00am (even though their work actually begins at 8:00am) and they must stay out until all of their work load is complete. They are "loaded" with an estimated 10 hours of work, and many times they must work 12-13 hours a day to finish their work.
- They are NOT paid by the hour, but by "piecework". In the case of our sleeping worker, he was sent out to replace a cable modem. He probably received $10-15 for that work. This pay is based on him doing about 10 minutes of work, and driving time. His 1 hour hold time with Comcast is not reimbursed and he has to eat that time.
Therefore, I can assume that he fell asleep out of a combination of boredom from waiting, and simply being tired due to the workload they are forced to do.
Also remember that these contractors do not get reimbursed for tools or uniforms. No benefits, since they are 1099 employees. Being forced to wait on Comcast hold time kills your paycheck!
I'm not excusing his actions, but I certainly understand how it happened.
For these reasons, I only worked for the contractor 1 day....told him that after 30 years of doing similar work for SBC and having an excellent quality and production record, I couldn't handle their work methods.
as a cable tech for almost 20 yrs i feel for this guy.anyone who has worked a job like ours where service is and should be the most important, as we are there for our customers, can understand how this could happen.is he really to blame? maybe the lack of support from upper management or whoever should of been on the other end of that call? just why did he fall asleep? is he on-call,where i have been out till 3am and had to be back at work by 8am....who knows?...so dont pass judgement on him until you know the complete story
Ok so this has made the national news. Everyone in the DC area already knows what bad customer service Comcast has and now does everyone else. That's why I have Direct-TV.
i read in the german news somewhere that the guy was subsequently fired by comcast as a result of the video making the rounds on the net. make the small guy the fall guy. nice work, comcast! looks as if you suck as badly as Brian said you do.
Hey, it could have been a bad hair day.
Geoffrey
Its just like Comcast to make the smaller man the fall guy instead of upper management, I oughta know i worked for them for 3 years and all i got out the deal was mental anguish and a free computer.
I am a tech and falling to sleep can be easy. I work 20 to 25 hours over each week. A 14 hour work day is normal. If the guy wanted his modem online why didn't he just shake the guy. comm techs walk out of the office every day with alot of jobs and on top of that they get same days added on during the work day. If any thing he should have been punished but not fired. Techs are being killed out here. I know you pay your bill every month and you want service, please give the techs a break.
It didn't strike me that the tech was the target here, rather the object of some sympathy at being so poorly treated by his employer.
The video is clearly putting the boot into Comcast, not its contractors. They clearly deserve it, too - I thought telecomms service was bad here in Australia!
I don't think this is about the guy who fell asleep..LOTS of jobs require 12-13hr days...6 days a week!..BUT why should Comcast put their own workers or subcontractors through this?
It just means that Comcast cannot take the workload that has been presented to them. Why do technicians have to wait on hold.??? This is trully sad...
On another note, they also hire un skilled workers.I recall having a "technician" come to my house to replace a modem and when it came time to the set up he askes me...while he is on the phone with comcast, "do you know how to find your IP address?
Thats not a good sign!!
Forget "give the techs a break", the techs should find a new job, no one should work with that BS, its not the techs fault, its not the customer's fault, I place the blame on comcast for not treating their techs right, paying them fair pay, hiring enough of them to do the jobs that come in within a normal working day window of 8hrs. I've worked with alot of comcast techs being a consultant for businesses that use comcast service, and I have an uncle who is employeed by comcast in a manager type position to the cable tv techs, they work him ALOT. It's not changing anytime soon, but my cable bill sure keeps increasing... waiting for FIOS, supposed to be here this summer. I don't know how he does it, but I'll never work for that sweatshop.
Ive worked in engineering dept's, support departments and as an actual physical installer for various large corperations.
From the inside here is what I have learned. If you ever call Comcast, Earthlink, Dell, Gateway and get a "Good" or "Talented" tech or an "Inteligent" installer shows up on your door. Its a FLUKE. Most companies do everything they can to screw their employees so they quit. If your support person hasnt has his spirit crushed or destroyed by the corporate employee moral or human resources dept, You might be able to get assistance. Most likely he works for a high turnover support outsourcers like stream international. The only time that companies like comcast really push for employee retention is when their support and call center reviews get so bad that the start loosing customers to competition in droves.
If you dont expect this sort of behavior from a cable company are you in your right mind ?
I had a Comcast sales guy come to my house (in Denver) trying to sell me Internet access. I told him that I was not interested because the service agreement forbids hosting; however, if he could hook me up with their small business service and/or a static IP, I might be interested.
He spent 40 minutes on hold - on my cell phone. Never did get an answer. I told him to move on. If that's the kind of support they give when trying to MAKE a sale, I shudder to think what existing customers get.
Heh - I feel for this guy. I've worked in the telecomm industry for awhile. As the technician in the field, you are at the mercy of the support folks at the other end of the phone. Hold times, inadequate training, unsympathetic management. All you can do is go to the jobs, run through the troubleshooting, and then phone it in and...wait. And, to top it all off - you are in someone else's house, and their cable is out. I'm moving on to another industry. This guys plight is indicative of an industry-wide problem. Oh - a side note - I talked to a Comcast rep at job-fair out of curiosity once. I told her I have 14 years of telecomm tech experience. She advised me that I would probably not be a good fit as a Comcast technician. You figure the rest out.
What's with the excuses? The guy is asleep 1) on the job and 2) In your house. There is absolutely no excuse for this. If he doesn't like the hours or conditions, find another job, DC has LOTS of jobs available hiring functionally illiterate people to be computer techs for the government. The pay is good, and they can't fire you for anything.
It's not that Comcast doesn't have skilled technicians. The dirty little secret is that Comcast actively seeks to get every employee on some form of write up and presents erroneous arguments to terminate seasoned employees when they ascend to the higher pay scales. Comcast is a non-union employer for the most part and concocts reasons to immediately fire any employee who dare ponder such a possibility.
I have nothing but sympathy for the tech who fell asleep. What the public may not be aware of is Comcast encourages it's employees to skip their lunches by assigning them 12 to 14 hours work for a 10 hour shift. If you have the audacity to take your breaks and lunch you will be behind on your appointments and written up for not completing enough points which is their way of measuring productivity. If you inform your supervisor you are overloaded with work and have to cut out your breaks and lunch you will be written up for violating labor laws.
Techs have to, on a regular basis work late performing service calls and or installs till 10pm
and in some instances till midnight only to report for work the next morning at 7:00 am. I know this to be true as I was a Comcast employee and ranked in the top two statistically. Contrary to the P.R. campaign Comcast doesn't care. Experienced employee’s are to be turned over to regulate cost and some are fired weeks before retirement. If I had to venture a guess I'd say an overseas sweat shop treats their employees with more respect and care.
Comcast, actively seeking write ups recently attempted to trim payroll deciding it was a wonderful idea to search the installers vehicles while they attended a company picnic, and wouldn’t you know it they inspected mostly seasoned techs at the higher end of the pay scale. Yay for Comcast reprimands galore. I ask anyone who reads this not to support a corporation which, by design creates an atmosphere of fear for it's employees to work in.
Hi, I'm a comcast customer service represenative, and let me tell you we hear it all!! This company really sucks and we're given very little power to fix things, and any time we come across a number for someone higher up we're threatened that we'll lose our jobs if we give it to customers. but i have to pay the rent so i stay.
I agree- COMCAST SUCKS. I have been a Comcast customer since July 05. They have tried to rip me off at every turn. It is a systemic issue I do not blame employees for. In fact,our initial hookup was done by a contractor, who I swear had not showered in a week, who had nothing nice to say about Comcast. He was forced to supply all his own tools and transportation. When he called Comcast from my house, he was treated like a customer.
Compare this to Cox communications on the west coast. I had them for 15 years and cannot find a bad thing to say about them. They have a professional workforce who take pride in what they do. As for their customer service, they actually tried to find ways to save me money instead of bundling a bunch of garbage together.
My experience with comcast is amazingly poor. Let me start by saying that all the people are pleasant, which is ironic since they are so incompetent. Here's my story of woe.
About six months ago I decided to dump vonage, which appeared to be on the verge of going under. I already had comcast cable and internet, so figured I'd get "the bundle." THey had an offer for a bundle including digital cable for $125/month. I figured what they hell, I'll upgrade and be done with it. Yeah right.
THE guy comes out to hook it up, and he says "I can't get it working, you'll have to schedule a call to have someone hook it up. I said: "I thought that's what you were for." His reply was: "oh no, that's a big job."
OK, so we schedule to have someone back to hook it up, during our vacation. The guy shows up, spends over an hour here and says: "you have major problems, your cable is maxed out." Well I thought the whole idea behind cable was that it had incredible capacity. But I figured I'd play along and said: "Well then hook it up." He said, "I'll try."
He "tried" for about 10 minutes and said: "I can't do it today, someone will have to come back." I said: "that's you. YOu're the guy who came back."
He said: "well, I can't do it today, my supervisor will have to call you tomorrow to schedule someone to run a new line." Exhausted I agreed, knowing full well that I have no intention of having one of these boobs back here. It's time for FIos.
Unfortunately, the story does not end there. The "technicican" leaves and I go to turn on my TV, which provides a blizzard of snow and non discernable picture. Not only did he not fix my problem, he nuked the lousy service I already had.
So I talk to a supervisory who says that their first priority is to get me up and running "some time tonight." And this is for a service I already had. As I'm on the phone with him, he says to try to the TV. I try it and it kicks me off the phone. YOu can't make this stuff up.
So now they're going to send the same incompetent boob back here to fix what he just broke, not to do what he was supposed to do in the first place.
Anyone out there have Fios? Does it work? It's cheaper and the service can't be worse. What do you say we band together to do all we can to drive Comcast out of business. THat's what they deserve.
I just read an interview with their CEO, who complained that their service is far better than what they get credit for. My response is that he is just as incompetent and out of it as the "technician" who broke my lousy service. Let's start a revolution to drive as many customers away from Comcast as we can. Who's game?
Bob
poor guy probably works too much to get put on hold with elevator music and passes out... you can bet that since he was filmed he was most likely also fired. Good Job. If you just want to put a skid mark on comcast, you could have blurred out his identity.... Hopefully he didnt have a family that depended on his income.
