Cable Strikes Again

So on Friday, a contractor company employed by "blight mouse" (but not actually "blight mouse") appears to replace the on-pole cables for our neighborhood.

First off the bat, they take the cable down completely for more than an hour, because after all, "No one would be using it for work or anything like that."


(I recall a vague notice from "blight mouse" along the lines of, "We'll be upgrading your cable because we want to serve you better." But no date was mentioned, and there was no subsequent notice, of course. And this story is all about how they served me better.)

Anyway, I'm certain it was more than an hour, because I finally gave up waiting and went in to the office, since it's hard for me to do my job without internet connectivity.

When I came home...TV is restored, sort of (it tends to glitch out and some channels don't work at all) but no phone and no internet.

I had called "blight mouse" immediately when the cable died because I learned some time ago that you don't wait on this: Waiting to call in a service request (for power, phone or cable) merely delays the response. So I had actually called it in before going to work...in fact, within 5 minutes of its going out.

The outage: about 1:15 PM on Friday. The next available service appointment: 3:00-5:00 PM on Saturday. (See, to them, the "24" in "24 by 7 service" means "wait at least 24 hours.")

Sigh.

Around noon on Saturday, I happen to see a truck here for the house across the street (because they not only knocked me out but every house connected to the same pole).

So I wander over there and mention to the repairman that, "It went out when [contractor] replaced the cable," and, "My house is out, too."

He didn't know that [contractor] had replaced the cable. (But clearly he had had experience with the aftermath of their presence, because I got to see a good roll-eyes-to-heaven after telling him about it.)

He didn't know anyone else was out on the street.

He did have a brain though, because he immediately switched tacks from "what's wrong with this customer's house" to "what did those 'idiots' foul up this time." Up the pole he went, and found that when [contractor] assembled the little box where all the cables connect, they had bent a pin inside. (Gee: Must have been the first box they ever assembled, huh?) Quick twist of the pliers and re-assemble, and everything works again: Amazing!

But: Isn't communication between the left and right hand wonderful?