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In Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” Joseph K., a down-and-out
bank employee, is arrested on a charge never revealed to him, ordered to
appear in a court that convenes at a time known to no one, lambasted by a
judge for no reason, and sent packing on a hellish tour of legalistic mazes
filled with misinformation, threats, petitions and generally surreal
encounters with equally surreal people. In the end, still unaware of why he
has been thrown into a bottomless pit of ignominy and confronted by a
hopeless lack of information, he is taken to a quarry and stabbed to
death. With the appropriate transformations of time and place,
Joseph K. might well have been dealing with Cox Communications after Isabel
blew through here and unglued their cable television, telephone and high
speed Internet connections. Indeed, cavorting with Cox after the hurricane
was a truly Kafkaesque experience, if not something right out of
“Catch-22.” Like Major Major in
Heller’s novel, Cox customer service representatives were either never in or,
if they were, knew nothing. Despite pronouncements from Cox that their technicians
were doggedly pursuing the crews from Dominion Virginia Power, some of us in
upper James City did not see the return of Cox cable until well over a week
after power had been restored. And this despite the fact that the main line
to which we were connected survived the storm without damage. Three days after power was restored, I called my
friendly Cox customer service representative. After listening to 40 minutes
of pre-recorded ads for Cox telephone
and Internet connections, as well as messages telling me that Cox technicians
were in my area and that customer service representatives knew nothing about
service restoration times, I finally heard what appeared to an uncanned human
voice. And then, after explaining that we had had power for
three days, but no cable, I popped the forbidden question: “Do you have any idea when the cable might
be restored?” “No, sir,” came the response. “We have no information
about that. All I can tell you is that technicians are working in your area.”
At that point I was almost prompted by Satan to ask my
representative just what my area consisted of. Was it Hampton Roads? Eastern
Virginia? All of Virginia and North Carolina? The whole East coast? But I didn’t. Rather I just slipped back
into the slough of ignorance I shared with my representative and hung up the
phone. Five days after power was restored, the cable returned
to life in just about every part of the Toano area. On the same day, the Cox
trucks seemed to disappear, apparently convinced that everyone out here was
back on line. Surely they’ve checked all the lines in the area, I thought,
and expectantly awaited the return of the Weather Channel. But no. Two days later, there was still no Weather Channel, or
any other channel, so I again ventured forth via my luckily non-Cox phone
into the abyss of the Cox customer service representatives. After the now familiar
piece about technicians being in my area and no estimated time for a
restoration of service was played again, I dared to question the validity of
all that and boldly asked if my representative could ask one of their
technicians to check the line serving our still snowy-screened ghetto. “Sir, we don’t communicate with our technicians,” came
the reply. “Yet, you do know that they are in the area?” “Yes, sir. “But how do you know they’re in the area, if you don’t
communicate with them?” “They tell us what areas they’ll be working in each
day.” “Then couldn’t you ask one of the technicians in my area
to check the line that serves my house?”
“What do you want me to tell them, sir?” “That we may have an outage that is unrelated to the
hurricane.” “I’ll tell them whatever you want, sir. However, we
don’t communicate with our technicians.”
The problem with Cox, as with most monopolistic
utilities serving hundreds of localities, is that, while they may or may not
communicate with their technicians, they fail utterly when it comes to
communicating with their customers. The very fact that they require four
customers to call in before they will declare an outage in an area is
indicative of the deep distrust in which they hold those whom they supposedly
serve. It was only
after they received four calls from my neighborhood well after service had
been restored elsewhere in the immediate area that they admitted there was a
limited outage only tangentially related to Isabel. Indeed, service was
restored within minutes after the arrival of their technician – a full 15
days after the hurricane and 9 days after power had been restored. While there is no doubt that Isabel presented near
insurmountable challenges for all our utility companies, the fact that Cox
chose to treat its customers as converts to some banal booboisie only
augmented its difficulties. Those of us who depend on Cox for telephone, Internet
and TV service should not be put in the position of Joseph K., vainly seeking
information where there is none and constantly running into brick walls of
obfuscation, distrust and pre-recorded messages. |
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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