The other day, I had the pleasure of having “the cable guy” at my house for the span of the entire day. We decided to finally switch cable companies, overcoming a long span of inertia, by the fact that we were being gouged by our previous TV/internet provider for years. But when our cable bill started competing with our grocery budget, when it started coming in right under the mortgage payment, I could no longer sit idly by, letting our money fly out of the window, at high internet speeds.
Frankly, I look at TV/internet providers, the same way that I view politicians: just a big pot of mess and evil, to greater and lesser degrees. So when the new provider told me that “the cable guy” would be at my house for an hour to an hour and a half, tops, I already blocked off the whole morning, on my calendar. Ever the optimist, I didn’t plan on blocking off my entire day to allowing a small, angry, sweaty man race all over my house and attic, swearing under his breath, digging up my yard, only to hand me the channel changer to one of my TVs, to have us both realize, that we could no longer turn the TV off. So the break that I was getting in a cheaper cable bill, would now be made up in our electricity bill.
During the new cable set-up day, I texted friends complaints throughout the day. We came up with a brilliant plan to light a fire under future cable guys’ butts. We decided that whenever you are having cable/internet/phone service (or any of the like) set up, you should invite over your most annoying, know-it-all, relative or neighbor. We all know the guy (sorry, but it IS usually a guy) who I’m talking about. He’s the guy who knows more about, and how to do everybody’s jobs, than they do. He is the guy standing behind “the cable guy” holding a coffee cup, filled with high octane coffee, barking out tips and suggestions and platitudes on how to get the job done right. My friends and I figured that would at least shave off a few hours from the job, as long as things didn’t escalate to murder, hence involving police and ambulance workers.
Reality is though, I won’t be having a cable guy out to our house any time soon. I will complain to friends and neighbors about outages and prices and the ridiculousness of having 879 TV channels, of which, only about three of those channels interest me. Then, decades down the road, I will finally get fed up with, “Sorry, but you just don’t qualify for any of our fantastic discounts as this point in time.” (once they get you hooked in with inertia and fear of a day spent with an angry “cable guy”, discounts no longer apply – ever.) I will call a new provider. They will tell me the change will take only a few minutes (this is decades down the road, remember). At this juncture, I will invite “that guy” over to make sure that “the cable guy” stays in his allotted time frame, for rigging and wiring my media to the price gouging setting. I have a plan in place.