defining meaningless

as bad as brighthouse service can be, sometimes the ridiculous stupidity of humanity shows itself in more destructive ways and something like this madness happens...

and i look at some of the things i wrote today, i wonder about the connections of energy in this life and in this universe, but beyond my egocentric wonderings, i realize that the title of this blog, meaningless complaints, fits so well... one customer experience related on the net, one person's opinion posted on the web, what does it mean really... and even if the complaints are valid and real and meaningful to many, when compared to the madness of humanity, everything else is a minor complaint...

so i look around at the thoughts on the web about humanity and find simple stuff that is nothing new, but i realize that even though little seems to change in the world, the wars continue, the killing of innocents continue, the exploitation and manipulation by people in power continues, the hypocrisy continues, the lies and fear-driven hate continues, there are still some who see how sad and sick humanity really is and there, in knowing some are aware, is hope...

waiting for the brighthouse connection

i occasionally get a message here or by phone from brighthouse sales or technicians that appear to be efforts to resolve the on-going service interruptions i frequently experience, a few of which have been chronicled in this blog... today i am brought here due to continued poor service preventing me from enjoying cable programming... in this entry, i will also address why i have stopped responding to the brighthouse calls... the bottom line is this - if the solution brighthouse is offering does not start with a monthly discount for my time, energy, and interrupted service, i am not interested in wasting more of my time trying to fix the continuing brighthouse problems...

now to today's issue...

first, should it take 3-5 minutes to use the remote to use the search feature to find a specific show you want?... when you press your remote, does nothing happen for ten seconds or longer?... when scrolling through channels, does the scrolling freeze and take sixty seconds to get through the first 100 channels?...

when you want to find out when specific shows are on, for instance, which football games are being broadcast on which channels at what time, can you do that in less than 5 minutes without loosing your feed to the game you are currently watching?...

if you can do these things with brighthouse, then you are getting better service than i am... i do not know if it is the converter box or the line conditions or something at the brighthouse connections or bandwidth or something else, but the delays in receiving signals simply switching stations or scrolling through the stations is unacceptably long...

let's look at the solutions and customer satisfaction...

the first solution is change the batteries in the remote... i do that monthly, even more often at times... i do not use the remote daily... the batteries i remove from the remote are still very effective in any other electronic product and testing shows they are still good batteries... i have changed the remote several times... the remote does not seem to be the primary problem...

the next solution is reboot the box (again, a weekly activity which is ridiculous inconvenience and lowers my customer satisfaction a lot)... i do not work for brighthouse... i pay brighthouse for service...

it is as simple as this...

i should not have to provide service for brighthouse equipment unless brighthouse pays me to provide service... to resolve this customer dissatisfaction, i should be paid for each service i provide for brighthouse equipment... my time and energy has value... a $5 discount for each required reboot would be appropriate...

as i manually reboot on average weekly due to lagging service or other issues, a $20 discount monthly is required for customer satisfaction as much as the reboot is required just to use the service i pay for...

this does not include the auto-reboots that the box does when i am in the middle of watching a show - that is an intrusion that is not acceptable and a dollar amount will not provide satisfaction, however a punitive dollar amount might encourage brighthouse to not randomly interrupt the service i am paying for... $50 would be fair, considering the level of customer dissatisfaction and the profit margin brighthouse currently provides... the risk of a $50 refund should be incentive enough for brighthouse technicians to stop randomly interrupting the service i pay for... might as well have satellite...

the next solution to any issue is to call brighthouse... that averages more than 30 minutes and takes me away from work or life activities that of my choosing... essentially, it puts me in the position of working for brighthouse... i should be compensated at $15 an hour for my time when i am required to call brighthouse just to use the service i am paying for...

the next solution is a home service call... that requires a change in my schedule and anywhere 2-4 hours of down time waiting for the service technician... i have experienced at least two no-shows and may have forgotten more... again, a minimum of $15 per hour for the time i give to brighthouse required to use the service i pay for... since the best they do is a 2-hour window, a minimum $30 refund of my money is fair for each service call...

these are very fair wage compensations for my time as i could be earning much more per hour if i chose not to give brighthouse my time... this is also an excellent performance improvement incentive for brighthouse to improve their product and customer service as the responsibility for not paying me would be set directly on brighthouse - provide the service i pay for without glitches and interruptions and you refund me nothing, you get more than $1,000 a year from me...

so, to the brighthouse techs and csrs and managers who may read this, if your proposed resolutions to the issues i have been reporting for the last few years does not include monetary compensation for my time, energy, troubleshooting, and inconvenience... then please do not offer the appearance of a blank check "let me help you" in my comments here or on the phone... your "help" costs me time and money... and the dozens of calls and home service calls i've given you over the years has has not resolved the issues...

keep in mind that what brings me here today is the same thing that has brought me to write every blog entry about brighthouse service, dissatisfaction with the brighthouse product... if there was not an issue preventing me from using the product today, i would not be writing this... i am not looking for money, i am looking for the service in pay for... at this point however; i have given enough time and energy to brighthouse without fair compensation and propose the refund plan in this entry as a last effort to keep me as a brighthouse customer...

as a quality manager myself, understanding the customer's dissatisfaction and needs is an essential aspect of customer satisfaction... hopefully this writing has provided you with the specific information you need to satisfy this customer...

i am likely not the only customer who would approve of this plan...

UPDATE: why should today have only one issue, it's brighthouse service, after all...

I get home and find the show guide is suddenly changed to ridiculously huge letters so the stations can't be read and only the first word for any show name is visible... why am i not surprised that the box reset itself again and now does not provide a useable guide to what is on...

it's not like we have only one issue each day... we have several on-going issues every day... like the cable box still turns on and switches to mute for some reason and we have to change channels a certain way with the remote to get sound... if we actually watched tv daily we'd have a different service...

what baffles me most is how people who actually watch tv daily put up with brighthouse... i know what keeps me is the internet, not the best but the fastest around here... and also the fact that i get a discount some months i spend time trying to get the service fixed... but the fix has not worked in the past few years since i've had the service... we plan on moving early next year and moving with brighthouse does not look likely...

sub-par subs

The following is most of an email I decided to send at my roommate's suggestion to Firehouse Subs after a recent unappetizing experience.

I have eaten Firehouse subs for years, usually once a week or so. I've had them all and until today was usually satisfied, often delighted. Recently I've noticed the meat subs are skimping on meats. Tonight (Sunday about 7PM) we went into our nearby store (gave them the location) and bought four subs for a group and the subs were extremely disappointing. The place ran out of turkey, which eliminated half the choices on the menu, so maybe the problem was low inventory, but poor quality was a factor as well. I noticed one employee look at his watch as he saw a line of about ten people forming behind us as we waited for him to come to the register. He did not look happy to see customers. My disappointment was in the quality of the food.

The pastrami was so fatty, we threw it out. A first. We could not tell if there was cheese on the sub or not because it was so fatty.

I've never seen so little meat on the New York Steamer and the sub fell apart when picked up as if the bread was stale. Again, it appeared they forgot the cheese.

The Italian was ham, no other meats. Again, less meat and cheese than the usual. The bread was not as fresh as we were used to.

The meatball was not the usual quality, but was the best of the subs we purchased. The bread was not as fresh as we were used to.

I have never written to Firehouse before and probably should have sent some positive feedback over the years because a few years ago I was very pleased and even surprised with the quality and amount of meat on your subs. Firehouse was one of the few places I would buy pastrami because of the quality. The subs always were abundant with meat and the bread was always fresh. In the last year or two I've noticed the gradual shrinkage in meats, less fresh bread, and reduction in quality.

Firehouse has gone from the no-doubt first choice for subs to just one of the sub places I choose. Tonight hit a surprising new low and I will likely not return to this particular Firehouse.

I would like a few honest answers.

- Have economic factors compelled a company-wide reduction in the amount of meat and freshness of bread or was I simply unwise to go to a Firehouse on a Sunday evening?

- When do Firehouse stores get delivery of fresh meats and breads?

- Has there been a change in the pastrami product over the past year or few that I simply did not notice until tonight?

I appreciate your time and hope for honest answers, not sales pitches. I am not complaining as much as I am seeking knowledge. I will most likely buy Firehouse subs again as there are other locations a bit further away from my home, though the closer sub places will likely see an increase in my business when I am in a hurry or simply do not want to drive further. You did not lose customers tonight, you lost some automatic expectation of quality and some sales.

If I get a response, I will try to remember to share it here. If the response comes quickly, I likely will. I am sad as Firehouse was our favorite sub place in the area, but I suppose it is time to explore the others.

caution: music plays here - blogger dumb, google?

ATTENTION GOOGLE CHROME USERS!
CLICK PAUSE ON THE PLAYER BELOW
IF YOU DO NOT WANT MUSIC TO PLAY

APOLOGIES,
GOOGLE CHROME DOES NOT ALLOW MUSIC TO
NOT
AUTOMATICALLY PLAY

DUMB MOVE, GOOGLE

if you did not click pause, perhaps you see, or rather hear what i mean?


this one is supposed to work in chrome - it does not in mine... you tell me, does it?

the point here is that Google is supposed to be one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, right?... so why does Google FAIL at creating a browser that can do the simple task of reading a code accepted in other browsers, a code that simple respects readers and sets music inserted into a blog post to NOT play automatically... music automatically playing can be intrusive to any reader attempting to read a page without sound... so does that mean the creativity of music or sound is to be ignored when writing a blog post or creating a web page?... Google apparently thinks so... dumb move Google... I've been using Chrome for a while, but realizing this flaw, I am switching back to Internet Explorer and/or Firefox... you need to get your act together Google... I like chrome, but it's lacking an essential audio ability... and sadly, it's been that way for years according to the research i've done...

let me know when you get it fixed...