I rarely get pissed off, but when i do....

Ok so this morning's post is going to be a rant, and boy do i love to rant sometimes, there are few things out there that truly piss me off, but today's topic i can honestly say....PISSES ME OFF! Don't you worry, this is not a rant about one person or anything like that, but it's aimed at a select few companies. And so it begins....

So what's grinding my gears? Cable companies. Specifically Rogers and Cogeco. Why you ask? Here's why. Yesterday my brother went out and got us a PVR digital cable box. We've been wanting one for a while because our schedules can be pretty random, and although there's not a ton of regular tv shows i watch, it's nice to tape movies sometimes, or if i'm going to miss the first half of a hockey game i can PVR it and catch up or something like that. Anyways so the box comes with about five bazillion different wires, some of which we don't need, some which we do. So i take a look at the instructions for setting it up....and holy shit you gotta be kidding me. It shows 5 boxes in a row, and only "Cable In", "Cable Out" connections. What about the countless other wires? Who knows i guess. And why would Rogers want to sell me this terrific piece of machinery without the proper installation instructions? Well obviously once i've prematurely balded myself by ripping every strand of hair out of my head, and come as close to a mental breakdown as possible, i'm going to call Rogers and they will send someone to my house to set it up for me. And they'll charge an arm and a leg to do it. I haven't quite resorted to that yet though. Derek Mumford, techinal wiz, will be on his way to my place this afternoon once he wakes up and has breakfast which should be around 3 p.m. I'm hoping he can figure it out.

You think that's the end of my rant? You think that's all i've got? Hell no, i'm not done yet. Another rant against Rogers. For a while my bro and i were fortunate enough to be in a hotspot with an unsecured network so we temporarily cancelled our internet since we were getting it for free. So we would still pay about 3 bucks a month for rental of the router, but we could call in anytime and they'd start our internet service back up. So after a couple months the internet connection was fading and was really inconsistent so we decided to start paying again. I called them up, they flipped the proverbial internet switch, and we were back in business. Until i got my bill of course. 300 FUCKIN DOLLAR INSTALLATION FEE!? What the hell? Didn't I already pay this when we first had it installed? Yes of course i did, so i called Rogers up with a rather large bee in my bonnet. Of course they waived the fee and they informed me not to worry cause this was just an automatic fee tacked on by the computer system whenever someone's internet was switched on. So they know about this little computer "glitch". Why wouldn't they change it then? I guess the answer to that is, why would they? There are probably quite a few people who have their bills paid automatically through their internet banking and might not notice this discrepancy. Toronto being such a diverse multicultural city probably also has quite a few residents who haven't completley mastered the English language yet. So let's say a man or woman of Chinese descent, that haven't been in the country for long, is trying to figure out why their bill is so large. It's probably not so easy for them to understand the situation, and at the same time pretty easy for the person they're talking to, to blow them off. So there's some serious profit to be had, for doing absolutely nothing. And the real kicker to this situation, you call up, and you're pissed off, 3oo bones is nothing to sneeze at, but you can't yell at the guy on the phone, at least i never do. I mean he has nothing to do with what happened. It's the higher up powers that be that are making money off the bullshit, and you can't talk to them, cause they're on the golf course. This poor bastard just sits there, and gets paid far too little all day to take phonecalls from people who give him shit. So be frustrated all you want, and sure sit on the phone and ask to speak to the manager, then his manager, and his manager, and so on....but by the time you get to the big boys.....well they're in a meeting right now but boy would they ever love to talk to you if they weren't.

Think i'm done? I'm not done. My next bone to pick, this time is with Cogeco. Why Cogeco? They don't even provide service in Toronto, their monopoly is in Oakville. Well my parents live in Oakville, and since the cable companies have it perfectly organized so that they don't have to compete with each other, Cogeco is their only option. (Sure you can get satellite TV, but if it's raining out, well then grab your favorite book!) So as many of you know, i'm a big Habs fan, and this isn't by accident, it's in my blood. It came from above. My parents both also enjoy watching hockey, and since they live in the GTA, that means the local team is of course the Leafs, but the Leafs suck. So they like to watch Canadiens games just like my bro and I. Cogeco sent out a flyer to all it's subscribers advertising their great "NHL Centre Ice" package. You pay about 25 to 30 bucks a month and you get every single NHL game. The flyer specifically targeted Montreal fans with a headline that said, "catch every Habs game this year!" So last week they try to tune into the Habs game....no signal. So my Dad called up Cogeco to ask them what the problem was. "Oh we're very sorry sir, it appears that we will not be able to show any Montreal Canadiens games in the package this year." Uh.....what? Huh? Excuse me? So they advertise, "we are showing all Habs games!", then they decide they can't show any, and did they tell anyone about it? No of course not. My parents got no call, no email, no letter, nothing informing them of this decision. So after they called my parents talked about it and figured there's no point in them having the package if there's no Montreal games since they would probably not watch many, if any other games. So the following week they called up to cancel the package. "Actually sir, it turns out we will be showing all Habs games this year after all!" Uh.....what? Huh? Excuse me? Apparently there was such a big stink from people calling in furious, (Habs nation....gotta love them!) that they figured their shit out and got it done. But again of course they would never inform anyone of this decision. You pay us money, and we'll provide you a service, but if we welch on that service, well then you call us to figure it out. Makes sense.

So that concludes my little rant, i guess it's not so little after all, but i feel better now that it's out of my system. I hope you enjoyed it.