I need someone to drag me to work

[TNT]

It's nearly time to go to work, and I find myself deliriously unmotivated.

Sometime during the overnight hours, we're going to be tinkering with the channel line up. Not just a little bit -- every channel on the digital side is moving, we're adding a bunch of new ones and we're deleting others. And, a few analog channels are going to be moving over to digital to make room for a few additions there.

But first, we'll have a brief system-wide outage. This will completely ruin lives, as I found out a few weeks ago when we had a ten minute outage. And then, when it comes back on, all those shattered people are going to be faced with everything being different.

During the time I've worked there, we've made some minor adjustments -- like two channels switching positions, etc. Even that led to endless days of calls from puzzled viewers, most of whom started their calls with, "My cable's broke." And most of those calls ended with, "If you can't change it back, connect me with someone who can."

One can only imagine the havoc caused by a hundred or more changes.

Oh, yeah... we're simultaneously introducing our customers to Video on Demand.

It's going to be a very long night. I'll make it through... but I think I need someone to pry me off my chair and carry me to work.

[wagegoth]

Oh, man, you have my complete sympathy.

My cable company recently did an upgrade on the software for the boxes. They regularly send messages out about upcoming channel changes and PPV events, but did they send one that said, "You're box is going down, it will take hours to recover, and you'll have to learn all of the menus over again?" No, they did not.

I felt really bad for the CSRs (we did not scream, but we did call to find out the situation when the problems continued for over half an hour), but if the company had at least sent a message those customers with more than two brain cells to rub together probably would have left them alone.

[Geek King]

"If you can't change it back, connect me with someone who can."

Certainly! One moment while I foreward you to the apporopriate party!

[[rings]]

Santa's Holiday Hotline! What would you like for Chistmas this year?
or
Vatican Information line, how may we serve you this day?

[TNT]

I actually made it through the night. I had four very rough hours during the transition, but after that things got unusually quiet. We normally have 5 people working and we brought in six more for OT. For an hour and a half later in the morning, not a single call came into the center. Apparently, our customers were busy exploring the new channels.

We actually did something mostly right. Wow.

I even had a few customers say, "I was concerned about the rate increase, but with all this new stuff, it's actually a bargain."

That's not something I hear very often.

[Becks]

I really enjoy happy endings.