[Rhodes22-list] Brad, a reply

[Tootle]

Brad,

That article does not relate to sailing!  You will give Big Al some ideas. 
MJM better hide his sever!
However, it was great.  

And here I thought that 'Boilermaker' was a mixed drink?  At least the
Portsmouth part was sailing stuff.  Do they have sailboats on the 50
yardline?

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA
"Evil loves darkness, goodness loves light.  When something is wrong it
likes to slip around in dark corners.  When something is good it can stand
the scrutiny of broad daylight."  Bryan Crenshaw  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359_pf.html

 *Taking a Whack Against Comcast*
Mona Shaw Reached Her Breaking Point, Then for Her Hammer

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 18, 2007; C01

Sometimes truly American virtues arise in outlaws who -- by dint of heroic
but questionable endeavors -- display the mettle of the national character.

For instance: The Dillinger Gang, robbing banks (and destroying mortgages)
when banks were foreclosing on the poor. Stephanie St. Clair, matron of the
numbers racket during the Harlem Renaissance, striking a (dubious) blow for
both gender and racial equality. Junior Johnson bootlegging liquor during
Prohibition (the benefits of which were self-evident).

Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris
Hilton<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Paris+Hilton?tid=informline>,
a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer"
Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local
Comcast<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Comcast+Corporation?tid=informline>office
in
Manassas<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Manassas?tid=informline>to
settle a score, and boy, did she!

This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed
"Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in
Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on
the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left with
the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service.

This was the company that has had consumer service problems serious enough
to prompt the trade magazine Advertising
Age<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Ad+Age+Group?tid=informline>to
editorialize that Comcast and other cable providers should spend less
on
advertising and more on customer service. And has spawned a blog called
ComcastMustDie.com that's filled with posts from angry customers.

So on that Friday, Mona Shaw and her husband, Don, went to the local call
center office to complain.

Let's pick it up, mid-action, according to Shaw:

Mona demands to speak to a manager. A customer service representative says
someone will be right with them. Directs them to a bench, outside.
(Remember, it's mid-August.) Mona and Don sit.

Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock. Sit, sit, sit, go Mona and Don.

For. Two. Hours.

And then -- this is the best part -- the customer rep leans out the door and
says the manager has left for the day. Thanks for coming!

Oh, the sputtering outrage!

The insulting idea that, as Shaw puts it, "they thought just because we're
old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains *and* backbone."

So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went
downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to
Comcast."

Did you try to stop her, Mr. Shaw?

"Oh no, no," he says.

Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company's office. BAM! She whacks the
keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She
totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she
do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!

"They cuffed me right then," she says.

Her take on Comcast: "What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles."

Being a responsible newspaper, we must note that this is a misdemeanor, a
crime, a completely inappropriate way of handling a business dispute.

Noted.

Who among us has not longed for a hammer in this age of incompetent
"customer service representatives," of nimrods reading from a script at some
800-number location, of crumbs-in-their-beards plumbing installation people
who tell you they'll grace you with their presence between 12 and 3, only
never to show? And you'll call and call and finally some outsourced
representative slings a dart at a calendar and tells you another guy will
come back between 10 and 2 next Thursday? And when this guy comes, pants
halfway down his behind, he'll tell you he brought the wrong part?

And there is nothing, nothing you can do.

Until there! On the horizon! It's Hammer Woman, avenger of oppressed cable
subscribers everywhere! (Cue galloping "Lone Ranger" theme.)

"I scared the tar out of some people, at least," she says. "It had never
occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so
upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been
there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and
I said, ' *Now* do I have your attention?' "

It wasn't all fun.

"My blood pressure went up around my ears. I started hyperventilating. They
had to call the rescue squad and put me on a litter."

By the time it was over, she recalls, there were an ambulance, two police
cruisers and a sergeant's car in the parking lot. Shaw received a
three-month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct, a $345 fine in
restitution and a year-long restraining order barring her from the Comcast
office.

"Truly a unique and inappropriate situation," says Beth Bacha, a vice
president for Comcast. She says company policy forbids disclosure of
clients' records, but did say their files note that the service record
wasn't exactly what Shaw has indicated. Besides, "nothing justifies this
sort of dangerous behavior."

Bacha noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the
overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service.

Manassas police spokesman Sgt. Tim Neumann says there have been other police
calls to that Comcast office, but he doesn't know what prompted them.

Bob Garfield, who runs ComcastMustDie.com, wrote last week he was happy the
site had become an outlet for "so much deep-seated rage," but hoped
customers would "keep the hammer assaults down to a bare minimum."

>From what we can tell, Mona Shaw is not, actually, a raving lunatic armed
with construction tools.

She is a nice lady who lives in a nice house. She and Don are both retired
from the Air Force (she was a registered nurse). They have been married 45
years. She is secretary of the local
AARP<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/AARP?tid=informline>,
secretary of a square-dancing club and takes in strays for the local animal
shelter (they have seven dogs at the moment). She has a heart condition. She
lifts weights at a local gym. The couple attend a Unitarian Universalist
church.

Police gave her the hammer back, though she swears she's content to ride off
into the sunset of True Crime Stories in America, never again to go
Com-smash-tic on her local cable provider.

She does, however, finally, have phone service.

On
Verizon<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Verizon+Communications+Inc.?tid=informline>
.

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