[Rhodes22-list] Admit It! You've wanted to do this at one time.

Thu Oct 18 23:42:29 EDT 2007

Back in my more impetuous youth, I was having a 
problem getting results from a minicomputer 
manufacturer (Pr1me) - they were holding up a 
COBOL compiler that was the key reason I had 
installed the computer.  

After 6 months of waiting for results, and after 
innumerable phone calls, I showed up at their 
office with a 4-lb hammer and put it through the 
sales manager's desk top.  As I was in a position 
to sue for fraud based on written information, 
there was no threat of police action...  

After that, I at least got replies from my phone 
calls tracking the progress on the compiler, and 
got an alpha (and eventually beta) test version.  
I got the software that depended on the compiler 
out to customers the day after the final release 
of the compiler hit the bricks.

Sometimes it pays to be a little bit crazy...

/Robert 
----------------------------------------------
Rik Sandberg wrote:
> 
> Brad,
> 
> Actually, I've always leaned towards chain saws ...... but hey, a hammer
> works too. :-)
> 
> Rik
> 
> Brad Haslett wrote:
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359_pf.html
> >
> >
> > [image: washingtonpost.com] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf>
> > <http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf>
> >    '); } //-->
> >  <javascript:reportA4EBannerActivity("http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/35ef/3/0/%2a/g%3B124798417%3B0-0%3B1%3B8639989%3B4307-300/250%3B22521419/22539302/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/270094/1%3B%7Esscs%3D%3f","orange_alternate_ccf423ff40bb4c7b8d906adea57902d6bca588cc375c4b619c3bd32b0e877bd5_rep",
> > "http://clk.atdmt.com/go/wpnxxccl0160000166nyc/direct;vt.1;wi.300;hi.250;ai.30750022;ct.1",
> > 1192747002890)>
> > <http://clk.atdmt.com/NYC/go/wpnxxccl0160000166nyc/direct;wi.300;hi.250/01/>
> >  *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>
> > .
> >
> > <http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BDmYi_N8XR9SzIpKi5AHZupn7DaWUxkqFhtTPA8CNtwHQjioQAxgDILSD-gUoAzgAUPO8iuoFYMm23YzgpIQUqgERb3RoZXJuZXdzX2FydGljbGWyARZ3d3cud2FzaGluZ3RvbnBvc3QuY29tyAEB2gFXaHR0cDovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vd3AtZHluL2NvbnRlbnQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDA3LzEwLzE3L0FSMjAwNzEwMTcwMjM1OV9wZi5odG1syALtx6cBqAMB6APABegD_wLoAyToA7cE9QMABAAA9QMAAIAA&num=3&adurl=http://www.comcastcableoffers.com/%3Fcid%3D55347%26affid%3D867558625::CONTENT_comcast%2520cable::www.washingtonpost.com%26s_kwcid%3DContentNetwork%7C867558625&client=ca-washingtonpost-article-site_js>
> > __________________________________________________
> > Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
> >
> >
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list

-- 
Robert Skinner  "Squirrel Haven" 
Gorham, Maine         04038-1331
s/v "Little Dipper" & "Edith P."