Innovative Cable Update

Well after all the high drama last go round about the cable boxes, we finally worked through it all and now have a cable box in the living room as well as one for the tenant. Without a total rehash of the last post. Deb got the "Notarized" letter from our land lord and went over last Wednesday on her lunch hour/and a half, to try to get the boxes. Well the lady that originally started this process was off. So she was assigned to Ms Smith. She promptly took one look at Deb and decided "no box for you", yes there is a Cable Nazi in Tutu. She decided that the "Notarized" letter granting us permission to pay the outrageous deposits, the first months bill and any and all related paperwork and additional misc. fees, signed by the landlord, as well as two Id's a copy of our lease, etc. etc. simply wasn't proof enough.

She now wanted the work order form, which is a carbon copy form in triplicate, you can't make up stuff this funny, signed and notarized by the land lord, who by the way lives in NC and was preparing for a Tropical Storm while this was going on. Now mailing this form to NC getting it signed and notarized and mailed back is twenty bucks worth of priority mail and two weeks minimum turnaround. Well Deb was already over on her lunch hour, didn't have the stomach for causing a scene so she went back to work and called me to let me know that the Cable Box not soon come.

So after stewing on this nonsense for about a half hour, I took the better part of my lunch hour, called Innovative and asked to speak to a customer service supervisor. I actually managed to get one on the phone, she wasn't in a "meeting" or anything. I ran down my short version of the events involved, and my previous weeks conversation with the lady in "Cubicle #4" about the "Notarized" letter and asked her why the whole thing changed. She took my number and said she wanted to check into it and would call me back. Well low and behold in about twenty minutes she called me back, she said that Ms. Smith said that Debbie came in and claimed she was Shelba, our land lord and tried to order the service and until she asked for ID Deb never came clean. Well this is when I went A type personality on her, this was an out and out lie to cover up the fact that Ms. Smith is a mean lady playing Cable Nazi. Deb went in and gave her a notarized letter explained the whole story about the lady in "Cubicle #4" wanting it and that is all we should need. So after I told the supervisor about the lie she wanted Deb's number to verify her side of the story. So she called Deb, agreed that we had plenty of documentation and indeed we should have been given the boxes. Deb says fine I get off at 4:00 I will come back and get them. Not so fast we are currently out of boxes, yes we had them this morning when you were here but we are out now. "So I will call you tomorrow if we get any in and I will hold two for you and you can come and get them." Well 3:30 Thursday no call, Deb calls back, yes we had some this morning but we are out now. So she goes all A type on the supervisor, who then assures her we will have them on Friday. Deb calls again Friday afternoon and they do have them and the lady in "Cubicle #4" is holding two for you.

So on Friday we both go over, we arrive around 4:30 Deb signs into the second receptionist, as we already know were to go at this point the first receptionist is a mute point. Low and behold the receptionist is none other than Ms. Smith aka the Cable Nazi, Deb let's her know that we need to see the supervisor and she reluctantly goes in the back and gets her. She promptly takes Deb to Cubicle #4, I stayed in the lobby, I figured with my personality and the stinky sweaty clothes that I had been working in for eight hours, the cubicle wasn't the place for me.
I won't go into the details but the paperwork took an additional forty five minutes. Then Deb had to go across the hall, pay the cashier, because it would make to much sense for the customer service rep to be able to take a check for the deposit. Then she had to take the receipt back to cubicle #4 and prove she actually paid the deposit, then and only then did the rep do the final paperwork, a warranty for ninety days on the remotes that we had to purchase, and give us the boxes. She had explained to Deb during this drawn out process that all of the paperwork and restrictions were due to FCC regulations about cable boxes. Well in the almost famous words of a friend of mine from WV, I have to call Bull Shit on that one. Everything about this company, much like a lot of the government offices and utilities here are designed to maximize employment, period. They have a person for everything, and a dozen forms to go with it, just to justify employment.
I have never written a song before but I am seriously thinking about turning this one into an Alice's Restaurant kind of ditty:)