Why is this stuff hard?

Phone companies are always annoying. But you knew that.

Turns out gas companies are just as bad. And the folks who manage rental properties. (Today’s funny: I confirmed it is “technically” a violation of my lease to walk on the grass. Like, you know, on the way to the playground–the one surrounded by grass–with my nearly-3-year-old daughter.)

I have to say: I really don’t know why such basic stuff has to be difficult. Do you? Can you explain it to me?

Here’s another example, though I have no idea why you’d read it: I wanted to set up internet service. Comcast has several plans available. On most of them, they offer “PowerBoost”…which is supposed to give some non-guaranteed benefit to the first 10MB of a file download. So, naturally, I asked the sales gal what speed I’d get, per plan, after that point. She didn’t know.

She transferred me to Tech Support. Guess what? They first told me that question was too technical, and they didn’t have the answer…and then I was told that the 10MB limit wasn’t real. So I’d get the non-guaranteed PowerBoost…always. But what does that mean?

Are they not disclosing the non-PowerBoost numbers because they’re awful? Or because PowerBoost truly doesn’t exist? Do they simply claim it’s there to set up an excuse in advance for any bandwidth-throttling scheme they may choose to implement in the future?

Result of the above confusion: I have no idea how to evaluate one plan vs. another. So I decided to go with their cheapest plan, just to see if there’s any value at all. Meanwhile I’m checking out competitors, so I can try their service at the same time. Good job, guys.

Okay. If there’s a point to today’s rant, it’s that I hope Cabin Fever never puts anybody into a situation like this. The more irritated I get with these one-size-fits-all companies that assume ad-speak is all they need, the more I think I don’t want to deal with them.

I figure that’s universal. Even if it isn’t, I hope it’s at least planetary.

So: if any of you start seeing this stuff happen at Cabin Fever, please tell me. I love bug reports too, but if you catch me doing something ridiculous in the customer support area–and you reach out to let me know about it–you’ll get six months’ free service. At least.