Sitting Down With Comcast

Sitting down with me today is Seth Stefansson, Comcast Customer Service Assistant Supervisor from Vero Beach, Florida. Seth, a two-time divorcee with outstanding child support payments and at least one active restraining order, started his career with the cable monolith in 1998 as an equipment return processor in Smyrna, Delaware. He's held his current call center position for almost ten years. Seth, glad to have you on the Sit Down. 

Seth: Thanks for having me CC, I'm honored to be the first interviewee. 

CC: Great. Seth, I want to start out by asking, is it true that Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia is powered by the blood of feral children sacrificed in barbaric tribal rituals of isolated, indigenous peoples?

Seth: That is true.

CC: That's fascinating. I know the building itself recently received Gold LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council; it'd be interesting to find out how the cursed child blood factored into that award, if at all.  Moving on, I think a lot of people would love to know why when we call Comcast, it takes almost ten minutes of navigating through voice menus to finally reach a human being; and even then we're often transferred another half dozen times to different departments, after repeating our story ad nauseam. Could you shed some light on that?  

Seth: Sure, that's because as an organization we believe in the WHY-DACKY philosophy, (We Hope You Die Alone Crying or Kill Yourself.) It's important for us to try and do everything we can to impair and erode your very will to live. Not many people know, but most of us at the call centers are actually unschooled, orphan, atheists raised entirely by Sumatran bearded pigs. It's crucial to our success that employees lack any shred of compassion or empathy for humans or their families. 

CC: Interesting. Now Seth, could you explain why my bill keeps going up every few months for no reason. I signed up in 2009 at $125 for the Triple Play package, and haven't missed any payments or added or changed anything. My bill last month was for $5,374. 

Seth: Well, I don't have your bill in front of me, but if I had to guess, your HBO promotion probably lapsed, the new customer sign-up bonus expired, and with the new DVR box fees, modem rental, HD transmission tax and government imposed cable luxury assessment tacked on, you're looking at about 5 G's. 

CC: I see. Is there any way I could eliminate some of my services to mitigate that cost at all? Like could I perhaps cancel my phone and cable completely and just keep my internet access?

Seth: No, because then your bill would actually go up. WHY-DACKY. See how it all comes together there?

CC: A true, inconceivable nightmare. Well played Seth. I've got one last question for you, before I go take a little nap on the freeway. How is it possible that if I have the very first appointment of the morning, my repair technician still does not arrive during his six hour window that I took off an entire day of work for?

Seth: Well that's a common question I hear a lot, but I'm always pleased to answer it. What happens is, we don't actually send the repair tech any of the correct information. We send all of your job details to a remote computer server on the uninhabited Turkmenistani island of Ogurja Ada, a former Russian leper colony in the Caspian Sea. That way, we can assure that no one will ever show up at your house, and you will have wasted your whole day waiting for nothing. Depending on the rep handling your case, we might also charge you an excruciatingly-painful-to-reverse $35 fee for the visit, despite never showing up. But that's best case scenario. Not all reps are savvy enough to carefully drive that extra pin into your cerebellum. 

CC: Well Seth, I gotta say it's been a joy and pleasure to speak with you today, and I wish you all the best in your career. Helping people learn to hate themselves and loathe humanity while providing a mediocre, criminally-overpriced service that never works is unfortunately a thankless job in today's world, but we're glad you do it. 

Seth:  Thank's a lot CC, we always appreciate thoroughly dissatisfied customers like yourself. Also, FYI, On Demand services are temporarily unavailable and your bill went up $28 during this interview.