Harder Than Necessary
Monday night, my cable box went "pop" and decided it didn't want to run anymore. Some elements still got power, including a case fan and a couple LED lights visible in the back, but the main display showed nothing, no matter how many times I pushed the power button.
Yesterday, I got home and tested. Still dead. So, I took what seemed the next reasonable step and called my cable company. They've got a little automated troubleshooter system before you get to any real person. I can respect the desire to get the simple/obvious fixes out of the way first, but when I reached the part where the recorded voice told me to unplug the box, plug it back in, and wait "up to 5 minutes" for it to reboot, I started to feel like this was all a little silly. When the problem is that it won't boot up, waiting for it to do so it a bit futile, and I could have explained that to a person in a fraction of the time. Then it continued with "this could take another 5 minutes, do you want me to wait with you?" What do you even say to that? No probably leads to being disconnected. Yes seemed like it might lead to a loop.
Thankfully it didn't. Yes did lead to another delay, but then the system acknowledged it couldn't solve the problem and bounced me to a live person. Just a minute or two of talking to him and he agreed it sounded like the unit just needed to be replaced. Yeah... sometimes "proper" diagnostic procedure just makes things more difficult than they need to be and could be cut through with just a brief explanation - so long as there's someone to interact with.
Of course, I still have to swing by their local office and exchange it, but that beats waiting at home for a technician.
Yesterday, I got home and tested. Still dead. So, I took what seemed the next reasonable step and called my cable company. They've got a little automated troubleshooter system before you get to any real person. I can respect the desire to get the simple/obvious fixes out of the way first, but when I reached the part where the recorded voice told me to unplug the box, plug it back in, and wait "up to 5 minutes" for it to reboot, I started to feel like this was all a little silly. When the problem is that it won't boot up, waiting for it to do so it a bit futile, and I could have explained that to a person in a fraction of the time. Then it continued with "this could take another 5 minutes, do you want me to wait with you?" What do you even say to that? No probably leads to being disconnected. Yes seemed like it might lead to a loop.
Thankfully it didn't. Yes did lead to another delay, but then the system acknowledged it couldn't solve the problem and bounced me to a live person. Just a minute or two of talking to him and he agreed it sounded like the unit just needed to be replaced. Yeah... sometimes "proper" diagnostic procedure just makes things more difficult than they need to be and could be cut through with just a brief explanation - so long as there's someone to interact with.
Of course, I still have to swing by their local office and exchange it, but that beats waiting at home for a technician.
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