If I Ran Comcast

Forget the economy crisis. Hurricane Kyle? Big deal. Let's deal with the important stuff, people. I'm without internet.

No, it's not because I didn't pay my bills. Unlike the Chachi's on Wall Street, I'm fiscally responsible. In fact, I'm not completely sure I even know why I am without internet. Well, yeah I do...it's because Comcast sucks.

Communistcast, the second largest cable operator in the United States is based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And they suck. Big, huge donkey dong. Boy, do they suck. Sucka sucka suck.

It is because these weasels operate a network of fishing wire and soup cans throughout the United States that I find myself holed up in a Panera watching Larry's cousin Balki peer over my should at my laptop screen (perhaps he is hoping I am checking out some Jenna Jameson.) And, after an overture of angry ugly baby crying and an interlude of Panera coworker on cell phone with her baby daddy I have decided to bring back this blog. Feel my pain, people.

Some of my friends work for Comcast. Hopefully, they won't get ticked at me for ranting the way my buddy from AOL did when I told them where to stick it. You see, I don't wish that the company go out of business. No, not at all. In fact, I want to help them. Comcast....help me help you. I've got the answers.

If I ran Comcast, the first thing I would do is scream. I mean, seriously...taming this beast would be no easy task. After putting a therapist on staff and hiding the razor blades, I'd get to work...

Reduce the mailings. Most customers hate Comcast and are only subscribers because they have to be. It's bad enough they are being forced to use Comcast cable service....why in the world would they want to put their phone service in the incompetent hands of Comcast? I honestly get a mailing from Comcast once a week...trying to persuade me to sign up for their Triple Play or whatever they call it. I am sure the return on investment for this is minimal. Stop it, stop it now. Often I have thought of pulling a Cosmo Kramer and collecting all of these postcards from the neighborhood and dropping them off on Comcast's doorstep.

Change service call schedules. News flash! Most home consumers work during the day. Do what you need to do, but make more service technicians available at night. Customers who need to work three jobs to pay for the outrageous, monopolistic rates do not have the flexibility to take a day off of work or school and wait around between noon and never o'clock for someone to show up. Reduce the technicians working during the day and bulk up on nights and weekends. And if you fix the infrastructure, you'd reduce the need for service calls in the first place. And while you're at it, stop sending two and three people teams. I can't imagine how many of the service calls actually require a militia to solve the service interruption.

Stop contracting service technicians. You lose quality control and good customer service when you contract the work out. These knuckleheads drive around in questionable vehicles with Comcast magnets slapped on the side. They traipse mud through and sometimes smell like a discarded cigarette butt in the bottom of a urinal. Twice in my years as a Comcast customer they have accidentally disconnected someone else in my building's cable. Watching them stumble through an installation is painful; my two-year old nephew knows more about the Comcast box than these bumbletards. Keeping the technicians on your payroll will, in the long run, save money. The incompetence leads to rework, which raises your costs.

Get out of the programming business. Why, when you can't maintain your core business-providing cable, do you dabble in programming? Of course, I know the answer to that....$$$$$. Duh. You hold us hostage to your crappy channels, while moving more popular channels off to the more pricey premium packages. Let's run through the stellar list of cable channels that Comcast is a majority owner of. Brace yourself, this is some awesome stuff. E!, Style Network, G4, The Golf Channel, CN8 and Versus (formerly known as the Outdoor Life Network, and still known as a channel no one with a heartbeat watches network.) Seriously, it is a sad state of affairs when E! is your marquee network.

Stop being retarded. Focus on your customers and your core business. It's really that simple. Go out of your way to provide an exceptional and reliable product, and make your customers happy. Sell off of your side businesses, naming rights and other frivolous crap and make the cable service off the hook. Poor choice of words, sorry. In 2008, your customers need to be able stay connected, for work, for school, for porn.

AOL used to be successful. Heck, they were one of the pioneers of the internet business. They got too big, too fast, sucked, wasted tons of money with marketing ploys (remember those cds of 1,000,000 free hours?), pissed off their customers BIG TIME, made poor business decisions, and are pretty much hanging on by a thread. In this economy, it wouldn't surprise me if they were completely gone by this time next year. Who would have thought? A titan like AOL? Take care of your customers, Comcast, and they will take care of you. Stop being retarded.