Dan Antion

It’s Your Fault – 1LinerWeds

No, not you. Not anyone who comes to read this blog. That’s the observation a friend and I reached after he was dealing with a cable company. Seems the cable company made some “upgrades” which caused a number of customers to lose their connections. The cable company said that it couldn’t have been related to the work they did.

Between my friend and I, we have about 85 years’ experience working with computers and communication technology. I agreed with his comment to the cable company:

“When something was working before you did what you did, what you did is the reason it isn’t working now.”

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, or if you would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

Farther south in the sky these days
She popped up and snagged a peanut someone left for her
No leaves on this tree yet, but they will come
I love how the new power lines reflect the sun
Rolling off the highway
Running out to the river
CT Rail’s Hartford line ues a few of AMTRAK’s shuttles as well as their own trains
From the south. it doesn’t look like the snow was blowing
Tell tale sign of a nor’easter. The poles are covered with snow on the north side
Lines are heavy with snow
I need a different way home. The power line is down.
Clearing the cypress of their heavy burden
Moving fast to keep this gunk from clogging the auger
After DST, long shadows have returned to my walks
“The treats are in the bottom drawer. You know, in case you forgot.”
Sorry buddy, but you’re going to be covered in snow soon


If you like magical realism with suspense, action and a bit of family sarcasm, you will enjoy these books:

Knuckleheads
The Evil You Choose
When Evil Chooses You

Series page on Amazon

My profile page (and books) on Lulu

All available on Kindle Unlimited!

Don’t forget, tomorrow is Thursday and that means Thursday Doors. The URL for my post is listed in the sidebar under our beautiful badge. You can link up at any time. My post goes live at one minute after midnight in the eastern timezone. I hope to see your doors.

Published by Dan Antion

Husband, father, woodworker, cyclist, photographer, geek - oh wait, I’m writing this like I only have 140 characters. I am all those things, and more, and all of these passions present me with opportunities to observe, and think about things that I can’t write about in other places. I have started this blog to catch the stuff that falls out, overflows and just plain doesn’t fit the other containers in my life.

93 comments

  1. We’re the kings of having cable problems after unsolicited “upgrades.” Then, it takes them at least a week to get to our house, and the problem is often not solved the first time.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  2. I think we’re being upgraded into oblivion. What an infinite loop of “your call is important to us.” What really is important is to see photos like that one of the moon, which is lovely, and the leaf close-up, which is one of your best, I think. I suppose I have to acknowledge that I couldn’t see them without the technology, but I do wish they’d apply the old “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” As for that snow, it looks awful — a whole lot of work and worry.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  4. Cats are so subtle. And if that doesn’t work they cuff you …
    There are times I wish we had cable out here in the sticks and then I hear people complain how often it goes out and change my mind…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Preston is anything but subtle. I could fill a month’s worth of one-liners with his “hints” about food. “You came into the kitchen, so you must want to feed me.”

      We now have two services in our town competing for our internet business. It’s amazing how accommodating our cable provider has become. “Fix your problem? No problem. Lower your rate? No problem.”

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. OMG, that comment to the cable company is perfect – I’m still laughing about it. It applies to many things.
    (Now – if I can only figure out what I did before my printer quit scanning.)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. Love the comment because I get so sick of all the upgrades and the resulting issues the consumer dealers with. The average consumer is left with opting in or out of upgrades because we don’t have the experience you do to review what it includes and decide on a time by time basis. Can’t win. Hope you got your snow cleared.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • It was still snowing when I cleared the soupy mix on the driveway and sidewalk, but the remaining snow was melting as it landed. The plow came by again, so I have to clean the sidewalk one more time, but we’re good. I’m guessing you got a lot more than we did. I hope the new machine worked well.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • We got 10″ of heavy wet sludge. I was down and out so my grandson used the Toro, and it worked like a charm even throwing the wet stuff and didn’t clog up once. So, yesterday when the end of the main driveway, leftover snow, and in between vehicles needed clearing, my daughter even used ours instead of her big one because it works well and doesn’t clog up. Yes, I’ve used your spray, thank you very much. :-)

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        • I hope you’re feeling better. I’m glad you got that mess cleaned up. After I finished, the plow came back and spread mostly slush up onto the driveway. I decided to just let it melt. That spray works well.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  7. Love this one liner. Gets right to the heart of the problem. As far as contacting any company these days, my phone call can’t be as important to them as they claim or they would put me through to a human being instead of a robot! 😡

    Love the moon shot. And Smokey looks quite pleased with himself for snagging a peanut.

    Am I seeing a bunny hunkered down in those leaves, or are my eyes playing tricks on me?

    Preston just wants to be sure you didn’t forget where his treats are. Gosh he’s beautiful.

    The Nor’easter was kinder to us than expected. I am very grateful! Looks like your snowblower worked overtime!
    Ginger

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • This comment is important to me, Ginger. Please remain on the page while I craft my reply.

      A friend once told me that the secret to keeping the snow blower from clogging on the heavy wet stuff is to go fast. I always thought he just liked to go fast, but it does work better than chugging along at a slow pace.

      No bunny in with the leaves, but judging from the footprints in the snow, they are out and about.

      As for the upgrades, yeah, they fail as often as they work, but good luck finding a human. Now they say “customers prefer online tech-support,” but they tell their Board Members, “we’re saving tons of money by using robots.”

      Preston also likes to make sure I don’t oversleep. He’s good like that.

      I’m glad you didn’t get hammered too badly by the storm.

      Like

      Reply

  8. Good one, Dan.

    Everytime the cable company comes out because our service is degraded, they always say, “It must be the wiring in your house.”Ffunny, though, they always seem to find something outside that fixes “our wiring problem”.

    The air looks crisp in your photos. Today we are hovering around 32° F.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I know, right. “We made a change in your area and you and several neighbors are now without service, but it must be you.” I love their logic.

      I was cat sitting for our daughter. I don’t think Preston trusts me to have the routine down. I also don’t think our daughter feeds him at 2:00 am, but he tells me she does. It’s like the way we treated babysitters and substitute teachers.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. Oh! I do agree having spent two months complaining about my WiFi dropping with out telephone company and the last three days of ” Intrusive Tests ” with our connection dropping up to twenty times a day. It’s not their fault the cry.. so I told them “why then did it get worse after your engineer came out and made it all worse?”…? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Love the photos 💜💜💜💜

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • “That’s a coincidence.” Yeah, they hide behind their little scripts. “Are you sure the modem is plugged in? Have you rebooted your device? Are you running the latest version of the operating system on your device?” – the entire process is designed to wear you down.

      I’m glad you like the photos.

      Like

      Reply

      • Hi Dan , yes these guys only go by the script. I was driven to tears over the weekend when I had to speak to them multiple times. Each time I had to start from scratch and answer all the questions I had already answered. They told me ” I will sort this issue for you!” I always replied ” your colleagues have assured me the same and failed” .they replied ” be assured I will sort this issue” ……none of them did!
        I do love your photos 💜💜

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

          • I know I asked them why they can’t give me a reference / job/ problem number; his answer…..” I have taken all your concerns on and will pass them on, also I will solve these issues” I replied, ” You maybe believe that but I don’t and will not be holding my breath!” Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! It drives you mad Dan 💜

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

  12. You’d think it wouldn’t be rocket science but it obviously is. Unfortunately it seems to be a default response for too many places these days. As for photos today, I especially like the moon shot and the leaf shot at the end. Happy Wednesday, Dan.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Thanks Janet. They always start with “It’s not us, it’s you.” This one is bad because they can check from their office – they don’t have to send a guy out – but they’re making him wait until next week. I was really surprised to find that leaf after the back-to-back storms we’ve had. Seeing it made me smile.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • You’d think that would be easy to understand, Frank. Especially since there’s nothing the customer can do. Do you remember looking at the back of appliances and seeing “No user serviceable parts inside’ ? These are literal black boxes.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. It is my fault. I must have hit the enter key too soft or too hard when I liked someone’s post there by violating the community’s social guidelines. I cannot wait to see what happens if I actually make a comment. No the software is not broke… it just has a psychic woke detector… whatever that might be. Nice pics today, Try to get a few more leaves before all those spring flowers get here. Thanks Dan!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Autumn leaves must feel like they didn’t get enough attention from me, John. Perhaps they have a quota I wasn’t aware of. I’m sure you have a few flowers waiting for their moment in the blog-sun.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. “When something was working before you did what you did, what you did is the reason it isn’t working now.” – This sounds terribly familiar to conversations with IT folks I have had over the years lol. “It was fine before the update!” Heavy, wet snow and ice that clogs the snow blower is a bummer. I do however have a very healthy respect for the “guts” of that device, so I always turn it off and do any extraction as safely as possible. It is always interesting how the light and shadows stay out and come out to play when we Spring ahead an hour – like that shot.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I remember telling people that what we did, “shouldn’t have had any effect on their system,” but we always checked. I’d say we had about an 80/20 record of it being user error, but we were often surprised. Of course, we had our share of “It wasn’t a bug, it was a feature,” moments, where people were exploiting an error and got mad when we “fixed” it. Those are the worst, from both sides.

      By the time I was done snow blowing, it had turned to rain, so the stuff on the ground was getting very soupy. Still, If I don’t move it, it will freeze overnight.

      I love the sharp shadows on snow from the bare trees. Perhaps the one benefit of DST – I get to see that twice.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • I’d bet on those things being related. Despite knowing where you live, Yahoo is going from the IP address of your server (which likely is in Japan). Companies make that mistake all the time. Our ISP is in Providence, Rhode Island. When I login to shop at Home Depot, they select Providence, RI as my home store.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  23. Hi Dan – I do wish they’d apologise … but I guess that means paying up … but it’d help if they’d acknowledge their errors – so much easier. Love the photos – I could do with the Spring weather appearing … it will I know – cheers Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. Preston is such a handsome boy. Nugget was sleeping on my lap but lifted her head and I think I heard a little ‘Meow’ when she saw his photo. 😻
    Isn’t it amazing the ‘coincidences’ that cause systems to fail right after the cable company has worked on them? The one liner is perfect.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  25. Our recently-departed Molly loved her treats, and wanted them at noon. If Mary happened to be out past noon, Molly would go down to the door between the basement and the garage and wait for her to return…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • And yes, cable companies can be a real pill. I was having all kinds of connection issues, called them multiple times, and they persisted. Then I get an email one day several months after the problems started, informing me that my modem was out of date and that I needed a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, or I would have all kinds of trouble with my Internet connection. Gee, Comcast, thanks for telling me now…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation. Markdown is supported.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.