3 Cable Boxes and One Allergic Repairman Later

Well the tech guy never called back yesterday so I took that to mean that, whatever the problem was, it could not be fixed on their end. So another night watching movies or old stuff on the DVR. It was a blessing in disguise I guess. I got rid of about 30 hours of old DVR shows.

At any rate, the cable guy got here at about 0930 hrs. I was up but only kind of awake. He came in with what appeared to me to be a bit of an attitude. Was it my messy house? Was it his cat allergy? ( I know he wasn't fond of cats when he had the nerve to swat my big lovable guy out of the way, seriously). Obviously because he complained about both, he also complained about the lack of play in my cables. I must be such a jerk for tying my cables up neatly behind my entertainment unit. Did I mention this is all happening at 0930 hrs? On days off, I normally get up at noon. Anyhow, he asked me several questions over and over again (was anyone here this weekend - NO, were any cable messed with - NO, is the TV upstairs doing the same thing - YES, and your internet still work - YES). I was almost to the point of yelling at him. So he narrowed it down to the cable box being defective. He said it was very hot and that I should put my DVR on top of the box because it can't get ventilation. Basically he said, it's ok if your DVR cacks out but heaven forbid don't ruin your free cable box?! Huh, I don't care about your hardware!

He says he has more boxes in the truck and off he goes. He comes back in , gets it all hooked up and ... more of the same - nothing but fuzzy static, not even a cloudy picture. He does all sorts of adjustments and finally comes to the conclusion that this box must also be defective. It is freshly refurbished out of the box but apparently their techs have a rep for not actually repairing defective units. So he says he will be back in 10 - 15 minutes. He is going to check the cable box on the pole and grab another cable box.

On the upside, when he comes back, he is clearly perturbed by the boxes but has much less annoyed by me. He has discovered that the lines on the pole and in my home are fine. I had already figured that out because, I still had internet and because I wasn't home - what could have possibly changed.

He brought some kind of diagnostic tool and hooked it up to both cable boxes and discovered they were both defective. Now I am not a rocket scientist, nor am I a certified cable guy but it seems to me that if you have this handy little machine, one or two things should happen. One, he should have brought the damn machine in the first time. I think from my description of events, machine failure was really the only option. Secondly, if he is provided with this magical machine AND he knows that the refurbished units sometimes don’t work, USE THE F***EN THING TO CHECK THOSE MACHINES BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE SHOP!

Whatever, he is now on a mission and has forgotten all about my house and my cat. He goes out to get yet another box. It is a different model than the one I currently have and it is the last one in his truck. I am excited because I am sure that it will work. Well without my even telling him to, he used his diagnostic machine to check it and guess what – IT DOESN’T work either. He is sheepish and stumped and almost snarling mad at their tech guys. He said he has no more boxes but he actually has one left – his own personal tester machine. Well, he gets that – he knows it works and there are no other options. He gets it all hooked up and there were a couple of tense moments, rally almost a couple of dozen tense moments but it eventually synched up to everything it needs to and BOOM, TV was back. He was sweaty, annoyed and visibly bewildered. He went upstairs to make sure that TV was fine, it was. He did some slight remote controls adjustments and I was good to go. He mentioned that this call would be a story for the shop. Odds and circumstance have made my home a cable man’s cautionary tale. Maybe they will even put in a policy about checking the units first.

But all is well, I should just appreciate getting my MTV back.