Rogers Strikes Again! The Streak is Over


It was a bit of a superficial streak anyway. But I had great pride, that even though the site did not quite rock 2022 as I had hoped, that we still were able to have something posted every day. Sure, sometimes it was a repost rather than a fresh article, but even those pieces tended to have a few modern thoughts tossed in to make it somewhat worth reading for long-time readers. 

There was a sense of victory that even if I didn't deliver on the mass amount of new release movie reviews or finally kickstart that long-promised serialized fiction that I did deliver on their being something posted to read every day this year.

Until yesterday.

You may notice that the year now has a glaring hole on December 8th, 2022.

And we can all send our gift baskets to Rogers for this landmark moment.

I can also credit them for the last two days being a complete wash for my day job, because since Thursday morning, all my Rogers services (internet, TV, phone) have been down. It meant I couldn't post anything on here, but even more of a bummer, almost all of my work relies on being on the internet, so that was a swift karate kick to work productivity.

What happened?

I kind of have answers.

A year ago, we had a deck built and during that process, our cable got cut. It was an easy fix as a Roger technician came out that day and fixed the problem immediately. Awesome.

Since we didn't want the risk of it being cut again, we opted for a technician to come back after the deck was built. But after several requests and even promises someone was coming out, we never got the cable buried. We did get an email that someone would come next spring.

Then this past Wednesday, a truck labelled Wilcox Industries pulled into my driveway, but they happened to time their arrival right when I was rushing off to get my kids. Vehicles often confuse our driveway with a road, so I didn't give it much thought because I was not expecting anyone.

When I got back home, it was clear that someone had dug up our ground, and the trail of broken earth led to where the cable goes into our house. I had assumed this meant Wilcox Industries must have been hired by Rogers to bury our cable. Except there was something odd about how they buried our cable. The trail of disturbed ground was coming from the opposite direction of where we had our cable. It meant that whoever dug up the ground was not using our cable but for some reason put down an entirely new cable that was also coming from a completely different source.

My Wednesday evening was hectic, so I made note that I needed to contact Rogers the next day. But then I couldn't, because all my services were suddenly shoved into the abyss of not working.

When I finally got through to Rogers' support, it was clear there wasn't anything they could do on their end, and they couldn't get a technician out to solve the problem until the afternoon of the next day. This was a bummer since it was now clear that almost two work days were being jettisoned into the abyss as well.

This was when we entered into the real frustrating part. I asked the support person if they had ever heard of Wilcox Industries, and if they were hired to bury my cable.

The person did not know.

I then asked if Rogers kept a record of the companies they hired out.

According to support person, they did not have access to that information.

I then asked if they could look at the status of my buried cable.

They could. And it appeared to be still pending.

So, again I asked who the heck was at my house and in my backyard digging up my ground?

The person could not say. Though after some pushing, the person agreed it was a little unsettling that strangers without any notice were on my property.

The conversation ended with me asking him to send out requests to find out who Wilcox Industries was, and to see why someone was on my property without anyone notifying me. The support person promised they would do it, and I assured them that I was expecting a response and answers.

This afternoon the technician arrived very close to the beginning of the promised window. This meant a technician actually arrived during the promised time, so victory was already mine.

The even better news is the job was fixed very quickly, and I have everything back within 20 minutes of the technician's arrival.

The technician was not able to tell me who the heck was Wilcox Industries.

But he did tell me the problem. It was true that someone did bury a new cable on Wednesday, and hooked it up to our house. But like I expected, it was coming from a different source than we've been using for our entire time living at this house. The source turned out to be to far away and they were using too much cable, so it meant a poor signal, and that is why we lost service. The technician was baffled why they didn't use the original source, since it was so close and reliable.

So, not only did Wilcox Industries come to my house without permission or notification, but they did a horrible job. They wrecked my service for two days, and they also wrecked our lawn. But at least, we have a brand new useless cable running through our property.

This is why nothing was posted yesterday. It is also why I am stressed as it was two days of a big blow to my writing career. Plus, I am rather disturbed that some unknown company was fiddling around my house, and the company that I do pay cable, internet and phone doesn't have a clue who they were.

I am slightly frustrated and upset. But I am happy to have internet back. I do expect Rogers to follow-up with me, and explain what the heck happened this week.

At least, you now know why you didn't get any Beyond the Balcony service on Thursday.

Comments