Like everyone else, petty annoyances happen regularly around the Greenfield house, like yesterday when my daughter informed me that channel 51 was black on the TV.  As it turned out, so too were channels 46 through 50, though channel 44 gave me a clear picture of women from New Jersey.

My initial reaction was to ask her if there was really anything she wanted to watch on channel 51, hopeful that whatever problem we were experiencing would magically fix itself within a few hours.  She told me that not only did she very much want to watch channel 51, but it was critical for the continuity of her appreciation of the lives of the Kardashian family.  Where did I go wrong?

The truth isn’t that I was secretly pleased that she would be unable to watch a show that, in my opinion, should not exist, but that I didn’t want to call Cablevision and deal with the outage.  I couldn’t bear another voice mail tree.  But it needed to be done, and so I did it.  I was amused by the options offered after the three and a half minutes of hearing how much they cared about me.  I could press 1 to pay a bill, 2 to tell them how much I appreciate Jimmy Dolan or 3 to express my hatred for their competition.  Or hold for a customer service representative.  I held.

The customer service representative, Natasha, spoke loud and clear, in impeccable English.  She understood the problem and had a ready fix at hand, involving her reprogramming my cable box from her end, with only my rebooting the box afterward.  It was painless and effective, fixing the problem as far as I could tell as channel 51 was suddenly there, in sufficient HD to see the pancake makeup on Kim’s face.

I thanked Natasha, and she then told me that she thought it best to have a technician come to my house to make sure the box was working properly, or to switch out the box.  She told me that there was an appointment available today, Labor Day.  The technician would come between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. 

I thanked her for her concern, but responded that Cablevision doesn’t pay me enough to wait 12 hours for an appointment.  She laughed, and apologized that she couldn’t nail the time down any better, but that was the only option she was offered.  I told her I understood, but since channel 51 was working, I would leave it at that for now and deal with an appointment if it was necessary. She asked if there was anything else she could do for me, and then we exchanged pleasantries and hung up.

There was no point in telling her that I had another battle going on with Cablevision that remains unresolved.  A week ago, having nothing whatsoever to do with me, some Cablevision trucks were busily doing something at the corner adjacent to my house. In the process, they cut some tree branches in front of my house and left them on my property. I expected someone to return the next day and take them away. I can be so naive sometimes.

After a few days, I contacted Cablevision to ask them to remove the debris.  The customer service representative, Chris, informed me that this was unacceptable. I responded that I agreed. He told me he would contact the field supervisor and have it addressed immediately, and then asked me if there was anything else he could do for me. We then exchanged pleasantries and hung up.

Two days later, having heard from no one at Cablevision and watched as the last green leaf on the branches turned brown, I had the branches removed and taken away at my expense.  I called again, this time speaking with a fellow whose name I couldn’t understand with a thick Indian accent.  He apologized. I thanked him for his apology, but explained that I was not interested in attrition, but compensation.  I told him that Cablevision should pay the cost of removal.

Now, the time spent speaking with Cablevision was of significantly greater value than the trivial amount it cost me to have the branches removed.  It was more a matter of principle, that they should not get to discard the detritus of their work on my property without having to pay for it.  This is something I believe in doing, despite the fact that it rarely makes financial sense. I believe in incentives and disincentives, and that requires effort on my part even if it ultimately costs more to prevail than ignore.

The representative whose name I couldn’t understand asked me to hold.  After a few minutes, he told me that his supervisor had authorized him to offer me a $30 credit for removing the branches. I thanked him for the offer, but explained that $30 was not the amount I spent. He told me that was all he could do, but he could have the field supervisor contact me, and the field supervisor was authorized to reimburse me for my costs.

I responded that it was the field supervisor who had failed to adequately supervise in the first place, giving rise to the problem, then failed to respond after I complained of the problem, and that I was unconvinced the field supervisor would be more helpful this time. He told me that the field supervisor had to respond to me within 24 to 48 hours.  Or what, I inquired.  He didn’t know, but those were the rules.  He asked me if there was anything else he could do for me, and after exchanging pleasantries, we hung up.

I received a call from a fellow named Tim soon after Natasha got channel 51 working again.  Tim was the field supervisor.  He already knew that I had called about branches cut and left on my property. He asked how I knew it was Cablevision, and I told him that the derelict cutters had the word “Optimum” emblazoned on the side of the truck.  Tim then explained to me that he needed to find out who was responsible for this unacceptable conduct, but “obviously” he would be unable to do so until after Labor Day. 

I told him I wasn’t really concerned with who did the dirty deed, but rather that I be compensated for having to clean up after them. He told me they would deal with that afterward, which I took to mean that it would come directly from the pocket of the fellow who left the branches behind.  He then asked whether there was anything else he could do for me, and I responded there was, as I had a question.

I asked him what they were doing when they felt compelled to cut the branches. Tim told me there was a problem with customers getting black screens on some of the cable channels, so they were changing over some cable, and they cut branches when they were in the way of the repairs. I wished Tim a happy Labor Day and then we hung up. 

While I wanted Cablevision to feel the poke of having to reimburse me, I really don’t want to take any money from the fellow who cut the branches.  His being told he shouldn’t do that is enough to serve my purposes. But the least they could have done is fix the problem with channel 51 and saved me the call to Natasha, even though it was a pleasant call.