One thing you should know about me is, I’m a guy who likes TiVos and doesn’t like cable companies.

That all relates in today’s episode of…

Listen, nobody wants to hear anybody’s negative tech support stories, unless they listen to this podcast, and then they do.

I guess customer service more than tech support.

So, I’ve been a TiVo guy for years and years.

I can’t believe how badly TiVo fumbled the ball, although I understand that eventually what happened to them was inevitable.

But man, I love TiVo, and I’ve had TiVos for eons.

Many years back, TiVo switched to supporting cable cards.

So, your cable company typically gives you a cable box, or lends you a cable box, and a cable card was an alternative.

And so, I had to pay the cable company a small monthly fee to have this cable card, and it let my TiVo be the cable box.

So, I didn’t need to have a cable box, didn’t have to pay for a cable box, and my TiVo controlled the cable.

I could have up to five or six different tuners, so you could watch all those different shows at once, or more likely, record all those shows at once, which was great.

In the past month or so, Optimum, my local crappy cable company, I stumbled on saying crappy twice, but they are crappy crappy, not just crappy.

They wrote a letter saying, hey, fair warning.

We’re going to discontinue our support for cable cards to make our service better.

So, sorry.

You can get cable boxes from us, or you can use the Apple TV app in Apple TV.

So, yeah.

The TiVo is now basically useless, and I don’t even want cable TV, but I keep the most basic cable TV package, because that’s a way to watch certain football games, and it’s a way to watch local news, whatever.

But there’s really very little purpose in having cable TV.

Every time I call to cancel it, they say, hey, if you cancel it, we’re going to make your internet cost like 10 times as much.

So, it ends up being cheaper to keep it.

It’s still so stupid.

Anyway, this past Sunday, I opened up the Optimum TV app on my Apple TV.

Well, first, I tried to open it on my Fire TV, and the app doesn’t work for Fire TV.

It works on Fire tablets, but it doesn’t work on the Fire TV.

Not allowed to use it on Fire TV.

Fantastic.

So, I open up the Optimum TV.

I have to move an Apple TV down to my theater setup, and I open up the Optimum app, and it’s like, you can’t use this app.

You have to call Optimum.

Boy, I don’t want to call Optimum.

So, I do call Optimum, and I talk to a person who was very stupid.

And after a while, on the phone with that person, they said, you’re going to need Tier 2 support, and that’s not available on Sunday, but they’re going to call you Monday at 1030.

And I said, I’ve kind of heard, and I wasn’t being rude, but I’ve heard this before and not gotten the call.

Is there any way you can give me a confirmation that I’ll get this call?

And he said, yeah, I confirm that they’re going to give you a call.

I’m like, is there any way you can give me an email or written confirmation?

He’s like, no.

And I’m like, okay, what do I do if they don’t call at 1030?

Like, should I wait until 1045 or 11 to call?

And he’s like, you didn’t even wait past 1030.

They’re going to call at 1030.

If they haven’t called by 1030, you want to call back in.

You’ll never guess what didn’t happen on Monday.

They didn’t call.

I was also too busy to call them by the time I noticed that they hadn’t called.

So, this morning, Tuesday, I decided I don’t want to call them again.

So, I went to chat support, and God, the chat support is so infuriating.

But you can get to a human pretty quickly, and I explain the whole situation.

And that person’s like, do this or do that or try this other thing or try these other things.

And all of it was useless, which I was politely, you know, handling.

And about half an hour in, they’re like, well, can I see the error?

So, I give them a screenshot of the error.

And they’re like, oh, well, and it had very bad English, to be clear.

But like, Lex, I confirm you can’t use the app.

And I’m like, well, I know I can’t use the app.

That’s why I’m writing to you because it says, in order to use the app, I should call you.

Currently, I can’t use it, but it clearly is meant to be done.

Here’s a screenshot of the letter you sent that says I can switch to using Apple TV app.

And they’re like, let me allow three to four minutes to confirm it.

I don’t know what they’re confirming.

While you’re here, Lex, may I know how your morning is going so far?

Yeah, it’s going crappy because I’m talking to you.

I don’t want to make small talk with you.

Eventually, I decide to also call Optimum at the same time.

And while I’m on the phone with Optimum, they’re like, if we get disconnected, we’ll call you back.

And I’m like, well, I’ve heard that before.

But, yeah, you can call me back at this number.

That’s fine.

Then they’re like, okay, well, I am a level two person.

You lucked out, and your call got routed to me in level two.

So I’m going to work on this, and I know the problem, and I can fix it.

And I promise I’ll call you back if we get disconnected.

Let me put you on hold.

And they immediately disconnect the call.

And I’m like, excellent.

I wait a couple minutes.

Nobody calls back.

So I call in again while I’m still on with the chat and getting nowhere in chat.

And the person I’m talking to is like, oh, I’m so sorry that happened.

Let’s get to work.

And then Optimum calls back on the other line.

I’m like, first person, let me put you on hold.

Actually, I was already on hold.

So I’m like, let me put that person on hold, and I switch over.

And I’m like, you called me back.

That’s so wonderful.

Yep, I’m still working on it.

I’m like, okay, well, I need a minute because I’m on the other line.

I didn’t say I’m on the other line with Optimum.

Fine.

Go back, wait for the other person to come back.

They do, eventually.

And I’m like, hey, you called me back on the other line, so I’m going to go.

And they’re like, well, you can stay on with me because I’m happy to solve your problem, too.

Well, since this person called back, I’m going to go back to them, which I did.

And that person’s like, okay, I’m going to put you on hold for a while.

And he put me on hold for 11 minutes.

And then he came back, and he’s like, try it now.

And it freaking worked.

So it got fixed.

Wonderful.

Love that.

Love that for me.

Love that for him.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a wonderful Tuesday and more soon.

Lex.

Lex.