Monday, May 30, 2011
Day 15
No beer. And someone has "borrowed" a punchline to one of my bits. Wrong week to do that.
www.brianhopecomedy.com
www.brianhopecomedy.com
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Day 3 of no smoking
And no drinking. The only reason I am cutting out alcohol as typically when you try and quit smoking you gain weight. So I might as well stay away from beer for a while.
So if you see me eating McDonald's with a beer and a smoke then you may be witnessing a full meltdown.
www.brianhopecomedy.com
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
So
May 11, 2011
I am quitting alcohol for one year. I will pretend I am pregnant. Hopefully I won't look it.
I am keeping one Labatt Blue in my fridge and I will keep it one year to this day. I assume beer gets better with age.
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry
Thursday, May 05, 2011
My letter to Bell Canada this morning - luckily I did not write this yesterday when it actually happened.
To Whom It May Concern,
I doubt this e-mail will actually reach management but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.
I had a simple request – so I thought. I did not realize that in the history of Bell this had never been asked so I do understand the confusion that happened with my phone line.
Here is the gist of the situation:
I have two phone lines. To really simplify the situation – I have one phone line upstairs (home phone) and one phone line downstairs (business) in my office. To REALLY simplify this – let’s call my home line “Jack 1” and my business line “Jack 2”.
I called Bell the week of April 20th to see if I could cancel Jack 1. We don’t use that one as we have cell phones so we thought we would be smart economically and cancel the upstairs line. I said specifically on that call that I want Jack 2 to stay where it is. It is my business line so I need it in my office.
Easy, right? The person assured me that they would flip a switch in 6 days and the job would be done. Excellent – easiest call I have ever made, right?
April 27th – Jack 1 is canceled - which is what I wanted. Jack 2 – moved to Jack 1 – which is exactly what I didn’t want. SURPRISE!
We only found this out because my wife picked up a ringing phone upstairs (because really, who would not pick up a ringing phone) only to find out that it was a client of mine. Oh – and by the way – trying to make an excuse to my client saying my secretary needs to learn how to properly answer the phone gets me in trouble with my wife too. So Bell also assisted me in sleeping on the couch for an evening.
Now I have no working phone in my office and my work phone is ringing upstairs. Jack 2 has no dial tone.
I called Bell on Friday, April 29th. I had a great conversation with a Bell rep and he understood my situation so I thought. We spoke for 25 minutes. He kept on saying “What were they thinking? Why would they do EXTRA work to switch your phone lines?” I could not answer that. I just said I wanted the phone line in Jack 2.
We laughed, we cried, and then he said they would flip a switch by Tuesday to get everything sorted out. Good – I hung up the phone and cried again watching the Royal Wedding. Joyous! Oh – and for future calls – please speak to your employees about lingo. Don’t say “flip a switch” – make it more wordy so it sounds more difficult than it actually is. Maybe just say “the ‘communications lab’ will have this ready for you”. Just a suggestion of course.
Fast forward to yesterday – May 4th.
If you DO record the conversations please have a listen to this one. You might want to get some popcorn.
I call up – gave my number and started to explain my situation. He lets me know that I shouldn’t worry – the repair was done on Friday. I’m calling from the phone in question – it is clearly not done.
He then asked me if I had tried calling my own phone. So – by him asking me this I clearly knew he had no clue what I was talking about. Maybe it was his first day, maybe he decided to go against the norm and not use a computer – but he did not know my issue.
Yet – when I started to re-explain my situation he said “I know the situation”. To which I replied, “REALLY? OK, tell me my situation”. To which he replied, “I don’t know the situation”.
That was three seconds of my life wasted right there.
I then tried as best as I could to re-explain – and this is partly my fault as I did call just before noon and I’m sure he just wanted to go to lunch. I personally thought he had already but that’s a different story altogether.
Me: “I just want my phone number to be in Jack 2”.
Bell: “That’s a $99 fee”.
Me: “Why?”
Bell: “We have to send a technician out”.
Me: “So you’re telling me…..I made a request to cancel Jack 1. I asked specifically for Jack 2 to stay where it is. Bell moved it. And now I have to pay?”
Bell: “Yes – because we have to send a technician out. It’s a $99 fee”.
Me: “I was not told of this before. Why do I have to pay because you screwed up? I want to speak to someone else. Your supervisor.”
Bell: “He will tell you the same thing - $99 technician fee”.
Me: “Transfer me to your supervisor”.
Now – mind you – I guess if this person excelled at anything it was learning about the $99 fee. I give him an A for that.
On your website under How Does Bell Commit To Their Customers it says:
“We will strive to ensure that pricing information is presented clearly”.
Let’s give him an A+!
Although – the next line on your website says:
“We will be helpful and courteous in your dealings with us”
He receives an F for customer service, listening, empathizing and solving issues. But he does know that fee so if you do happen to speak to him – please start off positively by saying “Hey, the customer mentioned that you knew about our technician fee”.
He finally transfers me. Not to his supervisor of course – that would be what I asked for and clearly I was not getting what I asked for today.
He put me through to Bell Repair – which is what I wanted. I told the new guy my situation – and I said the words I KNEW I shouldn’t have said. I said my “business line” – the guy was very happy to transfer me to “Business Repair”. I let him know that they would not help me – I am not a business. He said that he would transfer me.
Now I’m with “Business Repair”. And I must say (and gee – I really hope you’re listening to all of this from the recorded conversation!) that the phone line on his end was absolutely terrible. I call Bell Canada and some of your guys are using the Magic Jack. Wonderful! Who knows – maybe he’s waiting for someone to flip a switch for his new phone line too.
As expected – the “Business Repair” said they could not help me as I am a residential line. I let him know that I knew that and then we cried again. I got transferred back.
To make a long story less long – I think I was finally helped. The person I spoke to said she would waive the technician fee. I think she expected me to jump for joy at this gracious news but to be honest – as soon as I heard about the $99 fee I knew I wasn’t paying it. They are sending out a technician on Tuesday May 10th – approximately 3 weeks after my original request to put the phone line back to where it originally was.
The total time for this one call is 1 hour and 1 minute. I hope you enjoyed listening to the call – it was a whole lotta fun on my end.
I’ll be canceling my phone and internet service at the end of the month – and yes, we will keep our cable as we signed a two year contract and frankly I have not had any problems with my cable.
If you have any questions please feel free to call me at 613-544-6726. It may ring a few times before I answer as I have to run up the stairs to get it.
Best Regards,
Brian
Brian Hope
Business Development Sales Manager
******************
613-544-6726
To Whom It May Concern,
I doubt this e-mail will actually reach management but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.
I had a simple request – so I thought. I did not realize that in the history of Bell this had never been asked so I do understand the confusion that happened with my phone line.
Here is the gist of the situation:
I have two phone lines. To really simplify the situation – I have one phone line upstairs (home phone) and one phone line downstairs (business) in my office. To REALLY simplify this – let’s call my home line “Jack 1” and my business line “Jack 2”.
I called Bell the week of April 20th to see if I could cancel Jack 1. We don’t use that one as we have cell phones so we thought we would be smart economically and cancel the upstairs line. I said specifically on that call that I want Jack 2 to stay where it is. It is my business line so I need it in my office.
Easy, right? The person assured me that they would flip a switch in 6 days and the job would be done. Excellent – easiest call I have ever made, right?
April 27th – Jack 1 is canceled - which is what I wanted. Jack 2 – moved to Jack 1 – which is exactly what I didn’t want. SURPRISE!
We only found this out because my wife picked up a ringing phone upstairs (because really, who would not pick up a ringing phone) only to find out that it was a client of mine. Oh – and by the way – trying to make an excuse to my client saying my secretary needs to learn how to properly answer the phone gets me in trouble with my wife too. So Bell also assisted me in sleeping on the couch for an evening.
Now I have no working phone in my office and my work phone is ringing upstairs. Jack 2 has no dial tone.
I called Bell on Friday, April 29th. I had a great conversation with a Bell rep and he understood my situation so I thought. We spoke for 25 minutes. He kept on saying “What were they thinking? Why would they do EXTRA work to switch your phone lines?” I could not answer that. I just said I wanted the phone line in Jack 2.
We laughed, we cried, and then he said they would flip a switch by Tuesday to get everything sorted out. Good – I hung up the phone and cried again watching the Royal Wedding. Joyous! Oh – and for future calls – please speak to your employees about lingo. Don’t say “flip a switch” – make it more wordy so it sounds more difficult than it actually is. Maybe just say “the ‘communications lab’ will have this ready for you”. Just a suggestion of course.
Fast forward to yesterday – May 4th.
If you DO record the conversations please have a listen to this one. You might want to get some popcorn.
I call up – gave my number and started to explain my situation. He lets me know that I shouldn’t worry – the repair was done on Friday. I’m calling from the phone in question – it is clearly not done.
He then asked me if I had tried calling my own phone. So – by him asking me this I clearly knew he had no clue what I was talking about. Maybe it was his first day, maybe he decided to go against the norm and not use a computer – but he did not know my issue.
Yet – when I started to re-explain my situation he said “I know the situation”. To which I replied, “REALLY? OK, tell me my situation”. To which he replied, “I don’t know the situation”.
That was three seconds of my life wasted right there.
I then tried as best as I could to re-explain – and this is partly my fault as I did call just before noon and I’m sure he just wanted to go to lunch. I personally thought he had already but that’s a different story altogether.
Me: “I just want my phone number to be in Jack 2”.
Bell: “That’s a $99 fee”.
Me: “Why?”
Bell: “We have to send a technician out”.
Me: “So you’re telling me…..I made a request to cancel Jack 1. I asked specifically for Jack 2 to stay where it is. Bell moved it. And now I have to pay?”
Bell: “Yes – because we have to send a technician out. It’s a $99 fee”.
Me: “I was not told of this before. Why do I have to pay because you screwed up? I want to speak to someone else. Your supervisor.”
Bell: “He will tell you the same thing - $99 technician fee”.
Me: “Transfer me to your supervisor”.
Now – mind you – I guess if this person excelled at anything it was learning about the $99 fee. I give him an A for that.
On your website under How Does Bell Commit To Their Customers it says:
“We will strive to ensure that pricing information is presented clearly”.
Let’s give him an A+!
Although – the next line on your website says:
“We will be helpful and courteous in your dealings with us”
He receives an F for customer service, listening, empathizing and solving issues. But he does know that fee so if you do happen to speak to him – please start off positively by saying “Hey, the customer mentioned that you knew about our technician fee”.
He finally transfers me. Not to his supervisor of course – that would be what I asked for and clearly I was not getting what I asked for today.
He put me through to Bell Repair – which is what I wanted. I told the new guy my situation – and I said the words I KNEW I shouldn’t have said. I said my “business line” – the guy was very happy to transfer me to “Business Repair”. I let him know that they would not help me – I am not a business. He said that he would transfer me.
Now I’m with “Business Repair”. And I must say (and gee – I really hope you’re listening to all of this from the recorded conversation!) that the phone line on his end was absolutely terrible. I call Bell Canada and some of your guys are using the Magic Jack. Wonderful! Who knows – maybe he’s waiting for someone to flip a switch for his new phone line too.
As expected – the “Business Repair” said they could not help me as I am a residential line. I let him know that I knew that and then we cried again. I got transferred back.
To make a long story less long – I think I was finally helped. The person I spoke to said she would waive the technician fee. I think she expected me to jump for joy at this gracious news but to be honest – as soon as I heard about the $99 fee I knew I wasn’t paying it. They are sending out a technician on Tuesday May 10th – approximately 3 weeks after my original request to put the phone line back to where it originally was.
The total time for this one call is 1 hour and 1 minute. I hope you enjoyed listening to the call – it was a whole lotta fun on my end.
I’ll be canceling my phone and internet service at the end of the month – and yes, we will keep our cable as we signed a two year contract and frankly I have not had any problems with my cable.
If you have any questions please feel free to call me at 613-544-6726. It may ring a few times before I answer as I have to run up the stairs to get it.
Best Regards,
Brian
Brian Hope
Business Development Sales Manager
******************
613-544-6726
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