I managed to get down to the rally site at Highland Park with the plan of zipping down to the cable store to swap cable modems and be across the street in time for the arrival of the walking protest group. When I arrived at the cable store, Wilfred Brimley was standing at the bifurcation point of the parking lot, shooting dagger stares at everyone. Time Warner security. In addition to having all but one entrance blocked off with cones and Time Warner trucks backed end to end (were they expecting Hezbollah?), someone got out the FedEx Kinko’s card and ran up a dozen “private property – for business customers only” signs and planted them all around the entrances.
I entered the cable store, which had another security guy sitting at his desk, and one family waiting for service. I was in and out in five minutes with a replacement cable modem.
Wilfred was still glaring in my direction. I got back into the car and parked across the street and waited. Within 10 minutes, the 30+ protesters arrived (when people assume the matter was resolved with Senator Schumer’s visit, it does have a tendency to reduce turnout until people become re-engaged), and more security turned up outside of the building. The group then ended up on the sidewalk in front of Time Warner and spent about an hour waving signs and accepting waves and honks from passersby. I shook the hand of one Time Warner employee who came out to say hello. As I’ve always said, I don’t have any issues with local employees, or even management. They play the cards they were dealt.
Just prior to leaving, I get a phone call on my cell phone from … Time Warner. They were expediting my service call to this afternoon and asked if I would be home to receive them. I asked the lady calling if she could see me waving at her from the sidewalk. Upon reaching home, a Time Warner repair truck arrived several minutes later and, it seems, found that the new modem may have done the trick. He also checked the signals on the pole and changed a fitting, and we seem to be back in business.
Also as I’ve always said, Time Warner delivers excellent service to their customers, and the service crews are top notch. That’s all the more reason why we want to fight to keep the excellent service we’ve had for years. We just want to pay a reasonable and rational price for it.
The rally, by the way, attracted Channel 8/31, R-News (who didn’t have far to go), and I was told Channel 10. The Democrat & Chronicle was also there. I want to thank the rally organizers for their efforts and work on this. We need these kinds of public events to help keep focus on these issues, and have a chance to make connections with each other to stay engaged. If anyone has video, pictures, etc., please let me know. I will arrange to have it embedded here for people to see.
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