The Sad State of American business

I am always baffled by the ineptitude some company's are capable of displaying. I have some long stories but they are so tiresome for me to think about that I will try to be brief.

We just did a house swap in Florida. The home had service with Direct TV. I called them to initiate service at my new Florida address. I currently have Direct TV at my home in Illinois as well. The order was placed and everything seemed to be under control. Then the installer shows up...he was lost. He failed to get one of the boxes to work and indicated he would return to fix it the next business day. The next day came and went and we never heard from him. When we get home to Illinois there is a message on the answering machine that the Direct TV installer is sitting in our driveway and he's wondering if we will be home so he can get the satellite box authorized. The problem...the guy on the message was sent by his idiot company to our home in Illinois; the box in question 24 hours away by truck....unbelievable. Obviously it took additional shenanigans to get the box in Florida fixed. One other interesting thing...several of the satellite boxes installed by Direct TV are refurbished units, sold for the same price of new units. They told me that the refurbs are actually better than new units. I hope the Direct TV people merge with CarMax and try to pull that crap. What they are doing is a deceptive trade practice; plain and simple. If you want Direct TV, buy your boxes at Best Buy. They will be new and they are the same price. Total bullshit. I thought this company was better than Comcast. Now I rate them as an equal and I think Comcast is useless.

Speaking of the Comcastic ones...I needed to get them to reactivate cable internet at my new home. I had to make 3 calls to them to get to a customer support person that actually said it could be done. The two other reps had no clue as to what to do. None. Nada. I'm glad that I just kept calling. The 3rd guy got a guy out the next day and we had internet. The first two used two different reasons why service could not be scheduled for a couple of weeks...If I was stupid enough to own stock in this company, I would give it to Al Queda. It would serve them right.

This is the quote that sticks with me..."You don't have to be different to be great, being good is different enough." Amen