Before I made my phone call to Time Warner Cable, I hoped to learn where all of the money paid each month goes and why the bill costs what it does. Also, I hoped to resolve the issue with watching different programs on demand. Every time a member of my household attempts to watch something on demand, the program skips frequently, pauses, and eventually, stops with a notice that the program is currently unavailable. In the past, we have called about this issue but are simply told to reset our box which does not resolve the problem. However, by this point, we are too frustrated with waiting and being put on hold, that we do not seek further help. Another matter I wanted to discuss with the company is when, if ever, the right time is to replace the cable box with a new one.
When I began my call, I had difficulty in deciding which option to choose because I was speaking with an automated voice and there is not option for simple curiosity. I think that this shows how the company is not very personal and that they do not necessarily care about the welfare of their customers. This relates to the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, because many of the businesses in the book are also not very personal. This makes it easy for the companies and banks to do what is necessary to make their company succeed economically, even when it hurts many people. For example, it is easy for the banks to hire people to bulldoze houses and destroy the lives of many families because they do not come in contact with the pain and destruction that they are causing. Instead, they hire somebody else to do their “dirty work,” just as Time Warner Cable and many other companies use computerized voices to deal with their customers so they do not have to. When I finally reached an actual person, I asked my first questions: Why does the bill cost what it does and where exactly does the money go? He seemed slightly taken aback by the question and was brief with the answer. He said that the company pays a portion of the money to the multiple workers in many fields including the ones who produce the boxes, those who install the boxes, and the representatives on the phone, like Greg, who I spoke to. Of course, however, Time Warner keeps a percentage of the money as profit. The exact amount was not specified, nor were any other uses of the money. This leads me to question if the company ever overcharges their customers to make an enlarged profit like in the Grapes of Wrath. This was seen with the cars salesmen in the novel. They would sell cheap cars at much higher prices just so they could make more money. Again, “the man” or the owners of the companies are blinded from how much this hurts the people they sell or serve. Those people are also having a tough time making ends meet and cannot afford for the prices to inflate.
After hanging up and calling again to speak with a different representative, I asked my second set of questions: Why doesn’t Primetime On Demand work even after the box is reset and when, if ever, is the right time to purchase a new cable box? These set of answers were answered much more successfully. When I asked my question to the representative, he was very accommodating and walked me through the solution. As done in the past, he reset the box to be sure that it would still not work. Then, when resetting it again proved unsuccessful, he offered to send a worker over to install a new box. The appointment is set for this coming week and will likely fix the problem.
I found it very curious how each set of questions yielded extremely different experiences. My first set of questions was not directly answered and was not really cared about. This could either be due to the company’s sole will to make money off of their customers, or the fact that they are not accustomed to such questions being asked, causing me to think about the way we currently live in society. People are so cautious about spending money and dependent on it, yet we rarely ask where exactly it is going. I believe that my second question was answered with such ease because it is not only a common issue, but also an issue that, if resolved, can make the company more money through their on demand programs. I think that the purpose of this assignment is to force us not to leave our questions unanswered because many unexpected questions are actually quite important. These questions prevent us, the ninety-nine percent, from being taken advantage of by “the man.”
Time Called: 4:06
Amount of Time before being forwarded to a live person: 5 minutes
First Call Ended: 4:22
Second Time Called: 4:30
Amount of Time before being forwarded to a live person: 3 minutes
Second Call Ended: 4:41
