I’m not advocating hammers or any other forms of dispute resolution involving hammers. Seriously, I’m not. Only the written hammer when dealing with Comcast.
Hey, they’re not AT&T, right!? That’s something, anyway. (And Comcast solved a vexatious billing problem for me recently. Okay, they messed with our auto-pay and initially the billing department tried to shift the blame to Amex. Not one but two kindly customer service agents solved the problem. So Comcast earned brownie points for the plus column.)
Nevertheless, this story about a feisty, hammer-wielding 75-year old heart patient who walked into a Virginia Comcast office and smashed a keyboard after Comcast screwed up her triple play installation made me laugh out loud.
(I spotted the story first on Bob Garfield’s blog, so thanks to Bob for the tip.)
From Insidenova.com (an aggregator of selected content from several northern Virginia newspapers).
Mona Shaw had heard and seen enough from Comcast, her local cable television provider.
After repeated attempts to change her phone service from Verizon to Comcast’s Triple Play during a week in August, the 75-year-old Bristow resident with a heart condition took out her frustrations at the Manassas payment center on Center Street.
Shaw was arrested for disorderly conduct after she took a hammer to several items in the office - all the while saying, "Have I got your attention now?"
Mona clobbered a keyboard and knocked over a monitor. Said Mona after her arrest, “what the hell, I’m 75.” Mona’s trial date has been set for sometime in December in Prince William District Court, according to the report.
Readers weighed-in in droves. No one condones Mona’s unorthodox dispute resolution methods, not really - but it’s clear that Shaw is quickly becoming a local folk hero.
One Comcast west coast employee dropped into the forum to point the finger at Verizon, concluding with a “Mona=sux” flourish. But the vast majority of readers are supportive, some offering to kick in $20 a piece to cover Mona’s fines, if any. “Free Mona Shaw!” said several. Asserted another, “no jury consisting of Comcast subscribers, current or former, would ever convict this woman.”
There is chatter about a “golden hammer” award.
