If you’ve ever thought that being a celebrity entitles you to a hotline that instantly fixes all those annoying problems that bother the rest of us, Sir Patrick Stewart has news for you. The actor, best known for managing to look authoritative in that silly outfit from Star Trek: The Next Generation, says that his ordeal with Time Warner Cable has taken away his will to live.
The actor recently relocated to Brooklyn, so he’s one of the millions stuck with TWC as his cable/Internet provider. And just like many of those millions, Stewart’s attempts to get things started did not go as planned.
Last night, he Tweeted:
All I wanted to do was set up a new account with @twcable_nyc but 36hrs later I’ve lost the will to live.
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) September 14, 2012
After the message was re-Tweeted a few hundred times, TWC’s Twitter account took notice, asking him, “How can we assist you?”
To which Sir Pat replied, “If that question had been asked at any time in the last 36hrs it would have been of value. But now…”
Eventually, TWC released this statement to the New York Observer’s BetaBeat.com:
“Our Care and Social Media teams are fully engaged to make sure he’s well tended to. On behalf of the many Trekkers and Sir Patrick Stewart fans across our company, I can assure you, we will make it so.”
We still have to give then-Chicago White Sox manager (and now the guy who occasionally gets kicked out of Marlins games) Ozzie Guillen the celebrity complaint award for his 2010 blow-up over Comcast’s service.
what about the other non-celeb twc customers? can twc make it so for them?
For everyone else, they follow the Prime Directive.
So, TWC is considered a higher form of life?
I would consider TWC a Class Y planet. Definitely no intelligent life there.
I’m going to make a goal of using Prime Directive in a conversation.
Perhaps that should be that everyone should follow the prime directive and not contact or interfere with the development of a less advanced civilization (TWC).
So what about every other Joeblow out there who’s also having trouble
Change their name to Sir Joeblow, Esq and watch Time Warner come begging to help!
I’m sorry, I meant Sir Joseph T. Blow, Esq.
Captain Joe Blow, USS Enterprise, then we’ll talk
But first, a glass of Tranya.
And somewhere out there, John DeLancie is having a hearty laugh…
LOL
Or, TWC is Q.
Are the “Comcastcares” people still around? When your business model requires NEW customers to wait home ALL DAY to initiate the service, I would think that the initial “truck roll” would be done with the utmost care, because otherwise the customer will simply take their business elsewhe… oh. Never mind then.
Kind of; they still twitter, but it doesn’t appear they actually solve a lot anymore. If there were any other option…
Maybe no competition with other cable companies, but they’re still competing with DirecTV and Dish.
Don’t feel that way, sir! Please browse TNG_S8 ‘s tweets and you will regain the will to live.
Picard is in Broolyn!!
MUST VISIT!
I wonder if he lives near me. Gonna keep my eyes open!
I’m so jealous. I would move to Brooklyn just to be near him.
/Superfan
He forgot to say “Make it so.”
But they’re already fully engaged, so…
I have to go…NUMBER ONE!
Huh … I didn’t have any problem creating a new account online and setting up an appointment for service. Well, they DID insist I was in apartment 2, not 3, but I’m flexible. Plus, I needed my internet connection, so 2 it is!
So he took on the Borg, the Kligons, Q, the Romulans and Magneto….
But was defeated by TWC.
All hail our new overlord TWC.
I made a spelling mistake above, too, so I have no place to stand on this. Still, I had a hearty laugh saying “Kligons” aloud.
Comment of the Day! :)
Lol, Kligons. WTB edit button
Patrick Stewart should coped William Shatner and got directv
Well they knew he worked for the Federation. Which is Paramount.
Didn’t you know that Paramount and TWC are mortal enemies?
Resistance is futile, Jean Luc. You will be assimilated.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS
Just watched that episode for the first time a couple weeks ago. Intense.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
+1
The real shock to me was that Patrick Stewart is relocating to Brooklyn, NY.
He isn’t the other high-profiler to move there recently and I think Brooklyn has changed quite a bit in recent years. Obviously or else he wouldn’t have moved there but I think some of it is high priced. Isn’t this where ex-Prez Bill Clinton lived? Or still does?
Oh, it’s definitely changed. I live in North Brooklyn and a 1 bedroom in a new building across the street from me goes for $3300/month. It’s insane.
“And then all their clothes fell off”
(And for those who don’t get the reference please “acquire” Extras asap.)
Had a bit of a shock, since I work with a guy named Patrick Stewart. But he lives in MO, not Brooklyn…
> The actor recently relocated to Brooklyn, so he’s one of the millions stuck with TWC as his
> cable/Internet provider.
Eh? No. Cablevision also service all of Brooklyn.
Nope. Cablevision and Time Warner each have part of New York City, but there no overlap.
So ok…isn’t it supposed to be “Trekkies”, TWC?
Trekker seems to be the preferred term for the “serious” Star Trek fan.
Dorks, the lot of ’em.
trekkies is now considered derogatory slang by, well, trekkers…
Trekkers are thought to have a stick up their butt by Trekkies
Picard and Time Warner Cable at Tanagra.
+1 & my vote for best comment of the month!
Shaka, when the walls fell.
My experience (you means “generic customer”, typing this as I think of it):
1) Customers don’t listen.
Even when they specifically ask my name they don’t even listen long to enough to get it right. So of course when give them instructions they screw it up over and over yet blame the one trying to help them.
2) Don’t read.
Doesn’t matter how clear the instructions are, they read only a few words, do whatever they think should do and then complain it doesn’t work. If it doesn’t work, try actually reading the entire set of instructions instead of assuming its product failure.
3) Don’t answer questions, especially multi-part questions
Its amazing how many yes or no questions get answered with a restatement of the problem. I didn’t ask to explain the problem again. I asked a yes or no question. If I ask more then one question, hey guess what, I want the answers to all those questions. Not answering just drags the whole thing out.
4) Get defensive
Guess what, I don’t care what happened or why it broke or if you are at fault or not. I can either help you or I can’t. I want you off my phone as fast as possible. Fixing the problem will achieve that I am all for it. You getting irate for no reason and hanging up, does the same thing. Have the time on my calls is trying to get the person to tell me what actually happened so I can understand why something broke and trying to do it in such a way they don’t thing they are at fault (even though 99% of the time they are). To put it simply – we don’t care, quit being defensive and making it difficult to help you.
5) Don’t give us the entire error message
OMG I get tired of people paraphrasing an error message that they are literally looking at while talking to me. Its one thing when trying to dredge it up from your memory but when you are looking at it, read the whole damn thing.
6) Don’t re-do our steps anyway (or follow instructions)
Sure you might have done all the stuff we are about to tell you to do, but to bad you get to do it again. You know why? A) because we have too and B) because you might have missed something. If I had a dime for everytime I simply forced people to carefully go back over their initial steps and discovered a simple error they missed…
7) Don’t reboot, pull the battery, power off and on, etc.
Before you call, do that stuff. Its amazing how many things a restart will clear up. It will not kill you and might even save you a lot of time and trouble. If we ask you to do it, don’t argue, just do it, for the same reasons.
8) Don’t Google
I assume you have a brain and now how to search for stuff. It is amazing the amount of useful information you might get if type Product_Name Error_Message in a search engine and see what pops.
9) Do threaten me, do yell at me
The sure fire way to make sure I do the least I can to help you is make it difficult for me to help you. The more you work with me, the more I am going to try to help you. The worse you make it, the more likely I am going to throw up walls to make helping you harder and take longer.
10) “The customer is always right”
Its a great slogan, but guess what, the customer is almost always wrong. About many things. Regardless of title or past experience. Just telling me that or some variation isn’t going to change jack sh#% because all I care about is what my manager says I can and cannot do.
11) “It worked before”
If “it worked before” was the iron clad rule people treat it to be, there would be no need for support cause nothing would break. So repeating it over and over does not help. We ask when the last time something worked because the timeline of events may prove helpful. That is all.
12) Don’t treat us with respect
We didn’t break your stuff or cause your problem. Yelling at us, being angry at us or venting to us doesn’t help and again I will just throw up walls to help you. You wouldn’t like us eating and slurping while talking to you, so don’t do it us. Same for screaming kids, pets, etc. If you have that many distractions at once, maybe wait until have time to focus on the one problem.
Well crap, just wrote this whole thing and saw wrong website (stupid login redirect). Would delete or edit it but no option. Sorry.
Post his response. https://twitter.com/SirPatStew/status/246676527364841472
This is why I like the Trek TV cast members.
Reading the Ozzie Guillen thread. Man, we were a bunch of pricks to the comcast rep.
Trekkers? How noob can you sound? If you and a bunch of buddies are hiking the Appalachian Trail //snicker// you are trekkers. If you and your buds are fans of Star Trek then you are Trekkies.
Yes. There’s an idiotic fringe who thinks Trekker is more mature sounding or something for the fan base. But real fans think otherwise. . .
The idea of Patrick Stewart living in Brooklyn amuses me. Almost as much as the idea of Jean-Luc Picard living in Brooklyn.
The Star Trek series with Capt. Picard sucked. He was annoying.
The series with the Capt. played by a very excellent actress whose name
escapes me, was THE BEST.
Haters enter text in 3 2 1 ….Go!
“a very excellent actress whose name escapes me, was THE BEST.”
Kate Mulgrew. Clearly she made a huge impression on you.
Does anyone know if he ever got hooked up or installed a satellite?
I remember moving to Dallas shortly for a better job only issue I ever had was Time Warner Cable.