Bad Customer Service

What is up with all the bad customer service lately? Our cable company, for example, has a monopoly on TV and Internet cable service in this area. If you want high-speed internet, and cannot get DSL (like us - we're out of range) you're stuck with the rate increase and service decrease. They took away DIY as a TV station, but raised the rates. WTF!

I got my fussy-pants discriminating brother a gift for his birthday. He's hard to buy for - he has everything and is hard to please. To paraphrase from "Ferris..."

If you shoved a piece of coal up his ass and came back a week later, you'd have a diamond.

Love him to death, but seriously... So I got him knife sharpening from Holley Knives. Great, right? He loves his chef knives. Very fussy about them. He sends them in to be sharpened. He gets the box back. Not his knives. Aaaakkkk! He calls. An answering service takes the call. I call. Same answering service. I email. Twice. No response. I am not pleased. I'm afraid I'm going to have to replace his knives. Double aaaakkkkk! Now I see according to their web site, they're DOWN until May 11 due to physical restructuring, but will do their best to take care of "emergencies." Well ****. I think this is an emergency. I'll update this so that if/when they solve the problem, I can either praise or pan them!