[Rhodes22-list] Admit It! You've wanted to do this at one time.

[Rik Sandberg]

Brad,

Actually, I've always leaned towards chain saws ...... but hey, a hammer 
works too. :-)

Rik

Brad Haslett wrote:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359_pf.html
>
>
> [image: washingtonpost.com] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf>
>    '); } //-->
>  <javascript:reportA4EBannerActivity("http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/35ef/3/0/%2a/g%3B124798417%3B0-0%3B1%3B8639989%3B4307-300/250%3B22521419/22539302/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/1/270094/1%3B%7Esscs%3D%3f","orange_alternate_ccf423ff40bb4c7b8d906adea57902d6bca588cc375c4b619c3bd32b0e877bd5_rep",
> "http://clk.atdmt.com/go/wpnxxccl0160000166nyc/direct;vt.1;wi.300;hi.250;ai.30750022;ct.1",
> 1192747002890)>
> <http://clk.atdmt.com/NYC/go/wpnxxccl0160000166nyc/direct;wi.300;hi.250/01/>
>  *Taking a Whack Against Comcast*
> Mona Shaw Reached Her Breaking Point, Then for Her Hammer
>
> By Neely Tucker
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Thursday, October 18, 2007; C01
>
> Sometimes truly American virtues arise in outlaws who -- by dint of heroic
> but questionable endeavors -- display the mettle of the national character.
>
> For instance: The Dillinger Gang, robbing banks (and destroying mortgages)
> when banks were foreclosing on the poor. Stephanie St. Clair, matron of the
> numbers racket during the Harlem Renaissance, striking a (dubious) blow for
> both gender and racial equality. Junior Johnson bootlegging liquor during
> Prohibition (the benefits of which were self-evident).
>
> Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris
> Hilton<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Paris+Hilton?tid=informline>,
> a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer"
> Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local
> Comcast<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Comcast+Corporation?tid=informline>office
> in
> Manassas<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Manassas?tid=informline>to
> settle a score, and boy, did she!
>
> This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed
> "Triple Play" service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in
> Shaw's brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on
> the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left with
> the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service.
>
> This was the company that has had consumer service problems serious enough
> to prompt the trade magazine Advertising
> Age<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Ad+Age+Group?tid=informline>to
> editorialize that Comcast and other cable providers should spend less
> on
> advertising and more on customer service. And has spawned a blog called
> ComcastMustDie.com that's filled with posts from angry customers.
>
> So on that Friday, Mona Shaw and her husband, Don, went to the local call
> center office to complain.
>
> Let's pick it up, mid-action, according to Shaw:
>
> Mona demands to speak to a manager. A customer service representative says
> someone will be right with them. Directs them to a bench, outside.
> (Remember, it's mid-August.) Mona and Don sit.
>
> Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock. Sit, sit, sit, go Mona and Don.
>
> For. Two. Hours.
>
> And then -- this is the best part -- the customer rep leans out the door and
> says the manager has left for the day. Thanks for coming!
>
> Oh, the sputtering outrage!
>
> The insulting idea that, as Shaw puts it, "they thought just because we're
> old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains *and* backbone."
>
> So, after stewing over it all weekend, on the following Monday, she went
> downstairs, got Don's claw hammer and said: "C'mon, honey, we're going to
> Comcast."
>
> Did you try to stop her, Mr. Shaw?
>
> "Oh no, no," he says.
>
> Hammer time: Shaw storms in the company's office. BAM! She whacks the
> keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She
> totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she
> do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!
>
> "They cuffed me right then," she says.
>
> Her take on Comcast: "What a bunch of sub-moronic imbeciles."
>
> Being a responsible newspaper, we must note that this is a misdemeanor, a
> crime, a completely inappropriate way of handling a business dispute.
>
> Noted.
>
> Who among us has not longed for a hammer in this age of incompetent
> "customer service representatives," of nimrods reading from a script at some
> 800-number location, of crumbs-in-their-beards plumbing installation people
> who tell you they'll grace you with their presence between 12 and 3, only
> never to show? And you'll call and call and finally some outsourced
> representative slings a dart at a calendar and tells you another guy will
> come back between 10 and 2 next Thursday? And when this guy comes, pants
> halfway down his behind, he'll tell you he brought the wrong part?
>
> And there is nothing, nothing you can do.
>
> Until there! On the horizon! It's Hammer Woman, avenger of oppressed cable
> subscribers everywhere! (Cue galloping "Lone Ranger" theme.)
>
> "I scared the tar out of some people, at least," she says. "It had never
> occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so
> upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been
> there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and
> I said, ' *Now* do I have your attention?' "
>
> It wasn't all fun.
>
> "My blood pressure went up around my ears. I started hyperventilating. They
> had to call the rescue squad and put me on a litter."
>
> By the time it was over, she recalls, there were an ambulance, two police
> cruisers and a sergeant's car in the parking lot. Shaw received a
> three-month suspended sentence for disorderly conduct, a $345 fine in
> restitution and a year-long restraining order barring her from the Comcast
> office.
>
> "Truly a unique and inappropriate situation," says Beth Bacha, a vice
> president for Comcast. She says company policy forbids disclosure of
> clients' records, but did say their files note that the service record
> wasn't exactly what Shaw has indicated. Besides, "nothing justifies this
> sort of dangerous behavior."
>
> Bacha noted that Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the
> overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service.
>
> Manassas police spokesman Sgt. Tim Neumann says there have been other police
> calls to that Comcast office, but he doesn't know what prompted them.
>
> Bob Garfield, who runs ComcastMustDie.com, wrote last week he was happy the
> site had become an outlet for "so much deep-seated rage," but hoped
> customers would "keep the hammer assaults down to a bare minimum."
>
> >From what we can tell, Mona Shaw is not, actually, a raving lunatic armed
> with construction tools.
>
> She is a nice lady who lives in a nice house. She and Don are both retired
> from the Air Force (she was a registered nurse). They have been married 45
> years. She is secretary of the local
> AARP<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/AARP?tid=informline>,
> secretary of a square-dancing club and takes in strays for the local animal
> shelter (they have seven dogs at the moment). She has a heart condition. She
> lifts weights at a local gym. The couple attend a Unitarian Universalist
> church.
>
> Police gave her the hammer back, though she swears she's content to ride off
> into the sunset of True Crime Stories in America, never again to go
> Com-smash-tic on her local cable provider.
>
> She does, however, finally, have phone service.
>
> On Verizon<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Verizon+Communications+Inc.?tid=informline>
> .
>
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