What kind of nonsense do you usually aggravate yourself with?

Marigold,
I thought Buttonwood had the option of Brighthouse.

Unfortunately Brighthouse is for those south of 466a. Wish we had that option. Before we moved here three years ago, we were enjoying the great service of Fios.

Beautiful clear , truly hi def picture quality. Wish that was here!

Can't have what both ways?

I think you are all too young. you clearly don't remember when every large city had a cacophony of newspapers in every language which could support circulation. Gracie in Cincinnati there were competing German language newspapers well into the mid century. Immigrants did not learn English well, they continued to speak their native tongue within their community. Most jobs were physical labor and did not require fluency in English so it didn't matter. Yes there were night schools available and they were used, free night schools paid for both privately and with tax dollars. But the myth that all those millions of immigrants that came here before we closed the borders in the twenties just gave up their German, Italian, Russian, Greek, Yiddish etc is pervasive and wrong. So ask yourself, with those large retirement communities in Mexico and Costa Rica, do you think the Americans who have moved to these nations do not expect that services will be available in English and that the locals should expect these immigrants to learn Spanish or suffer?

Very nicely formulated statement about this wonderful country. Thank you.

I just got off the phone with Comcast. I called 800-COMCAST. This was for a question regarding an email address on my account that I could not fix over their website.

I did not get the "press 1 for English". I got a lady with a Southern accent who listened to my question, verified my identity, and looked at my account, and fixed the email address on the spot. She thanked me for being patient in the 3 minutes it took to fix. I asked where her service center was located and she said, "Madison, Mississippi".

Even though I do not love everything about Comcast by any means, I have always gotten decent or better customer service from them - and never in a foreign country or someone with a language problem.

My grandparents came from Germany on one side and Appalachia on the other. I think I was more hampered by the country twang of the grandparents who raised me. When I began to read and to watch television I lost the use of most of my "hillbilly" English. There is an unspoken respect by most of us for "good English" and the use of poor English causes most people to look down on a person, their upbringing, and their education. Sometimes that is fair and sometimes it is unfair. My grandparents were good, hard working, not rich people. I am surprised that after a few generations we don't all speak pretty near the same. (Did you notice the usage of "pretty near"?


Buy ya books and buy ya books. lol.


And...Blue Ash. MOST of us don't have to go too far back to find our ancestors from another country. I don't understand the point of the post. You cannot teach or legislate respect for one another. It has to be earned.

Here's what I think. (I could be wrong.) I think the point of BlueAsh's post was that not everyone who ever came to America could learn English, back before the borders were tightened and immigration was encouraged and so many adults came over from other countries. Further, I think he was pointing out that the large numbers of American expats living in foreign countries (Mexico, for example) do not go to the trouble of immersing themselves in the country's language either, because Mexicans feel that if you're going to live in Mexico, speak Spanish. So he was speaking to the posters who feel that no matter what, if you're going to live in America, you must learn English, and America should do nothing to accommodate them.

Further, I agree with BlueAsh that a century ago most immigrants' jobs were blue-collar jobs, people came over and formed communities with their compatriots, and the learning of English wasn't that important. It's their children who learned English, and I think that is happening with the foreigners who are living here in America presently.

We just have to wait a bit, the children will grow up, and nobody will have to listen to "Marque nueve por Espanol." Not that it bothers me--it doesn't.

It is DAMN hard for an adult to become fluent in a foreign language if he hasn't started learning it as a youth. Even with my gazillion years of French, the train schedule & ticket buying web site in France brought me to my knees. Fortunately, if you showed up at the station, they would give you a refund for the error you made online.

I would hate to be a foreigner and have to fill out forms in a different language, especially if you were not affluent enough to have a computer, the internet, and Google Translate.

Buggyone,
Glad that you were able to get a person who was from the US. I wish all of the Comcast service representatives were. The folks from India, Columbia, Mexico that monitor the service requests do not all understand what is said to them and fumble over their scripts.

Yesterday, our entire neighborhood of four streets.......Claverton, Kincord, Abbey and Triggerfish were without phone service, Internet and cable TV from Comcast from noon until all service was restored by nine that evening. Many of us had a difficult time getting through on our cell phones to report the outage. Even though it was widespread, the representatives had us jumping through hoops pulling plugs to reboot modems in our homes IGNORING our observation that it was not just our individual houses. They went as far as to schedule appointments with each of us for Wednesday or Thursday.

This morning........
We received a follow up phone call (on our restored land line phone) asking us about the service we received and if the problem was fixed. We were told that even though we reported that an entire neighborhood was out, they needed 6-7 people to call them and report the problem before they would look into it as being a bigger problem then one house.

Really???? If one person calls to report a house fire, does the fire department take his/her word or wait for 6-7 people to call to report the problem before they take action?

Comcast needs to update their outage reporting system and use technology to monitor when many houses are out at the same time. Having representatives babble their way through a SCRIPT and not UNDERSTAND what the customer is tellng them is not good customer service.

I fully understand the frustration Marigold is having with the level of non service. Last time I noticed my entire Comcast (telephone, cable, and internet) went down, I got on my cellphone, called 800COMCAST, and when I pressed 1 for trouble with service, a recorded message said there was a service interruption in my neighborhood and should be restored at (an exact time). It was all up and running within 1 hour AND they gave me a $20 credit for my trouble.

As I said, not once has Comcast sent my calls to a foreign call center.

I have had my calls sent "off shore". But for the most part have had ok service from Comcast. Not better or worse than from any company of the same size.

Btw, I have an English speaking friend who worked for ATT and got reprimanded for going "off script" even though she solved the customers problem. It seems all customer service reps must follow a script rather than use their own brain and reasoning skills. Go figure!