Cause to Pause

1. Comcast so far has made the list. Anyone who comments on this blog should make the list. Also, any company that gives out three twitter addresses to DM in case of trouble DEFINITELYdeserves to make the list. Hopefully, we’ll never have to use them. The most efficient method of customer service is probably still the telephone, but it is nice to know there are other avenues.
2. Damien Stevens, twitter name DamienStevens. If you have an interest in cloud computing, follow this guy. He is a prolific twitter-er with a lot of article links re: cloud computing. His posts add value.
3. Volunteers who train volunteers. You know the type. The kind where they come to you so wide eyed about something they can’t help but pay attention as you talk to them, then they go out encouraging others. Round peg-round hole.
4. Praying for people. I mean really doing it. Chuck Missler calls prayer “the long range artillery in spiritual battles” because “it can affect change over great distances”. Nice.

Comcast made it out yesterday to look at our “part time help”  internet. It still dropped off every morning around 6am for a few seconds. This past Sunday was the worst. Wouldn’t stay up for more than a 30 seconds and this lasted until we gave up to go to church. They ran some tests. Found some “readings that were out of range”.
The guys came out, turns out there was corrosion in the connections at the street and elsewhere. Today I am getting an average of 10 and change mb down and 3mb up according to Speakeasy.net. I’ll take it.
I do hope this fixes it and they have us listed as customers in the system now. Sunday morning I talked to six people in two states and only one of them had any record of us as customers. It was pretty frustrating.

Last month they took the service over from our HOA. On the appointed day, our cable cut off. I tweeted “Cable down. Comcast must be making the switch.” Within 30 minutes I got a tweet back from someone at Comcast asking if they could look into it for me. Cool. I tried that again when customer service acted like I was John Locke.
Nothing. Which tells me that some companies monitor twitter traffic sometimes. But don’t count on it helping you to get to the front of the line.

Post edit:
49 minutes after the original post, I received a tweet from Frank Eliason asking to look into the trouble.
Approximately an hour after that, they posted a comment on this blog with contact info.
My wife also mentioned that the Comcast rep who came out was the best service tech we have had. Bar none.

I saw this sign at a Dunkin’ Donuts on Sunday afternoon. Now, I like doughnuts as much as the next guy. Maybe more so. In fact, I believe the Boston Creme doughnut ranks right up there with the Chevy small block and 90 feet between bases as evidence that God still shows favor on mankind.
But the fact remains: I don’t need a dozen doughnuts. I don’t even really need one doughnut, but I should certainly stay away from a dozen of them.
Which leads me to think: are there other things in life we don’t need a dozen of? Or really even one of? I am not suggesting we live like monks walking around in gray wool and burlap, but I am thinking more along the lines of time. Efficiency. How we spend our days.

There are countless things we could buy. But it probably really won’t change our lives. A 42″ flat screeen won’t change your life. Especially once you get it home as see the commercial for the next wave that includes 3d technology.

Maybe some of the things we do on a daily basis really don’t add value either. They just seem like it at the time. But that is the question. “Does this add value?”
Whether or not it adds value is up to you to determine.
Some may say the inane posts of twitter do not add value. That it is just the height of nacissism to think someone actually cares that you are in line at a rental agency. Or at a peewee soccer game. Or headed to a meeting you would rather avoid. I disagree. It may be the only window into a friend’s world you have. And it may prompt you to pray for them.
At the other end of the spectrum you could spend a whole day on some project, drive yourself nuts, finally accomplish it, and at the end of it be forced to recognize that it was little more than “busy work”. That time would have been better spent on something that would directly impact someone else’s life. Either personally or by making their workday easier.

So, as we go through this week, I would challenge us all to look at what we are doing, thinking, saying and ask:
“Does this add value? Or is just a box of doughnuts I don’t need?”