Trouble In Minnesota

by Ima Leahy

My friend and I had been watching a golf tournament and he had dubbed Tiger Woods "the one for whom the ball rolls." This pun on Hemingway put me in a good mood until a short time later, when I tuned my TV to a couple of movie channels, AMC and FOX, and discovered that, while each caption at the top of the TV screen named a film then showing, the screen below was black. I checked other channels including C-Span 1 and 2 only to find that they were also blank. Some channels worked and some did not.

Knowing that there had previously been snow and a little ice on the satellite dish, I dressed warmly for the freezing weather and bundled out to inspect the dish. This required trudging for twenty yards through fourteen inches of snow that overtopped my boots. The dish, sitting on a little hill, was clean and unobstructed. I returned to the warmth of home and emptied snow from my boots and removed my socks and then put on slippers.

As what I foolishly thought would be a last resort, I located several manuals pertaining to my RCA set-up and found a telephone number that belongs to a service agent named Thompson, Inc. I dialed the 800 number and began an odyssey through the automated button-pushing maze. Pressing the number 1 confirmed my status as a subscriber to the satellite service; then, 2 confirmed my status as having a TV at my home; next, another 2 led me to problems with receivers; next, 3 brought me to where problems of missing channels might be handled; 2 (again) said to disconnect the receiving box for 5 minutes and then plug it back in and try getting pictures. I hung up the phone but discovered that this procedure failed to cure my diseased TV.

Back I went to the phone and through most of the steps detailed above except that at one point I chose a button that indicated what to do if 5 minutes of resting did not restore the TV's health. The result was that I was told by the recorded voice to unplug the receiver box for one hour and then reconnect it to see if the missing channels could be made to appear. I unplugged, waited an hour, and re-plugged but it did no good.

My third visit through the automated labyrinth ended in new advice: contact RCA on the Internet. Despite a little frustration, I did not lose my temper even though, as usual, I played three games of hearts on my computer before AT&T connected me to the web. So, after losing the games of hearts, I reached www.RCA.com. But what I found was mostly a mass of advertised products. After many clicks, however, I ended up in a troubleshooting spot and then the advice appeared: Call Thompson, Inc.  So, Thompson had bounced me to RCA and RCA, mistaking me for a ping-pong ball, swatted me back to Thompson. Where would this farce end?

In desperation, I now called a repair person. But I got another automated set of options and ended up stating my problem as a message on the answering machine of the absentee electronic technician.

"There's trouble in Minnesota—"

At that moment, a savior in the form of our cleaning lady mediated my prayers to the anonymous gods of the New Information Economy. She told me that she had the same trouble with her TV and had the same satellite server! I decided that there was nothing wrong with my equipment; the trouble was with Direct TV, the firm that sends me programs. With this revelation, I phoned that firm. The only number I had was from my statement of the preceding month and the number it provided was strictly for ordering costly movies, sports events and other things that I never had and never want. But I gambled and after pressing several ones and twos and threes, I reached a pleasant man who said he had no idea why I received some signals from their satellite but not others. But if I would wait a moment, he would try to check to see if the transmission of signals had met with obstacles. After a minute he returned to me and said, "There's trouble in Minnesota." The technicians were trying to fix things. Was this an understatement or what?

It has been two days since those trying times and I am left to wonder why, in this information age, Direct TV has not placed a notice on my TV telling me the facts of their delinquency and why I have yet to acquire the missing signals. More significantly, why have real live people been removed from contact with other real live people? Is this our fate in the New Information Economy?

The repair person left a message on my answering machine while I was out to lunch. He said to call him back, but I won't.

Conclusion—»