Cablevision sucks.  For those of you in the back of the room: Cablevision sucks.

Look, we all know that the local cable company is an inefficient, unreliable, vicious monopoly.  We all know to expect as little from them as possible.  We all know that they actively suck at their jobs and make no bones about it. They’re cold, unfeeling, heartless, rude bastards.

They are, in short, the cable company. In my case, I’m stuck with the company I’ll refer to only as “Cablevision Sucks.”

A Cablevision Sucks rep was scheduled to come to the new house Monday between 8 am and 11 am.  My 30 weeks pregnant wife woke up early to get over to the house to wait for them. Cablevision Sucks — and you saw this coming already — didn’t show up.  Wife calls Cablevision Sucks at 11:15.  They say the appointment was rescheduled for 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. because of some issue with the previous home owner (whose name they had wrong, anyway), who had moved out of the house and transferred her account elsewhere a week ago.  Not only does Cablevision Sucks’ answer not make any sense, but Cablevision Sucks failed to inform us that they changed the appointment. (Really, try that at your doctor’s office sometime.  “Yeah, I had an appointment to see the doctor tomorrow at noon, but I’m free now, so I changed my appointment.  He’ll see me now.”  Riiight.)

At 1:00, they still haven’t shown up, so my wife calls them back.  They claim that there’s a rep in the area and that they’ll try to rush him along.  And that, as a show of good faith, they’ll credit our account $20.  In other words, my wife’s time is worth just over $3 an hour to Cablevision Sucks, a cable company whose customer service truly sucks.  In addition, their story for the reason of the appointment switch earlier in the morning also changed.

At 2:00, they still haven’t show up.  Cablevision Sucks says that the rep is running late but will be there soon.

Fool me once and all that. . . We reschedule for tomorrow 2 – 4.  Part of me wants to stand up that appointment to teach them a vindictive and petty lesson, but that doesn’t solve my cable issue.  Maybe I’ll just call the cable company every 15 minutes during that time frame to make sure the cable guy is still sticking to his appointment.

Another part of me wants to call Verizon and look into FiOS, but I’m sure Verizon is just as bad as Cablevision Sucks.

Can we ever get back to the point in this world where people (a) took pride in their work, (b) arrived in a timely fashion for their appointment, and (c) didn’t suck like Cablevision Sucks?

I know it’s too much to hope for.

Update: Wait!  This just in!  I wrote the above yesterday afternoon at around 3:00.  You want to know the kicker?  The cable guys showed up at the door at 5:00 p.m. Monday.  Let’s take bets: Do you think the next set of Cablevision Sucks reps will show up at the door this afternoon between 2:00 and 4:00 now?