Dear TELUS

March 21, 2010

TELUS Client Care

PO Box 7575

Vancouver, BC

V6B 8N9

To Whom it May Concern,

I wanted to write this letter to express my extreme frustration and disappointment with TELUS. I have been a long-time customer, 20 years of phone services plus High-Speed Business Internet services since the day they were introduced.

On Thursday March 17 2011, I decided to move from Bell's TV Satellite service to TELUS' Optik TV service. I spent 90 minutes on the phone with a very friendly customer services representative and completed the order, signing up for a three-year contract for Internet + Optic TV. As I was putting in the order, I cancelled my Business Internet service to make room for the new services.  The order was scheduled to be completed today, March 21st, at 8:00am.  The Internet service was turned off as scheduled, Monday morning around 9:00am.  We were told it'd probably be very close to 8:00am because we were the first appointment, so I booked the morning off from work to be home during the installation. 8:00am Monday morning arrived and nobody. We waited until 10:00am, then we called TELUS. The CSR told us to be patient and that it shouldn't be too long now. Two hours later, I called again. This time, the CSR decided he'd investigate by calling dispatch to find out what's going on. To his surprise and mine, the order was not sent to an installer. The CSR said that we had been given high priority and someone would be coming to install the service "within an hour or two". I called my office and booked the rest of the day off.  Two hours later, at 2:30 pm, the same CSR called to inform us that there had been a mistake with our order and nobody was able to help us today. The order would have to be rescheduled for the next available time, Friday March 25th.  Really?  Wow.

I took the day off work, had my working Internet turned off, and now I'm basically told to reschedule five days later. Obviously, that is not acceptable. The lack of competence that TELUS continues to show is remarkable. TELUS should thank its "lucky stars" that the CRTC is in place to protect TELUS' membership in a duopoly, essentially guaranteeing revenue. In a competitive market, I'm sure it wouldn't survive. It's unfortunate that there is no real competition and that my only other choice is Shaw, who I'm sure is similarly incompetent. 

One day maybe I'll be lucky enough to own a business where being incompetent is profitable.

       

Sincerely,

Andy Czerwonka

Lesson in Canadian Geography

I live in Calgary.  I'm clearly not a master in geodesy, but I'm pretty sure Mississauga is not somewhere between Richmond and Calgary.  Canada Post rocks.  And we're wondering where our tax dollars go...

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

Know When to Stop

I get myself into these situations once in a while where I get really excited about a particular problem and end up with a mess as the solution.  Here's my workflow.

1. Think about it.
2. Sketch out a solution.
3. Code towards my solution.
4. Refactor (go to step 1)

Somewhere in that loop I go from 4 to 3 to 4 to 3 a bunch of times and when I come up for air I have a complete mess.  Ideas pop into my head quickly and I seem to go down strange paths here and there. Before I know it my code is littered with random design thoughts that don't hang together in any way.

STOP!!!

... git here we come ...

Great UI == Damn Near Impossible

Getting a User Interface right is like scoring a 52 at your local Golf Championship?  Ain't gonna happen.  I'm currently working on a brand new UI for our users.  They want an easy way to edit data.  Great.  I'm guessing they're meaning efficient and intuitive.  Well easy for me isn't easy for you.  Actually, quit the opposite.  If you take my Dad for instance, who is in his 70's, you are going to get someone that is not at all that interested in typing CTRL-Z to undo his changes.  In fact, unless he gets a giant icon on the screen that gives him a very obvious indication that he can actually undo his changes, he won't even know the feature is there.  On-the-other-hand, if you make me pick up the mouse to do anything I'm going to get pissed off.  So, that simple case tells me that getting it right for everyone is damn near impossible.

Let the Training Begin

Well, I survived my first 20 minute run training session.  It wasn't pretty let me tell you, but my goal is to get out 5 days a week until the race. Whether it's for a bike ride or a little run, I have to get out. I'm hoping that after a couple of weeks I can sustain a 20 minute run. That's a big goal for me because I can't keep a sustained run to 5 minutes.

For those of you who don't know, I've been encouraged suckered into signing up for an Adventure Race.  It's an 8 hour race (~55 km) that includes navigation, trail running, mountain biking, river canoeing and repelling off some cliff.

I need to lose at least 60 lbs if I'm going to attempt this.

Not Too Shabby

Well, a day of playing with Drupal has produced a fairly nice site for what I need.  I must say that I am quite impressed with it.  I'm sure if I grab the infamous CCK module the power will really come out.