Tubby Comcast Worker Breaks Utility Pole

By Prescott Carlson in Miscellaneous on Jan 27, 2009 9:55PM

While we certainly wouldn't be described as "svelte" any time soon, we still think a utility pole would be able to support our weight. But that was not the case for one Comcast technician. Carolyn Pfeifer in Plainfield called the cable company to restring a wire, and all was well until the serviceman knocked on her door and told her that after he climbed the utility pole, it had broken off. And so began Pfeifer's culpability runaround that unfortunately too many of us are familiar with. Comcast said ComEd owned the pole, and they needed to fix it. ComEd said Pfeifer owned the pole, and she needed to fix it herself. After ComEd threatened to shut off her power in 30 days if it wasn't repaired, Pfeifer called out the big guns -- the Tribune's Problem Solver, who was hot on the case:

The Problem Solver called both Comcast and ComEd. Both companies promised to help.

"Due to the unusual circumstances and our commitment to continue serving the customer, Comcast will incur the cost to replace the pole," said Angelynne Amores, spokeswoman for the cable company.

How generous, since, you know, their guy broke it. ComEd also agreed to extend the deadline for the repair. Apparently there's nothing like the power of potentially bad PR. Comcast told Pfeifer they would be out to fix the pole on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. or noon and 8 p.m.

Photo by The New No. 2