Morning Brew: Telus, The Future is Friendly?

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Filed in News
July 30, 2007

With sincere regret and apologies, Morning Brew, as you know it, will be out of commission until Thursday. If there is any chance that you are upset about this development, you may direct your complaints towards the former publicly owned BCTel, now known as Telus. Besides engaging in censorship, outsourcing and other questionable labour relations, and this rather unfortunate breach of animal rights, Telus continues to be just plain bad at customer service.

In the weeks leading up to my move to Gastown (There goes my credibility. Wait, what credibility?) I was thinking only of you, dear reader. I planned to switch over my wireless internet on Friday, so I would be ready to Brew on Sunday night. Unfortunately, the technician failed to show, something we were later told is quite common, as the technician doesn't really need to show up; the whole thing is actually an elaborate ruse based on some sort of anachronistic, milkman-style face time policy. Apparently all they really need to do is flip a mystical switch somewhere in the vast nether regions of the corporate behemoth's facility. But if all they need to do is plug in a wire somewhere, then why was my internet blocked, despite recieving a signal from my router? "Oh, well, your account is not re-activated until the first of August". "Oh, well then you can go ahead and just reactivate it now". "No, I can't do that, I'm only internet support, you have to phone tomorrow and get customer service to activate your account". Oh well, currently well informed citizens of the Vancouver blogoshpere will have to go one day without their Morning Brew. Nuh uh, not so fast! Customer service apparently cannot reactivate our account. "Yes, but I need desperately to make really sarcastic remarks besides the day's news!" "Well, then you should have a business account". "Oh, so if I had a business account, everything would be fine?" "Well, actually no, our technician isn't available until the first anyways".

At least I didn't have to teach them math.

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Poor Sean, the universe is a cruel, cruel place.

Posted by: Emily at July 30, 2007 6:00 PM | Quote Comment

Somehow I suspect this is Bergman's fault.

Posted by: Matthew at July 30, 2007 6:58 PM | Quote Comment

That Verizon call is hilarious.

Posted by: Tim at July 30, 2007 7:51 PM | Quote Comment

Sean, we miss you... come back!!!! PS - Did you check Miss604's Blogathon webpage (and mine of course - shameless plug)

Posted by: Hummingbird604 at July 30, 2007 8:41 PM | Quote Comment

Man, Vancouver could be totally all fixed forever and I'd still be roaming the streets and the blogosphere with elevated levels of cynosterone (the hormone responsible for cynicism). For example, I had no idea that Ingmar died, or for that matter:
* Michelangelo Antonioni, 94, Italian film director (L'avventura, Blowup, Zabriskie Point).
* Teoctist Arăpaşu, 92, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, heart attack.
* Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, 103, Indian first Chief Minister of Sikkim (SNC, 1974–1978), heart attack.
* Thomas McGraw, 54, British mobster, heart attack.
* Ali-Akbar Meshkini, 86, Iranian Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, respiratory and kidney complications.
* Makoto Oda, 75, Japanese writer and anti-war activist, cancer.
* Richard Stott, 63, British newspaper editor and author, pancreatic cancer.
* Bill Walsh, 75, American three-time Super Bowl-winning football coach of the San Francisco 49ers, leukemia.
* Eric Wishnie, 44, American former television producer for NBC News, fall from building.

I'm sorry Hummingbird, Rebecca, et al for missing the blogathon.

Posted by: sean orr at July 31, 2007 1:35 PM | Quote Comment

I hate telus. and i'm suckered into contracts

Posted by: jeff h at July 31, 2007 3:03 PM | Quote Comment

yup, telus sucks and you never even mentioned the sheer obnoxiosity of their ubiquitous billboard campaign.

Posted by: statusq at August 1, 2007 11:44 AM | Quote Comment

Welcome to the world, Sean. When you turn into a grownup you'll find that whining about every single thing that you hate (in your case it seems as if every single thing that you hate is EVERY SINGLE THING) won't make it go away. See, by posting this random comment on the internet I know that you're not going to cease to clog up this otherwise uplifting and interesting blog... but I can always dream. So I guess my advice to you is to keep dreaming, dude. Keep dreaming.

Posted by: Boring at August 1, 2007 4:23 PM | Quote Comment

yo sean, do what i did: send Darren Entwistle, President and Chief Executive Officer of Telus an invoice for your troubles. the collective loss for BR readers enourmass!
heck, after moving 3 times in 3 years and trying to hold down a home-based business throughout, i figured their constant screw-ups cost me atleast $10,000 billing. the queen of their customer relations will call you and will sweet-talk you into lloovviingg the corporation again and almost convince you that switching to the equally rotten Rogers is a bad idea. the good news is they wrote off a $250 confusing mistake they made so my credit rating was no longer threatened.
anyways, damn them both from the bottom of my heart and let's all pray your issues actually get resolved - i wouldn't count on it...

Posted by: joe at August 2, 2007 12:48 AM | Quote Comment

Canadians: Start billing/invoicing Telus for our wasted time waiting for them. When they have millions of invoices and do not pay, we can form a class action to put them out of businss for compensation.

To: Telus

We know your headquarters are in the Phillipines so you can "hide your ill
gotten gains" you have stolen from Canadian consumers and avoid
prosecution for unfair practices.

Telus, your word means nothing. Telus simply CANNOT TAKE CARE OF
CUSTOMERS! This is the 5th, FIFTH time i have booked for a land
line. Telus employees repeatedly lie and break promises, and break
appointments without informing anyone.

To date Telus has caused at least $600 dollars worth of our time
since Telus insists someone be there, then they simply do not show, costing us time, money and no emergency phone line.

Since Telus is a monopoly (which is why you give terrible service)
i have to wait and wait and wait, however, i expect full compensation for the time and money wasted by me/us.

Posted by: Dlb at April 17, 2008 10:43 AM | Quote Comment