The Big Think

Or day 5, if you don’t consider the 9 days we were in Colorado. It’s been an interesting experience. We’ve watched LOTR:TT and ROTK in the last five days, and that alone counts for almost 9 hours in front of the tube, but those are movies that we consciously chose, not a 2 hour honeymooners marathon we vegged out for.
Several times in the past few days I’ve gotten the familiar urge to take a work break and sit in front of the TV. Since I work at home, I can do this, but 10 minutes can turn into a Simpsons episode, then an hour of Stargate reruns, and before I know it the workday is gone. Bugs me when this happens.
Well, when I’ve felt this urge, or felt the urge to turn on the tube while we make dinner, I’ve had to find something else to do to occupy my time and thoughts. It’s amazing to me just how much time even a non-tv-o-phile spends with the box on. It’s been much, much quieter around here, I’ve been slightly more productive, and we’ve both had to look for things to do when we’re bored. We’re still deep in withdrawal, though. I don’t expect us to really feel better until we miss a few new episodes of our favorite shows in a few months. There’s always DVD’s, I guess.

Stay, er, tuned.

For the past two weeks Erin and I have been completely without television. From being on the road to spending time in the mountains, there hasn’t been an idiot box on around us for half a month. When we got back a few days ago, we decided to continue the trend and not turn on our TV at all (okay, we did watch a few DVD’s, but no “regular” television). The result has been a much quieter and more serene domicile.

We got to talking about it and decided to give the old “throw away your TV” thing a try. After all, we can always reconnect, and chances are good that the cable company will freak out and offer us some insane deal to come back. We’ve heard and read that the first few weeks are the worst, and since we’ve been preoccupied on our trip the last two weeks, we figure we’ve metaphorically slept through the worst of our detox. Besides, there’s nothing on at this time of the season we haven’t already seen.

This may end up being just an interesting experiment, and we may very well end up going back to having cable, but we figure it’s an area in our lives that deserves examining. We spend so much less time watching the tube now that we have internet access, and I love reading anyway. Had a short talk with my friend Sean and he’s been TV-less for 10 years. If my friendship with him is any indication I think the only long-term effect will be a clearer mind.

It turns out that canceling TV is almost as hard as quitting the gym. Eddie at Cox Communications really turned up the heat to get me to stay. He tried the old incredulous “you want to be without TV?!?” thing, followed by “you realize we’re adding FIVE new stations in the next four months… at no charge?” (not mentioning that it’s probably Univision II through VI). He then told me that our internet bill would be going from $39.95 up to $49.95 because we no longer get the “package deal”. With this one, I had him.

me: “You mean you’re going to charge me almost twice what your competitor is willing to charge for the same service?”
Ed: “uh… but we have really great service”
me: “but SWB is offering DSL for $14.95!” [starting at 256k down/up and graduated faster for more $]
Ed: “but it’s DSL! DSL is bad! Bad! Bad! I had it and it was Bad!”
me: “I’ve got friends who have it and they’re happy”
Ed: “Bad! Bad! Bad! And you have to be close to their stations (never mind that he has no idea how close I am and this might be a moot point)
me: “Ed, not only are you losing me as a TV customer, you might be losing my account altogether because Cox will tack on an additional $10/month for internet.”
- At this point, I can hear the poor guy’s brain shifting into reverse as it tries to remember all the things they told him in his sales classes:
#1: Tell the customer that they’ll miss out on new features that are coming soon, even if the customer isn’t interested in the features (“all Brady Bunch channel!”)
#2. Spread F.U.D. by insinuating that the competition has poor service or outdated technology.
#3. Finally, suggest to the customer that you can, after all, graciously grant a VERY TEMPORARY reprieve from their oh-so-understandable requirement that they raise your prices. Insist that this means your children will go without shoes for the next three years, but THAT’S THE KIND OF GREAT COMPANY WE ARE NOW DON’T YOU LOVE US?
Note: there is nothing in business more powerful than a customer with options who isn’t afraid to pull the *eject* handle.
me: “well, seeing as you’re charging me more than twice what your competition charges, what can you do to keep me?”
Ed: “I have it in my power to cut your bill in half if I want, but I could only do that for two months”
me: “great. here’s what we’ll do then, we want to drop all our cable TV and cut our new internet price in half for the next two months. I’ll use the time to do research with Time Warner, Southwestern Bell, and Grande Communications and see if they’re willing to give me a better price on internet than your proposed $600/year”.
Ed: “…..”

He did it.

By the way, I always multiply their monthly prices by 12 and frame it as a yearly cost. It keeps me aware of what some “necessities” really cost, and it makes the salesmen squirm when they try and convince you that “it’s only $50/month!”. Well, it’s also $600/year. That’s two or three car payments. That’s almost a mortgage payment. That’s enough for me to build a nice piece of heirloom furniture. That’s some serious R&R money- after all, $600 was about what Erin and I paid for our Cincinnati trip, and our Colorado trips are much cheaper. So what do you want, 12 months of “American Idol”, or two 10 day respites in the Rockies? I know what I’d pick.

So our bill will go from $81.88 to $24.95+tax for the next two months. After that Cox will raise the bill to $50/month and we’ll go somewhere else unless I can steal some more shoes from Eddie’s kids. I’m sure SBC or Time Warner would be happy to have our business. In fact, I’ll call them right now and ask them.

*Later*
Time Warner is willing to go $34.95/month for a year, and then it goes up to $44.95. I’d wager that the going rate for service is down around $39.95 in a years’ time.
Time Warner is currently checking to see if service is available in our neighborhood.
According to Grande’s site, they offer 8mb down for $44/month, and 384 down for $30/month. We’ll see what Cox says when I drop those number on them.

I’ll be blogging about going TVless in the next few weeks. We’ll see what it’s like. Robert and I didn’t have a television in college and I really loved being without it. I got so much more done and the lack of blaring ads/opinions/uselessness was quite nice. It was amazing how much more time I had to my own thoughts.

One last note: quitting TV also means getting rid of our Tivo, or at least unplugging it for awhile. I haven’t wanted to watch what the Tivo has recorded while we’ve been in Colorado for fear that the One-eyed-monster will grab me again. I’ll probably just disconnect the thing to save the hard drive spinning 24/7. Oh, and quitting Tivo means saving an additional $150/year. Hey, it’s four months of gas for me.
*Just called Tivo and they convinced me that they’d rather give me 2 months free than let me go, so I let them. Their money. I’ll just call when ical reminds me and go over it again. By then we should know if this whole thing works or not.

Okay Patrick, fire away…

Yes, It’s been two weeks since my last entry. We just arrived back from Colorado today. 2250 miles! Long entry with pictures soon. Must sleep…