Adventures of Comcast Bonnie

SO, I finally took one of those much needed vacation things (sort of) that you all have been telling me about. It's been a busy last week, but totally worth all of the traveling! I got to meet @MrComcastBonnie's dad's side of the family on Saturday. Dad and his wife had a double 50th birthday party, so we headed up to the pine barrens to celebrate! It was VERY HOT, so I didn't last longer than 4 hours before feeling pass-outish. I know now to get myself some gatorade and AC when that starts happening.

Sunday, I spent a whopping hour outside before overheating. 94 degrees with not so bad humidity still makes for bad yardworking conditions. I managed to edge one side of the very long sidewalk at my parent's house before having to throw in the towel. I discovered an extra SIX INCHES of sidewalk though! Kinda like finding buried treasure :)

Monday was supposed to be the Stevie Awards, but we needed to head up to the Cape early... We left around 3ish, hit a TON of traffic in Connecticut (but not NYC during rush hour... weird), and finally got up to Hyannis around 10ish. The Mr. and I went to the beach on a beautiful clear night with a halfish moon. Really nice :)

Tuesday was PHISH DAY!

I know you wanted to see them, so here's a few!

The purpose of this blog is to bridge the gap between my personal life and my work life. You've been here with me when I bought my house, when Mylo came home, and when I got engaged. You'll be there when Will and I get married in 8 days (it's after midnight here). I wanted to update you about a few things going on, and answer some questions I've been getting over on my personal accounts from some of you.

Where am I?
Well, I'm out on disability for a little bit. The entire team is operating on a skeleton crew right now, and I wanted to put out there how amazing they continue to be when faced with unexpected and challenging times. I've had strep AND bronchitis over the last two weeks, though neither are the reason I am away from my work. I'm not going in to the "why" because I choose to keep that personal, and know that you understand and respect that (hey, there's a reason why I say you guys rock). When the Doctor says it's time to come back, I'll be back. No worries!


OMG Isn't your wedding soon?!
OH EM GEE, yes it is! As previously stated, we're down to eight days. My dress is fitted, all of the decorations are made (minus the centerpieces because of the ninja kitty...), and everything is paid off! We're still doing things like figuring out who sits where and what exactly is going on in our ceremony. Oh yeah! The ceremony will still be streamed on Sunday October 10th. Consider this your invitation :) My husband-to-be is stepping up to the plate and really helping to get things taken care of while I've been sick... and that just makes me feel even better about marrying him!

Other business
Being home means I've been watching entirely too much TV for my own good. I wanted to comment on two things. Remember, nothing in this blog is the opinion of my company... they are my own and do not represent blah blah blah. You know the story (it's at the top of this page!). Not that I expect things to be taken the wrong way!

Rick Sanchez from CNN was let go after some comments he made on a radio show. I met Rick at the Shorty Awards last year, thanks to you! He's a pretty cool dude, and I have nothing bad to say about him. I respect his right to voice his opinion, though I wonder if he was a little low on sleep. The poor guy was pretty run-down at the awards :( I wish him the best of luck with whatever he does, and hope he continues to push into new media and test fun new ways of interacting with the audience.


I want to remind you that the internet is a big and permanent place. Pretty much anything you do online is there forever. I remember my parents giving me this speech about privacy and what I put out on the net and going "Jeez, whatever!" Now, I can't thank them enough (Mom is going "I told you so!" secretly as she reads this probably). The reason I mention this now, is because I don't think that message is getting out to kids clearly. The recent tragedy at Rutgers concerning one student filming another without their consent and posting that online leading to a very VERY unhappy ending is why I bring it up. While I realize the circumstances surrounding this particular situation may involve laws broken beyond invasion of privacy, I wonder if that guy ever got that talk from his parents. I don't think I could ever EVER post something online that would potentially ruin someone's life thirty years from now. So, I ask you to mention this to your kids or people who may not realize what their actions might do down the line. It might save a life.

Alrighty, are we all caught up now? I miss you all, and thank you for your well-wishes and concern during a pretty crazy time in my life! <3

-Bonnie

Remember the other week when I kept posting about storm mode and outages and all of those crazy things? I eventually got so overwhelmed trying to keep up with the outages, that I just started posting the outage maps that we have access to internally (mind you, the folks on the phones don't typically have this tool. It's meant for the monitoring folks). I had one of those lightbulb moments, and thought to myself... why don't we have this online for the customers? I mean, come on. Wouldn't you like a map? My power company does an excellent job with their outage maps and it saves me from calling them when they're probably already overloaded. Ya know?

So here's an example of one of the maps I posted recently. The black dots mean that commercial power is down. The red dots mean there's a full node outage. The yellow dots mean there's something up with the node, but it might not be an outage... could be a node health issue. I'd probably take out the yellow dots in any sort of public version of the map though. Keep in mind, no commercial power, no cable in a lot of instances. Sometimes, this isn't the case though.

Here's a form I whipped up to see what YOU guys want. Yes, YOU. I want your feedback, because you're the ones who would be using it. I don't have much traction to get this going yet, so anything you want to say SPECIFICALLY about this little project I'm taking on :) The more the better. So, sit back, relax, click some dots, and let me know!

As always, you guys are the reason I do what I do. Keep on rockin' :)

So... some of you may have noticed my tweet about working from a barn for the rest of the week. Well, it's true! from 5-?pm I'll be working at the Salem County Fair in Pilesgrove, NJ. Come visit if you're in the area, there's lots of awesome there... including FUNNEL CAKE (ZOMG). I'll be in the front barn helping folks (note: not selling things) who need it, or who have questions about any number of things.

Why am I doing this? I think it's important to talk to a company you do business with face to face every once in awhile. The only avenue most folks have would be heading to a payment center and trying to talk there. Unfortunately, my area is big with not a lot of people... so we have one office which can take awhile to drive to. I'm going to be at "the" event in the county, and I'm hoping I can meet a lot of our customers face to face to talk to them!

What do you guys think about this? I mean, beyond the fact that I am most likely going to smell like cow for the next week (I think the sheep are closer to my barn though)... and that I'm going to a place where I'll be in my element (see: goat pic from yesterday). I think it'll be a fun experiment, and I hope to see some of you guys there! :) <3

Over the weekend, I was shopping for wedding stuff at the Christmas Tree Shops (no, it's not just christmas stuff) and ran into an old family friend. We were talking shop, and I realized that very day marked my 5th year anniversary at Comcast! I said, HOLY CRAP I'VE BEEN HERE FIVE YEARS! Exact words.

So, dear readers/followers/family/friends... let's recap the rough and tumble life of a ComcastBonnie at Comcast eh? :D

Stardate June 2005 - Bonnie (age 20) gets hired as an ONLINE ONLY CAE. This means I troubleshoot internet issues. That's it. Not billing, not video, not phone (since phone wasn't really around yet with us)... just internet. Back then, we had some pretty awesome homebrew tools that folks would compile around the call center. Maybe we're nerds, maybe we're dedicated, or maybe we just like to build things. Who knows? I wanted to help, and that was that!

November 2005 - Bonnie gets the most amazing and inspiring boss ever. John L. (who will be the speaker at my wedding) understood my quirks, and worked with me to avoid being fired. I'm a loose canon, and @comcastcares can attest to this. John stuck up for me when management balked at things I said to customers. I like to tell you guys how it is, and not sugarcoat it. Ya'll seem to appreciate that, and I'm not one to play things down.

March 2006 - PROJECT TIME! We needed to upgrade our databases to make sure the addresses in our systems matched the right ratecenters established a long time ago. Three arduous weeks later, we had successfully verified hundreds of thousands of accounts! In doing this, I learned a TON about how porting phone numbers works, how rate centers work, and why things are they way they are.

June 2006 - The feared Digital Voice training came. Up until this point, a handful of folks had our Digital Voice product and well... it wasn't all that great. I heard the phone calls where people were screaming about their phones not working and all sorts of weird issues. Growing pains are NO FUN. Learning how to fix those pains was fun though! We got it down to a fine science, diagnosing issues remotely and sending technicians for things that needed techs. Learning new things every day is like... I dunno... Crack. I don't know what crack does other than kill but I do know it's addictive... and learning is VERY addictive.

September 2006 - PROJECT TIME! I was sent to our freshly formed porting department. I learned how to port phone numbers, learned how the process works between us and other providers, followed up on installs to make sure things went ok, and handled emergency situations with the utmost care. This job was awesome because of the customers I got to call. I didn't get calls from them, I called THEM to check up. I was tickled pink when I got to hear outcomes, and also followup with troublesome issues.

August 2007 - Still on that project. Got a little irritated and bored, so I searched around the company for a new gig. That landed me a position as a provisioning analyst at one of our data centers in PA. I spent my days/nights making sure that system remained up and running, and spent MANY 1-6am Sunday mornings up doing maintenances. It was mostly Unix and SQL, both of which I had to pick up along the way. Again, learning is crack.

November 2008 - @comcastcares and @comcastgeorge thought it'd be an awesome idea if I came over and interviewed for the team. Keep in mind, I didn't apply for this. I had emailed Frank awhile back telling him how awesome it was that he was keeping tabs on Consumerist and reaching out to folks online. For the longest time, we were strictly forbidden from such things. This was a HUGE sign that things were changing within the company. I wanted to be part of that change, and move things in a new direction.

Present Day - I've been tweeting since January of 2009. I have over 70k tweets, a New York Times article, a Shorty Award, 4k+ AWESOME FOLLOWERS, and the best job on earth. I'm able to do things I'd never thought possible before. I'm helping to make a difference in people's lives by bringing a tiny ray of sunshine to an otherwise dark day. This whole team is committed to bringing change within our organization. We're committed to you, the Customer. We're committed to our Employees. We're committed to making this the best place it can be. Engineers, techs, phone reps... all of us.

I know you're scoffing and saying "Sure... yeah right. I'll believe it when I see it" and you have every right to! Change of this magnitude is not something that can happen overnight. When I started tweeting a year and a half ago, I saw a positive tweet maybe once a month. Skip forward to now, I'm seeing at LEAST five a day. Now, it might seem insignificant... but that's a huge deal to me. We're starting to make that change, and it's becoming noticeable.

We've still got a long way to go, but you know what? I'm in this for the long haul, and more importantly I'm in this for you.


Cheers, to all of my new friends and family. Without your understanding and patience, I wouldn't be here today and who knows what mischief I'd be getting myself in to :) <3 you all, and I mean it.

I don't normally write up a blog post as to the reasoning behind me taking a half day from work. Why should you care, and why should I write it up? Exactly :) Today is a special exception though.

I think all of us have had a teacher that impacted our lives. Some have simply encouraged us to be all we can be, others completely blew away our notions of how the world works. My case involves an orchestra director named Mrs. Kille. She not only encouraged me to be all that I could be, but also helped me grow as a person, a musician, and a teacher.

Some of you know that I was a music education major prior to joining Comcast. I've been playing Cello for 16 years, and teach Violin, Viola, and Bass (beginners only). I also have a penchant for percussion (marimbas are sexy). Music is a huge part of my life!

Mrs. Kille is the reason I am able to fill you guys in on how stuff works. Her unique teaching style and fun attitude made learning easy as pie. It made me want to teach others. While my music teaching career didn't pan out (no money, no jobs), I fell back on my other love in life... Technology.

ANYWAY, here I am present day teaching you fine folks about the complexities of cable, the trials and tribulations of computers, and having a whole heck of a lot of fun in the process. I hope you're having some fun too :) I hope to be teaching for a long time, be it online or in a classroom. The impact you make on a person's life when you teach is huge. Teach your students well, and they'll remember you for it.

SO, Mrs. Kille, you rock my socks. You're the reason I'm the person I am today. You've taught so many, given so much of yourself, and carried on in the face of budget cuts, personal losses, and anything else life threw at you. Your passion for music is reflected in all of the students who had the pleasure of being taught by you, and they pass that passion on to their students, children, neighbors, customers, co-workers, and anyone who carries a tune in their heart.

When I sit at your final Spring concert this evening, I'll remember playing all of the corny Christmas music, the 7am rehearsals, the crazy jam sessions, teaching you how to use the computer (do you still have the 18 zillion sticky notes?), and most importantly the passion you displayed day after day for well over 30 years.

Here's to you, Sue.


Got a story about a teacher who changed your life? Let the world know below!