Dealing with internet outages can be a nightmare for anyone, but what happens when your neighbor’s internet issue becomes your own? That’s exactly what I experienced with my local cable provider, Optimum. The entire saga unfolded over the course of a few weeks and led me to some important reflections about service, accountability, and the way businesses handle problems.

The Start of the Trouble

Around 4-6 weeks ago, my neighbor’s internet suddenly stopped working. After making several calls to Optimum, they were caught in a frustrating loop of customer service, trying to get a technician out to diagnose the issue. This kind of back-and-forth with your internet provider is something many of us can relate to, and while annoying, it felt like just another day in the life of dealing with a cable company.

As a result of their outage, my neighbor started coming over to my house a couple of times a week to use my internet for work. Little did I know that this seemingly innocent situation was about to lead to my own internet nightmare.

My Own Internet Woes

One morning, I received a pop-up on my device saying that my wireless connection had no internet, and it switched to cellular. Initially, I didn’t think much of it. But when I got to my office 30 minutes later, I realized I still didn’t have internet. At that moment, it clicked—my neighbor had been without internet for a couple of weeks, and maybe the technician had mistakenly been sent to the wrong house.

Sure enough, I spotted an Optimum truck on my property, with a technician working on the equipment. I approached him and explained that my internet was down. The technician casually mentioned that he was working on a junction box affecting both our homes and was simply unplugging and plugging things in to see what would happen.

And then it happened: he accidentally swapped our cables. He reconnected the cables, leaving me without internet and my neighbor with full access. I was stunned, but the technician seemed unfazed. With no immediate fix in sight, I was left scrambling for a solution.

A Temporary Fix and New Problems

In the face of no internet, I decided to install a cable splitter to share the working connection with my neighbor, at least as a temporary solution. Now both of us were connected to my internet, but this new arrangement led to its own set of problems. We were dealing with bandwidth limitations, which resulted in poor video conference quality and constant interruptions.

But, this wasn’t the end. After trying to get Optimum to acknowledge their mistake, we endured countless frustrating phone calls, support tickets, and social media posts trying to light a fire under them. I opened a case with the FCC, and, eventually, someone high up in the company reached out to acknowledge that their system was poor in our neighborhood (which wasn’t the issue I was complaining about, but I agreed that their service generally needed improvement).

After much back-and-forth, a technician was finally sent out to repair the junction box, a job that took no more than three minutes. They also ran a new cable across my neighbor’s lawn, promising that someday they would come back to bury the cable. It felt like an endless battle to fix a problem that should have been resolved in no time.

What I Learned From the Experience

As a business owner and service provider, this ordeal left me with a few key takeaways:

1. Be Human & Humane

The impersonal nature of dealing with Optimum was incredibly frustrating. Whatever internal policies caused us to get the level of service we received should have been overridden in a situation like this. Customer service is about people, and companies should have the authority to act humanely when things go terribly wrong, rather than rigidly adhering to processes that don’t work in the moment.

2. Service Level Agreements (SLA) & Time to Resolution (TTR)

When service issues arise, companies often focus on finding an easy fix. However, sometimes the best solution is the harder one, especially if it leads to a quicker resolution. For Optimum, their slow response time and inability to quickly identify the actual issue wasted time and resources. As businesses, we must prioritize resolving issues efficiently, even if it means taking a more difficult route.

3. Neighborly Service

This whole experience made me think about how businesses operate and how they treat their clients. What if the CEO of Optimum’s kids were friends with mine and we ran into each other at school events or birthday parties? Would they be proud of the service their company provided? Would they be embarrassed by the lack of urgency or care? It made me reflect on how I treat my own clients and whether I would be proud of the service I’m delivering. At the end of the day, we should all strive to offer the level of service that we would want if we were on the other side.

Conclusion

This experience with Optimum was a clear reminder that companies should prioritize people, efficiency, and accountability above all else. A simple mistake should never escalate into a weeks-long nightmare for the customer. It’s important for businesses to remember that at the core of every service interaction is a person—and that person deserves respect and timely solutions. We may not have had the best experience, but I can take away some valuable lessons that will guide me in delivering better service to my own clients moving forward.