Weird family Dish Network Florida

[keckge]

Ok a little back story going to Florida on vacation end of February, So my mom calls yesterday from Florida they are snowbirds along with all of their friends. Well anyway two of their friends have dish network and their dish's are down. Well instead of calling dish network like any normal person would do. (Like I even do. Because that is what I pay them for.) They have decided to wait until I fly down to Florida from Illinois to fix there Dish Network while I'm on vacation. Who goes an entire month without TV? I swear when you get old you go crazy. I just needed to vent. Does anyone else have crazy story's like this? Oh and I wanted to add at the end of this to make it clear i have never worked at dish network or direct tv. I can aim a dish and do most things but if their LNB is burn't out its not like I have a van full of spares I guess I could go around to the neibors in the middle of the night and steal theres LOL they are screwed or if there box is broken there is nothing I can do about it.

 

[TheKrell]

Alzheimers? My mother, now departed, did crazy things like that before she lost the ability to care for herself at all.

 

[CulpeperUplink]

Yea my dad, he makes me call dish when he has problems with his system. This is the man who thought me everything about sat tv when i was younger. This is even after I have tried to train him to always go to the dish tech support queue for any problem or question (better English), I can't even get him to chat with dish.

 

[jbrooks987]

Perhaps it's because mom and dad are proud of you and think you're the best son (or daughter) in the world.

 

[keckge]

I guess I screwed up my wording there a little its not my parents dish that is down...... its there friends that is down and they are the ones waiting for me to come fix the dang thing. My parents have direct TV and believe me dad doesn't live with out for one day let alone a month.

 

[navychop]

If you don't tell them to call Dish themselves, you'll be doing all the work for all the neighborhood. Then you'll be fixing their wireless networks, and their PCs, and why doesn't my iPhone work on everybody's network? I had to learn to say NO.

 

[Tampa8]

But then he doesn't get the nice fresh piece of Apple pie! Or actually here maybe Key Lime pie.

 

[dare2be]

My dad gets bent out of shape when a 4x3 program shows black bars on the side, so then he fixes it with stretch and then when he is watching a widescreen program that ends up cutting off the sides due to his stretch setting, he thinks someone messed with his settings (me usually, when I'm there to visit). He just doesn't understand that the channels themselves are the ones who send the differend aspect ratios. Im a stickler about watching programs in their intended aspect, and hate watching programs stretched to make everyone look fat, but when I showed him his options, he wouldn't listen and just said "leave my damn TV alone!"

 

[waylew]

Rule number 1 with old people,you can't argue with them AND you definitely can't WIN ;D

And don't give me no sass,whipper snappers ; )

 

[Lord_Vader]

Perhaps it's because mom and dad are proud of you and think you're the best son (or daughter) in the world.

I agree. I'm sure they've told their friends what a great son you are and that you can fix anything.

The other people probably don't feel confident enough to call and talk to Dish. They would rather just wait for someone to come take care of it. They probably don't realize that Dish will send someone or maybe they are on a budget and think it will cost a lot.

My parents call me to their house ( 100 miles one way ) to fix all kinds of things. Internet, thermostats, TV, phone, etc.

 

[hudgreen]

I saw my mom put a leftover baked potato in one of those fancy zip lock bags.
I told her I bet the bag cost more then the potato and after running the math it did.
She is a product of a different generation where you just don't waste anything (especially food).
I remember growing up that the tv repairman was a neighbor and so was the furnace guy, my uncle did the family taxes and so on
One could save a lot of money (or at least direct who got that CASH, IE friends or relatives) by having a network of "experts" .
Heck I have fixed my neighbors dish before (and it only cost him a beer or two)


One month of sat service is a minimum of 40$ and that's less then half of a professional service call would cost them plus they get 4 more weeks of Matlock

 

[chiodo]

I got in laws that are on cable and when the digital switch over happened the cable company told them they needed digital receivers, and they didn't send a tech out they just mailed them and expected my 75+ yr old in laws to install it themselves
along with the remote control programming for their tv. So I get called up because I live closer to them, It was also the old mans birthday too, so my older Brother in law (who makes twice the cash I do in his government job), his solution for the remotes was to go to Dollarama and buy a couple of $4.00 cheap NoName Chinese universal remotes, where my wife (their daughter) who makes even less than I do, buys her dad a couple of Harmony 300 remotes ($30 ea) for his birthday, so I can teach the old man how to program it with his computer and have it work his Cable box, TV, DVD & VCR. And I'm also the one who has to wire up all 4 cable boxes to the tv's and make them work with the DVD & VCR players on 2 TV's.

 

[dare2be]

I got in laws that are on cable and when the digital switch over happened the cable company told them they needed digital receivers, and they didn't send a tech out they just mailed them and expected my 75+ yr old in laws to install it themselves
along with the remote control programming for their tv. So I get called up because I live closer to them, It was also the old mans birthday too, so my older Brother in law (who makes twice the cash I do in his government job), his solution for the remotes was to go to Dollarama and buy a couple of $4.00 cheap NoName Chinese universal remotes, where my wife (their daughter) who makes even less than I do, buys her dad a couple of Harmony 300 remotes ($30 ea) for his birthday, so I can teach the old man how to program it with his computer and have it work his Cable box, TV, DVD & VCR. And I'm also the one who has to wire up all 4 cable boxes to the tv's and make them work with the DVD & VCR players on 2 TV's.

We have a winner!

 

[old corps]

Rule number 1 with old people,you can't argue with them AND you definitely can't WIN ;D

And don't give me no sass,whipper snappers ; )

And we're too old to fight, we'll just shoot you.

Ed