You’ve got the wrong guy…

The wrong (and wronged) guy tweets back. Image: screen shot of tweet from @rogers

The wrong (and wronged) guy tweets back. Image: screen shot of tweet from @rogers

This past Wednesday one of Canada’s biggest provider of cell phone service, Rogers, experienced a glitch that lead to a service outage of several hours for millions of customers. Needless to say, those cut-off customer were not happy.

Some of them took to Twitter to express their frustration. That was when a self-identified “Aussie living in Brooklyn” discovered the downside of having a Twitter handle: Glenn Rogers @rogers.

People did their share of venting, read more from CBC here.

Tweets from the corporate Rogers suggest the trouble began at 6:40 pm. By 7:58 pm here’s what the human @rogers had to say:

The wrath of a thousand Canadians is a mighty sight.

Glenn Rogers seems to have taken it with good humor and picked up some defenders along the way:

Hey internets, @rogers <— is a guy, not the twitter account for Rogers cable. Vent your frustrations elsewhere. >_>

Here’s Glenn Roger’sresponse to it all once the furor subsided:

Thanks for all the kind tweets Canada. May they never take your phone or internet from you again. #rogersoutage

It’s easy to detest companies like Rogers, as the hated cable company – or the idiots who leave you on hold for eternity when calling about a problem. But cases of mistaken identity or phone numbers that are a little too similar can happen to almost anyone.

I am told there’s a poor soul out there who had a number one digit off from NCPR’s old pledge-drive phone number who probably hated that time of year more than anyone. Sorry about that, eh?

Tags: , , ,

13 Comments on “You’ve got the wrong guy…”

Leave a Comment
  1. Paul says:

    These are good stories. But has this turned into some type of Canadian story “in box”? Seems like the main thrust of the blog?

  2. Marie says:

    This weekend was so awful. Hopefully this never happens again.

  3. Gary says:

    Paul, I couldn’t agree with you more. I rarely check this web site anymore because it seems to focus on Canadian issues. Do we have that many Canadians viewing this site? Isn’t funding for NcPR provided by federal tax dollars? I don’t mind an occasional story from across the border but this is too much for me!

  4. Walker says:

    We live a bunch closer to Canada than to Washington, DC.

  5. The Original Larry says:

    The Canadian stories are sometimes interesting but rarely relevant. Many areas in the North Country are still without any cell service but this is the “no cell service’ story we get? Barely interesting and completely irrelevant.

  6. Paul says:

    I don’t mind seeing some stories that focus on Canada. I am sure there are fair number of Canadian listeners to the station. Maybe you could have a separate blog called something like the “cross border” box as an addition. Just disappointing to not be seeing some of the important Adirondack and North Country (and broader US) stories being blogged on here as they have been in the past.

  7. Mark says:

    You’ve got to be kidding me, folks. Are your lives and interests so narrowly proscribed that a story about a Canadian cell service and an Aussie living in NY city raises your hackles? It’s a story brought to us by NCPR’s Canadian stringer in Ottawa for heaven’s sake. That’s her job. I respect the station for having the good sense to build and promote that relationship and I applaud Lucy for the good work she is doing. Please keep up that good work.

  8. Lucy Martin says:

    May I weigh in on this?

    I think the complaints have merit – I agree the Canadian content has become disproportional to the main audience’s needs and expectations. I would urge readers to keep in mind that full time staffers at NCPR have been dealing with a pretty heavy load of work and unexpected change. Their first priority is radio programing. And essential tasks like the upcoming fund drive. (Which is as it should be.) Sometimes there is too much to do and then blogs have to play catch-up.

    Most of the frustrations expressed here should be resolved in time. Meanwhile a little Canadian content shouldn’t kill ya. We just have to get the dose right.

    Oh, and thanks for the words of encouragement, Mark. I too think NCPR goes above and beyond in trying to have relevant coverage of adjacent areas, from various sources.

  9. Walker says:

    Some people don’t like being reminded that a sane, healthy democracy exists less than a hundred miles to our north, one that is obviously no soviet gulag despite having a single-payer national health system.

  10. Jim says:

    Mark has it right, I too applaud Lucy and the work she does…..

  11. Marlo Stanfield says:

    Hamilton County, I think I know what you need to do. Bombard strangers with threatening tweets until you get cell service.

  12. It could’ve been worse. Imagine if the outage had happen during an Olympic hockey game.

  13. I agree to some extent to the above comments. I’ve criticized in the past Brian M’s relentless focus on DC politics and polls and have said there should be more North Country focus (this being NORTH COUNTRY public radio). But for context, I counted recent stories (note: stories that had two themes were give 0.5 for each). Only 4 of the last 19 stories have been about Canadian topics… but only 4.5 have been about Adirondacks/NNY topics. The majority were national and NYS topics (5.5 and 5 respectively).

Leave a Reply