Last week my cable box stopped responding to the remote. I went through the obvious checklist of changing batteries, checking the remote’s settings, rebooting the cable box, making sure the remote still controlled the TV volume and power functions okay, and making sure the cable box could be controlled manually by the buttons on the front. Then I called Comcast’s tech support.

They put me through the same steps I already tried then added reversing the polarity of the batteries in the remote to essentially reboot it. That didn’t work. So the tech support person sent me to the nearest Comcast store to get a new remote control. The new one didn’t work either. But of course the tech support person on my next call (an American woman in case you wonder) made me repeat all the steps that didn’t make a difference last time just to be sure. At the end of the call the tech support person concluded, and I am not making this up, “The remote probably just needs to loosen up.”

Pause while you digest that.

I had already requested a repair visit before this latest call to tech support, so I gave up and waited. When the repair guy came I described my problem and informed him in the best straight face I could muster that his company thinks maybe the remote control just needs to “loosen up.”

The repair guy asked, “Did they really say that?” I confirmed that they did. I could see the last bit of hope drain out of his eyes as he just looked to the floor, slumped his shoulders, and shook his head in disbelief. He seemed a broken man. But he replaced the cable box and everything was fine. Later that night I doubt he bought anything to stimulate the economy, unless it was beer.

Okay, now changing topics, I got this story by e-mail:

“The door on the mini-refrigerator at work wouldn’t close because the freezer compartment was iced over. Two employees, a man and a woman, decided to thaw it out. They carried it down from the second floor to the warm outside so it could thaw without making a mess in the office.

When their boss heard what they did, he screamed at them for doing it without the assistance of the unionized maintenance group. So even though by now the freezer was completely thawed out, fully cleaned, and sitting outside the building, the boss contacted the maintenance people to schedule a day and time for them to bring it back in.

The day before the maintenance people were scheduled to bring it back inside the office, the boss saw that the refrigerator was missing from outside the building. He stormed up to the female employee’s desk and screamed at her, ‘I told you not to ever move that refrigerator again!’ She burst into tears and said, ‘I didn’t touch it … I didn’t touch it! I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Apparently someone thought the refrigerator was being discarded and took it home.”

That night the two employees who cleaned the refrigerator did not buy anything to stimulate the economy. They cried themselves to sleep. At least that’s my guess.