On what will forever be known as Black LOL-less Wednesday, customers of Rogers experienced untold anguish and heartache after “hours-long” outages of cellphone service Wednesday evening. The cause of the devastating disruption remains unknown, but the telecom giant restored its wireless voice and text messaging services within a few hours.
Rogers Wireless president and CEO Nadir Mohamed issued a statement to customers, saying the service breakdown was “unacceptable” and that he sincerely apologizes for this “significant inconvenience.”
But for many of the company’s 10 million wireless customers, the damage is already done. Silenced like a digital Helen Keller, customers somehow managed to find a computer, tablet or cellphone Wednesday night and use their Internet service provider rather than Rogers Wireless and give voice to their pain through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Then there were those brave businesses which, in the face of such human misery, immediately started the rebuilding process, such as A&W, which tweeted, “#Rogers is down? I needed both hands to hold this Teen Burger anyway.”
But the real tragedy is the untold number of voice mail messages that were deleted (although who leaves voice messages these days, anyway?), the self-taken photos of nether regions that never reached their intended destination or future blackmailer, the pictures of restaurant meals that went unseen, and the unheard pleas for assistance such as “Wher can I find Hazmat suit 4 BreakingBad costum 4 Halloween?” or “Shelly, when u showing up? bostonpizzasux” and “Rogers, why you doing me like this?”
To help customers and their families recover from Wednesday’s tragic events, Rogers Wireless plans to issue a day’s worth of free credit to those whose lives were forever changed on that dark night. Stay strong, Canada.
