October 18th, 2007
75-year-old woman smashes up local Comcast office with hammer
Meet Mona Shaw, 75, of Bristow, Virginia. And if you are wondering, no relation.
A retired Air Force nurse and secretary of a square-dancing club, Shaw went Com-smash-tic in her local Comcast office one day last month.
As Neely Tucker of the Washington Post tells it, Shaw arranged with Comcast to have them install their “Triple Play” service- phone, cable and Internet.
Seems as though the Comcast installer failed to show up on the appointed day of Monday, August 13. Two days later, he shows up but only does part of the job. Yet rather than finish the work, Comcast cut off all service to the Shaw’s home.
So now we are at Friday, August 17. Shaw and her husband Don drop in at the local Comcast office in Manassas to complain.
They ask for a manager. They are told one will be right out. They wait two hours.
And after two hours, a customer service rep tells the waiting Shaws the manager has gone for the day.
Mona and Don stewed about it all weekend. Then Monday morning, she visits the Comcast office again. Only this time she brings Don’s clawhammer.
At this point, Mona proceeds to pick up the hammer and bash a customer service rep’s keyboard, bashes the monitor, wrecks the telephone. People scatter and scream, cops come, and Mona Shaw is breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law.
$345 fine, three-month suspended sentence, and a year-long restraining order keeping her away from the Comcast office.
Yea, as if.
Her phone service is now with Verizon.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
