Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Time Warner Cable answers my call

September 1, 2009: 3:06 PM ET

I thought I was dreaming.

After posting yesterday's rant against Time Warner Cable's (TWC) service "upgrade," can you imagine how I reacted at 6:30 this morning when I turned on my TV and found that all my favorite functions--which I'd thought were obliterated by the upgrade--were back in action?

Time Warner Cable (spun off recently from Time Warner (TWX), which owns Time Inc., Fortune's parent) responded to my complaining--I was sure of it. I suspected that Alex Dudley, the TWC PR man whom I quoted in yesterday's Postcard, had become my personal cable repairman. My Dudley Do-Right.

"I did not do anything," Dudley told me when I phoned him this morning. The return of my beloved DVR functions, he said, "is nothing but a coincidence."

Dudley didn't dispute yesterday's claim that I—as well as others I surveyed--could, after the company's Navigator "upgrade," rewind a program a scant eight seconds. That annoying problem disappeared this morning: When I pressed "Replay," Voila! I could rewind an entire hour-long show (as long as the DVR was tuned to that channel for the program's entirety.)

"The software was fixed," explained Dudley, while admitting he himself was guessing about this midnight magic. "When people are sleeping, we ping the boxes. I guess we did your neighborhood overnight."

That's kinda creepy. But I'm glad it's fixed. Wonder what the cable fairy will ping tonight.

PATTIE signature

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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