Diversify Your Life
How a bizarre blackout exposed another convenience cost in my budget
It’s the morning after the great telecom blackout of ’22. On Friday, July 8th millions of Rogers customers in Canada lost all service. As of this writing, the company has no idea what went wrong.
For me this meant no internet, no phone service and no television.
See, I’m a bundler. I like the convenience of having one bill to pay and track. For a time, Rogers offered bundling perks like a reward system where you could negotiate lower costs and get free upgrades faster.
But it’s become clear, in our heavily wired world, if you have the same provider for your cellphone and your internet, you’re screwed.
Can You Hear Me Now?
The first problem I noticed was the wifi. I like to begin my day with a guided meditation on my Calm app, but of course I could not access the app.
I went to the living room to restart my modem (the universal IT solution) and no fix.
I tried calling the company, but no cell service.
I walked to my neighbourhood Rogers store to speak to a human IRL. I have automatic bill payments, so there’s no reason my services should be cut. But maybe there was a problem with my account?
As I walked down the street, I passed store after store with the same sign “Cash Only, No Wifi”.
Maybe there’s a neighbourhood outage?
I arrived at my local Rogers store at 8:30 and the store didn’t open until 10. So I headed back, my mind racing with options for how to get service so I could get some work done.
I managed to get service in my building lobby by connecting to the gym Wifi. Within minutes I rescheduled the only meeting I had booked that day and wrote an OOO for my business explaining it would take longer than usual to get a response.
A neighbour passed by, clearly alarmed by the stress and frustration streaming off my face. Also, I may have been talking to myself.
That’s when I learned about the nationwide outage. He too was a Rogers customer, but as an older Gen-X he kept an analogue radio for the nostalgia.
Ironically, he learned of the outage from 680 News, a Rogers station.
An Unexpected Day Off (From Everything)
I could have searched for a patio with wifi, but knowing the scale of the outage I wondered if it was really worth it. Even if I found wifi, would the person receiving the message even get it?
Sending an email and awaiting a reply is torture on a good day. Add this extra layer of uncertainty and I was just setting myself up for a nightmare.
Instead, I made a plan to check my email in the lobby every three hours. The rest of the day was spent doing offline work.
I journaled some thoughts about how my new idea for group work would fit into my business plan. I even set targets balancing how many people I would need in a session to make it worth my time.
I started reading a book on how some of the top entrepreneurs got their start. The book really delves into the early R&D and then growth stages, the exact stage I find myself with my business.
It’s inspiring, informative, and the exact thing I needed to pack into my brain instead of anxiety about finding wifi and waiting for emails.
Break In Case of Emergency
I’m lucky for many reasons. I had services restored by the end of the day. I’m self-employed, so the only person I’m accountable to is myself and my clients. I was available to the ones that needed me on Friday even when I only checked my email four times in total that day.
If the outage were longer, stretching over the weekend and into Monday, I would not be so lucky. In fact, I have a client booked for a live interview on Monday and am still waiting for her connection details (the parent network for the show is Rogers).
I always carry $20 in cash, so if I needed to buy something at a cash-only business, I could buy a little something. I have a fridge with food in it and decided to skip my Friday wine anyway (#DryJuly).
I was lucky this time. But I’m also vulnerable. We live in a time when cyber attacks are legitimate threats, not just 90’s thriller storylines.
Many coped with the outage by leaning on their other services. Phones with other providers were used as hotspots. Wifi calling worked if you had a different internet provider.
The only ones who experienced a total blackout were the bungling bundlers like me.
Looking into the future, I hope to be managing a lot more clients than my current roster. I hope to have robust group training, multiple 1-on-1 clients and fielding countless offers in a day. I also hope to have staff.
I want the kind of business where I take longer than 5 minutes to decide on a spontaneous day-off.
So I need a backup plan. I’m not a disgruntled customer. I’ve actually been happy with them as a service provider for nearly 20 years.
But diversifying your investments is key to managing turbulent times. It only makes sense to apply the same to my service providers.
