In 2025, after decades of paying a monolithic corporation for my phone (and later, internet) service, I switched to GCET, the Greenfield-based company that recently made the news during a several-day outage. When I made the switch, I briefly thought: I’m unhooking from a behemoth because I prefer to keep my dollars local. I hope I won’t regret this.
Many of us were unable to function normally during GCET’s disruption; in some moments, I wanted to scream. When I’m not teaching violin lessons, leading singing groups, darning socks, performing live music, or making handcrafted cards, I write newspaper columns. Not being able to simply get to work was maddening. Moreover, I use a landline; suddenly, access to that, too, was gone. (I’m one of 14 people on Earth without a so-called smartphone.) Fortunately, I was able to charge up the little flip phone I keep in case of roadside emergencies. I spent the first hours of the GCET crisis in a fog. I considered taking my laptop to the Greenfield Public Library to work there, but the mother of one of my students told me she’d just come from the library, and they were out, too.
In the midst of the kerfuffle, it became clear that communication with customers isn’t GCET’s strong suit. They put a vague outgoing message on their voicemail and didn’t update it even once during the outage. If you look at their website to see what GCET stands for, you’re out of luck. (It’s Greenfield Community Energy and Technology, by the way.) But I truly believe they, as well as we, were victims of a snafu that no one could’ve seen coming.
I don’t do social media — that strikes me as an oxymoron — but I heard that online comments about GCET were nasty. (Glad I missed it; there’s enough negativity as it is.) On day two, I heard that some businesses and people regained access and figured I’d be back online soon. In the end, however, it would be another two days until I was reconnected.
So after all that hassle, am I thinking about returning to good ol’ Verizon? Nope. Here’s why: stuff happens. Remember the pandemic? Did you do anything early on that you look back on with humor and/or cringing? I did. Our minds were swirling: not the best conditions under which to make level-headed decisions. When certain things happen, it can feel like the rug has been utterly pulled out. If you’ve ever had a miscarriage, your home destroyed by a hurricane, or lost a loved one who was younger than you, perhaps you can relate.
Unavoidable mishaps are part of life, and it sounds like the GCET breakdown was one of those. I don’t know all the details — and I’m certainly not downplaying real hardships that occurred — but I hope that anyone who’s able to move on will do so. While I didn’t enjoy the disruption, all I have to do whenever I feel a pity party coming on is to think about friends of mine who’ve lost offspring to cancer, accidents, homicide, accidental overdoses, and other tragedies. When I reflect on such losses, I get over myself in about 2.5 seconds.
Anyhow, let’s please consider that — when we build our lives on and around something as ephemeral as the digital sphere — we might be asking for trouble. We’d do well to foster relationships with real people in real time, as well to hang out in gardens, forests, and other natural places. We might need that stuff someday if the whole system were to go down in a disabling cyber attack.
In closing, dare I say it? Although I was, at times, steamed about the outage, I have to admit there were upsides. A kind neighbor allowed me to bring my laptop to his home to get some work done; as a result, we had some nice visits. I played the fiddle more, came up with new ideas for art projects, and spent more time outside. Annoying as it was — and in some cases, massively problematic — as far as I know, the disruption didn’t lead to loss of life or limb. We’re not in a war-torn area of the world. Most of us have clean water, places to sleep, and many options. Let’s leave the GCET disruption in our rear-view mirror and look for other places to put our energy, because many personal, political, environmental, and social mishaps are avoidable if we take action in a timely manner. Let’s get on with it.
Eveline MacDougall lives in Greenfield.