As companies get bigger, their customer service usually suffers.

This is probably why the company in this story decided to use a small local internet service provider (ISP), and they realized that they definitely made the right choice when there was a fire.

An employee shares what happened.

“Your Internet link is down.” “That might be because it’s on fire.”

This is my all-time favorite interaction with tech support.

Late, one December evening, a number of years ago, I got an unexpected call from my boss. He said there was a fire at the office, and I might want to come in and see what was going on.

So I did.

By the time I got there, the fire was on its way out, and I and a couple dozen others were standing around in the parking lot waiting for the firefighters to give us the all-clear to enter the building.

They lost connection to the internet.

We had Internet service through an awesome local ISP at the time. The kind of small company that really cared about service.

While I was shivering next to a fire truck, my cell phone rang. It was one of their techs, whom I had shared on office with at a different company years ago and knew well.

Me: Hello?

Tech: Hi, this is $TECH from $ISP. Just wanted to let you know that our monitoring noticed your Internet link is down, and we’re working on it.

But it wasn’t their fault.

Me: That might be because it’s on fire.

Long pause.

Then:

Tech: Did you just say it’s on fire?

Me: Yeah, there was a fire in the building. I’m standing next to a fire truck right now. They aren’t letting us in yet.

Then, without missing a beat, $TECH said something he never said at that ISP (remember, premium service):

Tech: Ah, well OK then. I’ll assume the problem is on your end. *click*

But they really cared.

Despite the cold and the uncertainty (how badly damaged was the office, etc), I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Because $ISP was awesome, less than 5 minutes later he called back to say:

“I just checked, and we have two portable generators that aren’t in use right now. If you need them, just say the word, and I can have them there in 2 hours, any time, day or night. No charge.”

Our contract with them had nothing in it about generators.

Wow. They deserve great reviews from everyone at the company.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

True.

Just go climb it and get it!

This should be the standard.

Sad.

Another reader chimes in.

And Ryan started the fire.

Even when the issue wasn’t their fault, they still took responsibility.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.