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I had vain hopes that the drains problem might be solved yesterday. After the failure three weeks earlier, new equipment, possibly some kind of nuclear fission or offshoot of the Hadron Collider, was going to be brought in.
MTS duly turned up at 8am, ... and nothing happened. The Thames Water guy did not show. In cliff notes terms, MTS faffed around, went away very quietly without telling me what they had done (although, given the fact that they didn't even bother coming into the back garden, they clearly hadn't solved it), and left me in limbo.
Basically, if the Thames Water guy doesn't turn up, the problem isn't going to get solved, and his record in turning up here is now two for four.
I'll make a couple of phone calls next week to establish where we go from here. My guess is that the Thames Water guy will re-schedule; the MTS guys will turn up again, and the problem might get solved. The inefficiency of all this is really quite astounding, but Thames Water used to be a public utility, and it takes decades to instill a profit and efficiency culture into a privatized company.
Not that all private companies are that efficient.
DynoRod, (parent, British Gas, one-time public utility), surprised me today. I had heard nothing back from my letters to the various DynoRod parties (including Sam Laidlaw, ultimate CEO of the parent company). But today I got a call back from Dan at Response Solutions -- clearly as unhappy with his role in the whole affair as he was when he last spoke to me (probably some time in September). Apparently the DynoRod area manager had fired a rocket up the arse of Response Solutions (perhaps because he had had a rocket fired up his arse from someone even higher up) and he was going to get in touch with me. Meanwhile, Response Solutions were basically offering me a free call-out should any blockage result because of their previous hose fuck-up.
He seemed inordinately relieved when I told him that I had got the hose removed, although since most of my tale seemed to be a never-ending condemnation of the gross inefficiencies of the company he worked for (wrong diagnosis, wrong action, botched surgery, so to speak) it's hard to see why he should be so happy about it. But he was. So, there we go.
Whether the area manager from DynoRod WILL now phone me up is debatable. He may well hope that the problem will now have "gone away", although the incompetence of the company remains. This includes its obvious strategy of chasing insurance-related business, failing to inform consumers of the Section 24 possibilities (meaning that no insurance claim is necessary because it is the Water company's) responsibility), and employing people who have not had sufficiently long or rigorous training. The offer of "free blockage clearance" from the company was of no value to me, since I wouldn't get DynoRod in for any problem again in a million years, and I've told Winkworth of the fact, so any properties that I own now or will own in future will be guaranteed DynoRod-free.
But, hey, the guy did phone me up, even if it was under pain of execution if he failed so to do, and I do feel a bit of sympathy for him. He's got a job, and if much of that job entails dealing with the upshot of incompetence elsewhere and dubious profit-drivers from the management above (i.e., look for insurance claims), it can't be much fun.
So, I'm still, kind of, only a little bit further forward than when I started in terms of the physical situation. The complete blockage has been cleared, but there is still insufficient sewage-flow capability, and it will block up again fairly quickly, I should think.
So, it was all very dispiriting yesterday, because I had a bit of hope that it would be over, whereas now I have to start the wearying round pf telephone calls again, plus booking days off, getting the logistics of other people who need to be 'in' on the relevant day, and so on. It'll get done eventually, but it isn't done now. Sigh. :-)
_________
MTS duly turned up at 8am, ... and nothing happened. The Thames Water guy did not show. In cliff notes terms, MTS faffed around, went away very quietly without telling me what they had done (although, given the fact that they didn't even bother coming into the back garden, they clearly hadn't solved it), and left me in limbo.
Basically, if the Thames Water guy doesn't turn up, the problem isn't going to get solved, and his record in turning up here is now two for four.
I'll make a couple of phone calls next week to establish where we go from here. My guess is that the Thames Water guy will re-schedule; the MTS guys will turn up again, and the problem might get solved. The inefficiency of all this is really quite astounding, but Thames Water used to be a public utility, and it takes decades to instill a profit and efficiency culture into a privatized company.
Not that all private companies are that efficient.
DynoRod, (parent, British Gas, one-time public utility), surprised me today. I had heard nothing back from my letters to the various DynoRod parties (including Sam Laidlaw, ultimate CEO of the parent company). But today I got a call back from Dan at Response Solutions -- clearly as unhappy with his role in the whole affair as he was when he last spoke to me (probably some time in September). Apparently the DynoRod area manager had fired a rocket up the arse of Response Solutions (perhaps because he had had a rocket fired up his arse from someone even higher up) and he was going to get in touch with me. Meanwhile, Response Solutions were basically offering me a free call-out should any blockage result because of their previous hose fuck-up.
He seemed inordinately relieved when I told him that I had got the hose removed, although since most of my tale seemed to be a never-ending condemnation of the gross inefficiencies of the company he worked for (wrong diagnosis, wrong action, botched surgery, so to speak) it's hard to see why he should be so happy about it. But he was. So, there we go.
Whether the area manager from DynoRod WILL now phone me up is debatable. He may well hope that the problem will now have "gone away", although the incompetence of the company remains. This includes its obvious strategy of chasing insurance-related business, failing to inform consumers of the Section 24 possibilities (meaning that no insurance claim is necessary because it is the Water company's) responsibility), and employing people who have not had sufficiently long or rigorous training. The offer of "free blockage clearance" from the company was of no value to me, since I wouldn't get DynoRod in for any problem again in a million years, and I've told Winkworth of the fact, so any properties that I own now or will own in future will be guaranteed DynoRod-free.
But, hey, the guy did phone me up, even if it was under pain of execution if he failed so to do, and I do feel a bit of sympathy for him. He's got a job, and if much of that job entails dealing with the upshot of incompetence elsewhere and dubious profit-drivers from the management above (i.e., look for insurance claims), it can't be much fun.
So, I'm still, kind of, only a little bit further forward than when I started in terms of the physical situation. The complete blockage has been cleared, but there is still insufficient sewage-flow capability, and it will block up again fairly quickly, I should think.
So, it was all very dispiriting yesterday, because I had a bit of hope that it would be over, whereas now I have to start the wearying round pf telephone calls again, plus booking days off, getting the logistics of other people who need to be 'in' on the relevant day, and so on. It'll get done eventually, but it isn't done now. Sigh. :-)
_________
