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peterbirksI'll make this brief as I have a "shedload" of work to do.
I was allocated the seat from hell on the 12.5 hour flight from Hong Kong (38B, if you want to know). So, I was not in the best of moods when I got home at 9am after 24 hours' travelling.
My mood soured further when I found that, not only had the BT engineers failed to fix my broadband, but now my landline had given up the ghost as well. A fuming conversation with India ensued, which I may reprint verbatim one day soon, followed by a 50p a minute conversation with BT in the UK. When I say "conversation", I mean 10 minutes of automated options before you get through to anyone.
When it was finally accepted that there might, just might, be a fault in the BT hardware twixt socket and road, it was agreed to send out an engineer on Wednesday afternoon. Oh, and if it turns out not to be a BT equipment fault, they'll charge me £116 + £99 an hour.
"So, if I get an engineer, I'm basically taking a two hundred quid punt that it's your equipment. ......... And you wonder why you're losing customers".
Could the morning get worse?
Yes. I unpacked my bag, and found myself light one (one) Church's Shoe. I'd only worn them twice. That's three hundred quid down the tube. The problem is; there is something intrinsically funny about leaving one shoe behind in a hotel room. If I had said "I left my laptop behind". there would be no such sniggers.
Anyhoo, I could have cried, except that I didn't have time, because I had to come into work to do what I would have normally done at home. I actually e-mailed the hotel, asking if it would be possible for them to post it (if they found it; perhaps Hong Kong airport has a light-fingered one-legged baggage handler).
So, picture uploading and other tales of the last couple of days will have to wait awhile. At the moment I'm desperately trying to organize my life around non-Internet access at home. It isn't easy.
PJ
I was allocated the seat from hell on the 12.5 hour flight from Hong Kong (38B, if you want to know). So, I was not in the best of moods when I got home at 9am after 24 hours' travelling.
My mood soured further when I found that, not only had the BT engineers failed to fix my broadband, but now my landline had given up the ghost as well. A fuming conversation with India ensued, which I may reprint verbatim one day soon, followed by a 50p a minute conversation with BT in the UK. When I say "conversation", I mean 10 minutes of automated options before you get through to anyone.
When it was finally accepted that there might, just might, be a fault in the BT hardware twixt socket and road, it was agreed to send out an engineer on Wednesday afternoon. Oh, and if it turns out not to be a BT equipment fault, they'll charge me £116 + £99 an hour.
"So, if I get an engineer, I'm basically taking a two hundred quid punt that it's your equipment. ......... And you wonder why you're losing customers".
Could the morning get worse?
Yes. I unpacked my bag, and found myself light one (one) Church's Shoe. I'd only worn them twice. That's three hundred quid down the tube. The problem is; there is something intrinsically funny about leaving one shoe behind in a hotel room. If I had said "I left my laptop behind". there would be no such sniggers.
Anyhoo, I could have cried, except that I didn't have time, because I had to come into work to do what I would have normally done at home. I actually e-mailed the hotel, asking if it would be possible for them to post it (if they found it; perhaps Hong Kong airport has a light-fingered one-legged baggage handler).
So, picture uploading and other tales of the last couple of days will have to wait awhile. At the moment I'm desperately trying to organize my life around non-Internet access at home. It isn't easy.
PJ
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Wide-eyed and shoeless
Date: 2007-04-30 01:52 pm (UTC)Is there something funny about leaving one shoe behind? Maybe I broke my funny bone. Seems a bit sad to me.
What may be funnier to the man in the street is the idea of spending three hundred pounds on a pair of shoes. I'm reminded of Douglas Adams, who once drove his Porsche into a wall and emerged, intact but shaken, to find the bystanders all laughing at him. Categorize under "Misfortunes of the rich".
For comparison, I think my last pair of shoes cost about a tenth of that. And they're the best I've got.
-- Jonathan
Re: Wide-eyed and shoeless
Date: 2007-04-30 02:32 pm (UTC)Unfortunately the type of show I wanted wasn't available in a sale this time round, so I asked myself whether I could afford to pay full price for comfortable feet, and got the answer, yes.
Then, however, I started wearing my old Barker's shoes, which I had ignored during my two years of Church-wearing. I found them reasonably comfortable, so decided to wear them out before wearing the (much smarter) Churchs's, leaving the latter for special occasions, such as wehn moderating conferences and meeting the high and mighty.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 02:09 pm (UTC)Me: Can you tell me if the line has been enabled yet?
Indian "Help" line operator: I need to check your modem settings.
Me: No you don't, they're entirely fine and have been working with a BT connection for several years now. I want to establish if the line has been enabled before I report a fault.
IHLO: I need to check your modem settings.
Me: OK, if it makes you happy.
[several settings checked, then he asks for one that I can't see]
Me: I can't see that.
IHLO: Are you using your BT-supplied router?
Me: BT didn't supply a router, this is my own. It works. All I want to know is whether the line has been enabled or not.
IHLO: I can't help you until I check your modem settings.
[and so on]
I called them three times to try different individuals, none of whom could admit, it seems, that there was a piece of information to which they were not privy, to whit, whether or not I should be expecting to get a connection or not.
Called a UK engineer during office hours the following day. It took about five minutes to establish that the line wasn't scheduled to be enabled for several days. Of course we kept checking while we waited - it was up and running two days before they said it would be, which would have made for great PR if they'd bothered to tell us.
And don't get me started on the mess when we moved back...
If I could believe that any of the others could be any less shit at the job, I'd consider switching. But I don't.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-30 02:34 pm (UTC)This, however, is not on their screen script.
PJ