Whilst I’m waiting patiently

Categories: house

Date: 18 December 2009 09:05:27

I will put my enforced waiting in for the Telephone Engineer to good use, and tell, for your amusement, the saga.

I was beautifully organised, and arranged for BT to come and do the needful for getting me my phone line (so I could then organise my internet as soon as I could) before I moved, and was quite content that it would not happen for a week after I’d moved, as a week without being bombarded with phone calls sounded like a Good Idea when I had just moved.

Come the appointed morning and hour, I was stood in my kitchen making a cup of coffee, and walked back through to the sitting room, to find a note from the Engineer, “We could not contact you, please arrange another appointment.” I checked my mobile phone, nothing. I then looked at the note – the engineer had the number written wrongly. So, of course, if he’d tried that, he would’ve got some random person that wasn’t me. And, um, given the front door opens straight into the sitting room, then you go straight into the kitchen, and the door bell rings in the kitchen – loudly.... Also, the letter box clatters, normally, so they must have tried very hard to be quiet as they put the note through, as I heard nothing.

I was incandescent with rage. Oh, was I cross!! And the Telephone Company got the full force of my opinion... politely, calmly, but they were left in no doubt what so ever I was seriously angry. But they were still adamant that nothing could be done now for another two and a bit weeks and another Telephone Engineer would come by today instead..

I had my polite, calm, but angry say again. Nothing doing.

Then, I received an e-mail telling me the phone would be activated today but that I wouldn’t need an engineer.... I rang again, asking did I or did I not need an engineer, and if I didn’t, why would my phone not work until the 18th? “That’s strange,” said the very nice woman the other end of the phone, “I’ll just phone the Engineers.”

Yes, apparently I do need an engineer, no, there is no way they can bring an appointment forwards, even if it’s their fault, and somehow I seem to have slipped through various nets as they had an appointment down for me, which had been cancelled.

I received a letter three days later, repeating the words of the e-mail... activation on 18th, no engineer needed. I phone again! “Oh, the letter gets generated with the e-mail – ignore it.”

In the meantime, I’ve invested in a pay as you go dongle, so I can at least send e-mails and do a bit of blogging, and hopefully this evening, I will be able to phone various people and reassure them that I am still alive. (Though, as I will point out to one or two people, they could’ve phoned my mobile to check that! Especially as they are the people who complained all the years I didn’t have a mobile that they would keep in touch better if I did have one. Right.)

Here’s hoping there are no further chapters to this saga.

Oh, and I sport a most splendiferous scab on my right knee, but it’s much less painful, and more willing to do its job as I need it to. Thank you to those who enquired.