Wednesday 5 December 2012

Anti-Rant


You know when I said I was forswearing rants here?  It wasn’t for lack of rantable material, I assure you: if anything, it was the impossibility of choice from a surfeit.  But there’s a difference between a rant and a whinge, and the last week has supplied plenty of whinge fuel.  But I don’t really like whinging.  But on the other hand I haven’t blogged for a week, because nothing blogworthy has happened except the rantable and whingeworthy.  But I have managed to distil one morsel of cheer from the bleak mire.  But you’ll have to wade through some of the mire to get to it.  But I won’t bog you down too deeply.

Last weekend was one of those rare occasions when many separate strands of my life decide to intersect and construct a beautiful, intricate knot, with me at its centre.  In other words, a lot of things were meant to happen; and they required precise, accurately timed two-way communication, which in my case is invariably via my BT landline.  Which decided, on Thursday, to take a holiday.

I have a mobile, not used a lot, so I phoned the fault reporting number.  After twenty minutes of  excruciatingly awful classical music and reassurances of how important my call was to BT (I’d be more convinced if they evinced any recognition of the fact that it might be important to me, too), a charming lady picked up, and I started to explain the problem.  This was the point at which the mobile ran out of ‘pay as you go’ credit.

Ah.  Now I’ll have to get the phone topped up, somehow, and start again.  Or do it online, which I should have done anyway (the broadband was still working), and and and –

Here’s the good bit.  At that moment, the mobile rang.  It can still receive calls.  I answered, and it was the lady from BT.  “Sorry, we got cut off,” she said.  She’d called me back.  BT had called me back!  I can’t tell you how that made me feel.

I won’t tell you about the mobile top-up part, and how that resulted in my credit card being cancelled, and the afternoon’s worth of failing to sort that out, because that would be whinging, wouldn’t it?  Mustn’t grumble.

8 comments:

  1. It reminds me of a time when I rang to report a mistake that I'd tried to get resolved by letter for ages. I explained. "Okay, I'll just cancel it then," said the fine and lovely person on the phone. *Click* "That's done." And so effectively that I've completely forgotten the problem.

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  2. I expect taurus was passing through neptune and mars was rising, or some other bollocks but look on the bright side it's the age of aquarious which by a strange coincidence was the on-hold music to which I've just spent 10 minutes listening.

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  3. Sometimes, life is just a bit pants.

    Looking on the bright side, while your BT landline isn't working, at least you wont get any phone calls about reclaiming PPI that you never took out in the first place.

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  4. BT's customer services are infinitely better than some of the sheisters and crooks operating telephonic "services" in this Country. Getting rung back is a life-affirming feeling that lifts the spirits and puts a spring in the step.

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  5. That's why I love Amazon. They RING YOU BACK! Hope your week improves, Tim.

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  6. Aquarious to rhyme with furious which is slightly different in a misspelling kinda way to Aquarius.

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  7. Z, Rog, Frances - that's my general experience, that once you find a human they're delightful, eager to help and usually proficient. It's hacking your way through the robotic defences that fckus me off.
    Don't worry, btw, I thrive on this stuff, and it's (nearly) all sorted!

    Zig, your hilarius spelling was one of the two things that made me larf. Thanx

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  8. If I had counted the hours I've spent with one ear attached to electronic muzuck it would be bad for my health. The relief of hearing a real human speaking is tremendous and to have one phone you back is absolutely wonderful.

    And I suppose there's a sort of triumph in getting things sorted in spite of the robotic challenges.

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