Where shall I begin to tell the story

More than one person's eyes have begun to glaze over as I started to tell them the story of how the relatively simple task of changing internet providers (rofl) dragged on for over ten days (nearly a fortnight in fact), then Sunday a phone call from India to say that the internet would be being connected on Monday.

Having destroyed contact with our previous provider - Big Pond- it was high time, and we were all getting a little tetchy. Sure enough yesterday someone rang at 12.20 p.m. to say that internet would happen soon.

We were out for three hours, but not surprised to see that there was a still a red light on the modem ...indicating that there "was a birth certainly"...but not quite there yet.

I optimistically thought it would simply (again rofl) be a matter of putting in new accounts and new passwords. At 12.25 a.m. (two phone calls to India later) I decided that I couldn't do this all; night...and grabbed my eye mask and went to bed. OOOh my head ached..and I slept poorly.

Finally at 5.30 a.m. I risked getting up, and rang India again. This time Said fixed the problem in 10 minutes. It is both a question of what and who you know obviously.

This all begs the question of why this didn't take 10 minutes 24 hours, or 7 days ago!

Oh you look a bit bored!!!

Faint praise!

Some weeks ago I restructured my bank accounts with BankSA. This involved opening one account and closing another. I subsequently got another piece of plastic which surprised me, but nevertheless when I went to activate it today. I was greeted by a voice which topld me that this Call Centre had won the Best Call Centre in the WORLD!!!! award in 2008. (Seemed unbelievable since members of the family have worked for this organisation in the past and their work practices seemed appalling...still I am wise enough to know that being the Best Call Centre in the World has probably got nothing to do with work practices!!)

Anyway. although inviting me to 'activate' the card, when I got to the point where I had to enter the Activation Code it announced that the Activation Centre was not available....at 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon!!

I tried again and it was still not available. So I tried a circuitous route. This time I was invited to say what I wanted...so I said "Card"...we went through to stage 2. It asked "if you want  to activate your card" push 1. So I did and was promptly disconnected. 

Tried again...this time when I said "Card" it didn't even invite me to push 1 I was just disconnected.

This was now the fourth phone call.

I tried again and just sat. And waited for an operator. When I told her what I wanted...I also said and "I want to complain about the Best Call Centre in the world" she accepted the complaint, without asking my name or address or contact number!

When I asked her if she had processed the complaint she said "Yes!" I resisted the temptation to say that she must be not telling the truth!

The business was however completed, not completely...I had to go to the branch to effect the final changes to suit my particular needs. I could perhaps have saved myself the bother and gone there first.

World's Best Call Centre, my foot!!!