I am determined to do my best to keep my ‘social media presence’ up to date as I move into the next chapter of my life so today is as good a day to start as any. What do we know about today? Well it’s a Monday and its delightfully sunny but you knew that already didn’t you? It is also the first Monday that has no direct connection with work, as in I don’t have to go to work or otherwise engage with industry. This is also the Monday that sees me relocate from the sunny essex town that has been home for ten years to my new home on the smaller island.
After many years of searching and several false starts I am heading off to run my little pub in Shanklin. This is the end result of a journey that started probably in a caravan park bar, was added to in the legendary Phoenix and not only survived but thrived on the experience of the Ship. I remember leaving the Ship and knowing with absolute certainty that I had to get another set of pub keys in my pocket, I felt quite incomplete without them. Andrew will tell you that he already knew that I was committed and in truth so did I, it’s just taken longer than I would have hoped. So to those of you who I told that the next pub was going to be on the Isle of Wight, every word was the truth.
Moving from the stunning sea views and lovely people is hard but to those people I would say it’s only a break, I will visit. The reality of the move is becoming more evident now as I consider what seems to be an insurmountable mountain of tasks and face the repeated question of “it’s not just you is it? I am, by nature, a solitary individual and a workaholic so it should not be a surprise that when faced with a project of this enormity I see nothing odd in tackling it single handedly.
This mornings delight, which I will share with you, was dealing with the moronic monolith that is EE. I had to cancel my broad and with this company and am already well aware that for this there will be an extroadinary charge which is in dispute with the regulator. Today’s call was simply to enact the cancellation, well you would have thought that it was simple…..I started by explaining that I wanted to cancel and had no wish to transfer the burden of this contract to friends or family or indeed to donate it to a small African child, I just wanted to cancel. The response at this stage was to put me through to an office that was shut.
An hour later I repeated this exercise, could they ask why I was leaving?’ No they could not, I had told them repeatedly so they should have updated the system. Eventually they demanded this key piece of information and I capitulated in the hope of progressing things. How naive I had been, they launched into yet another round of ways that I could avoid the cancellation fee by burdening some unsuspecting friend with the same provider. Again I explained that I simply wanted to cancel and he put me through to somebody else to debate the options. In total I spoke to three representatives of this company this morning all of whom wanted to ‘help’ me avoid the exorbitant and, I might add, illegal cancellation costs by passing the package to a friend. I appreciate that big companies sometimes get disconnected from the human side of life so, just for them, here is a thought. If we hate you and are struggling to get away from you why would we inflict that on a friend? That is not what we do out here in the real world!
I should point out that other broadband providers are available but few of them are as appalling as EE