If that’s you who is this?

I would like to apologise to anybody that I failed to acknowledge yesterday. It was not that I didn’t recognise you it was that I almost recognised you and that just isn’t enough. Is it just me that gets those days? when almost everywhere you see people who are almost people who you know. I am not talking about a one-off doppelgänger but a veritable community of look a likes. I must have seen six people who were near replicas of friends but, on the double take, were not quite right.

I am sure that the Payntrix will have an explanation for this but I am between two ideas. Either I am in some sort of parallel universe where everyone has taken slightly different paths so look slightly different. If this theory is correct then they must also think that I look very similar to somebody that they know, I shall check this next time. The alternative is that either my brain or my eyes have adopted a fuzzy filter hence the apology at the beginning. I have posted before about human facial shape recognition which I see everywhere but this is something else. Yesterday was akin to watching a revival of an old movie, sure I know that’s Batman but he isn’t quite right.

In other news technology turned on me yesterday but it is ok we are friends again now. Last weekend I replaced my router at home, the old one was not performing. Given the relative cost of these devices I was left with little choice other than to buy the all singing all dancing one, honestly its true. So I now have the fastest wireless connection available to a broadband service that is uses spiders to carry the data packets to the exchange (even they have to take a break). Last night I settled down to some work, this involves logging on through my router with my work laptop, oh it sounds so easy. This has never been a problem before but last night it would connect but I still couldn’t see anything. Having rebooted windows the obligatory 4 times and repeated the same problem  I decided that it had to be the super complicated router. Out came the old router and all associated connections were made, conflicts resolved and…. the same result. Having reset everything to where it started and confirmed the issue still existed I cracked a beer and turned the TV on. This morning everything is ok, I wish I knew how my IT people know when I have new kit and why they always chose that precise time to have an issue.

Having shared the delightful young tomboy on the train (as wrong as that sounds) I have to share the young couple that I observed at the station yesterday. The young couple (early twenties) came complete with a small child in a buggy, said buggy being weighed down with shopping. Having arrived at the bench next to me on the station the young lady fished through the shopping and produced chocolate for the child and a pregnancy kit which I presumed wasn’t for the child. The young lady studied the box for a while, I have never understood this step surely they all say “pee on the stick”, and concluded it was what she expected. At this stage step forward her partner, ever chivalrous he wasn’t going to expect his Mrs to perform the test in public was he. Oh no our man had a better idea “there’s a thing down there go behind that”, the thing in question was a signal location box so think smaller than a standard wardrobe.

They looked reasonably pleased with the result but what if it is positive? Do they name their child Platform One ‘cos that’s where we found out init’. Imagine the stories when the child is older ‘we went up town and robbed a test outa savers, that’s when we knew that little Nike was getting a brother or sister’. I know that I am old but I am alone in finding it sad that we seem to have lost the magic of parenthood.

A final note, more of a reminder really. I awoke at 5 am this morning grabbed a cup of tea and turned the PC on to get some bits done and I have to thank Sean. The Driftwood webcam (link below) showed that most glorious beach empty and peaceful and I have kept a studious eye on it as it wakes up. Thanks mate, wont be long till my Appley.

 (http://driftwoodbeachbar.com/webcam/)

Transatlantic calling

As you will recall my router gave up the ghost last weekend and I was back to the standby machine. Well all was sorted with the provider and I had high hopes of returning home to a new router this Friday and who would have thought those hopes would have been rewarded? but they were and I had said new router connected within minutes.

Now here it gets complicated because it wanted my username and password, not the account ones or my email ones but the ones that were established 8 years ago and are only ever used when I get a new router. Obviously this is the sort of thing that a sensible operator would put in the box, needless to say my operator is not in that class. At this point I entered into a whole world of pain known as ‘customer service’, most of you will be familiar with this experience so I can’t think that you will find this enlightening but a combination of anger and despair led me to recount the experience.

To set the scene, I dialled and made something in the region of 6 choices to get to the correct department, I then had to enter my full home telephone number so that they could identify me. Having passed the first hurdles I reached a human being although, as you will see, I am not convinced he was actually human. Pleasantries were exchanged and then I confirmed my telephone number, my address (in full) and my date of birth to a man that struggled to understand English. I can see why they did this after the first security check Mr(s) Smith could have chloroformed me and then would have been free to discuss my router details without further challenge, I must commend the high security.

I explained that I needed my user name and password, he explained what I had explained and we had the same basic idea of the request. In order to give me these details he needed to confirm some security details with me, at this point I pulled the curtains unsure if he had spotted a laser scope drawing a bead on me, can’t be too careful apparently. Having confirmed just about everything I was just measuring my inside leg in preparation for proving who I was but they were ahead of me and the last few digits from my payment card sufficed, just as well really as I fell over trying to measure my own inside leg with the un cooperative wrists.  Several minutes passed as my user name and password were recited painfully slowly in the phonetic alphabet, although I must say this is quite something to experience in broken English. I entered the requisite details and …… nothing happened, I had connection PC – Router but nothing from the router a fact that I was quick to point out to my colonial chum.

“Can you tell me what the lights are doing?”

“ADSL is flashing, power is steady on and Lan 1 is lit, all of the others are off”

“OK can you tell me what the internet light is doing?”

“Is the clue not in the statement that all of the others are off?”

“Is the internet light flashing?”

“Hello are you there? Its off the same as all of the others apart from ADSL, Power and Lan 1”

“Thank you, so what you are telling me is that the internet light is off”

“Is your name Sherlock?”

“Is there more than one phone socket in your house?”

“No just the one”

“Is your router connected to the primary socket?”

“There is only one”

“Is this the primary one?”

“No I only have one and its the secondary one”

“Please plug the router into the primary socket”

“It is”

“Is this the socket with the BT logo on?”

“I only have one”

“So what you are telling me is that  the router is connected to the primary socket?”

“You should be a detective”

“Is there a filter plugged into the socket”

“Yes”

“Is there one in every socket in your hone?”

“I only have ONE”

“Do you need more filters?”

“I have one socket, one filter, one router and they are all installed together”

“The filter is a small white box the size of a matchbox”

“I am sorry I thought that it was pink and made of cheese , let me dig out the correct one”

“There will be one in the box”

“Listen I am an Engineer, I have a filter installed, the leads are installed, the power is on, this is not rocket science after all”

“Thank you so what you are telling me is that everything is connected to the primary circuit but it does not work, I will run a diagnostic”

After some time “There are no faults on your line”

“OK so why does it not work?”

“Is your computer turned on?”

“Shit! that was it all along, of course it is bloody well turned on”

“Is the PC connected to the router? You will need the yellow cable”

“I can’t use wet string? of course it is connected with the wire”

“Is it the yellow cable?”

“I am looking at the router details on my PC, if the cable is yellow,red,green or orange is irrelevant it IS connected”

“Is the cable yellow?”

“YES”

“What I see is that it is working”

“No it is not that’s why I am on the phone to you, it’s not a social call!”

“But have you tried to use a browser window?”

At this point I turned around to see that it was indeed now working, opened a browser window and all was well. “OK so now its working but why wasnt it before?”

“Can you open a browser window?”

“Yes I have and it works but why wasnt it working before”

“The browser is normally a blue e if you are using windows”

“It works OK? its fine, problem solved, but what was the problem?”

“Sometimes a test fixes a fault”

“Why is it called a test then? Oh well its good thanks”

“Can I ask were you happy with this call?”

“No it was rubbish, you are rubbish and your entire organisation is rubbish”

“So would you like to talk to a manager?”

“No because he is as rubbish as you”

“So what you are saying is…..” at this point I killed the call. In case you are wondering this was a real conversation, my sarcasm had no affect on the operative he just took it in his stride and I guess has been trained not to engage with frustrated callers and that made it worse! at least my mate Andrew managed to get a wind up out of the telesales that pestered him, although how he managed to get the guy to phone back with donkey sex allegations is still beyond me.

Why do companies think that getting Indian call centre staff to read from a script that presumes all callers are imbeciles will pass for good customer service? I am trained to repeat back messages to the emergency services in an emergency situation, when a call centre does it then its akin to the grocery store doing it! “Could I have a bottle of that wine please?” “what you are telling me is that you would like a bottle of this wine” its beyond silly its extremely frustrating and drives you insane because your request is repeated by someone who struggles to understand your language!

 

They are turning on me?

As you will recall, last week my TV receiver failed completely and singularly with no sign of life. Whilst electronics have a limited life it is not that common for them to fail quietly and then simply refuse to power up but that alone is not enough to make me believe that technology has turned against me.

I returned home today and powered up my PC to discover that my router, having worked perfectly last weekend, also refused to power up, no LED, no life, it had ceased to be! Having identified the alternative router and set that up I decided that cooking would be easier. I opened a bag of rice, given the electronic experiences I played it safe and followed the instructions on the bag of rice, using scissors to remove the top carefully, and then turned and knocked 75og of rice all over the kitchen, thankfully the vacuum cleaner has not yet deserted me!

I did learn some interesting things from the router experience though albeit not from the technical department where I suffered the usual ‘have you restarted it?’ and a new one ‘is there power in your house?’ I also learnt that I am out of contract and took delight in refusing the offers/discounts/loan of my wife from the Indian call centre, we then do the “has this call been to your satisfaction?”

Me – No

CC – Would you like to speak to my manager?

Me – No

CC – But you were not satisfied by the call

Me – And how would a further unsatisfying call help?

So we seek out a better deal and then go back to the ‘customer retention’ centre and lo and behold they have finally learnt that we don’t like Indian call centres, customer retention is in a more friendly and less patronising nation, where the language makes sense to the English. England? I hear you ask, Hell no South Africa, well its a start…..

I am wondering though if the router failure is the result of me reporting on the mysterious Mr/Mrs Smith, perhaps ‘they’ are trying to shut down my lines of communication before I can stop his/her evil plan? I knew this was no innocent woman on the train, I should have tackled her there and then now I have allowed her to continue on her nefarious mission whilst her associates quietly silence my protests. Thank god I read so many thrillers or I would not have been able to see the plot behind this series of innocent events.