Occasional Scribbles

“You’ve got to be joking”, I exclaim to no one in particluar since I am on my own, as the web expires,  fizzles out and dies, never to return again. I fiddle around with my internet settings but see that I have a perfect connection, locally, but none whatsoever to the outside world.  I consider my options.  I check the phone, it’s dead too.  I pick up my mobile and check the credit.  “You are three minutes to the lower rate text messages, you are miles away from free phone calls, so hang up and top up.” hmm. 

Searching in the depths of my bag I find to my astonishment that I have a stash of top up vouchers.  The day is saved, I can now call BT.

I dial the free number, (otherwise very expensive number if you are, as I am, calling from a mobile) and a disembodied voice comes down the line.  “If you are a BT customer – press 1, if you are calling to advise us of a change of address – press 2, if you are calling about your hugely expensive phone bill – press 3, if you wish to order your bill in braille – press 4, if you are receiving nuisance calls – press 5, if you are with an alternative provider and you want to return to BT, though I wouldn’t think that is likely – press 6, if you are phoning to report a fault…what, you mean you missed this option, oh dear you will have to hang up and re-dial, sorry.” URRRRRRRRGGGGGG!!

 I get the faults line eventually and get a computer who asks me various questions about the nature of the fault, and establishes that I have indeed got a fault, which it seemed to be in some doubt about for a while, the computer helpfully agrees to test my line.  I wait.  It cannot say where the fault is and offers to put me onto an ‘operator’.  Wow! a ‘live person’, surely not, I think to myself.  The live person comes on by which time I am getting worried about my credit on my mobile, expecting to be cut off at any minute.  As a result, after giving all my address information, security question, great aunts maiden name, what I had for breakfast and so on,  in double fast time, (though why I have to do this I do not know since the computer and I have been chatting for quite some time without any such formality); the person starts the whole assessment program over again.  I interrupt her, panicking now and tell her, we, the computer and I, have already decided that there is a fault and why do we have to go over it all again? I hurriedly tell her about my credit problem and warnhertobeveryquickindeed but she tells me not to worry, she will call me back. 

To her credit, this real person, is actually very helpful, very English and easy to understand.  Now that I no longer have to worry about my diminishing mobile credit, I am perfectly happy to listen as she explains the various types of fault and diagnostics that she can carry out and I even find myself being polite and unusaully helpful during the process.

There’s a bit of a sticky bit in the conversation, as she tells me that should an engineer come out and find that the fault is on my side of the equipment and not theirs, I will be charged £180 immediately for punishment and a further £90/hr thereafter to fix it.  We argue a while as to whose equipment is in fact at fault.  I have been told before by an unhelpful engineer that only half the telephone socket box belongs to BT and the other half is mine, though I don’t quite agree with this since both halves have BT inscribed on them.  We circle around this issue for a while and I tell her that I have been told, I am not allowed to touch the bit that BT owns.  Since this socket box is the one where the phone line comes into the house and is not an extension, I feel it is entirely their property.  This is where BT become pedantic.  They claim to own the wire and the top half of the box while the wires in the bottom half are mine.  I really feel we are splitting wires here.

In order to resolve this situation which is not improving as we talk, the ‘live lady’, informs me that I must borrow a friend’s phone that is not a walk around, cordless one and if I can, preferably borrow two phones,  then I must open the box up (I am allowed to do this now, because the live lady says so, though twenty minutes ago it was strictly forbidden) and plug in said friend’s phone to see if it works.  That way they can be sure that it is not my own phone that is broken, though I assure her it is not.  I agree to carry out this important task and report back to her in the morning when she will call me back as it is late now and I cannot disturb my friend or neighbour.

After I say goodbye to the live lady, who had tried to be hepful, but is tied by BT’s pedantic restrictions, I ponder the situation.  I know I am unlikely to be able to borrow a phone between now and early morning when BT will be calling me back.  I consider lying and pretending that I have not tested the phone with my own, now suspect one.  I decide I will definitely do that, how are they to know?  Meanwhile I take myself off to bed as my whole world of communication has gone in a flash and I don’t fancy the offerings on TV.

Next morning, I think about the whole problem again.  I call ‘the Other’ down stairs, who has already taken it all to bits, trying to fix it, risking instant death should we be found out, as we are not allowed to touch BT property, and get him to take another look .  I ask him, how come, plugged directly into the BT socket, (thereby by-passing our part) the phone doesn’t work, surely this means that the outside line is dead, therefore BT’s problem?  He decides to have another go at fixing it, since BT are about to call and we need to be able to tell them, wrongly, that we have indeed checked the socket with a friend’s phone…liar liar.  The Other fiddles, he removes a piggy back jack socket and plugs the phone in.  Eureeka!  It works. It must have been the jack all along, though The Other swears he tested it.  We decide that the outside line is at fault, but has miraculously repaired itself. 

I feel sheepish.  The mobile rings.  It is BT.  It is also, luckily, the computer and not the live lady, calling.  I silently hang up with relief.  It has cost £5 of mobile credit but could have cost £180 minimum penalty for calling out an engineer to fix the half that doesn’t belong to him.  OOPS! We still have to call out an engineer to fix our  half.                                                  

Photo – www.robertopiecollection.com