Rosi’s Blog

So, in the last two weeks I’ve broken my mobile phone, and hastily replaced it with a new one that I hate; had my beloved satnav randomly die on me; had someone break into my house, smashing a window and stealing my new laptop that I’d just painstakingly finished setting up, and had in it the software and data cable for the new phone….. Then yesterday, I managed to fry my external hard drive by plugging it into the wrong charger. Oh, and my shower has somehow started leaking through the ceiling downstairs.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something, but I’m not sure what because my celestial wi-fi is down.

Thank God (or another deity of your choice) for insurance and guarantees, but the various telephone “helplines” that you have to go through to get hold of it are definitely the work of him downstairs.  

Some are better than others, it has to be said. PC World have been pretty helpful - as you’d expect, considering I’ve paid them for two identical laptops in as many weeks - and even made a token attempt at sorting out my hard drive problem. They failed, and told me I’d have to come back in a week when their data retrieval guy is back from holiday, but they took long enough to come to this conclusion that I had plenty of time to buy several other items from them.

Orange, on the other hand, are* *in my opinion; metaphorically speaking; exceptions apply; time spent reading this is non-refundable and subject to 18 month contract a bunch of theiving, lying, incompetent bastards. LG Phones were even worse, not even managing to convey the impression that they were trying to help. They must recruit the most characteristically unhelpful people they can find, and then give them extra training in how to be deliberately obstructive. Just mastering that tone of voice that so exquisitely combines forced politeness with boredom and scarcely concealed contempt must take many months of work. “How many customers did you offend today?” “Thirty-seven. It would have been thirty-eight, but I slipped up one time and accidentally said something useful. Won’t happen again, boss.” “Good stuff. Keep it up and we’ll be looking at you for a promotion”.  

Currys digital were ok, on the whole. TomTom I’ve been impressed with, so far. My own insurance brokers convey the impression of really trying hard to do their best for me, while remorsefully blaming anything they can’t do on “The Insurers”. The police have been sympathetic, but slow and bureaucratic. The double glazing company were almost falling over themselves to be helpful - and why not? They get a nice reliable job, with probably a bit of exaggeration on how much work actually needs doing, but they can bill the insurance company directly so nobody really cares.  

And so on and so on. Naturally, a pattern emerges. People are most helpful when you’re either giving them money, or there’s a strong possibility that you might give them more money in the future. Once you’ve signed up for an eighteen month phone contract, though, the network doesn’t care about being nice to you, because you can’t go anywhere for a good long while, and most people have short memories. You can almost hear them sniggering behind their hands and going “ha ha, so what are you going to do about it then? Loser.”

The silver lining in all this though, is that although my life is absolute chaos at the moment, I’m now motivated by necessity to do something about it. Eventually, I should have a nice, streamlined system for all my electronics, data, files, organizers and various bits and bobs. My usual MO is to have a hastily cobbled together collection of incompatible devices and software that never seems to be able to do quite what I want it to. I’ve often envied people who seem to have everything set up so that it’s nice and easy to use, and they don’t have to spend half their lives wrestling with technology. Maybe when I’ve sorted this all out I’ll be one of them. Hey, I can dream….