I'm a good boy

[jack]

I fixed my bike

Well, not quite. It has a slow puncture. But it's rideable, just. The wheel seemed to have several faults stemming partly from my lack of practice. Lots of punctures. Inner tube doubling over inside the tyre and popping up as rabbit ears. Valve being twisted and not entering pump. Which were mutually causing -- I think a partially flat tyre being ridden on managed to double the tube. A rabbit ear catching on a strut causing a puncture. A valve leaking air. Time for gel tyres, but at least I can cycle to the shop.

Made, ate and enjoyed caesar salad

Quite nice. I think my objection to lettuce stems from it not having interesting stuff on. God, I really am a vegetarian now :)

Bought universal remote and headphones

Just a couple of toys that make my life a bit easier.

Retuned TV

Putting all the available channels at the start, so I don't have to scroll past 20 shopping or blank channels to get to ITV3. And I get E4 and abc1 which I didn't realise, which have some cool stuff on.

Got an interweb

Why am I constrained to call it that horrible ironic name?

And NTL seem to have changed their customer line slightly. Despite the frustration of being asked repeated and patronisingly why I didn't try their website (*does* their online customer enquiries work?), there were a few good things: an estimate of how long I'd have to wait, rather than "we are experiencing an 'unusual' volume of calls"; I was disconnected and they called me back, when I expected, since it was 5.02, I'd be lost; ok music and slightly less annoying adverts; helpful teleoperator. Though I have to take friday PM off, damn.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

They're always experiencing an unusual volume of calls. It would be unusual if they ever weren't.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, exactly. I mean, even if they always experience a large volume of calls in the afternoon, that's not exactly unexpected, unless they're REALLY REALLY DUMB. Well, I guess that hypothesis does have something to it :)

It's no doubt the 10 minute syndrome[1]. What incentive have they to be accurate? If they say 'unexpected' they might sucker SOMEONE into not dumping them. Someone ringing often enough to get annoyed is probably stuck (you got out, right?) OTOH, the telling-you-how-long has to score them points with lots of people, maybe it *is* a sound business decision. I know I'm more likely to wait knowing how long.

[1] Taxi: "There in 10 minutes."

[ex-mair-aw801.livejournal.com]

I called some call centre (not NTL -- PC world I think) that told me what my place in the queue was, rather than a time. It was exciting moving up the queue!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I deampt of that, I never thought it'd be possible. They normally go "Near the top, near the top, near the top," and then hang up because you stopped concentrating for 2s when you connected :)

Ideally, both, depending on how good their time algorithm is. And give you a 30 s warning so you can get ready. And don't panic every time the music fades out.

If they were REALLY clever they'd arrange the music to crescendo then! :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I never went in.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah. Cleverer than me. Though NTL haven't screwed me over yet I don't think :)

[ex-mair-aw801.livejournal.com]

they didn't screw me over till I tried to leave...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah. What happened then?

[ex-mair-aw801.livejournal.com]

it took me 6 months to succeed in cancelling my account

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I vaugely remember. But... what? Did they just not get round to it?

[mair_in_grenderich]

oh, I don't know. I sent them an email trying to cancel it, and got an auto-reply (so they got it), but nothing further, and then I wrote, and that didn't get acknowledged, and then I called a few times, and, oh, there was some mess where I didn't get three months of bills anyway, or the reminders, so I thought the cancelling had worked, so it was all ok, and I don't know if the postal forwarding service was *that* crap or if they didn't send them, and AJ tried to do it for me but they wouldn't let him because he wasn't me, and I had to call from call-boxes (well, using my mobile phone to listen to hold music doesn't seem like a good thing to me) and so I stood on Leith Walk with traffic going by and listened to hold music for ages --- it's the adverts they interspersed that pissed me off - also, how hard would it be to have a hold-music menu? press 1 to listen to spice girls while you wait, press 2 to listen to mozart, press 3 to listen to rage against the machine, press 4 to listen to the speaking clock - --- and after calling a few times and getting chugged from dept to dept (I have to have a change of address to cancel it, but they don't my change of address registered, but ...) some dude said "did you write, we have to have it in writing", I said "yes, I wrote", he said "I can't find a record of it" and cancelled it for me anyway, and I paid a final bill for february (I only moved out the september before...), and they haven't bothered me since.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes, I know the feeling, particularly the frustration with the non-applicable adverts and the trawling cambridge for phone boxes... *hug* Let's pray this time I survive them...

[mair_in_grenderich]

I think the thing that frustrated me most is their implication that my time isn't important. Forty minutes of doing *nothing* - that's my time! I'm a computer science graduate from one of the best universities in the country: what's forty minutes of my time *worth*? And they're happy for me to just listen to hold music in it.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if you could have a hands free phone and leave it next to you and just get on with stuff with their crap music in the background, but I can't do that...

The incompetence and the way the bills didn't all get through and---that's right, I wanted to ensure any more stuff they sent me did come to my address, so I wanted to register the change of address, but I couldn't because of this and that, and I think I gave up on that in the end and relied on royal mail forwarding to get the final info---and the getting passed around - that's a sort of general incompetence and it isn't anyone in particular's fault and certainly isn't the fault of the poor kids who do the actual phone answering, and it annoys me, but it doesn't make angry in the same way.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

When I'm ready for it I can often manage to lie down with a book and the phone by my ear, but I still flail every time the music fades out for an advert. And when I'm impatient it's Very Annoying (TM). If I could email I'd be happy, but most organisations are incapable of responding sanely to a question without you there breathing over their shoulder.