It was my own fault. I should never have mentioned it to @Hollander, but hubby came back from food shopping this afternoon to say the telephone pole by the river is down. Again. Cable is once again draped decoratively under the bridge, through the trees and along the hedge up the lane. Thank goodness we have our own mobile broadband now. Want to take a bet on how long it will take to fix this time? (Last time it was a full eight months)
Moi? The bridge, pole and our nearest neighbours are over half a mile away. It's usually drivers slowing down too late for the bridge where there is only room for one vehicle. They plough into the pole, the guys come out to do crochet with the cable and we hear nothing for the next few months. Our lane is so narrow that they require local permission to close it so they can do the repair. They do not have a system to chase the request and in fact, I believe they never keep a record of it. Strange but true - there is a clearing in the woods up the next lane where they train people to put up... telephone poles. There are always some left standing there after a session. Last time I threatened to go up there and take what we needed...
Not that it’s any comfort, but yep BT are a joke. I had BT at my old houses, and was always so slow it may as well have been dialup. I had an engineer out to look at what was then supposed to be 6Mb so many times as it generally ran at 0.5Mb, middle of nowhere you might imagine? Nope 2 miles from Manchester City Center. I refused to buy a house when me and the Missus were looking that wasn’t on Virgin.
We do happen to live in the middle of nowhere and I don't mind it being slow, as long as it works. The cable draped half a mile up the lane on top of a hedge for eight months was out of order. Their biggest problem is each department is set up to deal with a specific problem. Our problem didn't fit and nobody was really listening. For example, I rang the "new telephone pole" number, explained everything and yet they still told us we would be charged for the service. Their department only deals with people or businesses wanting an existing pole to be moved for their own purposes. Nobody was prepared to think out of the box and pass us on to a troubleshooting department. I must say that the CEO was brilliant and we were taken care of very well once they realised what had happened. It's just bizarre that the pole has been knocked down several times since
I tried Virgin for a while at my old house, can't complain too much (they tried their best) but BT have been superb and created some fine offers and deals for us here. A tenner a month for limitless data, calls and texts for each of our mobiles and I daren't mention the speeds we get in case Zooey explodes! I can definitely NOT recommend my work's IT though.
IT? BLOODY IT???!!!! You've had it too good mate. You should try using the IT packages that they are foisting on me. The other week I sat one of the implementation staff down behind me and proceeded to show her in graphic detail just how bad the system was. She said. "That's not good is it?" The helpdesk is a joke and you can report issues as many times as you want AND NO-ONE MAKES ANY ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE THEM.However, I now have the ear of two of the implementers and I know the person who has just taken up a very senior position with the implementation group. Watch this space. (On another note one of my colleagues is on her fourth laptop and this time they sent her one which won't even connect to the monitors.........you couldn't make it up...oh, and then we get three power outages in a week........Plan A wasn't forthcoming as no-one knew what it was despite months of meetings to thrash out the details. Plan B resulted in scratching of heads all round. Plan C ? Well don't mention Plan C......I went for Plan F. In the old days it was called pen and paper. That worked.
In the words of a famous General, was it MacArthur? I shall return......or "I'll be back"......Arnie? Sorry not been round so much recently. A lot of distractions at home at the moment and work was a time when at lunch when I could do a bit of shutter surfing. Difficult at the moment as the laptop invariably (apart from today) gets left connected up in court so I have no access during lunch from my desk. It's a crap explanation but the only one I have. Plus I have a new toy which is attracting my attention at weekends. Love and kisses to all.
Good to hear from you and keep a'commenting. If it's any use as a fun way to keep in touch, I have just switched to having my copy of the Radio Times delivered, which is cheaper than buying it from the shops. And they sent me a free Amazon Fire Tablet. Not sure I need another computer but it will have its moments. Don't forget to post a shot of your new toy and send us a nom for PotW, etc etc...
