Testing my patience

Today has been a test of patience to the extreme and I lost, it has turned me from my normally calm ‘What will be, will be’ attitude to a raving loony bent on revenge and verbal assaults to anyone daring to get in my space, luckily only my computer, the cats and various other inanimate objects heard any of my outburst mainly consisting of every swear word and cussing I could think of in one long loud sentence.

The reason can be summed up in one word, technology.

All I wanted to do is report a fault on my telephone landline, have you tried getting hold of a big company? Is there anyone out there?

Yesterday everything was working fine until about lunch time when I went to make a phone call and the line had no dialing tone, it sounded like an open line couldn’t call out, and although it would ring when I phoned it with my mobile albeit intermittently, it wouldn’t answer so getting hold of BT (British Telecom) was really important, I decided to try online and report the fault, it’s got to be easier then trying to get them by phone so found the section on their website and did my own fault check, impressed, it came back saying there was a fault, near the house and would get back to me in 24 hours.

Fine now I know that’s sorted a can get on with my day, I used my mobile for calls I had to make and the internet was working but somewhat slower.

Last night the internet connection seemed to get slower and slower, at one point I could almost go and make a cup of tea while each page was loading, not ideal.

This morning was much the same as lunch time approached and still no phone call or email from BT I decided to give them a ring from my mobile and got put in a queue, next thing was my mobile line went dead, realising I had run out of credit, no surprise by the amount of use it got yesterday, decided to top it up using my Visa card as I always do, now since October last year I have had a smart phone with touch screen, never really wanted one but I conceded as it meant I could receive emails, use sites like Ebay while I was away from base and a few other things, I went through a process I have done many times before, but today it wasn’t to be.

Seventeen times I had to restart the process because the touch screen kept entering the wrong number in the long card number then would ask me to start again, now the logic of the system is enter the long number, sixteen digits them enter the hash key but because the signal strengthen was at best weak, the times I did enter the number correctly, their machine was telling me I hadn’t, if I entered a wrong digit and went to back space, it's recorded message cut in saying "You have entered a number we don’t recognise" How does it know that? Why the hell do I need to enter the hash key if your automated system is checking each digit I enter, I stopped, with a string of abusive comments to the phone and the automated voice.

The next plan was to top up online, so found the T-mobile website, who is now part of the EE network, not that I wanted to be but like the banks, when one gets taken over you migrate to them without any consultation, I tried signing into the website but obviously wasn’t registered, I never used the online service, so went through all the procedure signing up and got into what was called ‘My T-mobile’ only to find that MY T-mobile’ is currently offline, aggghhhhhhhhhhh.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a link that said quick top-up Ah, I thought lets do that, again new screen really slow as internet still dragging it’s heels, so went through adding my details and as I wasn’t registered added card details, address details, checked it and hit send, nothing………

Well there was something, a short message saying I had entered incorrect details, where?

I scrolled down to find because I had entered a house name rather than a number it was adamant I was wrong and asked me to correct it, how, I don’t have a damn number you stupid website, I tried a few times but it wasn’t having it.

At this point I lost it, the tirade of abuse the computer got is even by my standards bad, it was at this point  forty years of working in the building trade and almost as long learning every cuss and swearword imaginable came out in one very long and loud sentence so much so I ran out of breath at the end, how I didn’t launch the monitor or smart phone, I will never know, all I could see was red, I was really and seriously fuming steam out of the ears.

And after venting out my anger on Facebook, walked away from the computer and went out in the garden to calm down, it didn’t work as I knew I still had to sort this out.

I made another cup of tea and looked at it a bit calmer, I know lets find my old mobile with buttons, recharge it and get it topped up that way, could I find it, could I hell.

Eventually after searching stupid places including under the cat, I found it and not where I remember putting it either, well it was last year, at my age I struggle to remember last week sometimes.

Now with my old phone on charge, it’s now just a waiting game, I did try the landline out of curiosity more than anything else, but still nothing.

An hour later it had enough charge so changed over the sim card from the not so smart, smart phone and started it up, phoned the network number and got the card details through without any silly messages or keying wrong digits, great, top up done, phoned BT on number I had on a bill and shock horror got through within a few minutes only to find out although the report test had been logged I hadn’t reported it as needing repair, hang on, so what about that bit that said we will be in touch in 24 hours? I could of so easily tore into this guy but thought better of it as he was offering to sort it out, only to tell me it could be the 1^st of October before it’s repaired, WHAT! That’s a week away…….

As you can tell it’s not been one of my better days, I still have no phone line and the internet is slow and I pay for a premium service.

In the mean time the smart phone has been consigned to the drawer in disgrace until I can either develop laser pin point accuracy with my digit pressing or I forgive it for being not so clever.

Lets hope the day improves now or at least tomorrow will be back to some kind of normality.