Vindication
Posted: Fri 19 September, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic 1 Comment »Sometimes (as I’ve said before) you get a customer services call, and you just know that it’s going to be fun. (You may also want to hover over the links to see the full URLs for them. Up to you, of course.)
Today’s example:
“Hello, is that [Lyle]”
“Yes”
“A couple of weeks ago, you called Anglian Water. Do you mind answering a few questions about that?”
[rubs hands in glee]
“Not at all.”
“Ok. Now, what did you call Anglian Water about?”
“I called because Anglian Water had sent me the half-yearly bill for water rates. Considering Anglian Water has insisted that we can’t use their water now for six months, I thought that was taking the piss. So I called the customer services people.”
“Ah. And did the call go through immediately?”
“No. Once we’d gone through the AVR system, the phone rang for a good ten minutes before getting answered.”
“Oh. And was the customer services person helpful?”
“No. In fact, he was so sarcastic, I lodged a complaint about him with his supervisor. Who, in fairness, has been very very good.”
“Ooookkkkkk. So would you say that Anglian Water‘s customer services handled the call well?”
“Well, that depends. If it were any other company, I’d say that their handling of the call was abysmal. But with my experience with Anglian Water, I’d say that this call was about normal.”
“[laughs]. So you’re not a fan, then?”
“Put it this way. I currently think Anglian Water‘s sole purpose on this planet is to give estate agents someone to look down on.”
“OK, thanks”
“You’re not going to put that on the sheet of paper, are you?”
“Oh, I have done. Thanks, you’ve been very entertaining.”
Pants
Posted: Thu 28 August, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism 1 Comment »On the BBC today, this story of a man who found his phone banking password had been changed made me laugh.
Pissed off with the twunts at Lloyds TSB, the man changed his password to (a remarkably tame) “Lloyds are pants”. And someone within Lloyds changed it to “no, they’re not”. Even better, he then wasn’t allowed to change it back, and wasn’t allowed to have “Barclays is better”.
“The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried ‘censorship’, but they didn’t like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long.”
Now if it were me, at that point I’d have chosen “Fkwitz” and insisted that it was my great-grandmother’s maiden name. But then, I’m malevolent like that.
Also, no-one has yet raised the issue that actually, it looks like Lloyds TSB staff can see your entire password. Which isn’t particularly secure, is it?
The man is a god
Posted: Mon 18 August, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism Leave a comment »Charlie Brooker spouts forth about the London Olympics in comparison to the Beijing Olympics.
Yet even as my eyes took delight in the colour and magic, my spirits sank. I’m no patriot, but I feared for our national pride come the 2012 London Olympics. How the hell are we going to top a display like that?
Our plans currently consist of six roman candles, Bernie Clifton riding his ostrich, and some Britain’s Got Talent prick-a-ma-boob beatboxing on a trampoline. It would be less shameful if we all marched into the arena one by one, dropped our trousers, yanked our bumcheeks apart and let the entire globe gaze right up our apertures for an hour, while the Kaiser Chiefs perform their latest single in the background.
If nothing else, it would give the rest of the planet something to think about.They’d never mess with us again, that’s for damn sure.
© Charlie Brooker/Guardian Newspapers 2008
I’ll be back in a bit – I just have to get Sprite out of my sinuses.
Something Wrong…
Posted: Thu 10 July, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Driving 4 Comments »There’s got to be something wrong with the picture, when you see a BSM Driving School Instructor (In his BSM-logoed car) making a total mess of a roundabout, being in the wrong lane, and then cutting up another driver (to whit, me) in order to get to the correct place.
It does make you wonder how many of that instructor’s pupils fail though…
Mail Down
Posted: Wed 2 July, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Geeky 2 Comments »Currently, it’s looking like the mail server for 34sp.com is totally down. [UPDATED : The service was broken on my reseller server, rather than 34sp as a whole. It’s also now fixed.]
I can’t send or receive email at all when using their services/servers, and haven’t been able to since last night.
Calling their support line, it does amuse me that the musical hold I ended up with was the Muppets theme song. Somehow you’ve just got to love a company with that kind of humour.
Litrucy
Posted: Wed 18 June, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism 5 Comments »Is it better to be worried, or just depressed, when you get an email from an IT agency with the subject line…
Great Oppertunity!
Spammer
Posted: Fri 23 May, 2008 Filed under: Charm School, D4D™, Weirdness Leave a comment »I don’t normally bother to write much about spam – partly because I get a fair amount of it (although D4D™ doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere near as much as it used to – anyone else noticed their blogs not getting so many spam comments?) and mainly because well, it’s just rubbish.
But one arrived this morning which just made me chuckle. No good reason except for a very childish sense of humour.
From: Morgan Wang.
Subject : Natural Impotence Supplement
Yes, impotence supplements coming from a Wang. I’m saying no more.