Yet more struggles...

For those of who've been waiting with bated breath, here's the next installment of the Phone And Broadband Saga - as an additional extra, for subscribers only, at NO additional cost and only if you sign up today - an extra (and still not final!) chapter in the TV saga! And if you order in the next five minutes, you can get a free atom feed so that you won't miss a single installment of these exciting dramas...

Sorry, I'm feeling a bit facetious tonight. Actuallly, I want to apologise - I know I've been complaining a lot the last few posts, and the worst part is that it isn't just me being picky - a lot has been going wrong lately. But to put it in perspective (although I don't really _feel_ like being reasonable), it's not really all that major. I can live without broadband, and without tv, and it's not like I don't have water or electricity. But still, it's irritating, and blogging helps me get it out of my system. There will be some more upbeat posts coming - I'm going to Stonehenge on Sunday, and ZimFest and bike shopping next weekend, so I'll post a report on those (maybe even with photos! I'm sure you can't wait).

But now, on with the latest chapter in the phone saga. Last time I posted, the one socket upstairs was working, but the other one upstairs and the one downstairs were still giving me that "The number you have dialled has not been recognised" message. So, with no help from BT, but a lot of helpful from the useful people over at uk.telecom, I've managed to figure out that there are 2 lines coming into the flat. One comes into the one socket upstairs, and the other comes into the other socket which has the downstairs extension connected to it. Typically, it seems that BT activated one of the two lines - the one without the extension. (Why they didn't tell me there were two lines when I ordered, I don't know). And since I very much doubt that I could get BT to connect the other line instead - how would I specify which one I meant, and probably it would take another two weeks, plus the couple of days head start I've had on the broadband provisioning, and my number would change, and then they'd probably charge me for it and reconnect the same line again anyway - my options are rather limited. I'll have to put a splitter on the single working socket, and plug the phone into one side and leave the phone upstairs (not really a hardship, I guess, since no-one will ever phone on my landline anyway). Then I can run an RJ11 cable all the way downstairs, or I can spend yet another £70 and get a wireless router and hope that it works better than the one in my old flat, and that I'll actually be able to get a signal downstairs if the router lives upstairs. Not much of a choice, but better than no broadband at all.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm calm enough for this yet, but here's what's happening with the TV saga. Quick catch-up: after getting a standalone aerial since the flat aerial didn't work, and then getting a new freeview box because the original one didn't work, my TV's power button stopped working after a week (a Mikomi 20" LCD, model LCD2008, from Argos, in case anyone wants to avoid it - although to be fair, the picture quality and viewing angles were very good when it used to switch on). So I contacted Argos, they were very apologetic, and arranged for a new TV to be delivered on Saturday since I'm at work all day during the week.

So imagine my surprise when I came home only to discover a "we called to collect" note under my door (under my flat door, btw, which means they rang someone else's bell and disturbed them to be allowed into the house). So I phoned up the Argos helpline, and was told that their collection people only work during the week. And that my only options are to take it back to my local store myself, or have it collected at a different address. And that a manager would not be able to help me.

Now there are so many problems with this, I barely know where to start - but don't worry, start I will.

They didn't let me know they were coming today, or what time. Do they expect people to just be at home all day every day?

They didn't tell me, when I reported the problem, that they can only collect during the week.

When I told them that I had to have the new TV delivered on a Saturday, despite the fact that I would have to sit without a TV all week, it didn't occur to them that I therefore wouldn't be at home during the week.

Surely most people work during the week? When are working people supposed to have fault goods collected?

If I could get it to my local store, why would I have had it delivered in the first place?

If I can't get it to my local store, what are the odds that I can take it to another address to have it collected there?

It's their product that's faulty (and in fact, there were 2 faulty items in the one delivery) - why must I struggle to find a way to get it back to them? Especially when someone is coming here tomorrow any way to drop off the new TV.

Isn't it very inefficient and expensive to have someone come out on Friday to collect a TV, and then have someone else come out on Saturday to deliver a TV? Isn't there a slightly obvious optimisation there?

If they can't collect it, and I can't return it, what happens? (I believe the technical term is "impasse"). At the moment, it's my problem since they have my money and I don't have a working TV. Tomorrow, it's their problem, since I'll have a working TV and a broken TV, and they only have one set of money.


This is similar to the problem I'm having trying to dispose of the packaging from the other stuff I bought. The boxes are too big to fit in the dirtbins, even if I didn't mind hogging them all with my rubbish and not leaving any space for the other residents. The garbage collectors apparently won't collect anything not in a bin. The recycling people won't take packaging boxes. The nearest dump is miles away, and I don't have a car. So effectively there's no way for me to get rid of these boxes. As the Merton Council person I emailed pointed out, I can either cut the boxes up into pieces so that they do fit in the bin (which doesn't solve the hogging problem, and means that I might be rid of some of them by Christmas), I can pay the council £15 to come and collect them. Which seems a bit extreme. Maybe I could drape a throw or something over them and use them as a makeshift table...

And don't even mention Tiscali's customer support... that's a rant and a half on it's own.

(On the good side, at least I do have dialup. So I could type this up on a decent keyboard, and post it, and even maybe add in some links. So while a lot of things are really trying my patience, life's not all bad.)