Improve your life … Smash your Electronic Gizmos April 27, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Computers , trackbackComputers allow us to perform tasks we never have needed to be done faster than we never needed them doing before.
Marketing tells us that PDA’s, Laptops, Cellphones, MP3 players are all making our lives more fun and efficient but deep down I suspect somebody somewhere is having a good laugh at our techo-misfortunes. Life has never been so damn difficult with them all.
Cellphones have instilled in us this feeling that we need to be in constant touch with people 24-hours a day. We no longer appreciate the convenience of this and we get angry when friend dare to switch them off when want to speak with them at two o’ clock in the morning.
MP3’s, cellphones and digital cameras work great until their battery runs out and are unusable until the user can rush to the comfort of their plug-socket and sort it all out again. They require individual power cables which are too cumbersome to take out with you and paradoxically the appliances are also designed so small these days that you can lose all of them from the convenience of just one pocket.
The internet is so damn saturated with information that it takes hours to actually find what you actually want and the internet is my life and my business!
Today I have given up on a task which should be so simple I’d have assumed would take only a few minutes. I have been trying to get a pre-paid mobile phone SIM card delivered to a hotel in Glasgow so that Tik will receive it when she arrives there on Saturday.
All I need to do is confirm the hotel she’s booked into, contact a SIM card seller and give them the hotel’s address and my credit card information by phone.
I know that Tik is staying at the Glasgow Thistle Hotel so I search online for the phone number. I find the website within seconds and locate an 0870 local-rate phone number. I am delighted that the hotel has shown up on google at the top, rther than below all the hotel-booking websites which never provide any direct contact details. ‘ Life is simple’ I think.
BUT
0870 numbers cannot be dialled from overseas unless I use an International Callbackservice. No problem for me as I operate a International Callback business. I have hundreds of dollars of call credit available.
BUT
Today I lent my telephone account to a client. The Thai internet companies have blocked access to the administrative part of my callback website and I cannot change the International Callback number to call me. It is currently set to call my client and will take hours for a member of staff in America to get round to changing the number for me. Fortunately I have an ‘emergency’ account set up with a different International Callback provider which will work in a similar way - except I have to enter an inconvenient stream of digits for my account number and my PIN.
I call the number. I am immediately put on hold and it takes me nearly 15 minutes to lose patience with the telephone queue. I realize I’m calling a hotel booking service so I hang up. I then search on Online Yellow Pages to get the hotel’s number.
BUT
Nothing shows up. I find a similar hotel called ‘The Thistle Hotel’ in Edinburgh. I call, guessing that this hotel probably gets many frustrated callers who are calling them by mistake. I am right, and the patient receptionist provides me with the Edinburgh Thistle Hotel’s phone number. I call it immediately, fingers crossed.
BUT
The receptionist refuses to give me the Glasgow Thistle Hotel’s direct number - insisting that I call the booking number I used before. Fortunately she relents when I tell her that it’s impossible to call the number from Thailand. I ring them them immediately. The gentleman is very friendly.
BUT
He’s pretty much useless (although, bless him, he’s trying his best). He tells me that he cannot access that part of his computer files and that I’d be best to telephone again the next day. I politely explain to him that his hotel is expecting upto 30 guests arriving for 2 nights on Saturday and all I want is confirmation that I have the correct hotel. By tomorrow I may have lost a day for the SIM card to be posted.
BUT
He cannot do anything. He gives me excuses to do with how sometimes bookings don’t actually register on the computer until the day of the guest’s arrival. He eventually passes me on to his manager. Credit where it’s due, the manager was very efficient and confirmed Tik was booked in, confirmed that I could send the SIM card to the hotel for her, and confirmed the postal address.
This has taken me 36 minutes. Nearly all of this time I was on the phone waiting to be moved between representatives. Now it’s time to get Tik’s SIM card. I call my old friend Darran who has a business in the UK selling such things. It takes me only a minute to get to his The Cover Store website and I try to call his number.
BUT
It’s now past 5pm so there’s an answerphone. I’d have left a message but I could hardly hear their answerphone message and I want to get this sorted tonight so I locate another website instead. I want to call the company to confirm that there will be no problem getting the card delivered to the hotel by Saturday.
BUT
Hardly any websites have contact phone numbers and the ones which do lead only to a voicemail service. I remember a national favourite The Carphone Warehouse and I’m impressed that their sales department is open until late.
BUT
Their only contact number is an 0808 number. This is also problematic to dial from overseas. Working through a variety of telephone options I finally get through to the company. I am only placed on hold for a couple of minutes.
BUT
The company has a policy that they can only deliver the SIM card to registered a credit card address. I am feeling a little aggressive at this stage and counter their suggestion that my purchase might be fraudulent by the fact that the SIM card is only worth 5 pounds - hardly worth a master criminals time really. I try my standard - “You can’t? you mean you don’t know how to, or you don’t want to” pattern. I’m in luck, he tells me he might be able to help …
BUT
Click, my telephone disconnected mid-call!
Maybe I should just tell Tik to send me a postcard.
Comments»
I read an article by Douglas Adams recently, in which he grumbles about gizmos and cables. A good read.
There is also this.
Big Thanks to Darran from The Cover Store. The next day I called him, he took the time to help me with my choice of cards, found me a phone number in advance and got everything sent out to Tik’s Hotel with time to spare. If only all cellphone accessory businesses were as efficient as his. Well done.
Considering I thought this was a nasty experience it pails in comparison to the problems I had a week later trying to book theatre tickets for Tik!