I’ve been so busy lately at work, that I’ve simply not had time to sort out the usual list of domestic chores, which have therefore been piling up. Now that the equipment trial is finally over, bar writing up the final report, I’ve got some breathing space at last. So I took today off as leave to sort out some admin. First job was to get the boiler serviced – I like to get some preventative maintenance done annually before the weather closes in, as it’s really grim if the boiler seizes up when there’s snow on the ground! My usual reliable chap came round first thing Monday morning and gave it a thorough going-over, leaving me the rest of the day free.
I went into Worcester for the rest of the day, and had lunch at my current-favourite little brasserie, Saffrons. The prix fixe menu was particularly good value, and I had a delicious starter of baked figs with walnuts and feta, followed by faggots and mash with peas. I decided that I then felt fortified enough to face sorting out my mobile phone. If I’d known what was coming, I’d have had a glass of wine with my lunch as well!
I have a very old Nokia on a pay as you go contract. It has a battery that lasts for weeks, and is good for texts and phone calls, but that’s about it. When I was stranded in Durham a few weeks back I really felt the need for a smart phone to try to find out what was going on. So I thought I’d upgrade my (very) old phone and finally “go smart”. My pay as you go contract is with Orange/EE, so I went first to their shop in Worcester and waited about half an hour to be served. I wanted to keep my old number, if possible, and transfer it to a new smart phone. But there was a problem. When the chap looked up the number on his computer, it was still registered to Christopher! After over five years, when I’ve told them three times that he’s dead and even sent them a copy of the death certificate! To give the man some credit, he was very embarrassed. But that didn’t mean he could actually do anything about it. There would be a horrendous paper mountain to go through to get the SIM card transferred into my name, given that Christopher wasn’t actually around to physically sign anything! It absolutely beggars belief that they don’t have more streamlined processes to deal with customers dying – after all, it happens to all of us sooner or later! And it was really unexpected and unpleasant to have to go through the “He’s DEAD” conversation yet again so many years down the line.
I decided that I’d given Orange/EE plenty of second chances to sort out Christopher’s account over the past five years, and that they clearly were too incompetent to deal with. So I went down the road to the O2 shop instead, and set up a completely new contract, with a new number, in my own name. They were 15% cheaper too, and have better network coverage up where I live. I just hope that their customer service department is at least marginally more competent.
