Being retired is pretty good. No cares, no worries. The sun is still shining on what must be developing into one of the hottest summers on record. It’s 7.00pm and my biggest concern is how to make sure Dave and I don’t go to the pub too early.
Tuesday night, as you know, we meet Kev and his crew down the Corner House but if we go too early I know I will have a headache the next day. Of course I could simply drink less when I get there but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
As I say it’s 7.00pm and suddenly there is a shout from the Garden Room. Obviously something bad has happened. One of the grandkids hurt! Alex has lost her book! Christine has spotted the marmalade I dropped on the new settee! I rush through and would you believe it, it’s worse, the internet connection is down. Now to you and me this would be a hindrance, a nuisance, but to Dave who was about to have his two hour Skype call to Sven, the German in Barcelona it’s as bad as it gets. Without his laptop on line he is lost, it’s like having his right arm lopped off. He is suddenly out of the loop of what’s happening. So we need to get it back on in a hurry.
I ring the internet provider’s status line which tells me they have no problems. I then ring their technical help line and after listening to bad music few a few minutes because “all our operators are busy” I get a young guy who takes my phone number and asks me to hang on. He comes back in a further few minutes and declares “there is a problem on the line” as if this information makes everything OK. I explain that I already know this because I’ve lost my internet connection and that is why I am ringing.
He passes the problem to the engineers who only work office hours so it will be tomorrow before it’s fixed.
I ring again this morning for an update, to be told that the engineers suggested that I turn everything off and back on again and it should work. Two things: Firstly, good of the engineers to suggest that but at what point was anyone going to pass that message to me. According to the guy on the phone they were “just about to ring me”. Maybe! Secondly, having been part of an IT Help desk some twenty odd years ago, I was always surprised by how many calls you got rid of by simply turning things on and off. Even if it didn’t work the chances of that person getting back to you was remote. So you had still got rid of them.
It didn’t work of course so I ring back and got some young girl who probably didn’t want to start off her day with me on the other end of the phone. She explained that the problem now needed to be passed back to the engineers and could take up to three working days to fix. Three days, I am now suggesting rather strongly that three days is ridiculous and for the sake of Dave’s health I needed it fixed more quickly and she needed to make sure it happened. This was all fair comment because it was obviously her fault that the error had occurred in the first place and so she should be able to mend it.
Half way through this conversation a little bell rings in my head. Since Alex’s arrival from The Bahamas, she and Christine have spent considerable time huddled over the computer. Alex has been introducing Christine to the joys of E-Bay. How to set up an account, how to bid, how to pay, etc. and Christine is currently watching three auctions , one has two hours to run, one two days and one three days. No internet, no bidding, no buying, no problems.
So back to girl on the phone, I suddenly change tack and ask her if she can ensure it will take three days. She assumes I am being sarcastic and tells me it will be fixed as soon as possible. I explain the situation but she doesn’t seem to understand and still insists it will be fixed as soon as possible. Poor girl can’t win, I was shouting when it would take three days now I’m shouting because it might not take three days. But was she bothered, probably not, it was probably coffee break time, maybe a bacon sandwich and then onto the next idiot on the phone ranting about his wife and E-Bay.
The connection came back on within two hours so the auctions are still being watched and my bank balance is likely to take yet another hit. But the good news is the marmalade on the settee has not been spotted yet. But there again if I had a decent breakfast of bacon, eggs maybe a sausage instead of wallpaper paste I wouldn't be eating toast and marmalade on the settee in the first place.
