Luckily because technology and me are having a serious falling out. But it’s not the software or hardware in the main this time. It’s the bl00dy people that have been driving me mad… completely paranoid. That said I’ve just spent nearly 75 minutes between sentence two and sentence three of the previous paragraph trying to get the laptop to decide it wants to play! Internet connection dropped out, keyboard ceased to work although the mouse was fine, eventually deciding that shutting everything down and rebooting was the only way forward – assuming I DIDN’T have to type anything on the way. Which luckily I didn’t but that’s a chunk of time I’ll never have again. No idea why it did it and, as “normal” with Windows glitches, it all seems to be working properly now. Or is it just trying to lull me into a false sense of comfort? Only time will tell.

Saturday

You know, the thing that keeps Friday and Sunday apart, we thought we’d get Apple to sort the “issue” (there are NO problems in the modern world, only issues) of rapidly depleting batteries as one of my networking chums had reminded me that Apple will change them for only £25.00 including VAT (important if you are registered, that’s a whole £4.17 I can reclaim from HMRC). Sooooo, turn up at the Apple Store in Southampton and the routine is to get booked in for someone to look at the phones. Two and a half hour wait we’re told. So not ideal but we can go and get lunch and a glass (or two) of beer so off we trot. Two and a half hours later or thereabouts we get the summons, leg it from one end of the city to the other and get to see the EXACT same guy who booked us in all that time ago. Five or ten minutes later and the batteries are indeed confirmed as knackered and can therefore be replaced at the special price. So the phones are taken from us and we are given a time they will be available for collection post-replacement. Two and a half hours. To change a smegging battery (to be fair, two batteries as his and hers phones)… Go for a wander, cup of tea/coffee* (delete as appropriate), another wander, more non-alcoholic fluid and we’ve killed the time. Without a watch between us either, both of us use the stuffing phone. Walk in, collect phones, make payment, bugger off home. Arriving back SEVEN HOURS after we’d left. A whole day stolen from me for three interactions with Apple staff totalling not more than about 25-30 minutes…

That was followed by Sunday.

A minor distraction on the Saturday was to talk to Jessop’s (the camera and computer retailer) finance provider about some kit for the daughter. We’d started the transaction the Saturday previous and I’d overlooked an answerphone message that was (i) a touch misleading and (ii) superseded by some emails which later proved to be nothing of the sort. So yes, I’ll take part of the blame as should daughter for not looking at the aforementioned emails but we are where we are so I duly phone during lunch in the pub. After fifteen minutes of holding (you are in a queue, your call is important to us – but NOT important enough to employ enough staff to answer the fecking phone of course), you do get to talk to someone, get told I have to scan and send some documents (usual proof of this, that and whatever) which – of course – I don’t have to hand at lunch on a Saturday. It’s a long story – I might have done but it would have been slightly complicated and at that point we weren’t aware it was still to be five and a half hours until we got home. And so late Saturday evening the documents are scanned, attached and sent. Job done? I’ve even told the rep, slowly and carefully, that the transaction is urgent as daughter wishes to take it with her to the Seychelles on the Tuesday. Sunday was seriously depressing. Torrential rain and cold for the first time in weeeeeeks. Go for our walk in the pouring rain and deliver the daughter’s bike to the shop for a service. And I promise the daughter I’ll get in touch with the finance people at 12.00 on Monday if they don’t get back to me.

And so to Monday

Which of course they don’t. So I duly phone, play the usual waiting game and talk to the next poor soul I’m going to upset if appropriate. Oh, I’m told, my colleague has “just” sent an email to you (so you’ve ignored it – as a team – for three hours, assuming you started at 09.00 despite me saying it was urgent?) as the scan of one of the documents isn’t clear enough. So I wait and I wait and I wait and I must admit I’m thinking someone is having a laugh. Eventually, I decide to re-scan and attach to the previous email which is duly sent and a short while later the missing inbound email actually appears. And it DOES appear to have taken two hours to get from Cardiff to Hampshire. I could almost drive there in that. So I phone again and everything is wonderful now and Jessops will release the kit. Email daughter and sit down thinking job well done. I really shouldn’t telegraph the next “issue” but I’m sure you’re waiting for the next one, aren’t you? So I then do the dutiful dad thing, collect her from the local station and we’re ready for her to talk to Jessops to see if there’s any way to get the kit. But then she gets the email. Only to find one item described as “No Longer Available for Home Delivery”. Whatever does that mean?

Somewhen?

Now I must admit the days and conversations are starting to get a bit muddled in my head now but at ONE POINT it becomes apparently they’ve sold her an item they’ve subsequently discontinued and are no longer stocking. Which, let’s face it is not good. So despite the fact that they can only fulfill all of the order or none according to their T&Cs we’re told that two stores have them in stock still and if we want to collect it from Bristol (two hours each way) or Merry Hill (three hours each way) we can do so. But she has to be at Heathrow (not in the spellchecker – biggest airport in the UK???) in six or seven hours so realistically it’s not going to happen so we start talking about compensation and it’s left someone will phone me back. Which they do but it goes to my answerphone as I think I’m driving her somewhere else at the time. Call back and am told they can’t get one of the items that are in the stores and get it to the central warehouse and then on to us (collection no longer on the table you may notice as they cannot split the order). But they DO have something similar which is NOT discontinued but doesn’t have some docking something, is in white but is £80.00 cheaper. Which I duly accept having previously asked her what she would prefer in various scenarios. Oh, and to complain, I CAN’T do so to the guy on the phone, we have to do so “by email”. Really??? You’re surely making this up. But no so compensation for incompetence will take up even MORE time that I do not have.

Sigh.

So my next task is, finally having got agreement to a set of accounts from a client (he thought he’d responded says Lorraine after talking to him) is to file them at Companies House. Which I can’t as the software licences on some of my software have not been updated, Read only or not at all… But it’s after close of play from Thomson Reuters advertised hours due to the rest of the faffing about so getting to the bottom will have to wait to the morning. But I raise a ticket nonetheless to get things underway.

So, Wednesday

at 08.30 or soon after a large parcel is delivered from Jessops. Too bad she’s by then at Addis Ababa (how is the capital of Ethiopia not in the spellchecker? Who compiles this rubbish? It did suggest baobab as a possible for the second part – I REALLY need emojis) laying over between flights!!! And I’ve had the reply about the software – I have to speak to credit control. I know we take the odd liberty but we’re generally there or thereabouts and the last invoice was only due on the 31st and we paid it on the 31st, albeit somewhat late evening as Lorraine’s mother was taken into hospital after a fall. So I phone the credit control department number and some time later the call gets picked up by the support team as credit control aren’t answering their phone. Or it’s busy. Who knows and/or who cares… They tell me it is a credit control issue and promise someone will phone me back.

Which Nicole, my new account manager duly does.

And it proves to be ALL about an amount I withheld – more than a year ago – because of poor service on a support ticket where I’d been left exposed to possible grief from a client because of their failings. Much email traffic and nothing resolved so there it’s sat ever since. Run through all this with Nicole, including saying there was no way I was going to pay it and how disappointed I was that credit control could arbitrarily suspend the licence over such a piddling amount, and go out to my next meeting. Come back to an email from Nicole telling me the credit note had been issued and all the licences reinstated. Very grateful to her but sooooooooooooooooo angry it ever got there in the first place. And so another day winds down and I am hoping that the catharsis of brain dumping this will make me more relaxed. Which it will. Until the next time. See. I’m NOT paranoid. The weenies really ARE out to get me.

 I’ve used this one before but it REALLY sums things up…