Rant Rant Rant Rant

A few days ago there was a knock at my door. There was a man from the housing authority standing there. He said he was looking for my next door but one neighbour.

All I know about her is that her name is Ruth, she's a widow and she works in a nursing home in Brading!

I also know that her house is falling to bits and that pigeons are living in her loft. I have complained about this to environmental health, but because it's not adversely affecting me, there's nothing can be done!

Here's her house at the front - bloody mess innit!

Can you see the wood covering the pane of glass on the door? I went out there a couple of nights ago because the police arrived. I don't know who called them, but someone obviously did. They hammered on the door for a bit and then forced entry - I guess they thought they'd find a dead neighbour in there, but apparently the place is empty and her mail has been collected!

Yesterday was not a good day for communication :(

I ordered a DVD player months ago, it had extra speakers and a USB reader and card reader too. I thought that'd save wasting a lot of blank DVD's.

It was working fine up until about a month ago when it just decided it wouldn't read the USB stick or any memory cards inserted in it. So I phoned up and asked to arrange a collection.

The Customer Services Representative asked me my name, postcode, address and date of birth, then she says "And what's the answer to your secret question?" I paused and said "Well, what's the question?" She said she couldn't tell me that!

WTF?!?! "Then why don't you just ask me for a memorable word or phrase instead of asking me to remember a question and an answer?" says i.

She got quite queer at that point and I told her that all I wanted to do was return an item and if she arranged for the collection, she'd verify that I am who I say I am because I live at MY address!

Eventually she gave me a clue and I was able to answer my own secret question!

Then I had to phone 3 to get a PAC (Porting Authority Code) for Matt's phone so that I can move his number over to T-Mobile along with mine, Kyle's and Jessica's (whom I did last week with no trouble whatsoever). So this jerk asks me why I'm leaving 3, I told him that it was because my son doesn't get signal at school (regardless of the fact that he left school today). So this guy starts going on about why didn't I call Technical Support etc etc.

Now apart from the fact they all appear to be Indian or Pakistani and I can barely understand them, the reason I didn't call was because it's not a technical fault, 3 just don't cover that area! I told him that and he sneered and asked if I'd tried other handsets. I said yes and could I have the PAC code please. Then he wanted to know which network I was transferring to. I said it didn't matter and could I have a PAC code please.

Then he started to prevaricate even more and I lost it!

I started yelling at him and told him to either give me the damn PAC code or put me through to someone who could and that he didn't need to try and sell me a whole bunch of their crap. He insisted he wasn't trying to sell me anything and that he was just trying to see if they could save me money.

WTF - again!

"Can I have the PAC code please?" So then he says; "Why are you getting so excited?"

"BECAUSE I'VE BEEN ON THE PHONE FOR TEN BLOODY MINUTES AND I'VE ASKED REPEATEDLY FOR THE PAC CODE WHICH YOU STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN ME!"

Eventually I just kept repeating "Can I have a PAC code please?" and refused to answer all questions - he got the message pretty quick after that!

Funny, I phoned T-Mobile and told them that I wanted to add two lines to my account and when I told the man that they were for my children he said he would get the new sim cards out on Special Delivery so that I'd receive them before 1pm next day, that the accounts could be capped to prevent overspending and that it wouldn't change a thing on the account itself and that he would call me back the next day to take down the PAC codes so that we could transfer the numbers.

I also phoned the physiotherapy department. My doctor referred me weeks ago and I just kept forgetting to call and get an appointment. I got an answering machine!

So today, I woke and packed the kids off to school then less than an hour later a sim card arrived - just one. Oh no, I thought! But then I remembered that he'd had to do them separately so they'd probably arrive separately and - after a disastrous relationship with a postman - I knew that there'd probably be another delivery a few hours later.

Thankfully there was and I had the two sim cards. I put them in the phone and half an hour later the nice man from T-Mobile calls me up and asks if the sims have arrived. I joyfully told him they had, he took down the PAC numbers and told me it'd all be transferred by Wednesday! Shame 3 weren't as efficient!

Unfortunately, I also received a callback from physio - because I hadn't called them to arrange the appointment, they'd bounced my referral BACK to my doctor, so now I've got to go to my doctor and get another referral!

My second son Matt has now officially (except for his exams) left school OMG!