It's Alive!!!

I steeled myself for combat this morning. The rain had done enough to thwart me from heading out at the usual 5:00am so I settled back, had a cup of coffee, read all of my favourite cycling blogs and caught up on the news and waited for 8:00 to roll around. That's the magic hour at which the "Insert certain mobile telephone company name here" Billing Services area is available to handle enquiries.

I thought I was in with a chance being so early in the business day- I just might not have to spend an inordinate amount of time on hold listening to the same 8 songs on a repetitive cycle- oh and all of the inane interjections from Miss Bubbles on how they're working to answer my call as soon as possible.

Sorry- but like Maxwell Smart, it would seem that I "missed it by that much." Another hour plus on hold. I decided to look at their website to see if I could find another means of contact and there I noticed that South Australia and New South Wales were experiencing system issues.

As a result there would have been a greater number of users ringing to find out why they didn't have web access (or whatever) on their mobiles.

So I tried a different stream, to no avail and decided at that point to do some chores around the house- like install a new smoke detector- the old one had decided it didn't like being installed in our house- that it would much rather live at the rubbish tip. It voiced its displeasure at being stuck to the ceiling on a rather frequent basis. No amount of cleaning or fresh batteries would changes its disposition so we accommodated it and sent it on its merry way to the landfill.

Of course the new one has a smaller mounting base which resulted in the need for the electric drill, extension leads and in due course will see yours truly filling the hole in the ceiling from the previous mount and painting said patched area.

Anyhow, after this I called the Customer Service Centre again and almost suffered a myocardial infarction (that would be a heart attack) when I actually spoke with a real, living, breathing human in less than 60 seconds. After almost 4 hours in the last 2 days, I could hardly believe it.

Yes my phone had been connected and the SIM card had been activated- yesterday according to their records. "Have you turned the phone off and back on?"

I had done that so many times since last Thursday I thought I might wear the switch out but "No"- I had not touched the phone since yesterday when I tossed it back in its box and was waiting to ship it back other than to check it this morning when I got up and it still said "SIM not provisioned" and I put it back in the box. So I turned it off and then when I turned it back on, there was my little signal strength symbol beaming in the corner with the provider's network displaying on the screen.

And for all of the inconvenience, discomfort and waiting on hold, they have graciously cut my first month's payment by 50%- a total of $14.50.

Cheers- ride safe

BoaB