Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

Boy! Saturday was fun. About about a month ago I realised that I could save a bit of money if I switched from my current phone company (BT) to one that also provides my cable (NTL), The only weekend that they could make it was this weekend. (I wasn't really in the mood to use up holiday time just to get my line switched.)

They give you the usual time slot (AM, in my case) and I waited. To my surprise the engineer turned up at 9:30. Wow! He should be donw in no time and I can have the day free to go out and do stuff.

Okay, so he's only looks about eighteen and is from Eastern Europe (or somewhere that gives him a thick accent with lots of rolled rrrrrs.) I have to listen hard to understand what he is saying. I'd even tidied up the flat the night before (long overdue) chucked out loads of old magazines and bills and stuff (through until 3am!) and pushed the TV out a bit so that he could get to the phone socket. My TV is mega-heavy so I thought that if he needed more space to work, we could probably shift it out more together (it takes two...it's THAT heavy).

He took a look at where the socket was and asked, "Do you know where the main switch box for the aparrrrrrrtments arrrrre?" (rolling Rs, remember?)

This wasn't a good sign. It meant that he'd never been to my apartments before (engineers in the past who'd known where to find the main swu=itch generally impressed me in the past as they knew what they were on about) but I knew where the cabinet for this was (ground floor).

We headed down and I pointed it out to him.
- "Errrr, I don't have a key for this. Do you have a key for this?"
- "No, the engineers generally bring them with them. It's a utility cupboard. I don't have access."
- "I will have to ring superrrrvisorrrr."
- *sigh* "Okay"

He goes out. Obviously can't make the call in front of me. He comes back in.
- "Superrrvisorrrr says that managerrrr in flats have key?"
- "Errrrrrm, no, there is no managerrrrr (he had me doing it now!) The engineer always bring the keys."
- "I call superrrrvisorrrr again"

So off he went, outside again. Ten mintes later he knocks on my front door.
- "Someone come with key laterrrrr."
- "When, later???"
- "About two hourrrr"

Okay, so it was still early. I had planned to hang around in the morning anyway.
Obvious what happens next, really. Nobody came. I rang up NTL mid afternoon and they said that someone was still coming. There wasn't much point complaining yet as it wasn't anything to do with the person on the other end of the call.

Six o' clock came, and still no sign. I ring customer services again.
- "NTL customer services is now closed. Normal Saturday hours are 8am until 5pm"

Arrrrrrggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Must remain calm. Breath in....Breath out.....

Boy, was I pissed off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have wasted an entire day of my weekend waiting for some stupid muppet who never turned up. And to top it all off, when people ring me up, they hear ringing but the phone doesn't ring at my end!

There is probably eff all chance of them contacting me to rearrange. And I am out for the next few weekends anyway. If they can't agree to a fixed time in the evening over the next week I am going to be.......Grrrrrrrrr!