Phone calls

Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on September 20th, 2006

Yesterday I had to make some phone calls. I hate making phone calls. Unless it’s ringing up famous people and making moose sounds at them. They hate that.

First I had to ring Eircom. What a bunch of cock that voice recognition system they have is.

“Please say your phone number”, he says.

“one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight”, I say (no smart arse comments, it’s just an example).

“Your number is ’seven - two - nine - six million - a hundred and six - twenty nine. Is that correct?”

“No”

“I’m sorry, please say your number again”

“one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight”, I say.

“Your number is ’seven - two - nine - six million - a hundred and six - twenty nine. Is that correct?”

“Arrrrrgh!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Would you like to activate your Eircom mail box?”

Seriously, it took me nearly 10 minutes going through none of the options which suited my call before I managed to speak to a real person. And then they were so fucking useless I pined for the machine.

Next up, NTL.

They make you key in your account number on the keypad, twice, then they say “The account number you entered is 12469474. Press the star key if this is correct”.

So you press the star key, end up in a queue for 10 minutes with some cunt telling me my call is important and then the first thing the girl does when you get through to her is ask you for your account number. What’s the fucking point of all that keying and pressing of star then? Pack of cunts. At least she was helpful. Well, helpful in the sense that she told me straight away she couldn’t help me. At least she didn’t leave me hanging.

After that it was the Vehicle registration office. I rang at 1pm.

“This is the vehicle registration office. I’m sorry but we’re closed for lunch between 12.45 and 2pm. Please call back later.”

Christ on a bike. When the fucking supermarkets are open until 11pm every night you’d think these fuckers would be able to man the phones during lunch hour. It’s all a bit 1970s, isn’t it? Lunch hour, I mean really. Do they all go at the same time? They need to sort that shit out. Given the influx of foreign workers here who’ll do anything for €1.50 an hour there’s just no excuse for closing for lunch.

When I did get through it was like a linguaphone tape as a woman with an almost incomprehensible accent gave me the information I needed. She’d say something. I’d repeat. She’d say it again. I’d repeat again and get close enough for her to move on. It was such a strange accent at the end I asked from which ex-Soviet state she came from.

“Tralee”, she said.

I fucking hate the phone.