Monday 4th June

Well I've just had one of the most frustrating weekends of my life! About eleven thirty in the morning there was a sudden click from the living room when I was in the kitchen and when I got back into the living room, my internet connection was gone. Just gone. No green lights on the modem, no response or change when I re-booted - just gone.
So I phone Virgin, who have replaced Telewest. This was the first phonecall of many, because a) they couldn't get anyone out to fix it before Monday, b) they couldn't tell me whether it was a local fault or a fault on my equipment - it was a nightmare. And worse, I had no idea how addicted I've become to this thing. I was positively itchy without it. It was like every few minutes I'd think, oh I'll just do that, and no, I've no computer to do it on. And what was worst of all was the hope! They'd put me on some sort of emergency call out list, so I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything that would take my mind off it, because I had to stay home in case they came - and god knows whether if I had gone anywhere and they had come, they would have charged me a call out charge for not being there! As it was, I didn't even see an engineer - I had a phonecall from a person who said that the engineer had found the fault and was fixing it, and because it was in the box at the bottom of the road, I never saw an engineer.

Anyhow, after all this, I went to Sainsbury's and just as well, cos by now I'm running low on food. So I go to Sainsbury's and at the checkout, the kid there says well how was your weekend - and I said, because he seemed like a nice kid, you know, stuck at home, waiting for the engineer people - and what does he say to me? He says you know I've done nothing but hear people complain about Virgin today. And he's right. Everyone I know is complaining about this company. Their service is rotten, if you break down, they've got no engineers to fix things, and yet when my stuff broke down when Telewest were around, they got someone out that day. I couldn't believe I had to wait four days for help to fix my stuff. And what do they do about this? They spend ever couple of minutes on the phone apologising, endless, endless apologies, totally meaningless. There's no feeling behind these apologies, they don't know me, they don't see me on a face to face basis. When these people - perfectly nice, reasonable people I'm sure, probably educated to way beyond any level needed in call centre, can't tell me anything about the automated message that's been told to me at the start of the call - the message that says there's an issue in BS7 - BS9, and are telling me that there are no reports of any issues in the Bristol area, when the damn system has just been telling me all about it, yes I have a problem. Exactly how I kept my temper with all this I don't know, and in fact, I'm pretty sure on occasions I didn't, there was a girl who appeared to be in Yorkshire I think, who was the most obstreporous, rude worker I've ever spoken to..! And can't someone tell these people to stop apologising? Please please, stop! I don't need fifty apologies, I need an engineer, I need someone to take what I'm saying seriously, I need action not excuses! Why should we have to put up with poor service like this? I'm paying these people a lot of money! And they respond by apologising. Just endless meaningless futile apologies.

PS (6th June 07)
I've edited this a bit, because I blew off steam at people who aren't really responsible for what happend. So if it's different from when you first read it, that's why!