01 January 2008
Happy New Year to everyone reading this!
I had an exceptionally quiet new year - it's not a holiday I'm particularly fond of. My dislike started way back when I was a youngster and off out on New Years Eve - the crowds, the pushing and shoving outside the abbey in Bath - and particularly at the time, there were loads of crusties all over the place, many of them with dogs. Back then (lord it sounds like the turn of the century, and funnily enough it was, but I make it sound like the turn of the 19th century...) you could take your drink with you out of the pub, and everyone was drinking out of glasses. Push and shove outside the Abbey, and then you've got a broken glass, and then a cut dog's paw. And whilst in general people look after their dogs, some people don't and somehow manage not to see the dog is hurt and distressed - and other's would be so distressed themselves as to be inconsolable. I dare say the RSPCA would be extra busy on New Years Day, and probably still are. Lord only knows how many people have to suffer with distressed animals after all the fireworks that go off these days. Mind you, at least you know it's going to happen so it's not as if you don't get time to prepare.
So anyhow, I don't like New Year, and prefer to spend it quietly. Indoors, with the family if I get a chance, or if not, then I'm perfectly happy by myself.
My present to myself this year's been a new phone. I absolutely had to get myself one with a camera - and I've done it, and fulfilled my secondary ambition, a flip phone. Yeah I know, sliders are all the rage, but I wanted a flip, and I've got one. After all, it's my phone! Anyhow, having got the thing, set it up to the best of my ability, and yes, I've sort of worked out how to use it - for the most part, I then had to get my network to enable the email capability - because I can take photo's, but I can't send them anywhere. And I don't have the right size of USB cable as yet to download. I mean getting it enabled was a big deal - you've got to remember that whilst I'm reasonably IT savy, it takes me a while to work out a new system. But I was impressed that Orange managed to do it all via a text message. Which reminds me of something, when I went shopping for the wretched thing, Orange didn't have a flip phone, so I thought well you can choose your network with any phone, I'll go and look in another shop. At one point I wandered in to a Vodafone shop.
So there I am, looking at phones. And this irritating youth comes up to me, all Can I help you Madam - well I wasn't so freaked by this as I clearly did need some help I felt. We went through the details of the phone I was looking at, and I was sort of half way sold on it. Then this stupid little oik says to me What network are you on? Orange, and I'll be wanting to keep it on Orange. This presumptuous little tick then looks at me as if I've announced I've got a ticket for the Titanic (the one with the iceberg, not Dr Who) and says I'm so sorry. I say what do you mean, and he laughs pityingly and goes, well Orange.
Ok fine I said. Bye, I said, and left the shop. Stupid stupid boy as old Mainwaring would say, and even I could tell him that he's got an awful lot to learn about salesmanship. You never critisise a customers choice. You could possibly try telling them they must be very lucky never to have had any problems, and were they aware that there's an issue about XYZ, but don't tell me I'm to be pitied. Besides which I'm not. I've been with Orange for the past - well ever since I've had a mobile which is longer than I care to think about, and I've not had a problem with them ever. Which is why I'm still with Orange, and I've gone to some trouble to ensure I'm still with Orange. The silly boy will learn at some point, if he didn't learn then, but the guy who got the money was the one who recognised I was in a hurry, speeded it up and didn't waste my time with extraneous sales chatter or try to persuade me to change networks. It was another shop of course, but then that goes without saying.
