200 Lashes

A stony silence, that silence that comes from asking “what’s wrong?” and being told that “no_thing is wrong”, each syllable marked with an exclamation mark, hurled ferociously out of the passenger window. I’m already tetchy, we’ve a long journey ahead of us, I really don’t want it to be a frosty silent one, so I persevere.

“Well I can tell by the way that you emphasised each syllable of ‘no-thing’ that there is some-thing?” Do you see what I did there, reversed the syllable emphasis, right back? Silence. In fact you would never believe that someone can stare out of the passenger window so passively aggressively till you’ve seen my better half with a cob on. A horse we pass watching the traffic from its field, winces, recoils and runs away from said glare…

“Look if you don’t tell me, am not going to know, if I don’t know I can’t do anything about it, and if I don’t know now I’ll probably do it again.” A pause filled with potential….

“If you don’t know what it is I’m not going to tell you,” she replies, still staring out of the window.

Speechless; as strategies go, as philosophies for living, nay improving ones life, this leaves something to be desired. I have clearly wronged and despite not realising what I have done (otherwise I would not have done it – I try to be karmic like that) I am not to be told what it is, leaving it highly likely I will err again, as I have no idea what is going on. Ah that old cosmic joker called Love; well let me know how that works out for you. Fine!” I snap, “Am not psychic like you, so next time don’t be surprised when it happens again!!” Note the two exclamation marks in the sentence…whoooo there; am on a roll!

She sniffs. A response, a chink in her armour… mwhwhwhahahahahaha etc. I bend around trying to see in her face, whilst keeping the car on the black stuff and not steer us into the scenery – that would just would not be funny.

“Well?”

“If you don’t even notice, I don’t see why I should have to point it out to you.”

Notice, did you notice the choice of words there, she said ‘notice’. I quickly scan her, nope, not new shoes, don’t think it’s a new dress, her hair, has she dyed it, has it been cut? Erm oh fuck…. possibly, possibly not.

“I guess the honeymoon period is over,” she adds.

Tempting here to be sarcastic, and point out that we’ve been together for 7 years… 7 wonderful years… can you still be on a honeymoon after 7 years? But the self preservation frontal cortex does engage so I’m not kicked to death by my own words whilst driving the car. I manage to withhold my sarcastic urges: It’s tough. Still at this point, I honestly have no idea what’s different, so I take a plunge, ‘Your hair…”

“It’s not my hair!” she bellows back at me. I think one of my ear drums burst. Quick thinking here; “I was going to say ‘your hair doesn’t look any different, you’ve not cut it or dyed it before I was so rudely interrupted,” with just a hint of indignation. I think I got away with it.

She stares at me with a withering contempt. I can feel my testicles recoiling.

“Well I don’t know, it’s not your hair, your dress or shoes, give us a fucking clue and get it over with!”

She pauses… “I’ve had my eye lashes dyed” She look at me and flutters her eye lashes with mocking exuberance. I look at them, try not to crash the car, re-adjust the steering wheel, take another look, then another…re-adjust the steering wheel.

Now am not sure if my next statement was the correct one or not; the initial response from a casual reader would be ‘what the fuck did you say that for’ but then it turns out to be the right one after all, and just a shade more surreal than Mr. Dali having a bad shroom day as it turns out. I take a breath, the birds stop singing for a moment, the wind stills, a bee on the verge stops humming some unknown tune it heard four days ago and can’t it out of it’s head, the universe pauses, looks, and gets ready to run… like the big bang suddenly going into reverse, scurrying back down what ever dark hole it came from in the first place.

“They don’t look any different.” Says I. I can see the words galloping up and out of somewhere inside, but I can’t stop them, my mouth involuntarily opens and they fall out. I can’t let go of the steering wheel to push them back in, too late, they are out, flapping uncontrollably about the car liked winged monkeys. I can’t believe what I’ve just unleashed. And then, and then it gets really weird…

“They are not supposed to!” It takes me a moment, to register what she just said.

“What!?” was about all I could muster. Which as witty ripostes go, is not one really to brag about.

“They are not supposed to.” She repeats with added venom. I take my foot of the accelerator, for safeties sake, whilst my synapses crinkle, you could probably hear the neurons firing from there.

“What do you mean they are not supposed to?”

“They’re supposed to look like I’ve got mascara on.”

“…. but you always wear mascara..”

“That’s the point!”

“What the fuck do you mean that’s the point? How am I supposed to notice something which has been explicitly undertaken to look exactly the same as it did before?”

“That is not the point”

“It’s about as near the fucking point as you’re going to get without stabbing yourself.”

“That can be arranged.”

“How am I supposed to notice something that quite clearly hasn’t changed!” More silence; logic, natural law, actually being right, means I should have every chance of winning this point, if not the argument. Still no answer, I have her squirming on the spear of righteousness… I can see a glimmer of doubt in her eyes, she’s furiously searching her mind for some noose of truth by which to strangle my bid for manhood; I’m on a roll, plunging onwards with abandon.

“Well, please feel free to elaborate on how this works? You’ve changed your appearance to make it look like you always do. Which part of something has not changed at fucking all am I supposed to have noticed for you to get all emotional about?”

No response. I push the point, I can see the winning line up ahead, a full qualified, self righteous harrumph noise on the horizon.

“And what if I had have noticed? What then?”

“I’d have been really pissed off!”

A strangled scream, lurches from my throat, there are still teeth marks in the steering wheel, “So if I had noticed you’d have been pissed at me because you’d spent money on something which hadn’t worked, yet you still feel inclined to be pissed at me, because it did work, despite the fact that we have already established I hadn’t got a snow balls chance in fucking hell of noticing, as they are supposed to look identical to the mascara your normally wear?! Well whoopy fooking doo, hush my mouth and hold the sarcasm!”

Silence…. just the noise, the engine, the tyres on tarmac… I push for the winners tape…. “So how much was this eye lash dying session?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly it does or you would have told me, which indicates that it was quite expensive and probably worth every penny, considering nobody is supposed to notice. Unless of course you’re me, but then if I had have noticed that would have been as bad a thing as not noticing. What you pay per lash or something, does the treatment come with extra lashings of Catch22 or is that an optional extra?”

Barely audible over the hum of the engine, the faint rumble of tyres on tarmac, could be heard a self righteous ‘hmph’ noise, the noise of a bludgeon of truth, a flutter of freedom for all mankind from the tethers of insanity that is woman.

Fury, Flurry & Futility

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The usual caveat, that none of this is true, it must be made up because it’s all to freaking surreal:

The new QA started work today, nobody from senior management bothered to tell the QM, as per previous entry, she’s still not even been consulted on the suitability of this person, nor has there been any evaluation of the post or interview process. QA has no Audit, Quality or IT skills; which are kind of essential for the role. But seemingly does have an ability to be parachuted into a post that doesn’t really exist.

So having arrived this morning it was quickly established that she had no where to sit, no desk, no chair, no phone, no computer. There’s nowhere for QA to go, because we physically don’t have a spare desk or computer. So she’s trying to hot desk onto computers as they come free around the place; It is a little tedious for all concerned to find someone waiting to sit at your desk every time you stand up, to get a couple of minutes on a p.c.

We used to have a spare p.c., was supposed to be spare for anyone to use, but has been recently commandeered by another department due to lack of resources, and a further hurdle being that we don’t have any spare licenses to install the software she needs as it’s not already on this computer.

I would point out that we’ve just spent approx  £10,000 on new workstations so that most of the consultants in part of our organisation can have 3 computers each, such that they don’t have to trouble their ickle legs and walk to their office and use the one that’s especially just for them. Now they have 3 each especially just for them, 1 for where ever they happen to be in the department. A department they are rarely in because they are off out and about doing other things. I digress, because this is apparently irrelevant.

Not least of all because the QM has spent most of the day guiding the QA in the use of spread sheets, how to enter data and draw graphs. This is something of a fundamental IT skill for this role, but we’ve been through that. You may also recall from a previous post that we’ve got the Auditors coming in 2 weeks, if they don’t like what they see, then theoretically they can close us down. QM is also doing the work of 10 other staff, when compared to organisations of a similar size, so you can imagine the stress and frustration. Still not to worry, the consultants get to preen amidst their technoglorious offices, the Quality ‘team’ have their deadline, everyone else gets to squabble and fight to get access to a computer, just to do their job.

Flaming Keys

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Just to point out for the hard of hearing, this did not happen today, okay, it’s all made up, the series of events described below did not unfold.

Flammable Stores at our place are kept most securely under lock and key.
The key is logged out and back in again in a special book, witnessed by a Security Guard no less.
I didn’t know any of this until today.
A man came hunting for me, having been to various buildings to find me, wanting to know why I had logged out the key to the flammable stores, I have no business accessing such places, and why I hadn’t returned the key.
This came as something of a surprise to me because I didn’t know we had a flammable stores, let alone where it is, nor did I know were or how to get the key.
According to the security log (and for privacy reasons the witless have had their names changed) Jack Sprat (my present pseudonym) had taken the key.
I confessed confusion and innocence and he went back to Security to double check.
It also transpired later that he had spoken to my line manager, the boss of the organisation and interrupted a senior managers’ meeting to discuss the matter. I must also confess to being a little peeved about this, as there is nothing to discuss, I did not take the key and am a little narked that the suggestion was thrown at everybody in the food chain above me that I had accessed an area I had no right to and abused organisational policy and protocol. And at the time was more than a little concerned that a potential fire-bomber terrorist type person had used my name to a get a key to get to all the incendiary and ammunition necessary to blow us all to hell. But I digress.
Some time later he returned, it seems the security guard had given him the wrong name after all (bearing in mind I don’t know any of the security guards and they don’t know me (out of 4000+ staff on site)), it seems the security guard meant to say Jack Scole. You will note that other than the forename, a single letter at the beginning of the surname, there is absolutely no comminality between our names. An easy mistake. Maybe.
But it gets better because yon keeper of the keys had then gone back to the original building, to look for Jack Scole. There was and is no such person. There is however a Debbie Scole and when questioned she had indeed taken and logged out the key in the security log and accessed the flammable stores. Considering this is a nessacery aspect of her job not a problem. She had also returned they key, 2 hours previously, albeit to a different security guard, who rather than logging the key back in, in the book, had just lashed it back in the cupboard.
So you can imagaine how thrilled the keeper of the keys was. He’d spent an afternoon on a wild goose chase, hunting me from building to building to find that not only was he looking for the wrong person in the wrong place, then the wrong person in the right place, to finally find the right person (of the opposite sex) who had every reason to take the key and she had returned it, and it was in the box where it should have been all along.
Makes you proud. I will sleep safe tonight, safe in the knowledge that our security systems are in place, and our security guards are of the highest calibre. Safe in the knowledge that our Security Guards can confuse Debbie Scole with Jack Sprat, and that any eegit can just walk up to them and ask for the key to the the largest collection of dangerous chemicals for several miles. Still it’s all ok because we do have a book whereby you can’t access this material without putting your name down first, so it’s all ok. We’ve fulfilled our management obligations. The boxes have been ticked. We’ve got a book.

Quality; Inherent

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None of this is true, I’d like to make that quit clear before we start:

So we have a Quality Manager covering 10 departments, most other organisations of our size have a Quality Manger per department, plus 1 over-all Manager. This means that our QM is doing the work of 11 people.

It is very important that the QM does their work diligently because we are audited and it we fail our audit we lose our Professional Accreditation, and we can no longer function: The organisation ceases to exist. This would be a big boo hiss for a lot of people. So there is considerable pressure on our 1 QM to get everything right. There is also  a considerable lack of support from the other Managers in the Departments, as we have a QM (we’ve not had one for years and muddled through but the audits are getting harsher), so they feel that they can relinquish anything to do with Quality, it’s no longer their problem, after all there’s somebody else to do it now.

Quality doesn’t work like this, Quality should be inherent in everything we do (ahahahaha) and it is part of everyone’s job, our QM should just be over-seeing the process.

The QM has been asking for an assistant for at least 12 months; nothing forthcoming. It had been whispered that perhaps another member of staff could help out, lets for brevities sake call this Person C. Person C had kind of been discounted on several grounds, 1) she has no Quality experience, 2) she has no Audit experience, 3) she has not IT skills and we’ve just purchased a very complicated IT system as the back bone to our Quality Systems, 4) she’s off long term sick, 5) she’s currently employed as a data entry clerk, 2 grades lower than the industry standard grade for a Quality Assistant.

The boss of person C came to see the QM late yesterday and asked how many hours a week was the QA role going to be… the response was that this was hadn’t been discussed, nor formal conversations taken place, nobody has really mentioned it beyond a casual conversation the other week. End of conversation.

This morning the CLEANER, the fucking cleaner(!) came in and said that Person C (the new QA) was very much looking forward to starting work with the QM on Monday (3 working days). The Cleaner is good friends with Person C (QA).

Now you may well ask yourself WTF just happened there? It seems that Person C has been phoned at home by senior management, whilst she is off sick, and offered this new post, and is now returning to work on Monday…

Now let us just ponder for a moment.
We are being Audited in 2 weeks; there is a lot to do, if we fail, we are dead in the water.
The QM had already discounted Person C (in a casual conversation) on the grounds of no experience of anything to do with Quality, Audits or IT (and she’s been off long term sick). Also she’s currently employed as a Band 2 and not a Band 4 and whilst not wishing to be harsh, rude or improper there are valid reasons for this.
The QM now has 2 weeks to get this person upto speed and do something useful – given the Auditors are now likely to want to talk to the Quality Team (which would include the newly appointed QA as well as the QM).
That sound you can hear is the other Managers washing their hands of what remaining Quality they had in their in-tray as QM now as an assistant, hell we’ve got a Quality Team now!
One other minor fly in the ointment, is that we do not have a spare p.c. for her anywhere. Nor are there any spare desks, we physically don’t have anywhere for her to sit. I can show you Consultants Offices, that have brand new, state of the art computers in, for Consultants who come to our site for 1 afternoon every 2 weeks and said computers have never been switched on. But it would be a profane and ridiculous suggestion that we could use one of those; undermining the very principles, professionalism and ethics of these good doctors. Of course they need a computer at every desk they may possibly sit at; stupid boy.
Probably also worth pointing out that there has been no interview process nor has anybody at any point asked the QM her opinion formally, on the person selected or views on the matter. The person who is to be assisted has had no input in this decision at all.
A most excellent way to run an organisation.

720 degree revolution

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An Electron is a point-particle, is zero dimensional, lacks spatial dimensions i.e. has no dimensions and takes up no space. It does however have spin, we can measure the spin in the lab which matches the mathematical construct which describes these point-particles and their predicted behaviour. And what is found is that for an Electron to make one complete revolution requires them to spin through 720 degrees. Normal 4 dimensional space requires that one complete revolution should take 360 degrees..?

Electrons also display wave properties; in fact if your experiment is designed to prove that Electrons are particles, they will display particle like properties; albeit ones which do not inhabit space, or have dimensions, but have double the rotational vector of normal 4D space (height, breadth, length, time). If your experiment is designed to prove that Electrons are in fact waves, then they will display wave like properties. This means that the intended outcome of the experiment to measure the Electron is altered by conscious intention of the experimenter (person). They do not exhibit particle properties when you looking for waves and vice versa.

The other attribute of Electrons is that you cannot measure velocity and location, you can only measure one or the other. This means you never know where they are. You can only estimate the probability of where they are. They could be described as being Oscillations of Probability; a wave of information radiating from a mathematical point which occupies no space; is outside space-time.

So Electrons occupy not only our four dimensional space but also the quantum dimensions of possibility and information -  they must do if they if they are outside space-time. An electron can be considered a quantum portal to dimensions beyond space-time. This function is as a point of contact between our physical space-time world and the higher dimensions of spirit and consciousness.  Their’s is a point of influence that does not occupy space in our universe.

The electrical current, the chemicals, molecules and atoms that make our body are all made of Electrons. Our bodies are composed of various combinations of ‘particles’ that by themselves are not considered as part of our space. The thought processes in our brains is the measurable movement of electricity, which is in fact the flow of Electrons. These ‘things’ are ports of quantum possibility and probability.

As we move around and interact with the world, we are nothing more than a probability wave of Electrons moving through a sea of Electrons (the air we breathe). We and everyone and everything around us is made of exactly the same stuff; these ‘things’ that inhabit a place of no space, no time. And due to quantum entanglement and the fact that all matter was created in the big bang and therefore all created at the same time, they have the potential to be all in communication with each other; spooky action at a distance is nothing, as to the revelation that we are timeless inter-dimensional beings, enjoying a brief 4th dimensional experience. We are the crest of probability waves breaking through the 5th dimensional bubble.

Cofgodas

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Cofgodas (“cove gods”) were Anglo-Saxon household gods related to the German kobolds and equivalent to the Roman penates. It is generally accepted that the English “Hob” and Scottish “Brownie” are the modern survival of the cofgod. They were the family’s own guardian spirits, belonging only to it.  They were never worshipped in temples, but only at home.  Some of the food of each meal was customarily offered to them. In English Hob is a familiar by-form of Rob. This is the root of Robin, and Robert. A  hobgoblin is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as:  1.  A mischief, tricksy imp or sprite; another name for Puck or Robin Goodfellow.;

Cove: Old English cofa, ‘cave, small chamber, inner chamber’ not only means small house or dwelling but could also be taken to mean the chimney opening or fireplace, which in olden days would have been quite large, used for cooking and handy place to sit and keep warm.

It is of great interest that the hob of the hearth was the raised back or side level with the grate, to hold vessels for warming or cooking, a term now almost forgotten.  “He left the pot on the hob to stay warm.”    The pot is left, as it were, on the back of the ancestor to stay warm.

Cofgodas …which take up residence within a physical object in the household. In elder days, the most frequent object for this purpose was a rock set beside the hearth.. which when warm was probably also a handy place to put a pan…?

My nightly businesse I have told,
To play these trickes I use of old;
When candles burne both blue and dim,
Old folkes will say, Here’s fairy Grim.’

Cofgodas (AS) A group of spirits friendly to humans that help around one’s house. Generally they are seen by those with second sight as small humans. Sometimes they are mischievous, but rarely dangerous. They generally dislike lazy humans as they themselves are hard workers. Some cofgods do become nuisances hiding things, making noise, and knocking things over, but generally a simple spell will rid the house of such pesky types.

Fate, Luck & Irony

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So being as though the World and his Dog are all suddenly conscious of the mid-winter festival binge and feel it’s now time to spend money on gym memberships which we’ll use thrice, and buy exercise dvd’s which we’ll use twice then hide on the book case, I thought I’d share a story as to why exercise is bad for you; if God had meant us to still be running around like loons He(?) wouldn’t have given us sofas and duvets and such like… So there’s this bloke I met who runs (because he enjoys it), and everyday off he would potter for a couple of mile and on this particular day he’d taken a route along the canal path. And some kindly fisherman type person had left a peg in the grass, just to the side of the path: Apparently these pegs are a device for resting your rod on… Anyway this running chap, for brevities sake we’ll call him Bill, trips over this peg and takes a considerable nose dive into the mud. Now as Fate would have it, he clattered himself right on the edge of the canal bank, where there was some heavy wooden shoring and broke his collar bone, which I am well informed is bloody painful.

Now if this wasn’t enough to spoil your day, Bill in his mind-numbed broken collar boned stupor rolls onto his back, to catch his breathe and wait for the exploding stars to subside, or at least he would have rolled onto his back had there been anything there to roll onto, because as Bill was already on the edge of the canal bank, Bill rolled over and fell backwards into the canal. What was a bad day, just suddenly got very, very scary. Fortunately, Bill found that if he stood on tip toes, he could keep his head above the water, so drowning was now less of a problem than hypothermia, and the numbing cold was probably helping deaden the excruciating pain of not only having a broken call bone, but then thrashed said broken collar bone around, trying desperately not to drown, before, realising that you could in fact stand up.

So now Bill has the problem of how to get out of the canal, he can’t drag himself out, he doesn’t have the strength to do that with his one good arm; there are no steps in sight, not even a handy burnt out car or derelict pram to stand on. But considering this is an inner city canal he is quite keen to get out as quickly as possible, not least because of what else he is sharing the water with.

Then with all the dependancy of narrative causality, a saviour appears, a man is walking down the canal path, and Bill shouts help and the man comes over, a litte hesitantly at first to be fair. This is an inner city, urban area after all, and he just checking Bill out and looking about to see if there is any obvious reason as to why this man is in the canal and what are the repurcussions of helping him out. Bill breathlessly explains that he tripped and thinks he’s broken his arm or something, and the Good Samaritan obliges to begin helping drag Bill out. But then he stops and says,

‘Actually you wouldn’t mind telling me how deep it is where you are would you, I’ve got a fishing competition next week and knowing the depth would come in handy?’

And there’s the irony, because as you may well remember it was a fishermans rod peg that caused all this in the first place. Bill restrained himself from exploding expletieves all over the place, probably because he was lost for words. Having established that Bill was about five ten, and the water came up to his chin and the bottom was a soft muddy five or six inches over a more compact surface, Bill was dragged from graps of Davey Jones Locker and now saves up all his hatred and venom for people who sit on canal banks getting peoples way and leaving tripping hazards behind when they leave.

Wilderness

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We gathered, cold and blowing. Subdued, maybe even a little unexpectedly. The sun was low and bleary, frost clung everywhere, however some daffodils were protruding at the root of a tree. If you closed your eyes and faced the sun you could just about feel a tenderness of warmth up there. We joked and laughed, no words were spoken, the man covered the place with soil and stone, flowers were placed. We tramped off through the trees, unsure which one was ours, it didn’t matter they were all ours. Then we headed for the hills, distant memories of summers long since faded. And here was joy and laughter, even comedy. And then we parted and went our separate ways. And it was done. And I came home with a pocket full of stones and pine cones. Same as it ever was.

Oliver Postgate 1925 – 2008

A gentle, whimsical story teller and as with all the best stories, a thread of darkness, of implied darkness wove its way amongst the unspoken words. Sometimes the stories had no beginning and no end, they just were, much as life is; their purpose shrouded, obscure, they delighted in the joy of the telling; to listen was enough; they seem to latch into archetypes of the mind, plug directly into the subconscious, to be more, much more than their component parts. All was well during these moments.

The accompanying music, slightly archaic, perfectly emoted the tenderness and slight disquiet of the creation; sometimes discordant, never intrusive. His creations have not aged, or gathered dust, they still have the power and resonance of a brilliant storyteller, a true Bard, a genius that empitomised all that was best in the British Tradition. They still have the power to mesmerise and bring a tear to the eye; a remembrance of yore, halcyon days or even just a glimmer of light in the night of life; the smell of Mother’s cooking, the crackle of a real fire in the hearth, of Emily and friends, of Noggin and Ivor.

It is a sad indictment of our culture when such are person is not hailed for what they are, what they have done (made the world a better place), until they are gone. But he brought much gladness as he wend his way, there will always be a corner of my mind, a thread in my soul that belongs, is delighted by, the charm and joy of Mr. Oliver Postgate.

British Telecom Customer Service

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Most people who know me, know just how much I despise British Telecom, our premier (!) communication company. Over the years I have had numerous squabbles with them, mostly over utterly crap customer service. In fact not that long ago, I was phoned by a sales man from BT asking if I would consider returning to them as a customer (at the moment I have to pay them line rental but not for my calls) – when I’d finished laughing I informed him that they would have to pay me to come back into their fold; and wished him a nice day.

And speaking of the acronym BT – I am heartened by the fact that my good friend the Mighty Nac Mac has had similar experiences with them, to such an extent that he assures me that BT actually means Bunch of Terwats and not British Telecom at all.

All this is periphery to the main event. The mail delivey this morning. Two letters from BT – a reminder that I had not paid my bill. And a letter telling me that being as though I had ignored the reminder (!?) they were now insisting that pay the bill immediately otherwise further action would be taken not least of all they would termiante our service. They would also be adding a late payment charge to my next bill.

Now consider that I never got a bill in the first place; and the ‘reminder bill’ and the letter reminding about the reminder arrived in the same post you can imagine that I was a little peeved.

So I phoned them and spent just too long stumbling around their god-damn press 1 for this press 2 for that; where’s press 9 to speak to a god-damn human! I remind you this is a communication company.

Finally I got through to a real life, human, and with all the irony of narrative causality I couldn’t understand a bloody word she was saying. That’s not strictly true, I was getting every 4th or 5th word. Now let me assert I do not read the Daily Mail – nor am I in anyway objecting to diversity of any kind. Diversity brings strength, joy and interest to the world. Am all for it. But in any business transaction the ability to speak a common language is pretty much essential. And this Lady (god bless her cotton socks) did not appear to be a native English speaker. And I would point out that I can’t speak any language other than English so hats off to her for being better at it than me. However in a help desk, customer service scenario, the ability to be clearly understood is pretty much essential. You have to ask yourself which retard thought that they would be making the world a better place by employing someone in that situation who fails to fulfil that fundamental criteria.

Given my past experiences with BT 1) I was not surprised and 2) I really was expecting a lengthy and gall busting constigation. But then I was trasfered to somebody else, am not sure why, possibly because I kept asking her to repeat herself and I think she said the wholesale department – but that makes no sense for an issue with a domestic bill.

Anyway I was put through to Lisa, who was as bright, and charming as can be. She dealt with me with clariy and effervescense and I really have no idea how she can keep up that level of joyfulness all day long on the phone dealing with the great unwashed.

Anway it would seem that there had been a problem with their systems and the actually phone bill had never been sent. And she was awfully sorry. And she was most apologetic that I’d recieved the reminder and the reminder about the reminder at the same time. And she would make sure that the extra charge for not paying, was not added to my next bill.  And she could only apolgies most profusely for my inconvenience. She even gave me a reference number. She even wished me a very pleasant rest of the weekend. And actually sounded like she meant it.

Wow: In 15 years that’s the first time I can honestly say hand on heart, I have come off the phone to BT feeling happy, content, glowy and satisfied (in a customer service kind of way). To be fair it started off very badly, very badly and I really thought I was in for the usual shite experience, but Lisa pulled it out of the bag.

It just goes to show how important is it, to have the right people in the right post; this Lisa fundamentally changed my interaction with the company, with my weekend and actually made the world a better place. Hurrah.