Lock Up the Guns!

OK, its been a while. I guess everyday woes and pain have overwhelmed my usual writings and its about time I pulled myself together and got down to writing about topics other than The E-mail and the break up of my marriage. Not that I can promise that those topics wont raise their ugly heads again. To think otherwise would be naive and ridiculous of me. But I think I have to make a choice of pure will and start to concentrate on other things. Things like rants and raves. Because I feel that its high time I had a good rant in my diary. And if I know anything about myself, its that I can rant and rave with the best of them. And especially at the moment, when I am an irrational, hormonally unbalanced, broken hearted soon to be twice divorced basket case. Yeah… that should make for a good rant.

So for topic number one, I want to talk about false advertising and the fact that I got my hopes all high about having broadband internet and then I had the hopes dashed. I was so excited over the prospect of broadband internet that I was positively dizzy. Broadband internet as compared to this pathetic ass internet service that I have right now via dial up. Dial up that I have to dial up…. And dial up…. And dial up because it keeps crashing out on me. Not to mention that the fastest access speed I can achieve (and it’s a rare event) is 36k. Although more often than not I'm getting a truly pathetic 34.6k. Which, as anyone knows, is pure torture when you want to download a video clip or some music, because what would take around 14.2 seconds on broadband takes 47 minutes with dial up. Just the idea of broadband internet sent me into spasms of joy. Unwired Internet, you are in my line of vision, and I'm telling you that the guns are out and the command is fire at will. And I will.

HUMPH.

Because another thing I want to discuss is why men in their 50’s who work in big electrical department stores who have no damned idea of what they are doing but because they are men and have peeny-weenys, are obviously more capable than I am with my vaa-gi-gi. It stands to reason that having a peeny-weeny makes you capable of anything, and having a vaa-gi-gi means you cannot do anything for yourself. Although trust me when I say many a woman has had to do Any Thing for themselves because the peeny-weeny owners have no clue what they are to do when faced with a vaa-gi-gi.

Oh. My. Lord. Please let my prayers be answered with a gun totting madman who is on the same wavelength as me and listens to my mental telepathy commands. With a special gun that fires small bullets that wont make a huge mess (I'm shopping with my 20 month old daughter and she gets into every mess within a 2km radius and I'm trying to keep her clean after all) so I can gun down every man who gets in my way today.

This old fart, who was ultimately only interested in the commission from a sale, comes over to see if he can help me. Seeing I have been surfing the internet for over 10 years now, I'm really rather pretty savvy when it comes to researching topics and things of interest. I know how to read a computer screen and I can control a mouse pad – even those groovy ones that are fingertip touch controlled. So don't damn well nudge me away from the computer that has been set up especially to provide information for the ISP company that I want to join and pretend that you know what you are doing when its patently obvious that you don't have a freaking clue.

Don't stand there in front of the computer and type in an address that jolly well doesn’t exist and expect to come up with an answer that makes any sense to me.

“Did I say I lived at XYZ Street, Un-named Suburb? No… I said I was looking to see if XYZ Place, Un-named Suburb was covered.”

There is no XYZ Street in the Un-named Suburb you dimwit. Of course there wont be any coverage from the ISP company, will there? Noooo. Well done. You followed a bit of logic there, and it didn’t hurt a bit did it? Well, it didn’t hurt you did it? I, on the other hand, am starting to feel my blood pressure rising.

“OK. Lets try ringing the company and ask them directly.”

Cue more fumbling and stumbling in front of the computer screen by the dolt pretending to serve me. No clue. No clue at all. Serve me? Bloody hell, I end up explaining the screen information for him. Its pretty easy I tell him. After all, its that big button on the left side of the screen that say CONTACT US that is a bit of a give away really. If you want to talk to a representative of the company, hit the CONTACT US button, and wow! Magically the screen image changes and there is…. No, wait for it….. contact information there. Isnt that amazing?

Oh no. Not amazing at all. Why bother taking down the phone number on the CONTACT US screen page when you can walk away shaking your head and muttering something about being able to find the information quicker and going off to ring the head office – of the damned electrical store that you work for? Oh of course, stupid me. I thought ringing the number provideded by the ISP company would be the way to go… but ringing the head office in Sydney makes perfect sense. I don't know how I could be so daft as to not think of it myself. Yes. I can see why you have a peeny-weeny, and I only have a vaa-gi-gi.

Yeah, so the adventure goes on. After trying to keep my very energetic child entertained for 20 minutes without actually standing on, climbing on or pulling apart boxes that have very expensive computer equipment in them (which are just scattered all over the floor because the store is in the middle of renovations and the store is, quite frankly, a bomb site) the idiot older peeny-weeny owner comes to tell me that the ISP company representative wants to talk to me directly. Because they cant find XYZ Street anywhere on the map.

Breath in. Breath out.

And let me warn you here and now that if you are the manager of a company so stupid to start advertising that you have unrolled coverage in Melbourne and that you are open for business – then bloody well be open for business for everyone. Everyone, by any common, readily available in even the poorest school in the district dictionary definition would mean ME! I'm an everyone. Me. So don't damn well waste my time putting your slick advertisements on television and have me go to not one…. No no no…. not one but TWO damn stores (because the first store is only a ‘B” store, and the range is only at “A” stores right now. Fine. Why not say that on the ad? Only available at larger stores? Is that a hard thing to put in fine print at the bottom of a television screen is it? Yes, I can see that would be a real nuisance to you to do.) to buy the equipment needed, only to tell me after tracking my baby girl around in 30+ degree heat in a car without air conditioning that you don't cover ‘country areas yet’.

EXCUSE ME?

EXCUSE ME?? What did you just say to me? Did you just call one of the biggest growth corridors of housing in Melbourne a ‘country area?’ Twenty minutes from the CBD? Fifteen kilometres away from the CBD constitutes COUNTRY to you? You're not serious are you? You have no idea where my suburb is do you? Even though you have a map in front of you, you have no flipping idea of what you're talking about do you? You're on day release from the Drongo Numskull Chump Ranch that they herd you into at night – for our safety. Because letting you loose in the wilds of suburbia would be way too much for your pea sized brain to cope with. Its obvious that you are flat out like a lizard drinking just trying to cope with the average call for assistance asking you what area of Melbourne you do cover aren’t you?

OH hang on. I bet you are based in Sydney. You are aren’t you? You are sitting in a call centre in Sydney and have no clue as to what the city of Melbourne looks like. Brilliance on the management teams behalf. Lets not hire local employees who actually live in the city they are meant to be servicing. Nooooooooooooo…. Lets not do that. Lets have a special program of call centre workers sit in a huddle of cubicles together in Sydney to serve the customers of Melbourne. Yeah. That makes total sense to me… NOT. I can just see the training program the said special call centre workers had to go through.

“Just ask the customer where they live, ask for their post code number and then tell them that the service will be rolled out soon, and that they should call back in a month or so. That’ll satisfy them, and what’s the worst that could happen? They’re in Melbourne. Its not like they are going to track down this building and come in with a AKA 47 and shoot us in frustration is it?”

All I can say is, “don't bet on it buddy!”