Monday, April 02, 2007
It's a gas!
I am having fun with British Gas - they need to come and do a gas safety check on my meter. I had arranged one earlier this year, the meter reader failed to turn up. I spent an entire morning off work. It's happened again. In the old days, British Gas used to have their own people come and read your meter, now they outsource the work to a company, I believe, called Accuread. I dread when work gets outsourced it always leads to shoddy service and consequent inconvenience. I have lost two days annual leave waiting for British Gas to read my meter.
If the meter does not get read, they say in the note they will apply to a court to bust down my door to read the meter - that's fucking marvellous isn't it - here I am doing my best for them and I subject to a threat like that.
I contact British Gas, the usual keypad ritual "press 1 if you want to give a reading...press 2 if you want to enquire about your account...press 3 to fuck off!". The taped voice then asks me to key in my phone number; I get a little rebellious at this point and ignore the two requests to do so, I just pretend I don't have a phone, chuckle, and they may get convinced I don't have a phone - that's how warped my logic became at this point. Then I was put on fifteen minute wait with that dreadful Coldplay music that is piped in B & Q and Sainsbury's - this was interspersed with advertisments about gas leaks and gas safety. It was an excruciating 1/4 of an hour.
I finally managed to get through - I was feeling quite vexed by this point, I was feeling provoked by the long wait, by the Coldplay and the cheerful gas leak ads. I was ready to launch into one on the call centre operative, but thought "oh shit...these poor people must have to put up with this kind of shit throughout the day...try be helpful" I got a new date and an assurance that the meter reader will come; I did not, however, get a job number, the computer says "no".
Oh fuck it, I wonder if British Gas will go the same way as Enron
If the meter does not get read, they say in the note they will apply to a court to bust down my door to read the meter - that's fucking marvellous isn't it - here I am doing my best for them and I subject to a threat like that.
I contact British Gas, the usual keypad ritual "press 1 if you want to give a reading...press 2 if you want to enquire about your account...press 3 to fuck off!". The taped voice then asks me to key in my phone number; I get a little rebellious at this point and ignore the two requests to do so, I just pretend I don't have a phone, chuckle, and they may get convinced I don't have a phone - that's how warped my logic became at this point. Then I was put on fifteen minute wait with that dreadful Coldplay music that is piped in B & Q and Sainsbury's - this was interspersed with advertisments about gas leaks and gas safety. It was an excruciating 1/4 of an hour.
I finally managed to get through - I was feeling quite vexed by this point, I was feeling provoked by the long wait, by the Coldplay and the cheerful gas leak ads. I was ready to launch into one on the call centre operative, but thought "oh shit...these poor people must have to put up with this kind of shit throughout the day...try be helpful" I got a new date and an assurance that the meter reader will come; I did not, however, get a job number, the computer says "no".
Oh fuck it, I wonder if British Gas will go the same way as Enron
Labels: Corporations, Grumble, Lifestyle, Manners
