Kingsley Matthews wrote:
Most of the old nationalised industries were ok. My business
recently moved into new premises, we had to notify 3 organisations to
get our gas connected. In the old days we just notified one, and
they say that privatisation cuts bureaucracy.


There was a power cut in the pub where I was (plus most of the street)
last Saturday. The manager was busy switching off alarms and doing pubby
things, so he asked me to get on tho the electricity people and find out
when it was likely to come back on. Old-style it would have gone like this:

I ring directory enquiries and ask for the number of the London
Electricity Board.

I ring the number and ask the person at the other end about the power cut.

The end. Total time (estimated): about seven minutes.

With the new "improved" privatised industry it went like this.

I ring directory enquiries and ask for the number of Powergen (who are
the pople who send the bill).

I call the number and am presented with a "dial 1 for this, dial 2 for
that, dial 3 for the other" menu.

I dial 1 ("Problems with your electricity supply"), and get, yes,
another menu inviting me to dial 1, 2, 3 and so on.

I dial 1 again.

I get a recorded message telling me that I should ring my local supplier
(who is, in fact, Powergen, remember?) and the number's on the back of
the bill.
Which I didn't have.

Try again. Ring the number for Powergen.

Choose from their bliddy menu at random.

Get a robot telling me that since I'm calling from a mobile they don't
know where I am, so I need to put in the phone number of the place where
I am. Which I didn't know (I could have told a human *exactly* where I
was). Make up a phone number that fits the area where I am. Then the
damn thing asks me to speak my postcode. Which I gave it (I have no
idea why I knew it!). Then it asks me for the street. By this time
I've had enough. Start shouting "shut up" at the phone until it starts
saying "I did not catch what you said - please hold and you will be put
through to an operator". Wahey! A human!

Who was of no help at all, but gave me another number to call.

Call the number which turns out to be for (of all things) EDF -
Electricité de France.

Wait in a queue for "the next available operator" for ten minutes.

Wahey! Another human!

Who was unaware that there was a power cut but did spend a large amount
of time warning me (despite my protestations that there were at least
six other properties affected that I knew about) that there might be a
charge for a callout. I'm just surprised she didn't try to sell me
shares in ED Flaming F while she was about it.

Total time, some 40 minutes. Total raise in blood pressu lots.
Improvement over the old, clapped out, monolithic system, nil.

I'm sure the shareholders love it, though. Thank God I wasn't trying to
report a gas leak.

--
Tony

"Tony Walton" wrote in message
...
Kingsley Matthews wrote:
Most of the old nationalised industries were ok. My business
recently moved into new premises, we had to notify 3 organisations to
get our gas connected. In the old days we just notified one, and
they say that privatisation cuts bureaucracy.


There was a power cut in the pub where I was (plus most of the street)
last Saturday. The manager was busy switching off alarms and doing pubby
things, so he asked me to get on tho the electricity people and find out
when it was likely to come back on. Old-style it would have gone like
this:

I ring directory enquiries and ask for the number of the London
Electricity Board.

I ring the number and ask the person at the other end about the power cut.

The end. Total time (estimated): about seven minutes.

With the new "improved" privatised industry it went like this.

I ring directory enquiries and ask for the number of Powergen (who are
the pople who send the bill).

I call the number and am presented with a "dial 1 for this, dial 2 for
that, dial 3 for the other" menu.

I dial 1 ("Problems with your electricity supply"), and get, yes,
another menu inviting me to dial 1, 2, 3 and so on.

I dial 1 again.

I get a recorded message telling me that I should ring my local supplier
(who is, in fact, Powergen, remember?) and the number's on the back of
the bill.
Which I didn't have.

Try again. Ring the number for Powergen.

Choose from their bliddy menu at random.

Get a robot telling me that since I'm calling from a mobile they don't
know where I am, so I need to put in the phone number of the place where
I am. Which I didn't know (I could have told a human *exactly* where I
was). Make up a phone number that fits the area where I am. Then the
damn thing asks me to speak my postcode. Which I gave it (I have no
idea why I knew it!). Then it asks me for the street. By this time
I've had enough. Start shouting "shut up" at the phone until it starts
saying "I did not catch what you said - please hold and you will be put
through to an operator". Wahey! A human!

Who was of no help at all, but gave me another number to call.

Call the number which turns out to be for (of all things) EDF -
Electricité de France.

Wait in a queue for "the next available operator" for ten minutes.

Wahey! Another human!

Who was unaware that there was a power cut but did spend a large amount
of time warning me (despite my protestations that there were at least
six other properties affected that I knew about) that there might be a
charge for a callout. I'm just surprised she didn't try to sell me
shares in ED Flaming F while she was about it.

Total time, some 40 minutes. Total raise in blood pressu lots.
Improvement over the old, clapped out, monolithic system, nil.

I'm sure the shareholders love it, though. Thank God I wasn't trying to
report a gas leak.

--
Tony

Thank you Thatcher. Modern life is rubbish - largely due to her.

Tony Walton wrote:
Kingsley Matthews wrote:
Most of the old nationalised industries were ok. My business
recently moved into new premises, we had to notify 3
organisations to get our gas connected. In the old days we
just notified one, and they say that privatisation cuts
bureaucracy.


There was a power cut in the pub where I was (plus most of the
street) last Saturday. The manager was busy switching off alarms
and doing pubby things, so he asked me to get on tho the
electricity people and find out when it was likely to come back on.

details of phone calls snipped
Total time, some 40 minutes. Total raise in blood pressu lots.
Improvement over the old, clapped out, monolithic system, nil.

Then your pub evidently chose the wrong supplier. That's a risk with
any private enterprise system. Personally, I've had no problem with
Southern Electric. There is usually a recorded message about the power
cut as soon as you phone.

I'm sure the shareholders love it, though. Thank God I wasn't
trying to report a gas leak.

Gas leaks are dealt with by Transco; look under 'Gas' in the phone book.
What's the problem with that?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Richard J. wrote:
Tony Walton wrote:


Then your pub evidently chose the wrong supplier. That's a risk with
any private enterprise system. Personally, I've had no problem with
Southern Electric. There is usually a recorded message about the
power cut as soon as you phone.

As far as I'm aware nobody was given a choice to have the infrastructure
supplied by EDF, though (whose problem it turned out to be). Shades of
Railtrack.

The other point is that once this "choice" wasn't necessary. You got
your electricity from a supplier, who did the job. There was no
necessity to shop around between the crap ones and the good ones.
Especially when the crapness or otherwise of a supplier's CS operation
isn't apparent until there's a problem.




I'm sure the shareholders love it, though. Thank God I wasn't
trying to report a gas leak.


Gas leaks are dealt with by Transco; look under 'Gas' in the phone
book. What's the problem with that?

Fair enough; how about if I'd been trying to report that my paralysed
Granny's ventilator[1] was down due to the power cut?

[1] No, not the one over the cooker.

--
Tony

On Mon, 17 May 2004 14:20:08 +0100, "west.ender"
wrote:

"Tony Walton" wrote in message
There was a power cut in the pub where I was (plus most of the street)
last Saturday. The manager was busy switching off alarms and doing pubby
[snip]
Old-style it would have gone like this [...]

Thank you Thatcher. Modern life is rubbish - largely due to her.

For all her shortcomings, Thatcher could at least post to Usenet.

She wasn't the sort of pillock to quote near 80 lines of text for a
one line Undergraduate response.

Jason wrote:

For all her shortcomings, Thatcher could at least post to Usenet.

Could she? Where?

--
Ronan Flood
working for but not speaking for
Network Services, University of London Computer Centre
(which means: don't bother ULCC if I've said something you don't like)

"Jason" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 May 2004 14:20:08 +0100, "west.ender"
wrote:

"Tony Walton" wrote in message
There was a power cut in the pub where I was (plus most of the street)
last Saturday. The manager was busy switching off alarms and doing
pubby
[snip]
Old-style it would have gone like this [...]

Thank you Thatcher. Modern life is rubbish - largely due to her.

For all her shortcomings, Thatcher could at least post to Usenet.

When & where? Do tell.
(Is that supposed to excuse the rest of her crap BTW? Cos it er, doesn't!)

She wasn't the sort of pillock to quote near 80 lines of text for a
one line Undergraduate response.

nor, I suspect, the sort of pillock who thinks the word undergraduate is
capitalised...

"JAF" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 May 2004 13:00:16 +0100, Tony Walton
wrote:

Choose from their bliddy menu at random.

If you want to sepak to a human, don't make any selections.

Hmmm. Normally that's my tactic too; but I phoned my phone company recently,
and I was told by The Voice that I would be disconnected if I didn't make a
selection!

On Mon, 17 May 2004 at 15:49:42, Tony Walton
wrote:

Fair enough; how about if I'd been trying to report that my paralysed
Granny's ventilator[1] was down due to the power cut?

[1] No, not the one over the cooker.

Your supplier would have known about her, and her street would be one of
the very *last* to be cut off, and only if it absolutely had to. In an
accidental outage, some kind of alarm system would sound to get Granny
reconnected asap, and probably the local hospital would be alerted to go
and get her. Meanwhile, Granny would have battery back-up for her
respirator.

They aren't absolute fools; they only seem that way sometimes!
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 9 May 2004

On Mon, 17 May 2004 at 19:02:51, west.ender
wrote:


"JAF" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 17 May 2004 13:00:16 +0100, Tony Walton
wrote:

Choose from their bliddy menu at random.

If you want to sepak to a human, don't make any selections.

Hmmm. Normally that's my tactic too; but I phoned my phone company recently,
and I was told by The Voice that I would be disconnected if I didn't make a
selection!


What happens, I wonder, if you still have an old-fashioned phone that
doesn't have a tone system?
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 9 May 2004