So I live in a flat, a flat that’s in lovely Londontown, as such it’s got this wonderful new thing plumbed in. The awe inspiring amazement that is electricity!
It’s a great thing, you can do all sorts of things with the stuff. Play games, process food, run disco lights, freeze the corpses of call centre workers and so on. All very handy things I can assure you.
Sadly its so wonderful that you have to actually pay for the flaming stuff, an outrage I’m sure you’ll agree. For reasons I don’t quite understand my glorious flat comes with a key meter and an associated key for charging said meter. It’s a pretty crap thing to have as it involves interacting with the post office once a month which is an infuriating experience.
For 2 years however it’s worked a charm, alas on Friday it decided it was time to throw an A5 error! An A5, the cheek of it!
I phone the nice people at Southern Electric and the lovely person at the other end of the phone promised to wing a new key out to me forth with, which they did. Great!
I pop it into the meter, fuck me what’s this an A7 Error! Fiddlesticks!!
I phone back:
“Ah yes sir that an A7 error, you just need to pop some credit on the key and it’ll be fine”
“Trouble is not sure I have time as you know, it’s Christmas and I’m not sure there are any chavy shops open right now and I’m going away”
“Well there’s not much we can do so just give it a try”
“Fine…”
I pop out into the icy wasteland that London had become and find a shop, I pop a pound on the key and it seems to work, woo!
I return to the flat, gently slide the key into the perfectly formed slot, A-motherfucking-7, you’re bloody kidding me…
Back on the phone we go!
Quick explanation later…
“Well I’ll get another key sent out to you”
“Erm trouble is you might have noticed, it’s Christmas and I’m going away so I doubt the key will get to me in time”
“Well there’s nothing I can so”
“What, you can’t get a key to me any other way?”
“You can run your meter to less than a pound, then we can send out an engineer to get it fixed”
“Pardon?”
“Run the meter down”
“err how”
“Just turn things on”
“No, I don’t have enough things to use that much in a day, and what if I run it down to £1.01 and you still refuse to come, and anyway it’s your fault for sending me a broken key, can’t you just fix it”
“Well if you will rely on a fragile technology. Can’t you just leave things on”
“No, I just told you I don’t have that many things to use that much, it’s not like I have a brace of lathes lying about or anything. What do you mean fragile?”
“Well there’s nothing we can do, if I send an engineer out and they find it above a pound they’ll just take the key and leave”
“Ok can I speak to a supervisor please?”
“You can but they’ll tell you the same thing, you need to run it down”
“That’s as maybe but I’d like to hear it from them”
Hold music ensues and I begin to wonder if this is some hilarious festive prank, also why are they using bits of crap they know don’t work then blaming me for it?
The music ends and quelle fucking surprise, the same hag comes back on the phone having spoken to her supervisor (allegedly) and informs me they CAN actually send someone out, who would have thought it she was lying right to my face. Shockingly though there is a caveat, it’s an all bloody day appointment meaning I have to sit in all day waiting, ever waiting.
“Yeah I guess I don’t have a choice, one thing though, I don’t have a doorbell, can they phone me when they get here otherwise it’ll be a wasted trip and we’ll be in the same problem”
“I can’t garuntee that”
“OK, i’ll just sit outside all day in the snow”
“Can’t you look out the window sir?”
“No the configuration of the flat… Oh whatever I’ll just have to hope they have a phone…”
“Right we’ll book that in tomorrow”
“What, can’t you do that today?”
“No they shut that department at 8”
“Fine, I’ll await a call… Cheers and have a nice Christmas”
Click
I strongly suspect they won’t call and I’ll be buggered and my freezer will melt all its lovely content. Happy chilly Christmas, bastards.