Monday, 5 October
Drove Bev to Cam and Ian’s where we had a cup of tea and a bowl of Camille’s homemade chicken soup. I left them there and went off to the Swiss version of Telus-- Swisscom. I immediately felt at home: they are both dictatorial, tyrannical monopolies that offer services we cannot live without. Both provide an environment designed solely to undermine the self-worth of any peon who dares penetrate their fortress.
In Canada, the watchdog is a telephone system tended by cyberian entities who offer an array of helpful options, none of which, after you have gone through the thirty-five choices comes even close to the problem that you want to discuss with a flesh and blood being.
Telus offices in Canadian malls will sell you two thousand year contracts, cost more than the combined total of the GNP of the Ten Poorest Countries (based on 2004 GNP per capita in US$) and then give you a free cell phone that will only work on alternate Wednesday in the west and in Toronto only on February 29th. But they will not give you any assistance with your account. For that you have to go online and run up against the Cyberian-idiot mentioned above.
For those with an inquiring mind, and need to call my bluff ref the GNP of the ten, I must first ask, “Why the hell are you on my blog?”, but I do include the stats as a kind of reward for you sticking this far.
Burundi ... $90
Ethiopia ... $110
Democratic Republic of Congo ... $110
Liberia ... $110
Malawi ... $160
Guinea-Bissau ... $160
Eritrea ... $190
Niger ... $210
Sierra Leone ... $210
Rwanda ... $210
Swisscom’s absolute power over its subjects is one of a more sadistic, sophisticated style of persecution. They have the storefront offices in malls. They staff them with courteous people. So what’s your problem, you ask? You cannot enter into any kind of communication with these folks! Even though they are located just inside the store, are visible, and appear ready to help, you must first engage their version of the cyberian overseer, the electronic ticket dispenser. Press a button, take the resulting slip of paper from its maw and proceed directly to the waiting area where some of the people ahead of you look as if they have been sitting there since Jobs and Wozniak began creating Apple computers in a garage. Others seem to be hanging on in a kind of hopeful trance; a perfect place actually for me to wait the birth of the baby.
But, I was made of sterner stuff. I took my ticket, number 101, noted that the display stated that Swisscom staff were currently serving number 12 from last year’s list, and promptly went off shopping. I returned an hour later and found that they had zoomed up to number 23. After another nip off to only look at the overpriced treats on offer in the mall, and having bought a used a book at a book sale, (3Sfr) I returned. Amazingly, the display read out 97. I decided to wait and was glad that I had. Seems numbers 98 through 100 had legged as I had but had failed to re-appear in time to seize their opportunity of meeting face-to-face with a Swisscom staffer. I lucked in and got a young man who’s english would have enabled him to reside in Newfoundland and be easily taken for a native.
However we did manage to communicate. He fixed my problem, refunded me my 30 francs that the Swisscom modem had snatched and then explained to me how I could simplify any future interaction by dropping by the store. I didn’t have the french to explain I would be using Telus from now on and it appeared that his store of english had run out. I Merci-ed him, he smiled and said, “You’re welcome,” and then I ruined the dialogue by adding, “Take care, Pardner.”
On my way out the store I decided strike a blow for tele-freedom and tossed a sabot into the mix by quickly thumping the ticket dispenser a dozen or so times. My last ticket read 250. God help the poor soul who came in next.
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