The perilous adventures of Charlotte the Optus Wench - Part II

I'm going to keep this short and simple, for your sanity, mine and the overall health of this far too portable laptop.

Found out Friday (my mind full of heady expectation at the prospect of a phone that not only stays on for tracts of time but ALSO receives AND sends phone calls and messages in that pesky real-time thing) that the f***king device isn't coming till AT LEAST next Friday.

The reason(s) behind this I discover from Cindy (the one good about this saga is Optus' seeming ease in producing service assistants with wonderfully giggly names), who manages to inform me in a wonderfully demeaning and condascending way that i'm an idiot for assuming anyone I speak to to has any real idea whats going on. Better yet, the sooner I let go of this false ideology that people are employed for a reason, the better i'll feel about stupid things like being able to connect with the world. After reminding myself quietly that breathing IS an essential survival thing, I am semi-resolved to the fact that this is out of my control. Semi. Till next Friday at least.

Bigger than jesus

I hate Optus.

This is well known, nothing new there, but today I do believe we reached a new low in our ongoing stand-off.

I'll admit, I am in the habit of using and abusing phones. I'm also not all that hot at holding on to them, its just one of the litany of unimportant practical skills that I have other people to remind me of. Much like road crossing but lets not start that one tonight.

In any case, after a long and involved saga involving insurance, i-phones and stupendously long and ill-informed waits I was happily informed by the Optus insurance phone wench yesterday that I would get a new phone TODAY. Which my disbelieving ears queried, but hey, one can only live in hope. Roll on Optus in-store wench number two, Charlotte.

My polite phone call to inquire when might be an appropriate time to collect the new shininess today was greeted by the lovely Charlotte who point blank informed me she didn't have really much idea what I was talking about AND not withstanding this, even if she did, she's not particularly interested in helping me. That's "insurance's problem". Noting the ten second upgrade from customer to problem I promptly hung up on Charlotte and placed a slightly more terse call to insurance where I managed one better, Grant informed they were "washing their hands of the issue altogether. Thats the store's problem now". Lovely.

A couple more calls back to the store, another to insurance and yet another couple to customer service ensured I wasted a good deal of my afternoon. I've still got no idea where my phone, neither does anybody, and no idea of when it mught arrive. Apparently I must be a slave to the door of George Street Optus up until the point the Optus gods see fit to bequeath a phone on this poor, unfortunate 'problem'.

In the interim, my phone's playing fun, amusing games and its got a penchance for giving me tmissed calls and messages three days after the fact. So if you're trying to contact me i'm not ignoring you. Promise.

End Rant.

Tempest

There's nothing like a belting wind, some lo-fi music and a balcony.

Pretty colours would have been awesome but the slovenly darkness is blissful too.

Confluence

So, i'm more than a little confused as to the harmony of having Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" as the backing track for the new anti-smoking campaign. Its just odd people.

Meanwhile, I love the fact we managed to retain our new police minister for all of three minutes before he was caught with his pants down. Literally. Ahh the beauty factionalism *smirk*. Nevertheless I should naught complain, Noreeen Hay, Michael Costa, Morris Iemma and Reba Meagher all in the space of a week or so ain't bad. Even if we STILL have to deal with Della Bosca and Tripodi. I love how NSW politics closely resembles the set of The Bold and the Beautiful.

For all thats been written about the moose shooter, she ain't got nothing on these kids.