Smellmycheese's Blog

Before we begin the ‘fun’ I should make it clear that the title of this blog post is a purposely misleading lie. I didn’t. If that’s why you’re here, you should probably leave now as there will be no love involved. Only bitterness and resentment.

Anyway. Phones. Phones are good aren’t they? These days they can do all sorts: go on the internet, take photos, play music, make you cups of tea, wash your feet, cut your toe nails.

All of these things are great and much appreciated, of course. But it would be really great if they made phone calls and sent texts with some degree of reliability too. Just for a laugh like.

Because, let’s face it: I’ve got a computer, I’ve got a camera, I’ve got an MP3 player, I’ve got a kettle, I’ve got a flannel and I’ve got nail scissors. However, I haven’t got anything else that can call people or send text messages; that’s what I got a phone for.

The latest pile of Sony Ericsson-branded crap, masquerading as a mobile phone, that I have in my possession is the sixth I’ve had on this contract alone. Granted, once or twice I may have dropped my mobile phone somewhere like down a pub toilet, but on all other occasions my phone simply rendered itself useless due to massive Sony Ericsson and Orange FAIL.

The first Sony Ericsson started turning itself off at randomised intervals after a few months of being in my ownership.

(I should come clean at this point and admit that I chose it mainly because it was pink. The people at Orange assured me that it was also very high tech and top-of-the-range, however. “Oh good”, I said, “how marvellous”. “Just to clarify once more, is it pink?” “Yes”, they said, and sent me my high tech, top-of-the-range and, most importantly, PINK, phone.)

I didn’t think to ask whether it would actually work, however. SILLY ME.

It didn’t of course. Not after a few months, anyway. And so began the long and torturous process of dealing with Orange. The future may be bright, Orange staff are not.

(That’s not necessarilly true actually. The staff I dealt with over my several hundred calls to Orange customer ‘care’ were of moderate intelligence for the most part. I just wanted to make a joke using the word ‘bright’. Well worth it. )

And so, the cycle began:

Orange: “Hello. Customer care! Can I take your name, password, address, date of birth, dog’s breath type, favourite pasty filling and the circumference of your left toe (the third one in from the middle)?”

Me: “Don’t you need to know what’s wrong so you can put me through to the right department first?”

Orange: “No. Please answer all the questions.”

Me: “Oh, okay, my mistake. Me, Barry Chuckle is my Dad, Leeds, the eighties, don’t have one, jam, two and a half.”

Orange: “Lovely. Now how can we help you?”

Me: “My phone’s not working. It keeps switching itself off”

Orange:” Oh dear, that’s no good. I’ll just pass you through to the right department. BYE BYE.”

Repeat questions & answers once more.

Orange: “Right, we’re going to run a high tech and very specialist DIAGNOSTIC now. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to understand, you haven’t been specially trained to do DIAGNOSTICS like we have.

“Now. Switch your phone on and off again.”

“Done that? “

Me: “Yes.”

Orange: “Is it working now?”

Me: “No.”

Orange: “Yeah, it’s broken. We’ll send you another one.”

Me: “But you’ve sent me this model four times now and I’ve had the exact same problem each time.”

Orange: “Yes, this model of Sony Ericsson has had a lot of problems unfortunately. But you can’t get a different model until we enter the same DIAGNOSTIC code five consectutive times in a row”

Me: “So, can’t you tell me what the code is and I’ll make sure I tell the next person to enter it next time my phone inevitably has the same problem and I call for a replacement”

Orange: “No. We don’t know it. It’s automatically generated based on the answers you give us during the DIAGNOSTIC and then the computer says yes or no to a new model.”

Me: “So you’re telling me the computer says no?”

Orange: “Yes. Bye now!”

On the fifth instance of my phone messing up, I got sent a different Sony Ericsson model. Which has now stopped working for the second time.

AND IT’S NOT EVEN PINK.

Mercifully, I’m due an upgrade.

So I can look forward to locking myself into another relentless 18 month round of phone calls to Orange customer care, many, many diagnostics and a phone that promises the world and yet fails to deliver those most basic of phone-related human needs: to text and to call.

Hip hip hoo freaking ray.