Just when you thought it was safe to install a BT line

A colleague of mine was just talking about what a nightmare she is having with getting a landline installed in her new place. BT have been mucking her about for nearly three weeks and it was outrageous she said. Have I ever heard of anything so shocking from a large corporation she asked? Yes, I have I thought........

I moved into my new fabulous riverside flat in March this year, on my birthday in fact. Whilst it costs more to run this two bedroom flat than it did to rent my previous three bedroom house with a garden, I am still immensely happy that I made the move. It is the perfect flat, and it is the nicest place I have ever lived. It seemed to have everything I could possibly need. Except for a telephone line. How on earth the previous tenants had managed to live for 15 years without a landline was beyond me, and I put it down to them being aliens from another planet that communicated via the toaster.

There is no way that I can live without my Sky TV so had to get a telephone line installed before that could be fitted. Three weeks I had to wait for an appointment for an engineer. I can't tell you how many episodes of Will & Grace I missed in that period. I know I have them all on DVD but still, I like turning Living on at 7pm and knowing that I have an hour of the last greatest sitcom to watch before I even consider feeding the cat or feeding myself. So these were three very tough weeks indeed. I decorated, cleaned out my wardrobe, filed papers, caught up on washing, put shelf's together, put curtains up organised pot cupboards, alphabetised my CD, DVD and book collection. Not as productive as sitting on the sofa in front of Sky I'm sure you will agree. Who wants to spend their time doing that? All I want out of life is escapism. I watch these shows and pretend they are my life. I don't want to have to deal with reality, so I absolve myself in sitcoms and hang my every last hope on a witty new one liner they produce that I can drop into conversations with my friends to have them laugh hysterically and think I am devastatingly funny.

The BT engineer arrive promptly at 1:30pm. I asked if he wanted a cup to tea, which I think is always nice thing to do even though you are secretly hoping they will decline. Thankfully he did, but asked if he could use my toilet So I left him to it, as he wasn't very attractive so I didn't feel the need to ask if he needed me to hold anything. He seemed to be taking an awfully long time, and I was about to knock on the door when he came out. "um, I just have to pop downstairs he said" Fine, I thought, he obviously has to install the line from outside and is off to get cracking on it. I was slightly confused when I watched him jump in his van and speed off. Maybe the connection box is around the corner I pondered? Nothing really mattered at this point except the fact that Sky TV was on the horizon. An engineer was due at the weekend to install that. Everything was going as planned, which is so unlike me.

An hour and a half later he still hadn't returned and at this stage I was starting to worry if he had been a BT engineer at all. maybe he had just come here to case the joint. All sorts of things were going through my head. I wondered if he was a sex maniac that enjoyed knocking on peoples doors, asking to use their toilet and then masturbating in them, whilst the tenant remains oblivious to what has happened, he has got his kicks thank you very much and off he goes. But no, he didn't do that. Nor had he place a bomb in my bathroom. He had dropped a bomb though. Looking into my toilet I saw the largest turd I have ever seen in my life. It was like an Anaconda. it was so big that it had it's very own postcode and website.

Turns out the BT engineer had blocked my toilet, felt so supremely embarrassed and mortified about the whole thing that he decided the only thing to do was run out of my flat never to be seen again. He didn't even have the decency to fold it up in some tissue and take it with him and dispose of it somewhere, anywhere but MY flat. But more to the point he hadn't fitted my land line which would enable me to watch Sky. I was livid. Not only did I have to call a plumber as he had shoved a years supply of paper down the toilet as well as leaving what had to be half of his spine in the loo, I also had to call BT and explain what had happened. Try explaining that to a call centre in New Delhi. "Sir, we are not plumbers we are British Telecom, we cannot help you with your enquiry" 'I know you're not plumbers, but I need to call one because of the reptile your colleague has left in my flat. Who is going to pay for this" I screamed . The response was the same monotonous robotic drivel I have come to expect from these larges corporate companies that outsource their call centres to far away places without minimum wages and pay their staff in grains of rice. "sir, what is the call regarding?"

It was infuriating. I was getting nowhere and really losing my temper. I had to speak to a person rather than a robot.

Me: Please can you put your manager on the line, I need to speak to somebody with a better grasp of the English language

Vikash: To my manager sir? And what is the call regarding

Me: The fact that you cannot help me with my problem

Vikash: What is the problem sir

Me: Your engineer has just blocked my toilet, I need to call a plumber and I expect you to pay for it. I also expect you to get someone around here to fit my land line

Vikash: Sir, we are not plumbers, we are BT

Me: Oh shove it up your arse

Vikash: I'm sorry Sir, but what is your call regarding

They really do NOT know how to deal with people and this guy at the end of the line clearly thought I was at home licking the light switches. I hung up and tackled the problem by sending an email the following day when I was back at work. My land line was installed three days later naturally by a different engineer. Titanic Turd obviously didn't want to return to the scene of the crime. The chap they sent was very nice indeed, He didn't use my toilet, and was very professional. Well, I say professional, after he installed my line he did call an hour later to ask if I fancied a drink some time. I declined. I decided that I'd had quite enough of all things BT by this stage. I promptly changed my number and service provider.

It has left me with a lingering question though. What does BT stand for? British Telecom or Blocked Toilet?