Tearing It All Apart
What would you do if you wanted a new telephone system in your home or office? Would it be reasonable to assume that one of the best known telecommunications companies would be able to service your needs? One would think so. Feeling confident in this course of action I called out such a company (lets call them UKTEL) asking them to visit and give us a quote. Imagine our surprise when we were told that someone was in the area and would be with us within half an hour. Our faith in the multinational corporations was some way to becoming restored. Come the hour, come the telephone engineer and at the appointed time he duly arrived and proceeded to take detailed notes and measurements, leaving us with the assurance of a swiftly delivered, reasonably priced quotation. And there it should have ended. However we were of course naive in our optimistic assumptions.
A couple of days later we received a phone call from UKTEL wondering if we would like a quote for a new telephone system. An uneasy feeling of Deja Vu swept over me.
“No, that was last week’s conversation and you’ve been and gone.”
“No, no one has been out to see you.” the UKTEL rep assured me.
Now either I had slipped into some parallel universe or an international terrorist had infiltrated our company under the guise of a telephone engineer. I didn’t much like either explanation but was truly flummoxed so the UKTEL Rep said that he would endeavour to investigate. A couple of days later he called back.
“The wrong company came out” he informed us.
“So it wasn’t someone from UKTEL who came out.”
“Yes it was someone from UKTEL.”
“So you’re not from UKTEL?”
“No we are from UKTEL.”
Are you confused? By this stage I certainly was. He then gave me a detailed explanation of the internal machinations of UKTEL involving franchises, umbrellas, mergers, devolvement, involvement and unilateral nuclear disarmament (probably) by the end of which I had lost the will to live.
Essentially someone from the wrong franchise had come out and now this would have to be rectified by someone coming out from the right franchise to get identical information from us.
“Would it not be easier” I suggested “just to get the information you need from Franchise 1 and then you can send us the quote?”
The UKTEL rep probably then shifted awkwardly in his seat and said “Well you see they won’t give us the information”.
It turns out that for a major telecommunications company, they don’t seem very willing to communicate with each other. You see Franchise 1 was annoyed because they had lost the job to Franchise 2 so won’t give them our details. Franchise 2 are no doubt too scared of the big bullies at Franchise 1 to ask a second time if they can have their ball back. At this point I felt compelled to ask him which nursery school he was phoning from, what with the company throwing its toys out the pram with such velocity. With the prospect of yet another UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist coming to visit us to get exactly the same information which we had previously given to the first UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist we politely informed them that we would not be using UKTEL for our telecommunications needs.
As a little postscript to this, shortly afterwards, another employee from UKTEL contacted us to find out the phone number of the UKTEL rep that I had spoken to. A telecommunications company with no internal communications, and to prove it, not even an internal telephone directory. Just what sort of set up are we dealing with here? I don’t think that Sir Alan Sugar would be too impressed.
A couple of days later we received a phone call from UKTEL wondering if we would like a quote for a new telephone system. An uneasy feeling of Deja Vu swept over me.
“No, that was last week’s conversation and you’ve been and gone.”
“No, no one has been out to see you.” the UKTEL rep assured me.
Now either I had slipped into some parallel universe or an international terrorist had infiltrated our company under the guise of a telephone engineer. I didn’t much like either explanation but was truly flummoxed so the UKTEL Rep said that he would endeavour to investigate. A couple of days later he called back.
“The wrong company came out” he informed us.
“So it wasn’t someone from UKTEL who came out.”
“Yes it was someone from UKTEL.”
“So you’re not from UKTEL?”
“No we are from UKTEL.”
Are you confused? By this stage I certainly was. He then gave me a detailed explanation of the internal machinations of UKTEL involving franchises, umbrellas, mergers, devolvement, involvement and unilateral nuclear disarmament (probably) by the end of which I had lost the will to live.
Essentially someone from the wrong franchise had come out and now this would have to be rectified by someone coming out from the right franchise to get identical information from us.
“Would it not be easier” I suggested “just to get the information you need from Franchise 1 and then you can send us the quote?”
The UKTEL rep probably then shifted awkwardly in his seat and said “Well you see they won’t give us the information”.
It turns out that for a major telecommunications company, they don’t seem very willing to communicate with each other. You see Franchise 1 was annoyed because they had lost the job to Franchise 2 so won’t give them our details. Franchise 2 are no doubt too scared of the big bullies at Franchise 1 to ask a second time if they can have their ball back. At this point I felt compelled to ask him which nursery school he was phoning from, what with the company throwing its toys out the pram with such velocity. With the prospect of yet another UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist coming to visit us to get exactly the same information which we had previously given to the first UKTEL Engineer/international terrorist we politely informed them that we would not be using UKTEL for our telecommunications needs.
As a little postscript to this, shortly afterwards, another employee from UKTEL contacted us to find out the phone number of the UKTEL rep that I had spoken to. A telecommunications company with no internal communications, and to prove it, not even an internal telephone directory. Just what sort of set up are we dealing with here? I don’t think that Sir Alan Sugar would be too impressed.
