This past weekend has been a weekend best forgotten..... I don't think I have ever experienced anything like it. Not only was it a battle of the wills between my sons and I, but between Vodacom and I too!
My husband went away to some lodge in the bushveld with business visitors from America. Now, I've been alone with the boys before, so I wasn't worried and was sure I could handle two days with them. It would be a piece of cake. After all, they are 14, 17 and 19 respectively and I am 43. ( I should have taken their collective age into acount! 50 years of joint experience beats 43, believe you me!)
But all that aside, the worst of the weekend was my issue with Vodacom. Since Saturday morning, I had not been receiving calls on my Blackberry. I can make calls, but I have no Facebook, no Twitter, and I cannot receive calls. I heard rumours that Vodacom was experiencing problems so I thought I would give them until Sunday. Dennis tried to call me from the lodge but had no luck, and had to contact me using one of the boys phones.
On Sunday afternoon, after struggling with the IDOLS reception on our decoder (had to rescan every 4 minutes - no exageration - and this was the final for crying in a bucket!!!!!! I decided to call Vodacom and give them a piece of my mind:
I'm going to skip the: If you would like to sim-swop, buy a donkie, eat a giraffe, select 1 nonsense and get down to the nitty gritty:
"Hello, thank you for calling Vodacom, my name is Beauty, how can I help you?" How can she be so up beat on a freaking Sunday afternoon?
"My name is Deidre and I would like to lodge a complaint about Vodacom's service"
"Certainly, Deidre. What is your number?"
I give it to her in monosylables
"0.....8......2......5......6.......6....... the impatience dripping from each number.......4......6"
"And in which area do you reside? Thank you Deidre, one minute please."
Why not, I've been waiting the whole weekend.
"I'm sorry, Deidre, but I'm not picking up any service or network problems in that area."
"Well, I'm telling you now. I've had NO service fromVodacom this entire weekend. My husband is somewhere in the bush and he can't even reach me. What if I had an emergency? What if I needed to call someone? What then, hey? What then?"
"Deidre, I'll lodge your call and send you an sms confirming the reference number. Someone will call you back within 24 hours."
"They better, or I will take this further!"
While still stewing on the couch about the unfairness of the universe - first Vodacom and then MNET - I get a call on my cell. Typical. Now that I've lodged the complaint and after telling me there is nothing wrong with the network, now all of a sudden I get a call. It's Dennis.
"Hi Deidre, why are you answering this number?"
"........ because it's my phone?"
"No, I didn't call your phone. I called the spare phone."
"What do you mean you called the spare phone. This is my phone."
The penny starts it downward tumble.....
"Then you've got the spare phones sim in your phone....."
"I've got the spare phone's sim in my phone....." I look up and at the three boys sitting around the table. Each ones face is the picture of innocence.
My tirade with Vodacom plays through my mind.....
"Sorry Mom. We put the spare phones sim in your phone because it had Dene's number on it and we wanted to call her to find out what time the party started..........."
I just hope that Vodacom isn't efficient enough to phone me today, because I don't know what I'm going to say....... except 'sorry?'
