Such attention is flattering. Such kindness is welcome. Attention and kindness together are surely strong indication of affection. Therefore I say, “Telecom must like me.”
The latest evidence of affection poured on my grateful head is another mind-boggling example of stunning high-tech and superb administration (sound the long drum-roll; let the admiring trumpets blare).
I wanted to move house. Lots of people do. So I fought Them on the beaches, I fought Them on the landing fields, I fought Them on the everywhere known to science or anybody for more years than dinosaurs ruled the earth. Finally, by God’s grace, victory was mine. There were just two dots and crosses left – namely connecting the power and telephone.
Power, yes. And well done, Vector, whose contractor, Northpower, in the person of that friendly chap Matt Olsen, actually consulted the weather forecast and came day early, because it was going to rain on the day scheduled (and did).
Telephone? Oh dear, no! I had had my numbers reserved for months; I had cables underground from the street to the door; but all Telecom, aka T Rex, owner of the local loop, could offer between me and yer standard antique Kiwi suburban exchange (max guaranteed speed 9600bps or 14,400bps) was air. Copper there was none.
Even if there had been, much of it was so sub-standard that many lines could not even drive fax.
So what chance an Internet connection, in the glorious 21st-century of our wunnerful Knowledge-Based Economy? Hah!
Therefore an anguished aaaaarrrrrrggghhh emitted itself from the personal throat. For I go to work over the Internet. Therefore, thanks to T Rex, I could not move after all.
But no – I am saved! call to 123 shows that Telecom’s computer system knows nothing of the 100 percent unavailability of lines in my neck of the woods. It says there are plenty.
Downer Engineering can scramble up poles all it likes and find no copper, but there is some. Lots. The computer says so.
The lines, you see, are the new modern sort: virtual – which only exist in the minds of T Rex’s spin-doctors (whoops! almost keyed sin-doctors) who truly believe that the nasty old dinosaur is “up with the best in the world”.
So, as I said, I am saved. I can connect to the real exchange with virtual lines and do virtually no work ever again.
Just don’t ask about old-fashioned habits like eating and living. Those are for humans, and T Rex knows nothing of them – except that they are crunchy, and that lightly spurned they make good dungivends for de shareholders (what was that about an Emperor, virtual robes, and non-virtual skin? How dare you make these mocking analogies!)
The story got better and better (as story, not as an experience), and, finally, thanks again to what Hamlet called “angels and ministrants of grace”, the end was very moving, but only after T Rex’s operational chaos and the run-down, pip-squeezed state of Enzed’s bread-and-butter telecoms infrastructure had again indecently exposed themselves.
So I repeat my opening assertion: With floods of such material provided at no cost (except for the exaggerated wear-and-tear on the soul), it is obvious that Telecom adores me. Thank you, dear ole T Rex!
Nobilangelo Ceramalus: Writer, commentator, journalist, desktop publisher, graphics-designer, illustrator, webmaster, photographer.
