wendy house

the sound of the subway phone

John Foxx sang underpass

brrrrrrriiiiiiiinnng brrrrrrriiiiiiiinnng

wendy house:  Hello!

BT operative (BT-OH!):  Hello,  is Mr or Mrs House available

wendy house: my parents don’t live here

BT-OH!: Do you pay the bills?

wendy: Are you selling me something?

BT-OH: this phone number is a BT phone number and we have a special offer on Broadband

Phone sales people often want to talk to my mother, dad or to-be-arranged-husband.  It will be sad when my reply is ‘my parents are dead’ until then it’s mildly comical.

3pm. Somewhere near Didcot. 21st December

How sensible am I,  starting my journey back to Reading?
Unbeknownst to me, Reading had already come to a standstill
The Reading Chronical had already published the standstill*

6pm. Pangbourne. 21st December

This is where I encountered the full car neige,  the tail end of the traffic trying to get into Reading.  The traffic standing still,  sliding sideways, not yet abandoned.  Local radio traffic news talked 50 yards taking 2 hours to cover.  Urrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh……

Across the next hour I called and consulted with multiple friends. The phone network was often too busy to connect my calls.  Despite the presense of many car drivers I felt very alone.  My calm sensible friends and I agreed that I needed to get off the road quickly and get shelter for the night. 

wendy: do you have any spare rooms for the night?

receptionist: stranded?

wendy: yes, well, um, yes

receptionist: we have one room left,  would you like a toothbrush with that?

wendy: OH! (signifying relief at getting a room and supportive receptionist) Yes please, thank you, I was turned away from the hotel down the road, a toothbrush!  how thoughtful

Handsome Other Guest (HOG): we’re stranded too,  I’ve only got a hammer and some ski poles in the boot of my car,  maybe we can do a deal over the toothbrush?

wendy: I’ve got a blanket in my car, we could build something like a tent with the poles and hammer.  Not sure where the toothbrush comes in

HOG: (Huge smile then turns to receptionist) table for 6 please

receptionist: we’re waiting for the chef to get in before we finalise the menu,  we’ll try and feed everyone

HOG: Table for 6?  Can you put me on the waiting list

Clearly the snow car chaos called for some serious parking-up and a pint of Butcombe.  My party for one joined a few other party’s for one and we all shared stories of family, cars, hills, walking, the IT industry and other topical faerie tales. 

* the exceptional Number 17 bus was still on the move, albeit erratically.

In my day,  before personal cell phones,  there would be one phone in any household, if you were Lucky.  All incoming calls came through this one, shared, phone.  In our house the parents answered the phone until, as teenagers, our friends started to call us (rather than their parents calling our parents). 

Shared phone

Skillfullly avoiding parental or sibling interview of people calling-in was tricky.  It is a skill today’s youngsters have not had to learn.    The role of phone sanitizers has also been reduced by the relative lack of phone sharing.  I can’t remember the last time I called a number then asked ‘Is [name] there?‘

Department S sang Is Vic there?

Caller: are you real or one of the voices in my head?

Answerer: I’m real

Caller: are you the lady that I called on the phone?  Are you on the other end of the phone?

Answerer: yes, you called me, I’m on the other end of the phone

Caller: (silence)

Caller: was that you or someone else?  is there anyone with you?

Answerer: I didn’t say anything, there is noone with me

Caller: it’s very noisey with all the people talking in my head, I can’t tell which one’s are in my head and which ones are real.  Are you real?

Answerer: yes, I’m real, you called me on the phone

Caller: yes,  you’re on the phone

(silence)

Listening to my home phone answer machine messages I hear an unfamiliar voice

Wedensday 10:39 ‘Hello, this is your mother, I’ll call you on your home phone’

Wedensday 10:47 ‘Hello,  this is your mother, I can’t remember if we’ve talked about my health issues,  it would be nice if you called me in your lunch hour’

She wasn’t my mother, there was no return call number, whether she found her child and what her health problems are will remain two of lives unsolved mysteries.  I called my mumzie and wondered whether chaos and karma would balance things out…

Not train line

BT phone line

The Wendy House was positively brrrrrrringing  with the noise when I cam home.  The cats were hiding in cupboards.  Poor tortured fluffballs.  Emotionally scared and scarred.

I lifted the reciever,  the noise continued in a muted form. 

 I tried to ring BT.  Hah!  Then used my mobile phone.  My mobile phone service plan (t-mobile) charges me for the free-phone number.   

Unlike trainline faults,  BT didn’t feel the need to apologise, and offered a reimbursement of less financial value than the cost of their line being faulty.  In the spirit of sharing feel free to experience a snippit of the BT pain by listening to this….

In the early 1980’s student’s didn’t have mobile phones. 

I lived in downtown Birmingham on the 18th floor of a towerblock full of students.  The towerblock had one,  ONE,  public phone in the entrance way.  Always a long queue and no soundproof surround.   I rarely phoned mumsie.  Only when I was near a phone booth that didn’t have half a dozen people queuing to use it.  Normally this would be in the early hours of the morning at gig’s.   I would use the change I had saved for the bus home to call mumzie.   She wasn’t always best-pleased by my sense of timing.  The calls went something like

Wendy:  Helllllloooooooo mumsie!

Mumsie: do you know what time it is?

Wendy: It’s TIME to call mumzie!

Mumsie:  Have you been drinking?

Wendy:  could well be!

Mumsie:  Oh Gwendolyn!  Are you eating properly?

Wendy:  Chips and curry sauce fresh, ahem,  from the van,  YUMMY!

Mumsie:  we worry about you darling

Wendy:  ARRRRR!  You’re so sweet,  there’s no need to worry mum,  I’m nearly all grown up but I’m fast running out of change…

beep-beep-beeep-beep-beep-beep

Mumsie:  goodnight dear, take care…

One such call happened after listening to the live version of this little gem…

Spear of Destiny sing They’ll never take me alive

to people relaying extremely sad stories,  such as the Samaritans hear, do you think I would:

1. use active listening skills?
2. tell people to stop whining and pull themselves together?
3. ask lots of rather silly, mispronounced, miss-spelt, jargon laden, incomprehensibubble questions?
4. laugh maniacally?
5. play with Excel and ignore the stories?
6. fall asleep?
7. all the above?
8. none of the above?
9. other, please specify…
10. wibble wibble wibble

I’m thinking about taking bets on this one,  what are the odds for each option based on your knowledge of my past performance?

 I explain my computer problem to IT Support  Guy (SG) and ask if the two separate support teams dealing with my problem can talk to each other directly, rather than use me as a tennis ball, sort my problem out then contact me when its fixed.   Support guy is unsure and needs to investigate whether this is possible.

8 minutes of twangy music later:

SG:  I’m sorry for having left you on hold for over 2 minutes, I’m going to have to put you on hold for another couple of minutes, can you put me on speaker phone?

Wendy: I’m in an open plan office, the people near me might not like the twangy music. 

8 minutes of twangy music later:

SG:  I’m sorry for keeping you on hold so long, I’m going to have to escalate this to tier 2 support, hang on a while…

8 minutes of listening to typing on the phone later:

SG:  I have escalated this to Tier 2 they will phone you later

About 15 minutes later tier-2 phoned me to tell me the problem was fixed. 

Hoorah,  no twangy music, no hold, no extra questions.  I like tier-2.

The combination boiler rattles in the kitchen,  warming water and pumping it around the Wendy House 5 radiators. 

Outside,  water on the patio has already frozen.  Temperatures of minus 3 centigrade are predicted tonight.

Inside, the radiator-free kitchen releases a trickle of water from beneath the kitchen units.  A leaking pipe?  A phone call to Kevin. 

I discover that the mobile phone service doesn’t work when my head and mobile phone are both in the cupboard under the chilly kitchen sink while I try to answer Kevin’s questions,  to determine how many millimetres thick are the pipes that lead to and from my suspiciously rusty stop-tap.  

Will the pipes survive the predicted below freezing temperatures of the night?  Stay tuned for the leaky-pipe fly-on-the-wall,  phone-under-the-sink, real life potential plumbing drama.

Someone with either mucho cheek,  or confused time-zone, wisely withheld their number as they tested the theory of Wendy-sleep-talking.  They were disappointed.  Not even my Lucid dreaming skills could reach the phone lying on a table down the stairs of danger…

says the Very Nice Lady (VNL) from the highways and drainage specialists at Reading Borough Council freephone information.

VNL:  if I don’t have any joy I’ll get back to you in just one second

Wendy: thankyou

VNL: I didn’t have any joy

Wendy:Oh

I had the pleasure of paying BT to listen to the Indesit messages below for a full 20 minutes before dropping the receiver with a thunk that ended the call.  A thunk not dissimilar to that made by my washing machine before it too resorted to silence….

…We are encountering an unusually high level of calls to our company, but are working to connect you shortly…

…thankyou for calling,  you call has been placed on hold and you will be attended to as soon as an operator becomes free…

…your call is important to us and we are attempting to connect you to the person or department you require…

…thankyou for your patience, we will connect you shortly…

…Our operators are aware that you are holding and wiull connect you as soon as possible…

…we apologise for the delay…

An email to Indesit support describing my problem resulted in them giving me this link to a list of their error codes.  Hmmmm….

For the luxury of John Lewis’s service I’m tempted to buy a new machine…

IT support:  hello,  this is [name] in Salt Lake city  (US Accent)

Wendy: Oh!  I hope its sunny in Salt Lake city

IT Support:  it’s 4am in the morning

Wendy:  Ah,  gosh,  well,  not sunny then,  I’ve got this problem…

[problem fixing conversation and Wendy starts falling asleep then wakes up when]

IT Support:  Wonkey,  I’m even talking British now,  wonkey

Some snippits from recent cell-phone conversation with the fellow coordinating the builders (occassionally) working on The Wendy House kitchen roof replacement.

Wendy: not having a kitchen roof is very inconvenient.
Foreman: Not for me its not.

…

Wendy: so the slates will all be in place by end of day tomorrow?
Foreman: yes
Wendy: That’s Autumn!
Foreman: more like gruesome
…

Wendy: Cheerio
Foreman: Bye Darlin’

The biological term ‘cell’ was coined by Robert Hook, most famous for the eponymous Hooks law and working as Sir Christopher Wren’s colleage on St. Pauls Cathedral and a substantial proportion of London after the great fire.  Evidently Robert Hook meant to leverage the connotations of a monks cell, one of many defined spaces with an identical yet sparse functional content.

cell phones are named after the cellular network that supplies the signal,  possibly the term cell has the same root in a monks cell.  Two very diverse current-use meanings (phone, biological component) stemming from one original use.  Possibly…

Wendy:  Can I have my washing machine damaged phone replaced please?

insurance agent (IA): what time did this happen?

Wendy: about 7.30pm

IA: how was it put into the machine?

Wendy:  it was in the breast pocket of a fleece jacket,  I had checked the side pockets and forgotten to check the breast pocket

IA: was it in a large load or just a single item being washed?

Wendy: scooped up in a large load just after I came home from work,  I took it off and put it in with the load

IA:  When did you notice?

Wendy:  I heard a strange clunking coming from my washing machine immediately and thought,  oh dear,  sounds like I need to get my washing machine looked at.  About an hour later I needed to make a phone call and realised what had happened.  After and hour in the washing machine I decided to wait for the cycle to finish.  Then got the phone out,  took the back off and dried it with a hair-dryer then plugged it into the power supply.  Nothing,  no lights on the phone,  nothing.

IA:  did you try later?

Wendy:  yes,  about 2 days later I plugged it in again,  no lights.

The day after laundering my phone I trundled along to the Orange store where I loitered with the other customers who stood and waited. I listened to a lady being attended get gradually more agitated with the assistant as she learned that the assistant could not retrieve her phone contacts

“but those are my business contacts’‘

The assistant frowned,  her companion said they could try and use the home computer to try and retrieve the contacts from the SIM.  She appeared inconsolable,  her voice gradually raising as she made it clear that she had no back-up of these vital contact numbers, no way of even telling people that she had lost their numbers.  Tension, amongst those who only stood and waited, grew.   

As time passed the bald fellow in black gradually became more agitated, shifting his weight, checking his watch, glaring at the busy assistants. After about 10 minutes a new assistant joined the beleaguered pair on the floor.  She looked at me stood by the desk and I pointed her to the bald man in black.  An inaudible conversation between them, lasted less than a minute before I heard him loudly announce

“you clearly aren’t interested in what I have to say so I’m going elsewhere” 

He marched out of the store, the assistant stood watching him for a moment then came over to me. She was clearly upset…

Assitant:that was so embarrassing, he said I was spaced-out, that I wasn’t listening to him,  that I wasn’t even trying to help, he was so rude.

Wendy: he’d been waiting a very long time.  We all have.

Assistant: but that doesn’t give him the right to be rude to me.

Wendy: no. it doesn’t.

Assistant:  (continues to enumerate all the ways that the bald man had treated her inappropriately while she tests my SIM in another phone and finds me a cheap replacement and back-up phone)

I left happy,  SIM intact,  cheap-new phone,  my phone numbers previously backed-up on Darling and my work-supplied computer.  There are times when tendancies towards geekyness make my life so much easier than those people who have not ventured into the pain that can be involved insynchronising their phone contents with their computers

Phone.

bouncy hot whites cycle.

It was bound to happen one day.

sign me up for the water-proof, slimline, aesthetically pleasing cellphone.

Builder: you must want to shoot me,  let me explain …[5 minutes creative explanation]

I wonder why he assumed I would choose a gun in a country who’s weapon of choice this summer is the knife.  That aside,  his cute Reading accent,  entertaining excuses,  with the lack of urgency for the renovations made the whole situation mildly amusing.  

in less than one hour of excited pre-holiday preparation I called the:

• credit card company to check on how to deal with a lost or stolen card while out of England and gave them the dates and location of my travel to make sure they didn’t cancel my card when used in GREECE.
• medical insurance company to verify my coverage and what I should do when I fall over in GREECE.
• home insurance company to order a copy of my policy and check on what’s covered if taken out of the country (to GREECE) and find out if I need to replace my locks*.
• Water authority** to check some billing details.
• mumzie to let her know that I’m ok,  haven’t fallen over today,  yet and I will be safe when abroad.

* Apparantly, my contents are insufficiently valuable for them to require that I upgrade the Wendy House stable-door bolts.

** This has nothing to do with my HOLIDAY,  but I was on a roll with the phone-calling and wanted to keep the momentum going.

Boarding the outstanding,  yet not bio-ethanolically-fueled, free Thames Valley Park commuter bus I was forced by proximity to listen to a Scottish man wearing a back suit,  pink tie and highly polished shoes have a conversation with one of his work colleagues,  it started:

‘have those pissheads on the platform fwcked it up yet?’

and went down hill rapidly.  He alighted at the British Gas company bus stop. 

burring-bring….

buurrrrrrring-bring……..

Buuuuurrrrrrrrinnnng-bring………………

Wendy:  HellooooOOHH,  Wendy speaking,  how can I help you?

Automated message (AM):  This is Lloyds Bank calling to leave a message for [name of last occupant of the Wendy house, nolootwh],  if you are [nolootwh] press any key

Wendy: (not being nolootwh I pressed no keys and waited in the silence pondering what to do next,   after what seemed like days I decided to press any key out of sheer noseyness)

AM:  please call (number I didn’t write down and can’t remember,  then silence,  I waited a few minutes then I hung up and searched the internet to discover why Lloyds were using such an odd method of contacting their customers.  They aren’t,  this was a phishing call)

”’bring”’ ””’bring””:  Hello…  …Wendy House speaking,  how can I help you?

American friend:  Wendy?  Is that you?

Wendy:  Yes

American friend:  OH MY GOD,  Wendy,  your accent has gotten so English that I didn’t even recognise you! So,  how are you liking being back in England

Wendy:  It’s the little things that you didn’t realise that you missed or thought were over romantised like the sound of leather on willow during a cricket game in a park,  followed by a brief silence then clapping as the players on both sides applaud a good shot,  the smell of freshly mown, damp, grass in the morning, the diversity of nose shapes, the plethera of watery blue eyes and men wearing shoulderbags.

American friend:  are you reading one of your blog posts?

Wendy:  I’m not sure,  I’ll check and get back to you on that one

Words of wisdom from my outrageously expensive and handsome young product-dispensing hairdresser:

“I picked up a newer model of my current phone,  after one night’s use the pictures were terrible,  all fuzzy.  I took the phone back and they said they couldn’t exchange it because it was working probably properly*,  I asked what should I do? and they said,  Vodaphone support said, change to another service provider they even recommended one!”

He certainly knows a thing or thirty-two about almost everything.

*editted multiple times post-publication to remove the superfluous, random, and just darn wanton spelling mistakes

Condensed recap of the story so far, I

1. lost my passport-1 in my US home
2. applied for a replacement
3. received replacement 10yr passport-2
4. lost the replacement 10yr passport-2
5. found the lost passport-1 while looking for lost passport-2
6. sent passport-1 back to Washington DC consular and passport services with an application for to replace passport-2
7. received ditsy-person replacement passport-3 that will only last for 1 year – until November 29th – must be renewed at Washington DC consular and passport services
8. found lost passport-2 in September and sent it to Washington DC
9. Sue from consular services phoned to say that she will hold onto passport-2 and renew it (10yr version) when she receives my renewal from for passport #3 towards the end of November.
10. Accepted UK job offer to start on November 26th. Planned to fly to the UK on November 23rd with my old passport then mail it to Sue in Washington DC for renewal promptly upon arrival thereby getting my 10yr passport back.
11. My belongings are being shipped to the UK, they require passport details. Shipping service confirmed that having my passport renewed should not be a problem.
12. Completed passport-renewal form on November 13th promptly after returning from a UK visit to secure a place to live when I arrive on the 23rd. I can now complete this form in less than 10 minutes due to regular practice. The last page before signing includes a set of statements that I hadn’t yet memorised If you squint you might be able to see the unforeseen challenge in bold-type:

 The new stuff:

“I am, today, in the country of application and will be at the time of issue.”  This says to me that when I get to the UK I can only renew my passport in the UK.  This is at odds with the ditsy-person renewal requirement of only renewing in the Washington DC office where they have my 10yr passport-2.  I can’t renew in the US because I discovered this requirement 5 working-days before I am due to fly to the UK,  insufficient time for passport renewal US-side before I repatriate.  I phoned the Washington British Consular and passport services who charge at a rate of $2.45 per minute for the luxury of talking to a real, expert,  person.  I explained my situation and the passport expert said:

OH, that is a tricky one

Then put me on hold to discuss the options with other expert people.  We made some decisions that will get me to Britain on the day that I sell my home here and 2 days before I start work there.  I suspect this is not over yet.  Stay tuned.

aaaaAAAaarrrggghhhhhhhhh

Listening to a freakin’ voice menu (FVRM) ask me if the phone-number it has for me is correct:  Say Yes or No

Wendy:  No

FVRM: I didn’t hear you please answer yes or no

Wendy: NO

FVRM: I didn’t hear you please answer yes or no

Wendy: NO

FVRM: I didn’t hear you please answer yes or no

Wendy: NO NO NO NO NO NO

FVRM: please speak your phone number or enter it on the dialpad

I type the number into the dialpad.  Subsequent menu options did not have dialpad alternatives.  I tried really hard to imitate the US accent of the FVRM.  Mostly failing.  Finally:

FVRM: to ensure service quality this call may be recorded.

Wendy: a-hahahahahahaHAHAHA  (falls off chair).

A conversation with customer service representative (CSR),  ends with my verifying that I understand:

 You can cancel my DSL service and only my DSL service,  not my phone service which is also supplied by your company.  You can only cancel my DSL service now,  you can’t take a date to end it on.  I can give your company an advance cancellation date for my home phone service.  I need to call another number to do this.    If I cancel my phone service my DSL will not work.  I will still be charged for it until I cancel it. 

CSR:  that’s right.  I can forward you to the number where they will be able to cancel your phone service in advance.

Wendy:  yes please.

dialtone (I am disconnected). 

When, 3 FVRM, later I found a nice lady she managed to book my home-phone service cancellation and my DSL cancellation to happen at a future date at the same time. 

Wonderful lady

It is possible that one of the reasons for my singleness is that I find the excessive use of the phrase m-kay unengaging,  maybe even irritatingly, unimaginatively, overused.   Example phone call:

Wendy:  I’d like to book a (censored) on Sunday,  is that possible?

Lady:  m-kay  (click-click-click… ….click-click-click….click……click…. click-click-click… ….click-click-click….click……click….)   m-kay….   ……m-kay…..   (clic-click… ….click-click.. ..click…. ..click)  ….mmmmmm-kay…  (click…  )

Wendy: (starts counting the number of times the Lady says m-kay because Perry Como is not providing the sound track)

Lady:  Were you thinking morning or afternoon?

Wendy: Afternoon

Lady: m-kay…. …click-click (repeat 6 times)  does 2pm work for you

Wendy:  yes

More detailed questions required the Lady to sling dozens more m-kays into the clicky Perry Como-less void.  

Aaaaaarrrrgggggghhhhhhhh…..  

do you mind being put on hold?

yes

la-di-da-di-dah lift-music

I minded being put on hold.  The person appeared to either not notice my saying I minded or interpreted my yes as an abreviations of ‘yes you can put me on hold’

The rote behaviour-exchange appears to be:

1. callee required to ask/tell before putting a phone-caller on hold

2. caller must agree/acknowledge that they will be put on hold

3. caller is put on hold

Hip Hip Hurrah!  (1)

brrrrrring-brrrrring..  ….brrrrrring-brrrrring…

Hello  Wendy speaking,  how can i help you (I was at work.  I can do polite)

Hi,  it’s Sue from passport and consular services.

A couple of weeks ago I mailed my recently rediscovered previously lost passport back to the passport and consular services department.  I put a yellow post-it note on it apologising for the inconvenience and restating my utter embarrassment.  This covered the legal requirement to return the passport once found and the moral requirement of an English person to keep the apologisation muscle flexed incase of emergencies.   Meanwhile my annual scatter-brain limited-to-one-year incase-I loose-another-one passport is about to run-out on November 29th (if I don’t loose it first).  I hope the tension is building for you.  It was for me.  The mere mention of ‘passport’ can reduce me to a quivering mass of unbound quivers.

OoOoOoOoHh…

I’ve got your passport here,  the one you just sent back to us,  and I see that you are using a one-year passport that is about to run-out.

Uuuuuuuuummmmmmm……yeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrss

I can either  decommission this one and send it back to you decommissioned and  then when I receive your one-year passport renew that one with another one-year passport.  Or I can hold onto this one until I get your one-year passport,  then decommission the one-year passport and replace the full passport at that time.  It will only cost $15.

Holy SHITE! 

Hip Hip Hurrah!  (2)

An English person working in what may well be a fairly dull UK government  role has just taken the time to find my phone number,  call me and be proactively helpful.  I explain my upcoming travel arrangements and she says

send it along when you’re ready I’ll keep this one on my desk and sort it out when I get the temporary one.

Do I need to put your name on the envelope?

Yes,  Sue

Sue Who?

Just Sue,  I’m the only Sue here

Hip Hip Hurrah!  (3)

Followed by lots of sycophantic stuff from Wendy and some ‘you’ve got such a cute accent’  (it was English and I suspect I’m an anglophile…)