Remember I said how amazingly easy, much to my surprise, it was to cancel my mobile phone account and switch to pay as you go? Well it got somewhat trickier with the arrival of the new SIM card.
Following the instructions I dialled the provided number and, again, much to my surprise, got straight through.
A very nice happy lady asked if I would like to activate a new phone and to just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Not wanting to activate a new phone, I went into quite a lengthy explanation of what it was I wanted to do. The answer I got came as a bit of a shock. The very nice happy lady said, “I didn’t here you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
Oh lord. I’ve got a nutter on the line.
”That’s ‘couse I don’t want to activate a new phone. I ju…”
”Look buddy, answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
”Please, all I want to do is fire up this here new SIM card with my old phone num...”
”Right. That’s it. I’m hanging up and you’re going to bed with no supper!”
Then the penny dropped. It was a computer not a humanoid!! I was talking to a machine!! I was conducting a conversation with a machine!! Not a nutter!! Please, please put a nutter on the line!!
But it was too late, the machine had gone and I had to go to bed with no supper.
Bright an’ early next day, with this lesson learned, I started again and at the appointed time said “No.” Of the two choices on offer, this was the bad choice, “Okay, thank you and good by.” Shouting yes, yes, yes at this point just didn’t work.
Away we go again. Eventually, by pure luck, I managed to ‘press’ and ‘yes’ and ‘no’ my way over the first hurdle. The computer generated very happy lady voice proceeded to reel of a list of stuff I may wish to do. Each choice just needed the pressing of the corresponding number key to get going. Cool so far.
I started to get a tad uneasy as the happy lady voice just kept moving along and I still hadn’t found what I was looking for – hay, there’s a snappy song name in there for someone!!
My unease was confirmed as we reached, after twenty minutes, choice nine.
After covering all bases from zero to nine, and not getting the choice I was looking for, the happy lady voice was delighted to inform me that if I needed any other service all I had to do was just press any other number key. Sadly, being stuck on planet Earth, with no known way of getting over to the happy lady voice planet, I was somewhat stuck as zero to nine just about covered it where I wuzz.
Okay, what to do. How about ten then? That’ll work. No it won’t. Do I need to explain why it won’t work? Of course not. After hitting the one, and before I could reach the zero, I was whizzed away to another happy lady voice asking me to select my Super Avatar, from a choice of thousands, that would give me free ring tones, if I topped-up a small fortune every day, and also appear on my phone.
Wow!! My very own Avatar!! I mean, how cool is that then? That’ll be great I thought. Oh, what’s an Avatar? What shall I do?
Hang up is what I did. And start over. After an hour, and using random key presses I could never replicate in a thousand attempts, I almost got what I was looking for. Did I get to keep my phone number? Absolutely not. Where that bit is, I have no idea. Is that important for me? Absolutely not. And even if it was important to me there was no way on Earth I was starting that game again.
When this SIM activation thingy was completed I was magically passed across to their happy Nigerian lady voice to hand-over my bank details so I can top-up over the phone. That bitty seemed to go without a hitch……
Quote; Mitch Hedberg.
“At my hotel room, my friend came over and asked to use the phone. I said Certainly. He said, ‘Do I need to dial 9?’ I say Yeah. Especially if it's in the number. You can even try four and five back to back real quick.”
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