Technical difficulties...

Crikey, there are so many ways to contact companies these days it makes my head hurt. Firstly this week I have been dealing with British Gas who cocked up about something. I emailed them, then moaned about them on twitter. Within hours the twitter team had resolved my problem, they were brilliant, I didn't even tweet them directly, they just picked up on the mention. Which is probably their job. I am still waiting for a reply to my email, and hilariously was sent a survey about the response to my email. You can imagine how I filled that one in!

Then today. I inherited an iPhone off a family member who died. I was loathe to use it until recently when my old phone started cutting calls off every time my ear went anywhere near the screen. I was on the same network so I thought it wouldn't be too hard. Queue a long afternoon. I went online to talk to the "O2 guru" and thought I'd resolved the problem. Then realised I hadn't. Turns out the phone is locked to O2 Ireland which isn't the same, so I had to go to them and start all over again. A nice Irish man seems to have understood what I was telling him and claims it will be unlocked in 2 days. We shall see.

 

Both times I dealt with the companies online, I'm not paying for a phone call or to spend my afternoon in a queue waiting to be answered somewhere in India. My problems were resolved, but oftentimes I wonder if the person at the other end is actually reading my messages, I spent a lot of time rehashing the same thing, and only on the 4th person am I a little bit confident they have sorted it. Twitter is the best forum to get problems sorted quickly, I contact our water board, electricity board, and gas board straight on there and don't bother using any other means of contact anymore. Explaining your problem in 140 characters can be challenging though. And I suspect as more people twig the service will get busier and less useful,  but shh, don't tell anyone!

Being a parent...

When you have kids these things start to happen:

 

1. When the sun is out you are ridiculously happy that you can get the washing out to dry.

2. At 3pm every day of the week, it will rain. Just in time to pick the kids up.

3. You are happy for 3 hours of peace every evening once the kids are in bed. Though you don't do anything with the time, just mong on the sofa drinking tea or wine if things are that bad.

4. You are no longer squeamish about bodily functions, and can have a long debate about poo.

5. You barely look in the mirror anymore, live in jeans, and are lucky if you leave the house with brushed hair.

6. You can only concentrate long enough for about half an episode of Bargain Hunt, just enough to see how much money they made or lost. You thank the powers that be for recordable tv.

Selfies...

Lots of my friends are posting pics of themselves on Facebook without make-up for cancer awareness. Along with lots of horrified comments about how they look. I would be more horrified if I was asked to take a photo with make-up on. I'm 40 soon and have never mastered anything other than a bit of old mascara and lip gloss. I also fail at heels, skirts and hair. I am a failure as a lady.

Oh and another thing - arsonists!

So me saying I had nothing to blog about was a big fat lie. Since we moved, the park down the road was a bit run down so we never took the kids. Then recently they rebuilt all the play area, and added a skate park. There is supposed to be a new café too soon. It opened 3 weeks ago, and was really cool, the kids loved it. We went after school last Friday, it was lovely in the sunshine, full of happy kids. Then the next morning I get a text...

 

Some bloody scumbags burnt it down the same evening!!

 

How do you explain to a 4 year old that the park he was in the day before is no longer there? And why do people do these things?! All the kids were heartbroken. Luckily the council say they are going to replace it, with gates and extra security - which begs the question why this wasn't done before they fitted the expensive play equipment? Hopefully it won't happen again but you can't stop some people.

Agaton Sax!

For years and years, I've been trying to remember a series of books I used to read in our local library about a detective. I tried googling what I could remember with no success. Then the other day the boy who tried to have me and his dad killed off was talking about school - they're looking at Quentin Blake's work - and he couldn't remember one of the authors they had been talking about who Blake illustrated for. So I got on the net, and on one page there were some books Blake had illustrated years ago - about a detective. Agaton Sax!!!! Of course! Now I just have to try and get hold of them, they seem quite hard to get hold of. But at least I know what I'm looking for now!

 

So the boy is useful sometimes...

Windows and pushy salesmen...

We're getting new windows and doors soon, am very excited, our current ones are crap. But of course it wasn't a smooth process being us! I arranged 3 appointments - one with a big company, two with local companies, and we said that we'd listen to them all before we decided. The big company was first through the door, and he convinced us so much that we signed up with him straightaway! Ridiculous. It all seemed ok until I went online - and it turned out everything the salesman had told us was basically a lie! How did he sucker us in?

 

Firstly, he quoted a massive price which nobody would ever pay. Then did a whole spiel about a new promotion and the company wanted 5 houses in the area to use as advertising for the new products and luckily - luckily! - we were eligible. Then he knocked 12 grand off the price. Then when we still didn't look convinced he rang his boss who confirmed that the promotion was still valid and he then knocked another 3 grand off. So in all the price has gone down a lot and it sounds great. He says all they want is a few photos and a board outside for a few days, and this deal is a one off, just for us, we'd never get the same price elsewhere. BUT we had to sign that evening or it was gone.

 

I know, I know, after the event you can see how stupid we were. But he really sold it, and told me a friend who had recommended them would get £50 if I filled a form in with her details. He even said "go and get as many quotes as you like, waste all your evenings, you'll never get a better deal."

 

So, the next night we had one of the local companies round as I thought we might as well speak to him. He was absolutely lovely, took half the time, and said "I won't bother you now with prices, I'll email you tomorrow so you don't feel pressured". The quote when it came was £5 different to the "you'll never get an equivalent quote" from the other company, and for a better front door.

 

Needless to say, we cancelled the first company and are going with the lovely local one. I am just so angry, how can they lie so easily to every customer? I looked at the recommendation card, and in the small print, it said it wasn't valid if an order had already been placed, so that was also a lie. His "never be matched" price was a lie. The timescale was a lie - he said they could do it super quickly just for us due to the promotion. The other company are doing it the same week. And they do the "promotion" sell to every customer looking at online reviews. Also, after telling us the price was "rock bottom, they wouldn't make a profit" on it, when I phoned to cancel the man said "well we can talk about the price if you like and get it down a bit". Really?!

 

Hopefully we'll learn for next time, but we always get suckered! Luckily cancelling was easy, got my deposit back without an argument, they must do that a lot...

Tall tales...

My eldest is a very clever boy, always makes me proud at report time, and I have no concerns about his schoolwork. But recently I have had cause to wonder about his behaviour...

 

I was called in after school, and told that the boy had told his dinner lady that when he was 3 (he's now 7) his parents were stabbed to death by burglars, and he was now in foster care. The dinner lady was obviously disturbed by this, and when she told his teacher she said, "well I'm sure I saw his mum this morning!" but they called me in to discuss it. First off the boy denied all knowledge, said that the dinner lady had got the wrong boy, and he was SO convincing. It didn't sound like him so I thought he was probably telling the truth. 2 hours later at home, of crying and saying "why don't you believe me, you're my mum!", the little sod admitted it! I was shocked!

 

So he had to apologise to his teacher and his dinner lady. Little sod. But what if they had taken it seriously, and thought we were abusing him or something so he wished we were dead?! I am a bit worried about how clever and convincing he is - he's got to channel it into something productive like writing horror stories, or acting, before he goes to the dark side completely!

 

And I always said I wouldn't be one of those mums who think their little angels could never do anything wrong - that's a lesson and a half for me!

To blog or not to blog...

Well, my attempt to write more regularly is going swimmingly. I think I feel that now I don't work I have less to write about that is interesting, who cares about school runs and scary school mums? Actually, I do, so someone else might! My friend today said she really likes reading my facebook comments and I should do a blog or something, and I thought how much I miss ranting online! Updating twitter and facebook isn't the same really. So I'll blog about what interests me, and at least I've got it out of my system. Starting with a corker of a tale...