Lynette Willoughby – Artist ….

Just came across this past post on another of my websites – the depressing thing is it’s still so relevant ….

April 12, 2009

I was without my internet connection for 5 days last week – the first evening I thought it was just a temporary little problem; the next day I was busy anyway and accessed emails from the university; but when the next morning there was still no connection action was required – but I was hesitant about calling my broadband helpline at 25p/min (that lends itself to a whole other post about peoples relationships with money, which isn’t relevant here). My hesitancy became apoplexy when after 5 mins (what useful and/or pleasant thing could I have done with that £1.25?!) the woman on the end of the line hadn’t even managed to connect to my account – what is your postcode again please? LS7 … Yes, O for Oscar … No, L…. Yes, O for Oscar  … NO, L for Lima ….   Why is it that certain things, usually technologies, can reduce otherwise reasonable people to screaming monsters? (not that I’m so reasonable at the best of times……) Something about being at its/their mercy? I was beginning to question my own sanity, was I misunderstanding, was I saying the wrong thing – I felt trapped in a parallel universe – then exploded. The problem was diagnosed in the end (by someone else with better English) but would require an engineers visit and the earliest appointment was in 2 days. Nothing to be done, I had to wait. Should I fret and fume? Should I waste time going into the university when I should be getting on with knitting my garden spade (yes, you read that right…..)? Or should I just use this as an opportunity to see what it feels like to be unconnected for a few days? There was nothing really urgent – well not till Sunday night when that nipping press finishes on eBay…. How dependent am I on this umbilical cord to the online world (a metaphore too far? – the internet was born well after me) with it’s convenient answers to so many little queries? I have friends who don’t use it at all! I don’t like the idea of being dependent on anything.

The engineer solved the problem 2 days later. The sky didn’t fall in nor the world as I know it end. Actually it was all pretty painless. No part of my overactive life was actually held up. But what is given with one hand (convenient technologies; free phone calls) is taken away with another (nothing is failsafe; grossly inflated rates for all the calls that you actually need to make). Outsourcing to Indian may be all very well but if your’e charging an inflated rate surely you have to ensure that the staff are competent and properly trained? Well I can take my custom elsewhere, but not till my contract finishes – at least it’s only an annual contract whereas our power over our politicians has to wait 4 years – does that make the technology more democratic than politics? – ha ha. Where’s the blogs/forums/whatever for exerting people-power over service providers and phone charges?

Lynette