Today I went to the pub with Mrs FE to meet my daughter, her husband, and my grandson, for lunch.
Between courses I was trudging around outside pushing my teething grandson’s buggy around the car park when my mobile rang.
It was from my service provider. At first I groaned inwardly that maybe the message hasn’t been passed, that I’ve already had at least ten of their staff informing me that I’m due a new handset. Luckily that was not the case. That message seems to have got through to them at last.
No, this nice gentleman was trying to gain control of my other means of communication. My landline.
The spiel began.
Firstly he started of with how I could save money on the call charges (free minutes, free weekend calls, etc), anyway after this babbling from his prepared speech, he actually asked how much I spend per month on calls in the UK. He was quite thrown off his quest when I told him that it was usually less than £1. He was silent for a while. he did recover with how I could have free world wide cheap calls. Again he was at a loss when I replied “Why should I need that service when I don’t know anyone abroad”. (I was nearly feeling sorry for him at this time). *Snigger*
Secondly he went down the internet route. If I changed to them I would be supplied with a top of the range router for free. I responded with the reply that I’ve already got a router, thank you very much. (Desperation on his part set in). “Our Router Mr FE is state of the art and is worth £800”. (Now I’m a member of Which?, and I know that my router is nearly top of the list and the one he quoted is near the bottom). He was starting to lose it, when I suggested , could I have the router without the solid gold case then? It all started to fall apart further when he stated his staggering low cost of line rental and other charges.
Throughout this call I’d been totting up the cost of his package, and being someone who in this day can actually do mental arithmetic, I had to have a quiet smile.
His day finally fell apart when I informed him that he was actually trying to sell me a package that was £2 MORE EXPENSIVE than I had at present. Hah.
So Orange, If you have a rep that has been found hanging from a rafter with a note saying TFE made me do it.
Don’t ring me when I’m in the pub.
(It didn’t help him when I kept migrating my handset close to my screaming grandson).