Today, it seems, for me at least, is determined to suck. I had a nice simple plan for the day. Simple, but it seems, overambitious. The plan was: spend morning reading MSc stuff, eat lunch, do some more MSc stuff, take a break and head to ‘The Mall’ at Cribbs Causeway and complete the Vodafone phone purchase I started at the beginning of December. Come home, read more MSc stuff. Relax in the evening with a film.
Things I have achieved today: Reading some MSc stuff. Watching a film.
The day kinda went like this: Dink on internet, move car for Landlord, put off working. Start working. Realise after an hour of poking at the paper that however much I read it it’s like trying to decipher complex Egyptian hieroglyphics using a Ladybird book of Ancient Egypt. Come to grasp that an in-depth study of apoptosis is, perhaps, a challenging place to start. Decide to listen to the rest of the lectures and hope that my basic knowledge (essentially I understood the introduction, and while I *could* understand much of the contents, what it meant in any specific instance clinically – and remembering it any any meaningful way? That was kind of beyond where I’m at right now*) will allow me to grasp what I need and top up the rest later.
Anyhow, having ploughed through about 2 more hours of lecture I decided to have a break – I wasn’t particularly hungry and Nikki needed to run to the Mall, so… I collected Nikki for her errand and we pulled up at Cribbs Causeway. I shan’t regale you all with Nikki’s tale of woe, that’s for her to do.
I, for my part, went back to Vodafone who explained that they needed to run the credit check *again*, because it didn’t go through back when I visited them at the beginning of December. Okay, fair enough. Only it *did* go through on their first attempt – they just didn’t *realise it*. It got ‘referred’. This happens a lot because I’ve got married and my name on some things hasn’t caught up with my name for real. My bank have more than one name for me, and seem to accept both, according to what kind of documentation I happen to have on me at the time.
Then they added that they couldn’t *guarantee* the trade in on my phone. Apparently their scheme works thus: You send them your phone, they *might* send you money, or they might not, depending on the condition of the phone. If they don’t send you money you don’t get the phone back.
Let me just repeat that – if they aren’t happy with your phone they keep it and give you nothing. Well, that sounds reasonable…
So, I said, I’d go and see what everyone else could do. There’s T-Mobile, Orange, and O2 within a few tens of yards of Vodafone, and a ‘Phones 4U’. Sadly, it seemed that everyone could do, essentially, exactly the same as Vodafone and no better. And for the sake of keeping my 8 year old mobile number, I decided to stick with Voda.
Ye-eah.
So, I went back and they…reran the credit check. Which was referred, because… there’s an outstanding credit check in my name for Vodafone. Okay. Which they can’t fix until tomorrow.
Okay, I said, this is your mistake, you’ve now made me treck across Bristol twice to get a phone. Everyone else can offer me exactly the same deal – persuade me to stay. Give me *something* to make it worthwhile me sticking with Vodafone and not walking over there to O2 or Orange. I can walk into any of those stores and out with the phone I want right now. I was polite, but clearly somewhat peeved.
Here’s what they offered me:
NOTHING.
Fuck all.
He would offer *nothing* that would work with an iPhone. He could, he (the assistant manager) declared, offer me (and this was awesome) stuff that won’t work with an iPhone. He, he said, is not allowed to discount any iPhone compatible stuff.
I’m about to sign for a 2 year contract and pay for a phone and he…can’t offer me *anything*?
I gently pointed out that *he* was there with the person at my last visit, at the beginning of December who said “Leave it with me, I’ll sort it for you”. He stood his ground and said nope, he couldn’t do anything. At which point I said ‘Okay, I’ll go elsewhere’.
Which would have been great, but Orange were out of iPhone 4s, O2, also, out of iPhone 4s. O2, though, to their credit said ‘Go to the Apple store, you can sign up there… it’s just the same contract as here, and you can get your phone today’. Well, woot! I thought.
Uh. Yeah.
Apple store, very friendly, helpful and… their Credit Checking agency? Closed today. 3 hours and a considerable amount of frustration later we left Cribbs Causeway to their suckage. Still, all I need to do is develop a complete and total understanding of Critical Care and find enough spare time to ‘pop’ to Cabot Circus to collect my phone. The advantage being I can, at least, trade in my old iPhone at CeX when I’m in town.
* Which is reasonable, I’m not at that level, but saying ‘Oh read this little paper’, as an aside in course notes? Not helpful.
