The electricity and phone service in Thailand is a mess of wires. Walking around, I marvel at how it all seems to work; except when it doesn’t.
Moving increasingly into the category of “it doesn’t work” is my internet connection, which is either humming along at high speed (which it damn well should do for the price I pay for it), or is completely buggered. The completely buggered usually lasts for a few minutes, and then it comes back again. Except when it rains, during which it time it refuses to do anything until the sun has come out and dried something out.
I have called TT&T, the company which theoretically provides me with the “service”. Someone will call you back, they tell me. Someone doesn’t. Then I ring again, several times, and eventually an engineer calls me and asks me if it is now OK. When he rings, it is. Three hours later it is buggered and the whole sorry cycle starts again.
TT&T obviously have trouble with their foreign customers, a problem they have now resolved by removing the English language options from their help desk and inserting a multi-layered, multiple choice set of questions in Thai, designed to dissuade the less linguistically able. Like me.
Fortunately, my plight has come to the attention of she who must be obeyed; because these interruptions are disturbing the flow of her nightly Facebook poker sessions. Finally she picks up the phone and calls the “Help Desk”.
We have a relationship which includes the inevitable disagreements, but nothing serious, and certainly nothing that causes a major argument. So it was quite a surprise, and highly entertaining, to listen to she who must be obeyed in full wrath mode. Fingers were being wagged while talking, notes were being taken, and the person at the other end of the line was given a very hard time.
After ten minutes she put down the phone, turned to me and grinned, “I bet she regrets being on duty this evening.”
Names had been taken, and firm undertakings given that an engineer would be in touch with she who must be obeyed first thing in the morning. She was sure they would not dare disappoint her.
They dared.
Four days later the engineered called to say there was nothing wrong with the line, then he put the phone down. She who must be obeyed was not amused.
Today it rained and the internet collapsed again. I went out to the back of the condo to see where the lines come into the building. It was not a pretty sight.
Open to the elements with rain dripping off assorted wires. Out on the street, the post that supports all the wires had odds and ends of wiring hanging around, dripping wet. Could well be my connection.
If this site stops being updated for a length of time, you will know why. But be assured that she who must be obeyed will be making someone suffer for it.