I just found a good article regarding what I spoke about here. It’s called The Seven Deadly Sins of IVR (Interactive Voice Response), and it is just so true. When I rang TV Licensing the other day, my conversation with the machine went something like this:
Machine: Please say your postcode
James: PO15 XXX
Machine: Please say your street name
James: XXXX XXXX Road
Machine: Please say your house number
James: Eighteen
Machine: I’m sorry, I did not recognise your response. Please say your house number
James (slowly and clearly): EIGHTEEN
Machine: I’m sorry, I did not recognise your response. Lets try again from the beginning
James (smacking forehead)
Machine: Please say your postcode
James: PO15 XXX
Machine: Please say your street name
James: XXXX XXXX Road
Machine: Please say your house number
James (clearly): One eight
Machine: I’m sorry, I did not recognise your response. Lets try again from the beginning
James (shouting): EIGHTEEN YOU STUPID MACHINE HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND?!
Machine: I’m sorry, I did not recognise your response.
James hangs up in anger and disliking the total lack of customer care.
As you can tell, I was pretty fustrated. I did call up and try again, but it totally failed at recognising something as simple as the number 18. It didn’t even understand “one eight”… and there was absolutely no way to transfer to a human operator, which I thought was stupid.
Rant over…
I just don’t understand. It seems no-one will give Hannah a job! The interview she went for on Tuesday at the NHS in Winchester was for a student pharmacy technician. She was well over-qualified for the job with a pharmacology degree, and did really well in the interview, but they still found someone “better”. I say better in quotes because I doubt there really was anyone better. She’s been without a permanent job for absolutey ages, and no-one is giving her a break.
It’s really getting on my nerves as I know how much of a hard worker she is, and how she’d exceed all expectations if someone just gave her a chance. Not only that, but it puts more pressure on me as I have to pay for all the bills and rent etc., and support her as she doesn’t earn much here at Netbasic. Not only that, but we have a bloody wedding to save for, and they don’t come cheap. At this rate we won’t be married until 2018. It’s not even like we can afford a loan - between us we are just about managing to survive with food. It’s really bringing both of us down, so we wouldn’t be able to afford loan payments either.
I just wish someone would give her a job that she’ll enjoy. There’s gotta be someone out there…
In the wake of Hellfest and the build-up to house-moving, I’ll take this moment to review all the bands and my general festival experience. Tom was saying how unorganised previous years were, but I kept an open mind. Thankfully, on 99% of fronts, the festival was excellently organised. Toilets were cleaned every day which was more than most festivals. The weather was spectacularly hot (and sometimes too hot for Hannah who gets sunstroke very easily!), and it was ace. Not enough shade I think, I think the benches should’ve had umbrellas for shade as well. Managed to pick up a few new T-Shirts (Venom, Dimmu Borgir, Hellfest), as did Han. Read on for my review of most of the bands I saw…
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Hannah says:
my armpit smells like garlic
No sooner after I had started packing away the 360, Blu-Ray player, PS2 etc., Mike, a member of Pompey Music forum brought round the Nintendo Wii that Hannah wanted to buy. So unfortunately, the entire afternoon which was meant to be spent packing up for the new house was in fact spent playing on the Wii. We’ve set up our Mii’s, and have been playing a little Wii Sports and Mario Party 8. She’s still playing, but someone has to cook the dinner, so while the oven is warming up I thought I’d mention what we’re up to.
Things are getting pretty hectic around here now. Packing the house up for moving to Whiteley, as well as preparing for the imminent Hellfest (yay!). We managed to get down town today for a bit and pick up some bits (baby wipes, Euros and the like) ready for that. We’re on a really tight budget this year, and it’s made even tighter by the fact we have to save a shed load of money for the wedding, and more importantly, Hannah’s engagement ring! The new house’s rent is £170 more a month between us as well, so that’s another kick in the budget’s teeth.
Another headache I’ve been trying to figure out is what I’m going to do with the servers during the move. I can’t get internet at the new place until the BT line is activated which is on the day we move in (and not a minute sooner!). This means that I probably won’t have internet at all from 1st July for about 10-15 days, providing the new ISP doesn’t mess anything up. I spoke to Kelvin briefly, and understandably, he said no to letting me put the servers in the work’s server cabinet (security risks and all that), so ideally I need to find a home for them at a friend’s house. I’ll try and chat up a few friends who I know have good internet connections, but if any of you are my clients reading this, I will try and keep downtime to a minimum, but there will be a bit of disruption, so be warned!
Anyway, off to cook dinner, ta ta for now!
