BT - a warning to you all.

Many years ago, before BT was BT and was know as The Post Office, or even older as the GPO, they were the laughing stock of the telecommunications world.

I remember having to order business line months in advance.

I also remember that if you home phone went wrong, you'd have to go to a phone box, dial something like 142 and report your line out of order.

What happened then was a bloke in a van, wearing a blue nylon jacket (high visibility had not been invented then), would arrive at the green box by the pavement and sit, come rain or shine, twiddling with wires and chatting on his plug in phone to the bloke at the local Strowger exchange.

This typically happened that day and then the operator would call and tell you the phone was fixed. You always knew something was up as your phone would make funny noises whilst they were fixing it.

Nowadays, in the world of fantastic computer systems, high vis jackets, SMS messaging and truly awful customer service, things are different.

At home I maintain a separate business line with BT so as not to hog the home number when working at home.

This morning I discovered that there was no dial tone.

So a little bit of Googling (not Binging - sorry Microsoft but Bing is still complete crap) and I had the means to both login to my BT account and report the fault online. Better you might think that having to walk to the local phone box with its twenty-year-old phone directories and two inches of piss at the bottom.

Not really, as it took a while to find out how to report a fault, the website appears to have been written either by a crossword compiler or someone with the hump, it is so difficult to navigate.

However, I found the right place and saved BT a fortune by doing all of the diagnostics myself, entering the fault details myself and generally saving them the bother and expense of having to provide any sort of customer service.

Now we come to the real shocker, having elected to receive update by SMS, and having reported the fault at 07:02 on Monday the 27th February 2012, the text message I got triumphantly announced that they had everything in hand and aimed to have my line fixed by 5PM on THURSDAY the 1st March.

FOUR DAYS, to fix a simple phone line, this is my business line chaps, four days!!!!!

Now I am not surprised as BT has long been an example of pillocks, divs and cretins, this simply proves it, but I am saddened.

I don't want to sound all Cider with Rosie, but things really were better a while ago.

I hanker after a period where people wanted to help, because that was their job, and they had the time to do it. Scorecards and metrics will always prove that something can be done better, but only to accountants and business managers who have neither heart nor soul.

This heart and soul would prefer to have stood in a puddle of piss for a couple of minutes and had my phone fixed today.

As it is, the next time I use my business line at home will be to call BT and cancel the service.

Complete idiots!!!