It's the 6th of January and our shift is just about completed. Hurrah!
Yesterday I sent notification that we'd be off the air for a day or so until TELECOM effected the move of our landline. Since midday yesterday three people have said something with a warning tone and content about TELECOM's ability to what seems like a simple task.
As a boy I worked for the Post & Telegraph division of the old NZ Post Office and installed phone lines as well as learning the rudiments of line work. Friends of that era worked in the telephone exchanges where they whiled away hours running pairs of wires from carrier to subscriber pairs on space occupying frames. Having done this and then soldering the new pair of wires, lines were made off and all worked admirably.
Something has changed. That something is called the digital revolution. The digital revolution possesses arcane knowledge that is impenetrable except to a select few. The result of this arcane knowledge is only some of the select few actually understand digital electronics as it applies to voice and data transmission and even fewer have the ability to apply theory to practice and competently use it in their daily work. THREE people have warned me about getting my hopes too high about the job being undertaken seamlessly or quickly, and one of those warnings came from West Australia! Eh?
As a reasonable person I cannot conceive such a job would be that hard, but my friend in Napier (who lives in a newish subdivision) said Telecom had THREE attempts to get a job at his house right before it was done properly. And as I noted, he said each visit cost him more money AND they (they being TELECOM) never apologised for not getting the job right on the first or second attempts. That was interesting....
I'm now filled with much less confidence but being an OPTIMIST by personality typology I realised that during the process (and it will be a process if matters turn out as my informants suggest) I'll have several opportunities to practice conversational Indonesian or Hindi with native speakers.
My pessimistic friend in Napier expects my new connection to be effected by about this date in February but I'm still not sure whether he meant this year or 2012! I'll have more to say as this unfolds.
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