Water, fire no probs - but BT....!
If you have tried to call, we are here! No floods, no fires, no locusts.
At 5pm last night our phone system decided to give up. It's on a maintenance contract so at first we thought no drama, but it's complicated - it's got a fancy name 'Versatility' and it was one of the first ever installed by a team of men scratching their heads and reading the manuals. It could do fancy stuff - we can usually transfer a call to our Karen in Norfolk as if she's on the next desk. Apparently it would work the same if she took her phone and plugged it in the wall in Spain. The installation men were just as amazed as we were when it worked. None of us could see how it would work - if it went over the ISDN line how could the call get across the channel when we transferred it?
(It all sounds great in theory, but sometimes it does sound like Karen's sitting in a tin bath or that she's on another planet as there can be a really weird time delay, or it can cut her off mid word - but when it does work it's still pretty cool.)
Maybe 'Unreliability' would have been a better name. BT are apparently remotely running diagnostics on it today. I suspect really someone is trying to find the manual.
In meantime all our four lines will shortly be diverted to our fax - and there'll be no transferring calls anywhere for a while until they can't work out what has snapped - we'll just be passing the one phone to each other and humming our own hold music.
And if you call in at the moment there's an unhelpful automated message that says either the number doesn't exist, that it's engaged or there's a fault - and that appears to me random. I think our little Versatility is having a little nervous breakdown and giving people these mixed messages - making a phone system too intelligent has a downside. It may need counselling.
We are on deadline of course, which makes it much easier.
But on the plus side the Internet still works... or perhaps I shouldn't speak too soon! And it is very quiet today as a consequence so we can concentrate on proof reading.
All fixed, and the clever repairman had a Boxer. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? My son has a play date tonight and that's meant me trying to keep up with the other 100% non-working mums, rather than the usual working mum winging it. Shouldn't have made the effort as my roast potatoes, roast chicken and yorkshire pudding (all M&S cheats of course) were all cruelly rejected by the two eight year old critics! Should have stuck to chicken nuggets and chips, I know. Sigh!
At 5pm last night our phone system decided to give up. It's on a maintenance contract so at first we thought no drama, but it's complicated - it's got a fancy name 'Versatility' and it was one of the first ever installed by a team of men scratching their heads and reading the manuals. It could do fancy stuff - we can usually transfer a call to our Karen in Norfolk as if she's on the next desk. Apparently it would work the same if she took her phone and plugged it in the wall in Spain. The installation men were just as amazed as we were when it worked. None of us could see how it would work - if it went over the ISDN line how could the call get across the channel when we transferred it?
(It all sounds great in theory, but sometimes it does sound like Karen's sitting in a tin bath or that she's on another planet as there can be a really weird time delay, or it can cut her off mid word - but when it does work it's still pretty cool.)
Maybe 'Unreliability' would have been a better name. BT are apparently remotely running diagnostics on it today. I suspect really someone is trying to find the manual.
In meantime all our four lines will shortly be diverted to our fax - and there'll be no transferring calls anywhere for a while until they can't work out what has snapped - we'll just be passing the one phone to each other and humming our own hold music.
And if you call in at the moment there's an unhelpful automated message that says either the number doesn't exist, that it's engaged or there's a fault - and that appears to me random. I think our little Versatility is having a little nervous breakdown and giving people these mixed messages - making a phone system too intelligent has a downside. It may need counselling.
We are on deadline of course, which makes it much easier.
But on the plus side the Internet still works... or perhaps I shouldn't speak too soon! And it is very quiet today as a consequence so we can concentrate on proof reading.
All fixed, and the clever repairman had a Boxer. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? My son has a play date tonight and that's meant me trying to keep up with the other 100% non-working mums, rather than the usual working mum winging it. Shouldn't have made the effort as my roast potatoes, roast chicken and yorkshire pudding (all M&S cheats of course) were all cruelly rejected by the two eight year old critics! Should have stuck to chicken nuggets and chips, I know. Sigh!
Comments
The phone is always cutting me off mid-conversation - '9 sec timeout delay' is the message I get!
Claire
Was this deliberate??
"- and there'll be no transferring calls anywhere for a while until they can't work out what has snapped"
Can't work out! ...Hahaha
Laughed out loud at this bit too:
"- we'll just be passing the one phone to each other and humming our own hold music."
Perhaps Karen really IS sitting in a tin bath.. lol