KEY POINTS:
I first realised there was trouble when no one answered the phone at home. Every night, when I'm working the late shift at ZB, I ring my family to wish them good night. Probably enormously irritating for them when they're trying to catch up on the European soccer (the Irishman) or update their MySpace (the daughter).
Still, I like to know they're there and it's become a ritual. And when they didn't pick up, I became alarmed. I dismissed the notion of a fatal car crash because I figured I would have heard through the newsroom, but I couldn't come up with an explanation for both of them to be out.
It takes a monumental occasion for the Irishman to leave his castle and I would have known well in advance what that would have been. So then my mind played tricks on me.
I imagined steamy embraces in the photocopying room at his workplace involving clever dark-eyed beauties before giving myself a good telling off and getting on with my work.
As it transpired the explanation was much more prosaic than my febrile imagination had conjured up. The phones were down. You could ring all you liked, but like one hand clapping, no one would hear you. Why I thought the man would be unreliable before the technology is inexcusable. What can I say? In the 50s it would have been the other way round, but I'm a child of the 80s. Once I realised the family was safe, I rang Telecom.
It rankled a little that, as a Vodafone mobile user, I have to pay to tell Telecom they're letting me down, but that was a trifling. Especially when I received a call just a couple of hours later from a lovely tech who gave me his name, mobile and a job number, and told me things were sorted.
Except that they weren't. Nothing worked. Not the phones, not the internet. So back he came, and we spent the afternoon together, with him checking all the jack points and me trailing in his wake, apologising for my sloppy housekeeping.
In the end, he decided that it was the fault of the burglar alarm and the Chubb people would have to come and fix it. By this time it was too late for the Chubb techies to come out, so we faced another night without electronic communication with the outside world.
The daughter, faced with no credit on her mobile, no computer and no phone, decided to go to the movies to escape the horror of her reality.
I headed off to work where real live phones were in operation and the man was totally equanimous about the situation because Sky was working. Had it not been, there would have been hell to pay, but as it was, he was an oasis of calm.
The next morning dawned bright and clear. I, however, was not. In the middle of the night, I woke bolt upright and remembered I hadn't brought my mobile in from the car to charge. Without it, I would have no link with humanity. So I staggered out in the middle of a shower to retrieve the phone and lay like a possum in the headlights for the rest of the night. Eight o'clock the next morning, I was on the phone to Chubb. I was assured it wouldn't be their problem, so I rang my Telecom tech. He said it was and that he would ring them. By this time, I was starting to get desperate.
The Chubb guy appeared and told me there was nothing he could do and washed his hands of the whole affair. Back to Telecom I went and, before I knew it, three techs had arrived at our place. They worked like madmen, no doubt motivated by the thought that their Christmas party began at 3pm. They were up in the roof, they went under the house - it was all above and beyond the call of duty - and eventually, exhausted but happy, they declared the job done and left in a mob of multicultural merriment.
I leaped on the phone and dialled the number to retrieve all my messages - only to hear a cheery voice tell me that Felicity and Sally weren't home right now but to be sure to leave a message. No!!! And the internet wasn't working. After 10 minutes with the faults lady, I was told to wait by the phone and the problem would be sorted. The tech rang me and told me it was a problem back at HQ - they'd juxtaposed a number when putting a widget into a gidget and now, finally, things were sorted.
But they weren't. The phones were working, yes, but the internet still wasn't connected. For the last time, I rang the tech and back to our home he came and got the thing connected.
I couldn't log on because my password was all up the boohai, but I said I'd ring and get it sorted. Which is where I met Biffy or Binty or Bindy or whatever Telecom call their automated answerer. She sounds real, she sounds reasonable - and when you select the skip, the troubleshooting option, she even sounds a little miffed. "Fine", she said. "OK then". I half-apologised before I remembered she wasn't real.
And then a real person. A lovely young woman who guided this exhausted desperate Luddite through the whole password process again. I think Stockholm Syndrome was setting in because I heard myself ask in a tremulous pathetic voice: "You won't leave me now, will you?" She assured me she wouldn't and I almost sobbed with relief.
I didn't want to do telephone tango with Muffy again. And now I'm back. Sorted. And desperately grateful.
To all of you working over Christmas, those who'll be mending lines or limbs, who'll be sacrificing time with your families to ensure ours are safe, thank you. Have a wonderful holiday when your turn eventually comes...
- HERALD ON SUNDAY
