Paul Holmes: Gormless Telecom

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds. Photo / Dean Purcell

This week, in the Poukawa valley, just south of Hastings, the internet crashed. We can forget how dependent we've become on the internet until it crashes.

It is the closest modern parallel to being wrecked on a desert island. Apart from being wrecked on a desert island, I guess.

So much for that analogy, but it will have to do. What is really baffling about an internet crash is that someone like me, a technophobe, doesn't know whether it's the internet or his own computer that's gone haywire.

This was Tuesday morning. My wife Deborah fiddled for hours. Nothing. That was the first day.

Next morning, still nothing. Late that second morning, she phoned a number and began the torture of dealing with a Telecom faults person who may have been in India or may have been in the Philippines but who certainly wasn't local.

This person directed her to pull out plugs from the wall, look behind the couch, pull out this jack and that jack and bend over every which way, all to no avail.

However, we had known since the previous evening, when talking to neighbours, that others in the area had no internet either, so we had a strong feeling that the problem wasn't on our property. She was actually trying to tell him this.

I was sitting outside on the couch on the porch reading. After about 35 minutes, Deborah, deeply frustrated, her phone on speaker, wandered out.

The raucous, pointless elevator music was playing again as Walter, the faults man, continued his researches while Deborah sat on hold. We were both becoming possessed of that extraordinary anger New Zealanders can develop when they deal with Telecom on the phone.

As thousands did last month when the flash new network that was supposed to work everywhere worked nowhere at all.

Walter came back on. After an incredible 35 minutes or so, Walter had at last discovered there was a fault at the Hastings exchange.

I took the phone. What kind of a fault, I demanded to know, in my best radio announcer voice. Walter didn't know. Maybe it's overloaded, he ventured.

Pulling myself up to full radio announcer height I said, "Now look, Walter, I have to write and record a one-minute editorial piece for Newstalk ZB this afternoon then I have to email it to Auckland for playing on the Mike Hosking Breakfast programme tomorrow morning and, gee Walter, guess what kind of idea is going round in my mind about what the piece should be on?"

Walter did not react as I hoped to my imperious indignation. I suppose there isn't a huge listenership for Newstalk ZB in Manila.

Walter said he understood internet would be restored by 4pm or 5pm that afternoon. Which would mean the full crash would have lasted nearly two days.

Neighbours tell me it had been dropping in and out of service infuriatingly for days before the ultimate crash. Walter gave me a job number and that was it.

We shook our heads in disbelief. Deborah asked why it had taken Walter nearly 40 minutes to find out there was a problem at Telecom's end. Forty minutes on her Vodafone cellphone.

We muttered and exclaimed and cursed. As you do after talking to Telecom on the phone.

In a rush of blood to the head I decided suddenly to phone the Telecom chief executive, Paul Reynolds. I did it because, oh, I don't know, I can, I guess.

I phoned 018 for the Telecom head office number. Said the foreigner, "You can reach Telecom on 123". I phoned 123 and had the maddening experience of answering questions from a recorded voice.

The chief executive's office please, I told the voice. The recorded voice said something eerily folksy like, "Sorry, I didn't catch that", before beginning again like a programmed robot to reel off some options. I hung up and called 018 in the Philippines and asked for a normal 04 number for the head office of Telecom in Wellington.

He gave me an 0800 number which I dialled and when it was answered I asked for the chief executive's office. She put me through.

A pleasant woman now answered. I said, "Paul Holmes calling. Private matter. I would like to speak to Paul Reynolds, please." "Just a moment," she said, "I'll see if I can find him."

A minute later he was on the phone. I have never met Mr Reynolds. His voice was warm, rich and friendly. "Paul, how can I help you?"

I said, "I want to tell you that your company is the most gormless and incompetent company of any company I deal with in New Zealand."

There was the briefest of pauses. Without any change in his voice he said that it was unfortunate I felt like that. I explained our frustration.

Then I repeated to Mr Reynolds that I was forming a very good idea of what my one-minute editorial would be about and he could hear it on Newstalk ZB nationwide in the morning.

Again, warmly, he admitted it was my right to do that. Still friendly, he said he would look into things. I thanked him and that was it.

Now, I have to tell you that after that, the service I got was excellent.

About an hour later a very switched on woman called Christobel called to explain that two cables had been cut servicing our area and they were working as fast as they could to rebuild them and they might be working very soon.

Christobel's voice had a faint lilt of Irish, or was it English? I couldn't tell. When she called, I was up at the vehicle testing station getting a warrant of fitness.

I said I would be home in half an hour. She said she would call then and talk me through getting back on the net. And, when the time came, she did and we rebooted and were on line and all problems were fixed.

The sad thing, however, about this story is that if I hadn't been a name, if I had not been Paul Holmes, I could not have got through to the chief executive for clarification of what was going down and for an assurance the fault was being fixed or even for confirmation the problem wasn't in my desktop.

Walter, after more than 30 minutes, had lost credibility with us. But where else does a "normal" member of the public turn when they face the befuddlement of trying to communicate with Telecom?

The stories are legion. It's as if Telecom goes out of its way to impose barriers between its customers and its own people, its actual human beings who can listen. The moment I got through to Reynolds I felt I was once again a decent person back on Planet Earth and the frustration and anger dissipated.

But there is a curious little twist here. When Christobel first called I said I'd be home in 30 minutes, but I'd forgotten that after the warrant of fitness, Deborah wanted to go to the supermarket.

I knew it would be more like an hour before we got home.

I thought it only be courteous to let Christobel know. I dialled the number she had called me on. It was on my phone screen. I selected it and called it, an 09, starting with a 3. The most peculiar thing happened. A female voice told me that number was not currently in use. It was like I was dealing with MI6.

Then Paul Reynolds phoned back also to inform me it was cables and it was pretty nearly fixed. I thanked him. I said, "You've had a rough start to the year."

He sighed, quite a long sigh, then the warm voice with its Scottish accent said simply, "Well, shit happens ..."

I chuckled, thanked him again, wished him good luck for the year, said goodbye and closed the phone.