Showing posts with label annoyed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label annoyed. Show all posts

Friday, September 16, 2016

Feeling up tight.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realise life is starting to get annoying. Suddenly see that you are not relaxed like you used to be?

That's me right now.
I am putting it down to lack of meaningful exercise recently, and the lack of endorphins surging through my body.

Things getting to me, that I would usually just brush off. I am certain (very hopeful at least) that is it not depression creeping up on me. This feels different, just frequently annoyed by things, and unable to shake them off as I usually would.

Feeling fat isn't helping, and it is something I need to get a grip of, my health, not the rolls of fat! I know my health has taken a real beating over the recent months, and it stresses me out. Hatred of myself some days for not making an effort when I know I could have.

Entering a ride in Nov has be back on the right road, and I am hoping more time spent training and getting my body working, will result in a clearer mind, and some direction back in my life. I seem to have forgotten the promise I made to myself back in March when I emerged from depression, that I would look after myself first.

Just writing this short, badly put together entry, just to mark my recognition of this moment, and try and make things more positive from here on in.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

April Fooooooooooool!

What an idiot, when L&Q and Axis sent me confirmation that they were coming to replace the fence that was damaged in the storms in December, and gave the date as April 1st, I really should have known better than to believe them.
Instead like a sucker, I have taken ANOTHER day off work, so that's ANOTHER day of precious annual leave wasted on sitting around in the house waiting on a contractor who has once again not shown up.
If I had known this would become such a common practise I would have started keeping a record of the dates.
But as an example we have two occasions contractors didn't show up to re-decorate the bathroom. We have the appointment to repair the fence earlier in the year which needed a chase up call, and ultimately resulted in a quick visit from a contractor to take pictures and then leave, and now we have today.

Each time I take a day off to wait in, as required to do so by the contractors request, I use up a days leave. That's fine though right, a day off is good, you can get things done.... NO!! You bloody well can't when you are stuck indoors waiting for someone to show up. Not even a sodding call!
The cruel irony is, its been a lovely morning, and it would have been OK if I could have sat in the garden with the dogs to wait.... But hold on, why didn't I then.
Oh that's right, THE FENCE IS DOWN and has been since December, so the dogs would get out.

Right now I am thoroughly fed up with the lackadaisical attitude of the companies and contractors who think I have nothing better to do with my life. Given how much leave I have already used on family matter this year, and we are only at the start of the 4th month, I am really running low on the stuff. And quite frankly I am reaching the point where I think someone should be compensating me for this time, yes seriously!

Its now 3 mins past the close of the appointment window, and no show, no call.

But it gets better. Weeks ago when I got the appointment I called up to confirm what was being done. At the time the person  spoke to at Axis noted the job was only booked for 2 hours, but was for 31 fence panels. Assured she would look into it and make sure the time was allocated correctly, I left it there.
Today I called up again, just to confirm that the appointment was still scheduled and that someone would be coming. Yup all is fine I was told. So I asked about the time allocation. I was informed that it was still 2 hours and 31 panels and that the contractor coming was also booked for another job this afternoon. Doomed to fail some might say, but I had faith.

Well the egg is on my face now, and my annual leave is slowly slipping away. The dogs haven't been out yet, I have achieved little, other than this rant, with my day, and now I wonder what I will be told when I call them back in a moment to ask what's happening.

Just take another day off and we will see if we can make it this time.
Contractor's fault, should have called you, take another day off anyway.
We will get someone to you ASAP, just wait in til 6pm now.
I have no record of a job for a fence today on my screen.

Or something more original?

Lets see...

*DIALING*

To be continued.................


Hilarious..

The lovely lady I spoke to said that the contractor advises he has only just received the go ahead on the job today, and is on his way over asap now to start the job. And will come back tomorrow morning with extra crew to get it finished,.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Finally service resumes for Blackberry

As covered thoroughly by the worlds media over the past 24 hours, making the news summary, tech news, and even the on screen BREAKING NEWS ticker, the coverage of the Blackberry outage of the past 3 days has not gone un-noticed. Every opportunity possible has been ceased upon to expose, critique and cast doubt over RIM and its ability to run a stable network for its 70 million users. Of course, without knowing the in's and out's of the issue, or for that matter understanding what the hell a core switch is, it is impossible to judge fairly. The Playstation network was down for over a month when it underwent a cyber attack, so 3 days in some respects is not too bad. However as Lord Sugar pointed out, the Playstation network was for entertainment, RIM is for livelihood and communication.



Naturally companies like Apple have rejoiced at this outage, with the launch of iOS5 rolling out last night, and the iPhone4S going on general release from tomorrow, what better time to be convinced to jump ship than smack bang in the middle of that. I'm sure there are a good few percent of people who have been considering the switch for a while now, so well done to RIM / Blackberry for giving that group of customers the push they needed. That's not to mention the number of large corporations who are currently trialling iPhone as an alternative to their long term favourite the Blackberry. Again, an outage for this period of time to a business is totally unacceptable, and will have caused chaos I am sure.



However, its OK now because the world is returning to normal, becoming a sane place once again, and the trains and buses ring out with the steady flow of BBM messages being received by commuters. For me this morning it was a wake up call, literally. As the service resumed I realised how annoying people BBM'ing you can be, and how often it bing, bing, bings.... Silent is the chosen profile today! Amazing how a few days away from something can change your perspective of things, and make you rethink your approach. I'm not going to BBM any less I'm sure, nor become less dependent on it for my email, and information flow, but i am aware of how much control it has over me at times.



The biggest thing I missed i think was email, and the ability to make entries to this blog. Sitting at the train station with things to say, but no platform to use (so to speak from, no pun intended). Maybe that is it, Blackberry has become my new voice. My chosen way to communicate with the world in all respects. if so, is that such a bad thing I wonder. A wider audience, I can speak at any time and people will 'hear' in their own time. I can be concise, direct, and open about my feelings without having to experience the reaction first hand. So looking at that aspect of things, i am quite happy with this new found voice. Needless to say, i am still very capable at the real spoken word, and am happy and able to vocalise my thoughts and feelings too.



So, how does the Blackberry crowd feel about all this. An outage for 3 days, that's coming on for 1% downtime, which by any hosting or server company is just completely unacceptable, especially for such a large global company with resources all around the world. 70 million+ customers to serve, BIS and BES, high profile customers like Lord Sugar, President Obama, David Cameron, and countless celebrities. This is the age of the Internet, lightening communication (if your device connects!) and word travels fast... But not as fast as rumours, they travel at warp speed, and carry far more clout than a short empty statement from the company itself. And what exactly did we get over those 3 days.... Day 1, a couple of 'oops' Tweets from Blackberry saying there were some issues they were working on. By the end of the day it was tweeted that it was OK now. Day 2, it was all broken again, and again a few words on Twitter saying they thought they had found the problem and service would soon resume. All this time it was only affecting EMEA..



Day 3, this is when it got serious.. North America was now affected, and the shit had hit the fan. High profile business and entertainment names became involved on Twitter. Suddenly The RIM and Blackberry Twitter accounts exploded into activity. The first BIG statement on Twitter from RIM was ironically about a hoax BBM circulating. ironic considering 90% of users had no BBM, yet their priority was suddenly quashing a rumour. Bad show. From that point on the information begun to flow properly, high ranking RIM exec's making statements apologising for the issues, the Blackberry website also sprouted a Service Status page. Today as the service starts to return to normal we are told on Twitter hourly that there is a video statement to be watched on the Blackberry website from the Co-CEO himself. Where was that when the service was down?



So like I say, BBM is now binging away again, and service seems to be going nicely, however I have one problem remaining that has been there for the past 3 days.... My email is not bloody working! Why I hear you ask. Well as the server outage begun I was switching from my 9700 to my new shiny 9900. It appears that for some reason the RIM servers are caught convinced that my 9700 is still in use on my account, so i cannot register my phone on the network. Everything else BIS works, BBM, PUSH apps etc, but it wont let me transfer my email accounts over. All i get is a message saying it is not registered on the wireless network, and if I try via the Blackberry I get a message saying it cannot communicate with the server. *sigh



Not really much more I can say on the matter really, other than its VERY frustrating not having my email right now, and while the outage was unwanted, it has been an eye opener, for many! So many people not realising how much they used the BBM side of things until they didn't have it. While Apple and other device users sneer, it is worth pointing out that NO other provider offers a service similar to BBM, so all the ner ner nerner ner comments about "my phone is working, look at your useless Blackberry" were a little inaccurate, but RIM deserved it all the same.



Right that's me done. Only thing left to say is I hope those having update problems getting to iOS5 get sorted soon, and those who have lost all their data due to corrupt back-ups get sorted soon.



PS, I was shocked when I suggested to Apple fans that I was going to get an iPhone 3GS for a bit of fun, and as a back up, only to be told it was not worth it, was too slow, and no good..... A few weeks ago this was the next best thing to an iPhone4 and still a very worthy handset, now its rubbish.... Go figure.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The weekend is almost over.

Well it might as well be, the weather is crap, the other half has gone home for a family dinner, and I'm broke. So it looks like another day in front of the TV for me.
On the plus side, it gives me a little time to thin about this whole building collapse thing, and think of new angles and approaches to get things in motion.

Its not so much whats happened now, more about what is left that could still happen. The wet weather has arrived for the season now, and also freezing weather is approaching, which is all bad news for unstable ground, and buildings sitting on the edge of it.
So with the issues at the site down the road, I am going to selfishly attempt to steal a little of the spot light it is receiving and focus it on the site remaining empty at 6 Church Rise. Since its collapse there has never been a detail investigation carried out, nor an inspection on the foundations of the property I live in.

Now correct me if I am wrong here, but if a building collapses from the foundations up, with a huge pit dug BELOW the house, just a couple of metres from the house next door, would you too not assume that your property and foundations had been compromised? Especially when the cracks start to open up in your rooms nearest to the collapse. When floorboards no longer reach the skirting boards, and the concrete path between the properties moves over half an inch AWAY from your property. Am I just being paranoid here, or do I have a valid point that someone needs to look at this properly?

In an idea world I would call in a private surveyor, pay for a full survey, and put my mind at rest. However we all know this can cost a lot of money, especially when its foundations you are looking at. So my next angle may be to approach Lewisham and ask if they will send their own surveyors. if they are not willing to, then I shall take the angle of "If you are SO confident that there is nothing wrong, I will call the surveyor in, and if they find anything, not only will I claim back the costs, but I will sue too for failure of duty of care". Next step, find out how much this kind of survey costs lol.

Anyway, im getting caught up on this whole house thing again. My god I thought I was done with it all, but realise now that it has only just begun. With the change of management of the property, maybe I need to contact the new company to see if they are happy with the situation too. OK thats enough about that for now.

So the rest of the weekend, only thing I can say really is FAIL. That just about sums up my weekend. Things planned to do, not done. Things planned NOT to do, done! Too much eating, not enough getting out there and doing things.
Which leads me neatly to the next part. Failing to get the dog food from the shops yesterday, has led to the the other half leaving here today a little pissed off with me, and me a little grr at us for being lazy. Its only a quick trip to a shop a few miles away, but we didnt bother, so thats the dog food running dangerously low.

My plan for the remainder of the day, sulk a little, eat a little, get the Wii Fit out and mess about a bit.

Hope your weekends have been a little better than mine.

PS, pissed off but still positive :)

Oh PS.... I got a letter from my mates at Orange yesterday. Over 2 months since I cancelled my home broadband account they send me a letter which simply says "you own use £27, pay in 7 days or we take you to court" OK there were a few more words that than, but totally unprofessional, unacceptable, and something I will be following up agressively. Bloody cheek!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Today is D Day, for Orange that is.

Well after a couple of days of grace for them to sort the matter out, today is the last day that was agreed I would wait for them to sort the issues out.
Its 8 days now, this all started over a week ago now. After loads of diagnostics there is still no joy with the matter. Suggestions have been that maybe RIM has accidentally blocked the wrong PIN as the phone seems to be behaving as if its data is blocked on purpose. (or its just bloody broken!)

Either way, I agreed with Orange Executive Offices that I would wait til this afternoon before chasing them up again, and its coming up for 1pm. So in a couple of hours time I will be calling them back and asking what decision they have come to. Either way, with Easter just around the corner (tomorrow) I am likely to be without my Blackberry for a few days more until a replacement is sent out, if they even agree to send one out.

If there is no resolution agreed today its gonna get a little bit messy. I understand that networks have grace in-built into the contracts to allow them time to sort stuff like this out, but I am not sure it is quite this long, certainly not without them even having diagnosed the issue.
So if I am told they are still waiting on RIM, the response will be something along the lines of, breach of contract, failing to provide a service or reasonable timescale for resolution, and so on.
My solution offered to them will be, I will return the phone in the next available mail service, they can keep it and sort the problem out at their own leisure, and either replace it or return it to me repaired. In the meantime they can suspend billing on that account, reimburse me for the calls made to tech support, and discuss how they are going to convince me to remain with Orange as my contracts begin to run out.

I will update as it all unfolds, but either way, I am past caring too much about it now, the whole scenario has dulled my enthusiasm for Orange by about 90%, and if they are not willing to talk about it, I will start to pull the contracts as soon as economically viable.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Is this what they call "progress"?

Well after another entertaining day speaking to Orange over and over and over, I have made I believe what some would call progress.
After an earlier encounter with a call back from Orange, which just put be right back at the beginning, I searched the web and found an email address for the Executive Offices for Orange. The address is executive.office@orange.co.uk . After emailing them I was expecting the same sort of response as most other promises of call backs etc. But to my amazement, after a trip to the loo I came back to find a missed call and a message. Michael from the exec offices had called back to discuss the matter, and see what they could do to sort the matter out.

After a long call to the techs, he came back with almost what everyone else had said, that tech were SURE it was a problem with RIM now and not the handset. The issue has been passed on to Research In Motion for further investigation. Unfortunately as they are a 3rd party Orange are unable to give or enforce timescales for these matters, so it is simply a matter of waiting again now til RIM contact Orange.

So really I am no further down the line. Although on the other hand I am, as I have a single point of contact now, who is going to see the matter through to resolution. We have also started discussing reimbursement for time wasted, calls placed and services not provided.

One comment made me chuckle though. He said he was happy to make such a credit to my account but would do it once resolved "in case" it is another week of no service". My response was to laugh and politely inform him that if it drags over to next week I wont be an Orange customer anymore. He understood this clearly.

So onwards, and nowhere for the time being lol. I am in higher spirits about it now, thanks to a settlement cheque arriving on my mat this morning, but that's about the only thing keeping me from driving to Orange HQ and having a word in person.
IF..... and I mean IF, this turns out to be a handset fault after all, the whole thing will become VERY messy indeed. As I explained to one of the call centre guys, I am not a guinea pig for them to experiment with their theories on. I am a paying customer, and a high paying customer at that. I expect to be treated like an individual, and not someone they can mess about, just so the geeks in the basement can prove they can fix the phone.

Thursday afternoon is the cutoff for this whole matter now, which was made clear to the exec when we spoke. If I have to call them back that afternoon as its not resolved, then I will be asking for an address to send the phone to, and will be rid of it once and for all. At that point I want nothing more to do with it until it is fixed, working, and I don't have to call Orange again. Renewal time is nigh, but I am having serious doubts about it all now, unless they can do something really special. REALLY special.