Re: Clueless engineers
Wish I could agree with the several posters here who give a thumbs-up to BT's working engineers.
This was my experience with Openreach working for BT.
Decide, with heavy heart, to sack Virgin (had been with Cable London since 1996) on grounds of absurd congestion in street, and lamentable response time to US-based servers.
Engage Zen, who arrange for BT to install (re-install) copper. Engineer lets me know he's dong me a favour by putting master socket 4 m from point of entry into building (3 m I think is the usual limit). All works, and website edits now possible without a 2-min delay.
Months later, it is spring and the sun comes out. Time to open the windows! Oh dear, engineer has sent signal cable through window sash! Call tech support, get the usual Bangalore runaround. Eventually rep calls me back: "Good news sir, I can take ownership of your problem!" Goes on to explain, however, that the engineer call by Openreach will be chargeable, 120-something plus VAT. No, I don't think so, say I.
So I explain my predicament to the nice people at Zen, who suggest that perhaps if I made it known to the chief executive's office, it might result in a speedy and satisfactory outcome. And so it proved. Within the hour of emailing that office, an executive complaints officer phoned and arranged all.
And guess what? The Openreach engineer who came round to put it right was the same diamond geezer as made the original balls-up. It took him about 5 minutes, chuckling the while, to re-route the cable through the window sill, where of course it should have been in the first place.
Let the sun shine in!