Signing Up

In order to make enquiries about getting cable and internet installed, instead of making a phone call, I went to a shop one evening after work. On reflection, a poor decision.

The shop was brassy, loud and throbbing with customers. A queuing system was in operation, not unlike the queuing system employed by UK supermarket meat counters. You get a number and wait your turn. I was number 053. The “currently serving” board showed number 034.

The wait was interminable.

I could have looked at all the mobile phones on display but that would have been more boring than sitting down on a ledge doing nothing. So I sat down on a ledge and did nothing.

There were three computer terminals, with internet access, dead in front of where I was sitting. Only one of these was working. Throughout my wait, a young couple were using the one fully operational computer to play a football penalty shoot-out internet game. I passed my time dreaming up imaginative ways to inflict damage upon them, thus enabling me to incapacitate them, step over their prostrate bodies, and do something crucial, like check my email for a few minutes, before selflessly allowing someone else to use the computer. I spent a short time perusing the various cable and broadband offers that were available on a dull, shoddy photocopy I’d been given, but my needs were simple – I just wanted to make enquiries. Enquiries about prices.

The counter ticked slowly to number 051. Suddenly, the screen went blank. Panic set in. I stood up, strode purposefully around the corner to the counters, and joined the ranks of people in whom panic had also set in, all of us looking menacingly around at each other, brandishing our slips of paper, all thinking, “if anyone pushes in…”

Fortunately, a member of staff managed to stop the impending riot by somehow turning the screens on again without losing the current number. Relieved, I remained where I was, glaring at the screen, willing it to change.

Half an hour later, I finally sat down to talk to an advisor, whose name badge read “Brendon”, to make my enquiries. I showed him my slip of paper with my number on. Brendon, young and clean cut, looked at me as if he’d never seen such a piece of paper before in his life. We both looked at each other. I wondered when he was going to start the conversation.

Realising that I would have to take the initiative, I told him that I was here to make some simple enquiries about internet access, cable tv and also broadband telephony. I wasn’t really sure what broadband telephony was, but hoped that it was phoning people via your internet connection, which I’d heard was cheap. Brendon looked at me blankly.

Finally, after some more staring, and no conversation, he produced a familiar looking, dull, shoddy photocopy of the various cable and broadband offers that were available to me.

“Which offer you want?” he asked. I looked at the offers. I pointed to the cheapest cable offer that included live Premiership football. He nodded. I had brought with me a sheet of paper which outlined the specifications of my cheap, slow laptop, which I had purchased on a whim while still jet-lagged. I handed it to him.
“What I really want to know is,” I said, “can I get broadband telephony with these specifications, and how much will it cost?”

He looked at the piece of paper without looking at it.

I realised I had to clarify things. “Is broadband telephony… you know… not sure if I’ve got the right word… is it phoning people using your broadband connection?”

His eyes lit up, as if remembering something that he'd only recently been told.

“Digital voice,” he said. “You want digital voice.”
“Er… quite possibly… what is it and how much does it cost?”

He proceeded to write some numbers down on a piece of paper. The numbers, if they were prices, looked very reasonable.

“You want this,” he said, pointing to the most expensive, fastest broadband offer. I nodded. He asked me for my passport and green card and took them into a back room. He emerged some time later, clutching a dull, shoddy photocopy of my passport and green card. He selected three forms from a rack, sat down, and started filling them in.

Things were progressing rather too quickly for my liking. After all, I’d only come to make enquiries. I decided the time had come for me to be more assertive.
“Excuse me,” I began confidently, “but I only came to make enquiries. What I want to know is how much will it cost?” He glanced up at me.
“I’m just doing the calculations,” he replied.

The forms he was filling in had the word CONTRACT very clearly printed at the top.

I decided to allow him to continue with his calculations.

About ten minutes later he had finished filling in the same details on all three forms, but had ticked different boxes on each one to denote separate cable, broadband and digital voice services. He had also written “digital voice” on all three forms.

He then got a calculator out and, referring to a different price sheet, tapped in the prices. It did occur to me that this would have been a rather quicker way of satisfactorily answering my initial price query, but I bowed to his expertise.

The number he held up to show me alarmed me, as it was well above my current means. “At risk of repeating myself,” I asked, “how much is the digital voice?” Without referring to any pieces of paper at all, he was able to inform me that the installation of digital voice, together with the deposit, was well over the equivalent of a hundred pounds.
“Right, I see,” I remarked, stroking my chin. “I won’t bother with that, then. Just moved here, you see… don’t have much money yet… I was only really wanting to enquire...”

He ripped up two of the three forms, selected another two, and proceeded to fill them in with the same details as before, without writing the words “digital voice” on them. It did occur to me that he could have simply crossed out the words "digital voice" on the forms, but I decided that he must know what he was doing. Nonetheless, I had an alarming feeling that something had gone wrong, and tried to peer at the forms, but his hands were in the way.

It was only five minutes later that I worked out why I’d had the alarming feeling: I noticed that the only form he had failed to rip up was the digital voice contract.

I decided against telling him, because for some reason part of me still assumed that he knew his job, and he had to do it like this.

He noticed just as he’d finished crossing the last t of the last form. He expelled a loud sigh, ripped up all the forms, and selected another two from the rack.

For the next ten minutes, as he noiselessly filled in my details for the third time, I did a great deal of soul searching. Although I’d only come to make enquiries, the deal I was getting was reasonable, so I was glad that I’d got it all sorted out tonight. However, I couldn’t help feeling that perhaps the problems had been my fault. Although he had good English, like most people, perhaps if I’d tried to learn at least one of the other languages spoken here before I came out, none of this would have happened. If I’d been a bit clearer that I’d just come to make enquiries about prices, perhaps everything would have been ok. But I couldn’t help concluding that I wasn’t the only one to blame.

I observed that he now knew my phone number and address off by heart.

Finally, as the shutters on the shop were being pulled down, some two hours after I had arrived, I finally signed up to cable and broadband. It was then, and only then, that I looked more closely at his name badge. Underneath "Brendon" I read, very clearly, one word. That word was TRAINEE.