answered
Jann Turner
Friday: After a month, I have a whole day off. I’m ready for a day paying off bills. I’m feeling strong, so I start with the post office. Eventually I get to the service-with-a-scowl teller and I pay my phone bill. I’m two-and-a-half weeks late, but hell, that’s not long – is it?
Tuesday: Lightning crashes and my house is in darkness. The trip won’t switch and I light candles. Then I flip through the Yellow Pages, finger the page of emergency electricians and pick up the phone to dial. The phone is dead. I try the fax line. Dead too.
Wednesday: Still no phones. 8am: I get to work and dial 10212, Telkom’s fault line. It’s engaged. I re-dial eight times. Still engaged.
8:10am: I give up.
10:30am: I dial the fault line again. Engaged.
3:30pm: I dial again and again and again. Smash the phone against the wall and then try one last time. It rings. I can’t believe it.
4:15pm: I’m still on hold and the provocatively upbeat music hasn’t yet caused me to do further violence to the phone. I feel strangely heroic.
4:20pm: I almost faint when a non- recorded voice speaks to me.
4:25pm: Negotiations commence with a fault line operator inappropriately named Lucky who tells me – very politely – that he can do nothing to help me. My lines have been disconnected and will not be reconnected until I can give him my Telkom receipt number. Funnily enough I don’t have my Telkom receipts with me at work, but anyway – I paid my bill four days ago.
Lucky says there is nothing he can do and his supervisor is attending a workshop. I refuse to get off the phone so Lucky connects me to a Mrs Vlok who says she will arrange for my lines to be switched on again. Phew, I think.
Thursday: Both lines still dead. Mrs Vlok must have been the cleaning lady. After countless engaged tones, then 20 minutes of finger-tapping to the hold music, I reach Mandla. Mandla takes my receipt number and says he has no idea why my phones are disconnected; the account is clearly paid up. He promises to put an urgent message through so the lines will be working within two hours. Mandla apologises very elegantly for the inconvenience and I foolishly tell him he has restored my faith in Telkom.
Friday: Still no phone. I won’t go over the dialing and the being on hold part again. Suffice it to say that I finally get through to Petrus who says the account is suspended. He doesn’t know why, but he’ll put through an urgent message and all will be well by afternoon. In the afternoon, I reach Priscilla who tells me the same thing. I say I don’t believe her. Priscilla says her supervisor is in a meeting. She takes my cell phone number and promises to call me back in an hour.
After an hour I call directory enquiries and get the number of a Telkom area manager. Mr Botha is shockingly sympathetic. He calls back an hour later to say my account has never been suspended, but that a reconnect order has been placed and my phone will be back on within hours. When I ask him how you reconnect a never disconnected line, he doesn’t seem to understand, so I give up with a faint thank-you.
Friday night the lines are still dead.
Saturday: The phone rings! It’s 8am and my blissful dream is shattered, but I don’t care, I’m connected! I make a mental note to apologise to Mr Botha for all the dreadful things I wished on him and his colleagues.
11am: Both lines are dead again.
Sunday: Still dead.
Monday: I’m humming along to the hold music now. When at last I reach the faults department, they say they can do nothing; my line is suspended because of non-payment and I must talk to accounts. There’s an edge to my voice as I demand a better explanation AND reinstatement of my line. But there is nothing faults can do except put me through to Lauren in accounts. Lauren says yes, my lines are suspended because of failure to pay the bill.
To cut a long and rather nasty story short, I end up speaking to her supervisor, Sonya. Sonya can’t understand why my account is suspended, but doesn’t appreciate it when I ask if it’s a job requirement for Telkom employees to know nothing about anything. Sonya says Telkom is trying. “Yes, very trying,” I mutter.
Sonya isn’t really interested in my banter, so I revert to simple questions, like what are you going to do to get my phones switched on? Silence. Eventually she fobs me off with a promise to send an urgent message somewhere and she takes my cell phone number.
Tuesday: And on the eighth day I explode. Armed with a list of fault line, account line and area manager numbers, I settle in for a marathon.
First there is Vernon. Predictably he can do nothing, the accounts department has suspended the lines. And yes, his supervisor is in a meeting. I ask Vernon if I might get some attention by showing up at his building, ripping my clothes off and running naked down the aisles of the fault line operators. Vernon doesn’t seem to think that will help, but he does give me a reference number. Ah! I say. And will I be able to make phone calls on this reference number? No, I should call another fault line and quote the reference number. Oh, what progress!
The reference number fault line is engaged. And engaged. I give up. I phone accounts again and I speak to Magda. She can’t explain the account suspension and can’t do anything except put another urgent message to the place where urgent messages go. She takes my cell phone number.
I am emotionally and physically spent. Telkom has won. I take four Syndols and crawl under my duvet.
The phone rings. I pick it up, shaking. “Yes?”
A man’s voice responds, thick accent, the kind they issued to security policemen in the bad old days, along with the moustache and the grey shoes. His tone is accusing.
“Mrs Turner?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“This is Mr Swanepoel from Telkom. You said you gotta problem with your phone.”
“Yes, it’s been out of order for eight days.”
“But I’m talking to you now aren’t I?”