Telecommunications

We’ve been spending more time than we should trying to setup a phone. Telecom, the New Zealand agency that had the monopoly until recently, required only a picture ID and credit card to setup an account for us. That part was easy. The hip young ladies working at their store weren’t that clued in on the little details though, like what’s included with the phone plans. They kept suggesting that I take the pamphlets home and read them before selecting a plan that worked for me. I had already read the silly marketing brochures, and needed some clarification. When I asked them details about the terms of the plans, they suggested that I come back tomorrow to talk to Dave, who knows about the details. He’s the chubby guy with spiky black hair, and should be in around nine. I told them that I lived the other side of Motueka, and wanted to figure it out today, so I waited in the long, slow line again for someone else to suggest that I talk to Dave. I gave up and walked over to the only other option, Vodafone.

Being a European company, Vodafone require much more information in order to setup an account, but like Telecom, they don’t seem to attract the most intelligent citizens to work in their stores. I waited to talk to Nigel, their resident expert. Nigel also had spiked hair and powerful aftershave. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about the details of the Vodafone phone plans. Nigel asked why I didn’t fill in a telephone number on the paperwork. I hesitated before reminding him why I was there – to setup a telephone number. To that he said, “that could be a bit of a problem, I need to fill in a phone number.” We kept getting interrupted by one of the other Vodafone employees asking Nigel what was included in plan C, or other technical questions like how to turn on the phones. I’m not kidding; one of the ladies working there needed Nigel to show her how to turn on one of the phones a customer was looking at. After holding down the correct button to turn the phone on, Nigel asked how they could contact me, other than via email. I felt like telling him to send us a letter, or use the telephone number that he’s about to give me. He asked for my passport, which I didn’t have with me. I offered him a litany of other forms of identification, but he insisted on needing my passport.

I told him I’d be back in the afternoon with my passport. After driving back forty-five minutes to Motueka to pickup my passport, I returned to Richmond to finalize the deal with Nigel. When I got back, Nigel was sitting across the mall at the food court enjoying his lunch break. I told the other lady working there that Nigel just needed to see my passport to finish up, perhaps she could help me. She made a copy of my passport, but that was as far as her expertise could take us, so she told me to come back when Nigel was off his lunch break. I was hungry by now, so I grabbed some Indian food at a stand within view of Nigel, so I could grab him when he finished his Big Mac and get back home. Little did I know the transaction would take another two hours! Nigel’s computer crashed several times between helping other customers insert their sim cards, or slide on their stylish new lizard skin phone covers.

When Nigel finally managed to log onto his computer, he asked me again for a contact phone number. He said he couldn’t proceed without a phone number. The neighbors had given me their phone number earlier, so I pulled the piece of paper with their number on it and gave it to him. He didn’t mind that it was the neighbors phone number who I had just met, as long as he could proceed to the next step. After standing around looking stupid for another twenty minutes, I suggested that I take a walk around the mall while he sorts my account out. He thought that was a great idea since my account had to be verified before we could proceed. I checked back three times before he finally managed to get my account active. When he finally gave me the device, he told me I needed to buy a phone to connect to it, but they don’t sell those phones there. At that point, I was just happy to have an account setup with a telephone number.