Frickin' Sky

So, we have Sky TV - which, for all you none-UKers, is satellite TV. "Come to Sky!" said the sales rep "We're better than Telewest!". Well, we've been with Telewest for years. Being that I worked for them and tested it when it was going to be launched, we kinda stuck with it, but the prices have gone up and up and the service slowly got worse. While I was off sick, they closed my department and moved it to Birmingham. Sod moving up there. So I got a payout (which they tried to fight, suckers) and lived happily ever after.

One day I will discuss my time there, and how sick it made me - but this is not that time.

So, we had our dish installed, our box put in, and away we went. Wootage. Then a couple of weeks ago, there was no signal in the morning - obviously something had farted overnight. Reboot the box, all good, move on. Then during the day we'd get this error message appear, and everything would shut down. Reboot - and it'd happen again a few hours later.

Then LAST weekend we were watching TV on Saturday, and it shut down. Reboot, then ten minutes later, shutdown. So I called Sky. Or, rather, I tried to. "You are in a queue, and the current waiting time is -" cue the robotic voice "-fifty. seven. minutes."

Holy crap. So I waited, and waited, and I waited some more - then after 1hr 5mins, I realised "Hold the horses - this ain't a free call." and put it down. I redialed. Waiting time, in the same robot voice. One. Hour. Twenty. Five. Minutes. Bugger that.

Sunday it was the same, until I figured "Sunday night, not much happening, try again." Took them an hour, but I got through! By now, the TV has completely given up the ghost and a reboot just made it angry. "Well Mr English -" said the woman in her sexy Scottish accent "- we'll get someone out to you as soon as we can - how's next Friday?" Hmmm. "Well, I have no TV and a 7 year old that misses his cartoons." See, Telewest, no service - priority call. Easy Peasy. "Well, I'm not seeing anything available before then." Great. "OK, fine, but I've got no TV." "That's not a problem, our tech will be able to resolve it."

Of course, the second kicker is the fact I have to wait for him to call me to tell me roughly WHEN he's arriving - the appointment is all day long. Which means I'm here all day. Of course, I can't get through to call and ask when, can't get through to call and complain, and their website sucks the big one - I tried to send a nice long winded complaint, but ho-ho, their forms only allow 512 characters.

"g-e-t-a-g-r-i-p-y-o-u-t-w-a-t-s" should cover it.

Of course, with today being the date it is, he'll probably fall off the side of the house and make a mess on the path...