We returned from holiday this week to find something horrible had happened at home: the wifi was no longer working. This was a huge problem, as our family’s survival is completely dependent on us being able to do things other than talk to each other. There was added pressure on me, too, as I was going to have to make the phone call to Virgin Media, while my wife pretended she was doing something other than listening to my conversation so that, after the call, she could sit me down for an appraisal.
There was pressure on this phone call, because our internet has been absolutely shocking ever since we’ve moved in. The service has been sporadic at best, and on the rare occasions that whole weeks have gone by with an unbroken service we have had a party to celebrate, streaming music and dancing around until the connection drops out again.
Complaining about your wifi is one of those things that winds people up, a first-world problem in the extreme. “There are people fighting to survive in Zimbabwe and you’re moaning about your wifi!” is a common accusation, to which my response would be that it’s difficult to stay abreast of world news when my wifi connection is down.
This background meant that my wife would not accept a phone call in which I simply reported the problem. I would have to describe the issue with enough venom to get across to whichever poor bastard was on the other end of the line just how unhappy we are. This is why I always find it so difficult when the call gets put through to an Indian call centre. This is not just because of my inherent racism, but also because it is another reminder of how many degrees of separation there are between who or whatever is responsible for the issue, and the person I am speaking to, which makes it very hard to deliver the kind of anger that will lead to a top score in my wife’s appraisal.
Once I’d got through the security questions and misremembered passwords, I did my best to put across how annoyed we all were, and was promised that a technician would be round the next day. I thanked them and asked my wife if I was harsh enough. She said my telephone manner was closer to flirting than actual complaining.
The technician arrived, sorted everything out, and left, and sure enough, we were blessed with glorious wifi for half an hour, before it went down again. I phoned Virgin, and turned up the sternness. I thought I was positively furious, and looked forward to my wife’s opinion of this new “take no shit” Romesh. She again informed me that I was pretty pathetic.
I’d had enough. From now on, I said, I would be doing the appraising, because she obviously thought she had it nailed. The next day the technician arrived. My wife politely explained the situation and, far more softly than I had, described our ongoing frustration. I noted all this down, excited to eviscerate her performance. But the technician swiftly replaced everything and apologised profusely, before promising my wife that he would be seeing to it personally that any further issues were dealt with immediately. I threw my appraisal sheet away.
