So I wrote to British Gas today...

From: Mat Lemmings
To: uselesstwats@britishgas / dynorod / whatevertheirnameis.com
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:09:05 +0000
Subject: Homecare Agreement 20114423 J401112

FAO The Customer Relations Director
British Gas Services / Dynorod

Good afternoon.

Ever seen Fawlty Towers? Specifically episode 2 of the 1st series (originally transmitted on 26 September 1975, if you were wondering), where Basil gets the feckless O'Reilly in to do some work which goes horribly wrong? Well, you are O'Reilly and I am Fawlty, which makes me "the poor sod you do jobs for."

As I've no doubt your computer system can tell you, we've been in a relationship for a couple of years now, during which time I've been pretty happy with your service - of course you never write (other than sending me junk mail) and you never call so I do feel a little bit like an out-of-sight mother at times, but it's been a fairly standard marriage and you have hitherto satisfactorily met my demands as and when such have arisen and I'm not aware of any serious wrongdoing on my part, other than my brief 3 day dalliance with an alternative provider of plumbing services for a boiler swap-out which your representative brushed off as an already forgotten irrelevance.

But oh dear. It's all gone rather wrong. Who would have thought that a tetchy hot water tap and a tiny leak would present such a major problem to a multinational plumbing conglomerate such as your good self and drive this iron wedge between us? You've broken my heart and need to make amends.

The sorry tale started around 11.30am last Friday, the 11th March 2011, when I telephoned your "emergency" helpline number (0800 365 100) to report my problem. I'm not sure that the term "emergency" is necessarily correct under the trades descriptions act (I wonder if the fire service, for instance, has ever considered introducing a computer-based answering system where the caller has to press multiple buttons before then being told his call is being diverted to a sister company where the call queue waiting time is 5 minutes - can you imagine "Press 1 if an airplane has flown into a tower block, 2 for a house fire, 3 for a kitten stuck up a tree, 4 for a head stuck in railings (sorry about that btw - it was a one off kinky sex adventure) or 5 for any other enquiry" only for the frenetic pressing of number 3 to result in "We are now transferring your call to The Canine Tree Climbing Company" - the blood spatter would be awful! But we'll forgive your terminology on this occasion and move on.

Your cheerful representative listened to my heart wrenching story of the non-turn-off-able hot tap (fully flowing and I'm on a water meter - eek) and the modest-but-nevertheless-annoying leak in the airing cupboard, raised a couple of job numbers (JB01093 for the leak and JB01086 for the tap) and told me in no uncertain terms that an engineer would be with us in the next few hours, certainly before close of business that day, and that he would telephone prior to his arrival. He did neither.

I awoke Saturday to clear skies above, the warm sun on my face (Mat's eighth law - always have a South facing bedroom) and our small kitten giving me that knowing look which means "I've dismembered a rabbit and hidden it for you to find", indeed we seemed set for a lovely day, save for our continuing escaping water issues.

So I rang you. After retelling my tale of woe and expressing my considerable dismay at the non-appearance of the engineer the day before I was given an explanation-lacking apology but reassured that the said technical representative would be with us by noon at the latest.

He wasn't.

Now then, we're in North Devon which is not exactly the centre of the universe (though of course if you know your astrophysics, actually *everywhere* is the centre of the universe) and the roads do get clogged from time to time so I left it until about 14.30 before phoning again (tap... running... meter... I'll only mention that again once or twice I promise). A charming young lady again apologised, tapped some buttons and informed me that whilst the job had indeed been "despatched to Engineering" (bit like the donut delivery up to Scotty from the Enterprise bakery I suppose) it was scheduled in for, wait for it, the 15TH! Disaster!

I confess to getting a bit cross at this stage and might have suggested she did something her husband would not have been proud of. For this I apologise.

Nevertheless, she tolerated me long enough to issue an "Emergency Job Number" and I was told that I would get a call from an engineer within an hour and that he'd come that day without fail. He phoned to say he couldn't but he'd try and get in touch with a more local engineer and see if I they could come Saturday afternoon or Sunday.

They couldn't, but somebody would come absolutely first thing, first job, engineer won't waste time having a shave or breakfast before leaving the house etc. etc. on Monday morning. That's today, by the way.

Sigh.

Tap.

Running.

Anyway, this morning it got to 10.20 and still no sign (Well there was one sign - I saw some smoke coming from a farm up the road, but assumed they were simply announcing the appointment of a new Cow Pope and it had nothing to do with you) so I phoned again (I even knew to press '3' without listening to the message, so I'll knock a few seconds off my wasted time for that) and spoke with a delightful lady most sympathetic to my cause who then got in touch with the local office and re-booked yet another 'priority' visit (I've still got a fully flowing tape and I'm still on a meter...) before putting me in touch with my new best friend Harry in your "Dyno Relations Team" (it sounds like a cool place to work) who explained that my case would be looked into and somebody would call me back and there was no need for me to write in (you think I fell for that? And shame on you for trying to spoil my fun) but there may be a delay of a week or so as you currently have over 2000 outstanding complaints to deal with. Oops. I hope Harry's getting a good overtime rate.

Finally, at 12.25 your man Zeke (what an Uber Cool name that is - I'm seriously thinking about changing mine to that now) arrived and took precisely three minutes to fix both problems. Charming young man, you should promote him - he can talk and everything. Oh, and then Rebecca rang from the Exeter office to tell me he was coming. Bit late for the proactive call but appreciated none the less.

In summary, I've taken 15 working hours off (6 hours on Friday, 4 on Saturday (I'm self-employed, weekends don't exist) and 5 today). Fortunately for you I'm working for a lower-paying-than-usual client at the moment (desperate times and all that jazz; I blame Bill Clinton - if he'd not put that cigar somewhere quite so newsworthy the world could have been an entirely different place do you not agree?) so you're only in to me for £35 per hour (£525 total) which I'd like you to reimburse me within 28 days. Actually, I'd like you to pay within 24 hours as I'm a bit skint and need to pay my dealer, but I'll give Harry the 28 days - I know he's busy - just don't dawdle when he puts my cheque in front of you for signature otherwise I'll have to fill out yet another civil suit to reclaim the money. I'm getting quite good at those now. Tell you what, in the spirit of our new found friendship, call it a round £500 - you've probably got a system in place whereby senior people don't get dragged off the golf course for payments of a monkey or under. Don't say I'm not accommodating.

But wait! What about all that water that I've lost I hear you ask (you'd thought I'd forgotten about that, didn't you)? Well it's a good job for you that I'm clever enough to know I can isolate the hot water flow at the boiler (you remember - that new one that your competition fitted without any fuss or nonsense) so you don't owe me anything for that - how lucky are you?! Have you *seen* the price of water these days? It'd be cheaper to wash in petrol - not that I'd advise that if you were a smoker, of course. Perhaps yoghurt or ass's milk would be more appropriate.

Oh, by the way, I'm really not taking this in the good natured vein you might think based upon my diatribe above. In fact, were it not for the fact that my throwing aim is rather less good than that demonstrated by Steve Harmison for the first ball of the 2006/7 Ashes series (a wide straight to Flintoff at 2nd slip, if you recall), you'd also owe me for a new telephone - good job it smacked into the sofa cushion and not the wall as was my intended target.

I appreciate that most organisations hit operational management issues from time-to-time, especially following such a period of acquisitive growth - the really good news is that this is my field and I can help you out. I'd be happy to work with you to help re-engineer your incident management and customer services functions, my standard daily rate is £750 plus expenses. Oh, and I'll need a car - mine's covered in dents from where I was on hold with you the third time. I've never had a Saab, so perhaps a 9-5 in metallic black with a cream interior? Automatic, obviously, and I don't really like leather seats - cloth will be fine. Perhaps spend the saving on a kick ass stereo?

Get your boss to give me a call - meantime I look forward to hearing from you with respect to the other matters raised herein. Don't bother too much with a long winded explanation, I'm really only interested in the cash. Or at least a night in a bloody good central London hotel with plenty of champagne. And don't forget the chocolate on my pillow; in fact leave a couple in case I get lucky.

Sláinte!

Mat Lemmings