A small comfort perhaps, but some things never change
Here’s a modern tale.
About two months ago I decided to do something about the lights in the front room of my flat.
I had two issues with them:
One of the lights in one of the two-knocked-through-together-now-open-plan room(s) was not working at all, and – in the other former room – the switches to uplighters were ‘misbehaving’: they would no longer dim upon instruction as they always used to do and in one case could not be turned off at all, thus the only way of switching it off was to (temporarily) remove the bulb.
Having endured the above situation for a fortnight, I popped along the road I live in to the local handy-man shop, owned and run by a very helpful handy-man from one of those countries which you never quite know where they are on the map … the Ukraine, or was it Bulgaria?
A few evening later, by arrangement after putting his shop to bed, said fellow pitched up and immediately went to work.
The first issue above was soon dealt with – he fiddled about with the relevant light switch and bingo! … order was restored at a cost of £14.95. I immediately offered to pay that, but he said “Don’t worry, you can pay me once I’ve dealt with the other problem …”.
He then unscrewed the general light switch pad from the wall and spent about fifteen minutes playing with it before announcing that unfortunately there was no alternative than for him to contact the manufacturers of the system and order a new control panel. He’d call me as soon as it arrived and then book a time to come and deal with it.
So that was settled, then.
About three weeks later I waddled down to his shop again because I’d heard nothing from him.
“Ah, the reason I haven’t contacted you is because I’m not getting anywhere. I rang the local distributor of that particular system and placed the order. I keep calling him every few days but each time he keeps saying that the order is in, but the system still hasn’t arrived – there is apparently some problem with the distribution chain I think. Don’t worry, I’ll keep trying and (as I said previously) I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got the new system …”
Accordingly, I retreated back to my gaff to await developments.
Yesterday, another five weeks on, I strolled down to the shop once again to find out what the bloody hell was going on, fully prepared to tell my Ukrainian (or was it Bulgarian?) friend that if he and his supply chain couldn’t get their hands on the damned kit, I’d jolly well go to someone else and/or do it myself. I reminded him that half my open-plan front room had now been in total darkness, night and day, for two months now.
More waffle emerged from his mouth and then a deal was struck. He’d ring them again today (i.e. now yesterday) and ring me by close of business play (5.30pm).
I heard nothing.
I don’t know quite what all this tells us about the EU, Brexit, or the snap General Election call, the General Election campaign, the General Election result and now continuing fall-out … or even the price of fish.
My own view is a bit more Downton Abbey, old-fashioned and British – i.e. you just cannot get the staff these days …
