Wright's Aerials
 

This job would be great if it wasn’t for the customers (part 2)

Half way thro' the afternoon I was on a horrible steep roof doing something that needs five hands and a monkey's tail to cling on with and the damn phone rang. "Hello?"

"Is that Bill?"

"Yes." (No "Can you talk?" or other politeness at this stage, needless to say. He just launched into his long stithering tale. I hate that. I could be on the job for all he knows. Bloody mobile phones. Bloody people.)

"It's Jim" (Jim who? In fact it was a bloke who's a small cog in a big firm that gives us a lot of work. He evidently thinks that this gives him the right to use us as the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.) "My mate's booster stopped working so he's bought another one and that doesn't work either, so it must be a mismatch. Can you ring him and tell him what to do?" Mismatch? Are we talking about marital problems or what? Oh well.

"OK, I'll ring him when I get down from here."

Half an hour later: "You've not rung my mate!" I was rattled. Irritated. This was an attempt at bullying. Just because his firm sends us a lot of work he thinks he can throw his weight around, but he's just bloody pen pusher. I was still clinging to the steep roof.

"I'll ring him when I get down from here, like I said." I offered no word of apology.

"Can't you ring him now? He's waiting to go out."

"Tell him to ring me when he gets back then."

"Well you ring him as soon as you can." Oh, for crying out loud! I don’t mind helping people when they have a decent attitude, but really! I deliberately left it for 90 minutes, then rung the number. This man must have been used to addressing large public meetings without the benefit of electronic amplification. And like his friend he saw no necessity for the niceties of normal human interaction. With no preliminary he started bawling.

"THE BOOSTER STOPPED WORKING SO I GOT ANOTHER ONE AND THAT DOESN'T WORK EITHER. JIM SAYS IT MUST BE A
MISMATCH SO CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO?" Ahh, the temptation. . . and would it fit?

"What does it say on the old booster?"

"HOW DO YOU MEAN?"

"Is there any writing on it?"

"HANG ON A MINUTE." This is my mobile call, so I ring off. Two minutes later:

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THEN." Well I do. You rung me back. That's good. Now I'll dispense free advice fairly cheerfully.

"It just went dead at this end. Anyway, what does it say on the old booster?"

"FRINGE ELECTRONICS POWER UNIT."

"OK. What does it say on the new one?"

"WAIT A MINUTE." Fine. No problem. I'm driving, and it's your call.

"IT SAYS FRINGE ELECTRONICS TWO SET AMPLIFIER."

"You've replaced a power supply unit with an amplifier. Go back to the shop and change the amplifier for a power supply unit."

"WELL DOES IT MATTER? IT'S STILL A BOOSTER INNIT?" At this point I attempted to explain how a power supply feeds 12V to an amplifier on the roof, but I realised that I had lost him early on.

"Look, just change it for something that says 'power supply' will you?"

"I DON'T WANT TO GO ALL THE WAY INTO TOWN AGAIN. CAN'T YOU TELL ME HOW TO MAKE IT WORK WITH THIS?" I hit the 'disconnect' button on the hands free. Hopefully this sounded like a phone fault. Well actually, I didn’t care.

At 6.30pm I was eating my tea when my mobile rung, and like a fool I answered it. "I'VE GOT ONE THAT SAYS POWER SUPPLY LIKE YOU SAID AND IT STILL DOESN'T WORK. I KNEW IT WASN'T THAT. I'VE BOUGHT TWO NOW. JIM SAID YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT." (Subtext: "But you're an idiot." And it takes one to spot one I thought).

"Have you connected it up correctly? Have you plugged it into the
mains?"

"OF COURSE I HAVE. I'M NOT STUPID." That's OK then. "YOU'LL HAVE TO COME AND SORT IT OUT."

"I'll call tomorrow afternoon."

"CAN'T YOU COME NOW? I'VE GOT NO TELLY."

"Have you got a TV set in the kitchen or the bedroom?"

"WELL YES. THEY'RE WORKING OK."

"I'll call tomorrow afternoon then."

It was 20 miles there, and it would be 20 miles back. He came out of the house to meet me. "I HOPE YOU CAN SORT THIS OUT. IT'S DRIVING US MAD!" I carried the analyser and the tools into the living room. I put them down.

The new booster was sitting on the carpet behind the telly. I said "You see how it says "TV" on that socket? Well you've connected that to the amplifier. And you see how it says 'amplifier' on the other socket? Well you've connected that to the TV set."

"DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?" I changed the plugs round and the telly started to work.

I said, “Well it seems to.”

"BUGGER ME. A LITTLE THING LIKE THAT EH? WHY DON'T THEY TELL YOU? LOOK, DON'T LET ON TO THE WIFE WILL YOU?"

I thought, don't you think she'll already know she's married to a total idiot?. I checked the plugs on the flylead and sure enough one had an intermittent short. Hence the death of the old PSU. I fitted a new flylead.

"SO THAT'S ALL IT WAS THEN. THANKS PAL." I started to write the invoice.

"WHAT, IS THERE A CHARGE JUST FOR THAT?"

"I'll not charge you for fixing it. I'll just charge you for driving here."

"FUCKING HELL! THAT'S A BIT STEEP AIN'T IT?"

Transaction over, the wife appeared and said, "We can't make that DVD thing work. Have you any idea?" Well yes, I had the idea of getting out there PDQ. However, I fell for it.

"Put a DVD on. Let me see what you do." It turned out that the scart was plugged into the VCR output on the DVD player, so there was no pin 8 signal. Of course they had no idea how to select AV manually. Having sorted that I headed for the door.

But no. He said, "WHAT'S THAT OTHER THING DO?" I shone my little torch on the black box under the telly. It looked vaguely familiar. Then the penny dropped. It was an analogue Skybox.

"It's from when you had Sky ages ago."

"IS IT DOING ANY HARM?"

"Well it's been using as much electric as a one bar fire since 1998, twenty-four hours a day. Probably cost you five grand." (You see, I can adapt the vernacular of the nouveau riche when I need to).

"FUCKING HELL! SWITCH IT OFF QUICK." Old Pace box removed, I headed for the van.

But oh my goodness, as I tiptoed out she says, "Can you make that shiny thing work?" This was a tiny silver gismo sitting on the DVD machine. I'd been pretending it didn't exist.

"What is it?"

"Dunno. Our son bought it us for Christmas, but it dun't do nowt." The gismo turned out to have a remote about as big as a credit card. It was a DTT box, correctly installed, and it worked well once I turned it on. I showed them how to operate it, and demonstrated the extra channels. I 'forgot' that they might (theoretically) want to record from DTT. I then headed for the door.

"CAN YOU JUST LOOK AT THE BEDROOM TELLY BEFORE YOU GO? THE VIDEO DON'T WORK RIGHT."

"You know that money you gave me half an hour ago? Well it ran out a while back."

"FUCKING HELL YOU BLOKES KNOW HOW TO CHARGE DON'T YOU?"

"Ahh well, you see, Jim told me you were pretty well off and I could charge you plenty." A little bit of revenge there you see. I’ll not tell you his response. I re-tuned the RF-out on the bedroom video to a clear channel and finally made my escape.

The following evening my mobile rang just as I was carving the lamb. I ignored it. You see, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

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