Moving to a new office is, we have decided, like a game of roulette. There are outside and inside bets from odd/even, red/black to top line/trio/split. You win some and you lose some. We won…. We managed to find the ideal office in a perfect location (the Heritage Quarter) in Calne. So good that several of us can walk to work.
We won…. because of the hard work of our solicitor at Wards, so we could sign the lease on the day we really wanted to. We won…. and have a fantastic design from Ideal Displays for our interior and exterior walls, after managing to win with the scheduling of our fantastic decorators and electricians.
We won…. when we managed to find three amazing new team members (one researcher and two support staff) in the space of a few months. However, we cannot always win, it would seem. Today was the day for BT to ‘switch on the PSTN line’ – whatever that means. For the avoidance of doubt, we are now working on Three Mifi and copious mobile phones so that we can all work from our new swanky offices but we would be very pleased to have proper landline phones and broadband. The cabling is in and the telephone line is active.
So, BT was booked for ‘between 8am and 1pm’. Oh, and by the way, “if the engineer is not able to access the building, you will be charged £130 + VAT for a failed call-out”! FWL MD arrives at office at 7:50am and the day begins. 1pm comes and goes. Email received from Contact Person (and amazing organising business colleague at Everything IT who has arranged all networking gubbins) to say that Mr BT Engineer is running ‘a bit late’.
4pm comes around, three hours after Mr BT Engineer is running ‘a bit late’ and still no sign. Finally arrives at 4:20pm. No apology, despite the slightly facetious comment about charging BT for their ‘failed call-out’. After losing Mr BT Engineer for the best part of an hour in a location as yet unidentified, it would appear that he has no idea where our line is in terms of the green box and therefore, although the line is live, cannot do what he needs to do (whatever that might be anyway).
What happens next? He’ll raise the call with someone else and they will come out tomorrow. What time we wonder?
Maybe tomorrow, we will be winners again? To be continued…..
