This time two weeks ago my large leather 3-seater couch was stuck on one end in the tiny hallway of my flat in Preston, while two friends, my uncle and I stood around scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get it unstuck. Perfect planning prevents pathetic performance, or something. At that time I had absolutely no idea what I would be thinking or feeling by mid April. I was taking a risk, making a lot of sacrifices, quite literally moving into the unknown. Would the upheaval of relocation and changing job all be worth it? Well a couple of weeks in maybe it’s too early to say. But my initial feeling is that yes it really has all been worth it.

I have had a pretty busy time the last few weeks. It’s amazing how many entities one needs to contact when relocating and changing job: bank, credit card company, gas water and electricity suppliers, landline and mobile phone companies, internet service provider, satellite TV provider, library service, van hire, previous employer, new employer, local council, doctor, e-tailors, not to mention sorting out somewhere to live etc. This can be made doubly challenging if one does not really know anyone in the area where one is moving to. I have moved probably 20 times in my life, and maybe half a dozen times as an adult, so you would think I would be used to moving by now. But moving can be massively disruptive, and usually it is irreversible. Once you have moved you have moved and that is that. You can move again, but there is usually no moving back. My ticket to Worcester was definitely one way. And while I hope to return to Preston some day, it will not be for a while.

I feel very good about my move. I am more confident, positive, happier, comfortable, organised, and enthusiastic. I am sure some of that is the novelty of the new environment and a certain amount of entropy will take it’s course. But even accounting for the novelty of change, this move feels and tastes right. My new flat is tremendous, and I am embracing my new routine. I am full of the joys of spring, and operation Worcester is bang on track.

If you ever get stuck with a large leather 3-seater couch in a tiny hallway, the secret is wiggle it a bit. It worked for me.

All the best and happy Easter to those who enjoy such things. As someone wrote to me in a text the other day.

“I’m not expecting as much as a fun-sized Mars bar!” But my local has a live band on over the weekend so will probably go and take a listen. Well it would be rude not to.

This is really for existing PlusNet customers. Even if you disagree and think 50P per minute is a good thing, I am very interested in your thoughts.

PlusNet’s core business is providing access to the Internet. This is what they have done very well for 6 or 7 years, and it is the reason why the customer base is expanding. Many PlusNet customers have no interest in purchasing anything other than internet service from PlusNet, and my £21 per month is intended for internet service and support only.

Judging from a recent message sent to PlusNet customers this is not an arrangement which works for PlusNet any more. A complete copy of the email is included below.

As a blind customer quality affordable telephone technical support from my ISP is very important to me. I find the PlusNet web site very confusing and difficult to navigate and cannot rely on it for answers to technical support questions. As far as I am aware PlusNet have not conducted any Web Accessibility and usability Evaluation or testing.

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.plus.net

PlusNet’s recent discontinuation of binary News Groups on their News servers, and more concerted efforts of late to enforce an Acceptable Usage Policy with traffic shaping at peak times all seemed like sensible business strategies. But the introduction of 50P per minute tech support, and a recent trend toward PlusNet spamming it’s customers with thinly disguised promotional messages dressed up as newsletters, have got this customer surfing over to ADSLGuide.org.uk to find another ISP.

If this is not the thin end of the wedge then I do not know what is. The following is simply a nice way of saying PlusNet are introducing premium rate telephone technical support, just like all those other tacky Pay As You Go internet service providers. PlusNet’s customer base is expanding massively and presumably PlusNet is not giving away internet service, so where is all the money going? And why is it not going into customer support.

It seems apparent that in an effort to offer the widest range of services via the widest range of platforms, many companies are scrambling toward diversification with pound signs in their eyes, whilst neglecting their core constituents who put them in business in the first place.

Vote with your wallet.
________________________________
From: PlusNet Customer Support
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 6:23 PM
To: PlusNet Customers
Subject: PlusNet is evolving

PlusNet is evolving – in an evolving world.

We are different.

We’re not afraid of change – in fact we embrace it.

We want the service you buy from us today to be a service you’ll want to buy from us in the future – it needs to be a service that’s just what you are looking for and one we can earn our living from.

We like to talk with you. You may think we talk too much – enthusiastic people often do.

In the future it looks like your Internet connection will deliver more than just the web pages you search for and the emails from your friends. No one can predict the future, but it doesn’t stop us trying – here at PlusNet we believe our customers will combine their Internet, telephone, mobile phone, TV, film watching and more things than we have room for here.

We’re getting ready for that day – we want to continue to deliver you a reliable service and be here to help you make sense of the changing technology. It probably won’t be easy and we will make mistakes along the way.

One of the changes we are going to make is to the way we provide you with support. Customer service and technical support are really important to us, a large number of our new customers come recommended from our existing customers – so we work hard to provide a service you’ll be happy to recommend.

We like to think we do a good job; the readers of PC Advisor seem to agree, they recently voted PlusNet No. 1 for customer service in their 2006 poll and we’ve always won awards for our technical support.

When we talk to you, you tell us you like to be able to find the answers to your questions online and the first place you look is on our web site. We receive great feedback on our help information and will continue to work hard to keep it bang up to date.

We believe if you can’t find an answer online and have to phone us we have failed.

In the future it’s likely you’ll be looking for help on things like combining your mobile phone with your home phone or how to get the TV channels you want working. So to maintain our high standard, we have decided to make a distinction between support questions.

Crucial technical support questions like “Why can’t I get a connection?” are different to “How do I use CGI scripts on my website?”.

These crucial support questions will always be a priority and more often than not this is when you will have to phone us. It would be difficult to find the answer to “why can’t I get a connection?” on our web site if you can’t get online at all. You can ring us 24/7 at a lo-call (0845) rate. If we have a problem delivering your service we don’t expect you to pay for it to be fixed.

For less crucial questions our web site will provide the answer to all the common questions, and some more obscure ones too. We plan to launch help pages on subjects like Wi-Fi wireless technology – set to become ‘the’ way we connect our bits of tech kit together at home. The great thing about web sites and online communication is they can evolve as the technology evolves. The opinions of our ‘experts’ can be read by thousands of people. It’s not just one way though – if you have ever visited our forums you’ll know there are thousands more opinions and conversations to be had.

In an ideal world you’ll find the answer you’re looking for on our website easily – but it’s far from an ideal world. So the next best thing is to send us an online message – we still see this as a failure of our site, but at least you haven’t had to call.

We’re quite proud of our online messaging service; if you’ve got a question you just go to our site, type it in, press send, and we’ll reply. The great thing about this service is you have a record of the conversation and can take a look at it at anytime. Some questions that turn out to be something like a BT line fault will always take time to sort out, whereas other questions are answered in around 20 minutes.

Whilst our web site will probably be the most convenient way to get help, we realise many people (particularly those new to the Internet) may have questions not directly-related to technical difficulties. The service we provide will allow you to do lots of different things – if you know how to use it.

That’s why we are setting up a consultancy phone line where the web site information can be discussed if necessary. We plan to charge 50p per minute to cover the cost of training our team and providing this service. We believe it will only be a worthwhile service if the people on the end of the phone know what they are talking about; there is nothing worse than ringing somewhere for help only to discover you know more than the person at the other end. By charging for this service we can keep on investing in quality people and make sure they are constantly given training to keep them in step with the technology changes that are just around the corner.

We also believe you will look at our web site for your answers before calling our 50p per minute consultancy line. If this happens we can continue to provide a low cost service that evolves with new technology. We don’t want to make money from your phone calls – we want to provide answers online and keep our cost as low as possible.

Over the next week or so we will be sending you details of how to get hold of our help and advice. We intend to make it clear where to look for the answers to your questions. If you can spend a little time looking over the information now, it might save you time and stress in the future.

Kind regards

The PlusNet team

Just realised I hadn’t posted any N91 goodness for a while when I stumbled across this recent review. This seems pretty balanced. Still no word from Code Factory or Nuance re getting this baby talking though.

Ah if only I had 3 years and the cash to go away to do this.

Good on her. About time someone with Rowling’s profile spoke up about this. There are enough problems in the world without kids starving them selvs half to death.

Tut tut. The thing is they have a smoking area at Sky City in Auckland. I know because I’ve used it.

I moved from Preston to Worcester on Thursday 30 March and began my new
Technical Support post with Dolphin Computer Access on 3 April.

My new flat is great!! It is pretty spacious with all the modern
conveniences one could ever wish for. I’m in a good location too, with a
post office, convenience store, barber, pharmacy and park just across the
road. Within a minute’s walk there is also two Chinese restaurants, a pub,
a gym (ah ha I don’t think so), and a bus into town.

It’s all gone pretty smoothly. Dolphin have been tremendously supportive
and helpful. If the first week is anything to go by, I am going to enjoy
living in Worcester and working for Dolphin.

There are a couple of small niggly things which I haven’t been able to get
completely resolved, if you’re interested then read on. But I really am
happy and believe I have made a very positive move and am feeling confident
and happy about my prospects.

I paid for BT to install a telephone line in my new property, BT advised me
that all telephone extension outlets and broadband had been tested and was
working. They lied. It took 5 days to get my broadband switched on and one
of the telephone outlets is still not working. BT have refused to fix the
phone point and they reckon contractually they only have to provide
telephone service to the master outlet. This may well be true. But I feel
BT have misled me in telling me that all the extensions had been tested and
were working. To be honest I cannot be bothered wasting more time, money
and energy pursuing this further. Until my local loop is unbundled, I will
just make a conscious effort to use my BT line as little as possible, and
where appropriate I will use third-party carriers.

Of the two F-connector satellite points, only one works. BSkyB refuse to
look at it as they do not support communal installations, and the letting
agent does not know who installed satellite TV in this building. I am not
at home as much as I used to be, so I am sure I will be able to get by with
the one F-connector.

I have no clue how to use my boiler and central heating system. It’s like
the flight deck of concord in there. So getting the heating on and off is
all a bit random at the moment. But I think I will figure it out. A good
friend of mine managed to dig out a PDF file of the boiler documentation,
although I have not checked yet to see how accessible the file is.

After many lengthy phone calls and a lot of buggering around, I managed to
arrange to use up my lunch hour on Thursday talking to a rehab officer from
the local social service sensory impairment team.

I asked the rehab worker about accessing library services. In view of the
fact that I pay for library services with my tax but cannot access most of
the content held by the public library, would Worcester do as many other
local authorities do in England and Wales, and cover the cost of a
subscription to the RNIB’s talking book service? Apparently this would
depend on an as yet unspecified earnings threshold. So a sighted
millionaire can use the public library for free, but because I am a blind
person with an average paying job I am penalised. I point all of this out
and suggested that I would take this to the local press and my MP.
Interestingly three days later my request was grudgingly approved.

I enquired about some initial orientation and mobility training in the city
centre. The bus station is really the central public transport hub for
Worcester, and I thought the bus station my be a good place to start. The
rehab worker clamed to be a qualified mobility instructor, but said that her
knowledge of the bus station in Worcester city centre was very limited.
This did not exactly fill me with confidence, and I felt unsafe about the
prospect of her providing me with mobility training around there. In the
event it was ok and I now have a good working knowledge of the city centre
and how to get there both on the bus and on foot.

I asked the rehab worker to describe to me what services were available from
the Worcester social service sensory impairment team, and maybe that would
be useful in identifying the services which I would wish to access. I was
told that the Worcester Association for the blind had the occasional
organised social event in the evenings and that the WAB produce a talking
newspaper on cassette, although lately the content had been dominated by
obituaries! Oh and finally, the sensory impairment team would be prepared
to consider providing me with a talking “Cube Block”! What?

Fantastic, the best part of my lunch hour for what, a tape about dead people
I have never heard of, and a cube clock. Time very well spent. Eh hem,
apparently the clock arrived this morning. I could hardly wait. I made
some space especially. I will have to get an early night with this level of
excitement.

To the best of her ability, the rehab worker herself did try to be as
helpful as possible considering the resources available to her. This post
is not an indictment of her specifically, but the service she represents.

As someone who has experience growing up in the care of the social service
authorities, I have come not to expect much from these departments. I am
lucky that I am no shrinking violet, I have some tremendous friends, and I
am pretty resourceful, ultimately I will survive and flourish with or
without them. But in 2006 this level of service from an organisation funded
out of our taxes is embarrassingly shameful.

Just what the doctor ordered.