Orange Broadband

I was standing in front of the sunglasses stand in a shop on Oxford Street this evening, trying to decide which ones looked the least bad when my phone rang. Juggling bag and several pairs of spare sunglasses, I tried to answer the it. Boop boop doo-oop it went in the bottom of my bag, the sound of the CTU (24) taunting me as I tried not to drop everything on the floor.

"Hello". Nothing. 1 missed call. Caller 'anonymous'. Answer machine message. I call the voicemail out of courtesy rather than interest. May as well, I suppose it could be someone interesting.

"This is a message for Rachel. This is X calling from the BBC... I wonder if you could return my call. My number is 020 8...".

So I did, crouching on the floor to write down the number, hiding behind the cheap jewellery in an effort to distance myself from the exitable children shopping in their Easter holidays. A lady from BBC Watchdog answers and tells me she is ringing in response to my e mail regarding Orange Broadband. She was interested in my experience and wanted to ask me a few questions regarding my view of their customer service, specifically how long I have been kept waiting on their phone system. So I told her of my 20 minute wait, only to be told that I need to call a different number, which routes back through to the first option, of no issue being solved adequately, how I was told to look at their website for further help (when the issue I had was that I couldn't access the internet in the first place) and so on.

We discussed the issues for a few minutes and then she asked if I would help them by filming a short interview for the programme next Wednesday.

"Of course, no problem" I replied, knowing somehow that it would be this weekend and I would be away. "When?"

"This Saturday". So, regrettably, I had to decline.

So I stood up, bought my sunglasses and was soon back on Oxford Street, dodging tourists, children and people going about their shopping, rueing the fact that I had just turned down a chance to air my views of Orange Broadband to the nation (or those that view BBC 2 next Wednesday evening) in favour of a trip to Florence...