Upon our return to an extremely cold house after the holidays, Fliss noticed our radiators were a bit hit and miss. Some of them were hot-ish, others were just warm, so she suggested I call British Gas to get them to come out and look at it.
So last night I get through to a call center and when I explain to the guy what I want he says “Did you know you can bleed and balance your radiators by yourself?”
“Yes, I do know that.” I replied, “but I don’t pay around £200 a year for a servicing contract with British Gas in order to bleed and balance my own radiators.”
“But you will be able to tend to it quicker than we can send an engineer out, so I could talk you through the process if you would like.” Came the response.
“Look, I pay for the luxury of not having to service my own central heating system. I want you to send out an engineer.”
“When can I send an engineer out, sir? Is Monday okay?”
What strikes me as amazing is why British Gas would even have this stance with a customer who pays for their engineering cover. I mean, what if I screwed up the radiators entirely? What if it meant parts of the central heating system had to be replaced? Would I still be covered by the insurance after I’d tinkered with it myself upon the advice of a guy with a checklist in India?
It’s one of the stupidest responses I’ve ever gotten from a call center call, it really is.
You are kidding me on – you wouldn’t bleed the rads yourself? How could you possibly screw that up?
I pay for similar servicing here – i would be embarrassed to ask for someone to come out and bleed my rads though 🙂
oh – and come on man – you know fine well it is centre and not center!!
It’s not that I couldn’t do it myself, it’s that I don’t want to do it myself. Why should I cock around bleeding the radiators and then running around the house balancing them all when I pay good money for it to be covered by their engineering team?
There’s also the fact that the boiler didn’t get its annual check last year, so if I can get the engineer to do that while they’re at it I wont need to arrange that when it’s due in April.
And as for center/centre, I believe they’re pretty much interchangable and in the case of centred/centered I believe the latter is easier to read. So I stick with center. Of course, centre is “chiefly british” according to the dictionary, while the internet is not. 🙂
center and centre are not interchangeable – shame on you for even suggesting so – whether it is internet friendly or not – it is no excuse for dumbing down, in effect, your postings. Next it will be txt spk 4 vry1
How is it dumbing down anything?
It’s an alternate spelling – like surprized and surprised – I’ve had you comment on that before, but at what point did the alternate spelling cause the meaning to be lost and the post to be dumbed down?
The answer is that it didn’t.
And I’m sure – no, I’m certain that my grammar and my punctuation are flawed, too, but you’re not picking on any of that because it’s not low enough hanging fruit for you to be bothered with.
It’s not as if you even care, either, is it? You’re just doing it to try and wind me up, but in a sort of underhand palms-up “oh no, as if” sort of way. I mean, at least when I insulted your mother in front of the entire class in college I had the straight up snideyness to be a ball bag to your face. What you’re doing is just about as lame as it gets – I’m sure your wee boy will be proud as punch that his daddy is such an internet warrior.
So, Robert, why not do us both a favour and just avoid coming here? If anything you wont run the risk of having your, quite clearly, superior level of intelligence dumbed down as a result of my ramblings.
goodness me i must have struck a nerve.
Spare me the feigned surprise. That and the personal attacks on your website.
What exactly are we, Robert?
The way I see it, we’re two guys who met on a college course over 12 years ago, who didn’t get on after one of us insulted your maw in a corridor outside of a classroom. Thereafter we barely spoke to one another, unless it was you trying to score points against me.
So there we have it – a guy I haven’t seen in over a decade, whom I wouldn’t have considered a friend back then (and lets face it – with friends like you, who needs cancer?), is seeing fit to turn up at a site aimed at my friends and family to do what? Score more points?
Robert, if I found out you were dead tomorrow I wouldn’t even shrug. In fact, depending on how you died, I’d probably crack a smile. It’s that simple; You’re fucking nothing to me other than the desperate, bitter, self important asshole you were at college.
Now fuck off and blog about this for the benefit of you and your real friends.
It’s hard to take spelling and grammar advice from someone who misuses hyphens, fails to capitalize their sentences (and also their “I”), and even forgets to finish their sentences with appropriate punctuation! 😛
@Sartori just my thought, and I’m not even native English speaking 😆
@Rob the cent_re_ just wanted to help I guess? Of course it’s pretty stupid of them to keep asking even after you told them that you knew that you could indeed bleed it yourself.
I – my family, rather, had this situation before, but it was an indian named Homer.
Whit? He may as well said: ImcallingfromInternetServiceProvidingsWouldyoubeintrestedinbuyingaserviceofinternetserviceprovidingsbutsixtimesquicker?
That, I would have understood.