Over the last few weeks I have had to contact T-mobile, Orange, Tiscali and Sky for one reason or another.

Every time I have had a battle on my hands getting the truth from operators.  Really, nothing has been straightforward and it’s starting to wear me down.

Let’s start with t-mobile:
Q: Can I have this package as my upgrade?
A: No – you’ll have to take a new contract
Duly signed up to new contract and started the terribly long and confusing, time critical process of transferring old contract number to another network so that I could transfer it back in to new contract.  (Apparently impossible to transfer within the same provider???)  Immediately told that I could have had the upgrade and hence, avoided all the effort if I had asked someone else! 

Result:  Great big pain in the ass – currently have 2 phones, one for incoming, one for outgoing and my dad no longer has his free line rental Orange contract (but he didn’t use it anyway) – but at least this hasn’t cost me anything.

Orange next:
Q: Can I have a PAC code please?
A: No, only the bill payer can.
No problem, put bill payer on, PAC was requested and operator hung up advising it would be sent by post.

Hmmmm….
Q: Can I have the PAC code over the phone please?
A: Not til Monday – currently Friday but good excuse for this so no problem.

Ok……Monday:
Q: Can I have the PAC code please?
A: No

What??  Had to go find the bill payer again and PAC eventually sent by text.

Result:  Another great big pain in my ass and now in the bill payer’s too.  Cutting it fine to get the number transferred over so that I can use my phone when I go away – still have 2 phones, one for outgoing, one for incoming – v inconvenient.  At least I’m only paying for calls and texts made from the wrong phone now.

Let’s have a look at Tiscali;

I’d love to say that in hindsight this is funny but it really isn’t.
Lost my internet connection on Thursday night. 
Remained patient until Friday night.  Not bad for me.
Called in.
First message from tech support tells you to call from another number.
I managed this and called from outgoing calls mobile.  Remained patient with the push button system and did what I was told for a change hoping for a quick resolution. Hah – no chance.

20 minutes later the first bloke hung up on me – I put the phone down to carry out the ridiculously complicated and completely unnecessary cable exchange that he insisted upon and he hung up.

30 minutes after that 2nd line technical support offered me the following advice.

“Turn it off, turn it back on again.”

I admit to losing my patience completely.  Can you blame me?
Almost an hour on a premium rate number on my mobile to be treated like an idiot.  Same questions and “troubleshooting” 3 times – well at least I know how they make their money. Operator refused to call me back – told me he had no facility to make outgoing calls.

This time I hung up. 
Called back on Saturday – same questions again - must be a BT fault I was advised.  BT confirmed otherwise. 
Called back at 9pm.  Was advised that the call centre was busy and I would receive a call back in an hour.  (How, I wondered??)
No call back.
Called back Sunday am.  Was advised that an engineer would investigate at the exchange.
Called back.  Was advised that no such engineer existed.  Same questions again.

So I’ve still got no access on Sunday night and I’m reading all sorts of negative reviews on Twitter and forums about service from Tiscali, issues that have been outstanding for months and ongoing disputes about who’s paying for all this nonsense at a friend’s house.

On Monday I received a call asking me if my service had been restored – Ah so someone can call out – but I wasn’t home.  I asked them to call back in a couple of hours – Ah, they’ve lost the outgoing lines again – this is impossible.

Thankfully, when I do get home I’m up and running again.
So far, so good – wonder how easy it will be to transfer out of this contract.

Result:  I can’t begin to explain how angry I was at the attitude of the people on the phone and the poor excuse for technical support that they offered.  In total I am also now expecting a phone bill of around £30 for the displeasure I endured.  I’m getting tired of being lied to.

And finally tonight Sky put the icing on this particular cake for me.
In February I received a rather unexpected demand for 12 months subscription to Sky TV services.  Unexpected because I never signed up.  I did have FreeSat installed – but, as the name suggests, that’s free!

Only given an 08 number so I wrote an email - my internet access was fine at the time.
A fortnight with no response and I gave up and phoned them.

Q: Why did you send me a demand for money?
A: Don’t know – must be a mistake – you owe us nothing.

Letter arrives today demanding payment of 12 months subscription within 14 days (dated the 18th by the way, arrived on 24th) and threatening legal action for non-payment.

I’ve run out of patience and if I knew a lawyer I would ask them to compile the reply to this latest correspondance.
Any suggestions?

I would have hoped that in today’s climate all businesses would be anxious to keep customers, however small they may be but I’m wrong.  The trouble still seems to lie in lack of joined up approaches in call centres and administrative procedures. 

I commented on Twitter about whether I ought to feel grateful about compensation that was afforded to me from both t-mobile and tescos one day last week due to mistakes that both had made.  Quite simply I now feel that I would prefer all of the companies I have mentioned spent more money on providing a reliable service up front and less trying to make amends for their errors.

It’s going to take a huge amount of money to recompense me for the raised blood pressure, general bad mood and tearing of my hair out trying to get answers over the last week.  And I guess, thanks to Sky, it’s not over yet……

If there are 60 million people in the UK and you don’t have internet access, how many teachers are there? Our department split into 2 groups and got 2 estimates - 400K and 600K.  Both groups used prior knowledge of local population to make informed calulations. Why?  As a lesson in groupwork.  To find out how we, as individuals, react in group situations so that we can begin to understand the different roles that our pupils may assume in a similar situation. 

Next step – get a class to complete the same task. As an exercise in teamwork and team dynamics I was very pleased with my S2 class.  They are a low Level E class and the maths was sticky in places but the aim of the lesson remained to work together not to find a solution.

Eureka moments included the girl who suggested that each member of one group count the number of teachers in a different department and then come back together to add them up.  The group who knew there were about 1000 pupils, decided there were about 25 in each class and divided to estimate that there are 40 teachers.  Entirely incorrect but the process were sound.

3 groups out of 6 were almost at an answer by the end of the lesson. 

Group 1 were finding the percentage of people who are teachers in Thurso using prior knowledge of local population and an estimate of the number of teachers in Thurso.  They got stuck calculating the percentage and were busy with text books and notes at the end of the lesson.

Group 2 had googled the number of schools in the UK – the results only gave the number of primary schools.  They went on to estimate the number of high schools by using their knowledge of how many feeder primaries our school has.  Estimates were made for number of teachers in each type of school and the correct sums completed to arrive at a conclusion.

Group 3 had come up with the 40 teacher theory but weren’t sure where to go with it next.

The other 3 groups were all busy trying to decide how many teachers were in our school by various methods – counting classrooms, by subject, by block – they challenged each other on many points eg: teachers of more than 1 subject, do learning assistants count and rooms used by more than 1 person.

When the task started there was an obvious atmosphere of rejection and unrest.  Even the pupils’ body language was clearly negative.  The temptation is to jump in immediately and give them a start point or more information.  Thankfully at this point I was distracted and when I returned a couple of minutes later most groups had made a start on something. The aim, I reminded myself was to improve discussion skills so I prompted pupils to explain other people’s ideas to me as I moved around the class and challenged their plans.  I also offered help advice with the maths involved but tried to let the groups follow their own strategies – very difficult when you can see them so close to a good idea.

If we are to move forward by embracing the 4 capacities of Curriculum for Excellence then I see this as the kind of lesson to aim for.  Already commonplace in highly successful countries like Japan the method of posing an open ended question will certainly help our pupils to develop problem solving, teamwork and communication skills.  The maths skills that we teach them become intrinsic to a wider task, therefore more meaningful.  

A way forward, not “the only” way forward.