And What's Worse Than Telesales?

The guy sighs again. I almost said to him, 'Are you not happy in your job?' "I need you to take the battery out of the computer," he sighs.

"But I'm working on it at the moment. When I rang last week they said just to ring to arrange for it to be collected."

"I need you to take the battery out."

I did wonder if I was still talking to an automated machine, but no, it was definitely a human bean - clearly bored out of his mind and in need of a change, maybe into something that didn't involve talking to people.

"You want me to turn my computer off?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yes."

"Oh okay, I'll just have to shut everything down."

"Ring back when you've - "

"No, no," I cried, not wanting to go through the whole Choose 3/8/57 rigmarole again, "Just hold on, won't take a sec."

He sighs. I shut down all my programmes - of which there are many because I like to open up pretty much everything and have them on my taskbar, just in case. "Nearly done," I said, determined to keep him on the line.

He sighs again. If sighing was an Olympic sport, he'd win hands down.

"Okay," I said, "Its shut down."

"Now take the battery out."

"Okay." Fiddle, fiddle, pull, pull, twist. "Doesn't seem to want to come out, ha ha. Stubborn little bugger."

"Hold it upsidedown and it'll just fall out."

"Well, I'm holding it upsidedown and pressing the two plastic bits that make it just fall out and its most definitely not falling out."

"Can you take it to your nearest PC World store?" he sighs.

"Why, will they be able to fix it there?"

"No, they'll be able to take the battery out for you." The implication being that I was some retarded femme totally incapable of breathing on my own let alone remove a computer battery.

"I don't have a car," I said.

"Can someone take you in a car?"

"Well not until tomorrow."

The bloke sighed. I was losing him, I could tell, and pretty much pulled the battery out using sheer brute force and willpower. "It's out!" I cried.

"Right, now plug in the power cable."

"It's plugged in," I said.

"Now start up your computer."

"Okay."

"Is it starting up?"

"Yes."

"Then your power cable is working."

"Er, that's because it's plugged into a cable that works." You berluddy fool. "Not the cable that's broken, otherwise I wouldn't be able to use it, would I."

"Which non-standard cable are you using?" he asked sharply.

"The standard cable from my other Toshiba laptop of the same make."

"Plug in the original cable," he sighed.

"But it's broke, as in Doesn't Work."

"Plug in the original cable." I vill keep repeating it until you do vat I say.

"Its downstairs," I said, "You'll have to wait."

He sighed.

I bounded down the stairs uttering a multitude of expletives, which included 'patronising little git' and 'condescending twit', pretty much the same expletives I used going back up again.

"Okay!" I puffed into the phone, "I'm now plugging in the broken cable. Can you hear it beeping? That's because it's broken, just like I said it was. And would you look at that, no lights on the computer either, because the power cable doesn't work."

"Is your computer starting up?" he asked.

I pretty much lost the will to live then. "No," I said through gritted teeth, "Because it has no battery in it and the cable doesn't work, so its not doing much at all at the moment because it has no power." You big ignorant plonk.

"Okay," he sighed, "It seems like your power cable has fused."

No shit, Sherlock!

"The earliest we can collect it for repair is next Tuesday."

What? "No!" I cried, "When I rang last week they said they'd collect it the next day."

"Yes, tomorrow," he sighed.

"But you just said... Oh never mind. What time?"

"Between 9am and 5pm."

"Oh, so that narrows it down a bit."

He checked my details and then just hung up. I did briefly consider ringing him back to tell him what a tw*t he was, or maybe speak to his supervisor and tell him what a tw*t he was, but I couldn't face the numbers game again and my will to complain had long since been battered to death.