A Desk In The Sun

Normally I post my “A Desk In The Sun” column on the website/blog as close as possible to the day it appears in print and on The Guardian’s website. The reason it’s taken ten days is the result of what feels as if it’s been a conspiracy between Telefonica and Jazztel to make my working life impossible.  I have never felt so powerless in the face of bureaucracy.

The story starts after my commute to work in Ibiza. (In other words I walked down the corridor to my messy bedroom and sat down in front of my computer.) I wanted to check what headline the Guardian’s subeditors had put on my column and a longer article I had written. This is a review of online office packages including Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Zoho Office and ThinkFree.

That morning I looked at my email and realised nothing had dropped into my inbox for several hours. That’s because there was no ADSL connection. After going through the usual cycle of booting the router and the computer I gave up. I hoped it was a temporary fault.

By lunchtime I bit the bullet and got ready for a battle with Telefonica, the main Spanish phone company. Telefonica has an English language service, but both “English” and “service” are sometimes loose terms. (Incidentally if you’ve come to this thanks to a Google search and you’re in Spain trying to contact Telefonica, just dial 1004. After various Spanish announcements and pieces of music there’ll be a pause. Say “Ingles” clearly and you should get through to an English-speaking operator. You may find the first few attempts end with an engaged tone. Keep trying.)

When I called, Telefonica’s English operator was brusque, to put it mildly. She told me there was no problem with my billing so my lack of ADSL must be due to a technical fault. The operators in the technical department do not speak English, but I had to call them. So I did. He took my details and told me I had to speak to 1004. I tried to explain that I had already called them, but the Spanish past tense can still a struggle for me.

Another call to 1004 and this time I was told more politely I needed to speak to technical support. Back to them and this time the technician actually got into an argument (my first ever in Spanish).  Eventually, he told me I wasn’t a Telefonica customer, then hung up.

Back to 1004 and light was by now beginning to dawn. In June I’d responded to a cold call from Jazztel offering a cheaper deal on internet and phone. In July I’d cancelled the order because it was taking so long to transfer me. Five months later it seemed that Jazztel had taken my line despite the cancellation. The 1004 operator insisted this was still a technical problem.

At the end of my tether, I phoned a friend. Ronnie is a German lawyer who speaks fluent Spanish and English. He tried to phone technical support for me and couldn’t. You can only call technical support from the line that’s enabled for ADSL. It was back to me.

I tried several times to get through, but also couldn’t. To Telefonica I was now a Jazztel customer and so technical support wouldn’t work from my phone. My next call to 1004 was punctuated with me pleading with the operator not to hang up. The half-hour call seemed to have ended with some resolution. I just wanted to stay with Telefonica and I could.

The Telefonica operator said I would have to cancel my account with Jazztel. This was an interesting concept considering I didn’t have an account as far as I was concerned. I did try. But almost an hour on hold listening to cha-cha music on a 30-second loop is more than anybody can be expected to endure.

It was, by now, almost 9pm on Friday. I hoped the ADSL line would be back on Monday.

On Saturday night we’d invited two friends for dinner. As they arrived at 8pm, the phone went. It was Telefonica. The caller seemed to be very old and the line was very bad. To give you some idea of how bad, my friend Diana had no idea whether the Telefonica person was male or female. Diana acted as interpreter as this person with the intonation of a Dalek read through a legal document. I kept having to say I understood it. The meal was not improved by this half-hour hiatus at the vital moment. What company calls on official business on a Saturday evening?

Last week I spent hours being reminded of just how slow dialup is. Meanwhile, I kept finding excuses for not calling 1004. One day spent with Telefonica’s operators is more than enough for anybody. On Wednesday Jazztel rang. I’m not entirely sure what I was saying no y nunca (never) to, but I think he got the message.

Today after 10 days without broadband it came back on. Hooray!