the Saturday night that was

I am pretty sure almost everyone subscribe to Astro nowadays. Even houses in rural areas have Astro. What do you get when you subscribe to the only cable service available, which has no competition? You get really lousy, bad and f***ed up service. Hujan sikit, service unavailable. Wtf? Despite numerous complaints, nothing has been done by Astro to improve its services. Why? Because they have no competition. Look at telco service provider. Almost everyday they come up with new plans, gimmicks, promotions etc to attract customers. Simply because they have competition.

After numerous complaints (and warning?) Astro decided to change its smart card to a new, gold-colored smart card. I thought with this new so-called improved smart card, the service would be better. So I followed the instructions with the hope that everything would be updated on time for me to watch Konsert AF but the screen showed “Please insert smart card.” I tried a few times, inserted the new card, switched off the whole thing, switched it on again, took out the card, inserted it back in but still it appeared the same. Hmm. I have no choice but to call the Customer Support Centre. However, I find it absolutely annoying and a total waste of time when you call something and the operator would tell you to press 1 for something, press 2 for another thing, press 3 for yet another thing and the list goes on. I was put on hold forever and had to put up with the annoying voice of the operator telling me about its services, packages and what not, until finally someone answers the phone. Every minute that pass by, my boiling points raised one notch. Blame it on the hormones but too bad for the guy who answered my call. I told him I couldn’t get the service so he instructed me step by step as to what to do, which I did. Then he told me that after 10 minutes or so, service will resume. After 15 minutes, the screen showed that the decoder is being updated and it will take 10 minutes. I waited for another 10 minutes or so. Nothing happened. Half an hour later, I am sure that I’ve missed one if not two performances by the singer wannabes AF students. I dialed the 1-300 number again and again, I had to endure the annoying voice. Every now and then it would say to me, “Harap maaf. Talian kami sedang sibuk. Anda akan dilayan sebentar lagi.” (or some crap to that effect). Once, twice or thrice, I can accept but try six, seven, eight times! I feel like throwing my phone to the wall or smashing the decoder but that would be stupid. After almost 15 minutes later, somebody finally answered my call. Since I was put on hold for about 15 minutes, missed the concert, wasted my phone bill and have imbalanced hormones, I literally mengamuk to the poor guy. But seriously, I couldn’t care less. He apologized saying that a lot of people were calling. I said to him, “mesti ramai orang call sebab ada masalah, kan? Konon nak upgrade system, tapi lagi teruk ada!” To which he replied, “itu saya tak tau la kak” then I said, “aaaa kalau awak tak tau, ni saya bagitau. Kalau takde masalah, takkan semua orang call, complaint segala! Takkan dan dan ni semua orang call!” I suppose he checked the system and said that it was supposed to be ok. If it’s ok, I would’ve gotten the service and wouldn’t have called, would I? Finally he said to me that he will have to send me another smart card and send a technician over and it can only be done in 72 freakin’ hours. I was like, WTF? I said to him, “habis tu, tak dapat tengok lah ni? Bil bayar bulan bulan, tapi servis teruk. Ni kalau tak dapat tengok ni, bil jalan jugak kan? Kalau lambat bayar, itu jam korang potong. Kalau macam ni, patutnya tolak la dari bil saya!” He replied coolly, “kak, macam ni, nanti akak boleh call bagitau berapa lama tak dapat servis dan kita akan pro-rate bil akak.” Then I said, “OK, saya akan make sure bil saya ditolak. And suruh technician awak datang malam. Tapi make sure call saya dalam tempoh terdekat ni untuk arrange bila technician awak akan datang. Kalau tak, saya akan pergi ke office awak jumpa CEO awak sendiri. Nama awak siapa?” *evil laugh*

So I have ruined someone’s Saturday night. And my Saturday night. Damn it. Confirm that guy menyesal that he was the one who answered my call. Seriously, these people should be taught a lesson. Doesn’t anyone out there want to come up with a new cable TV service? Let’s give Astro a run for their money, shall we?

By the way, the technician came over last night.