From the forgotten

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I feel like hanging out flags and setting off some fireworks. Today, after 2 months of fighting with them, Talk Talk, the suppliers of my broadband service, have agreed that the problems we’ve been having, isn’t caused by anything in our home. That is, despite my replacing all the internal wiring, the router, and the telephones on their instructions. When their engineer arrived at the house within a minute, he located the issue as outside the house. All they have to do now is fix it and then I’m going to try and make them pay for the equipment that I didn’t need to buy, and all the stress and upheaval that they caused in my life. I know that that will be an even bigger battle, but at least the first step has been taken and I feel great about it. There really isn’t anything worse than feeling like you are being treated like both an idiot and a liar, when you know perfectly well, that you are neither.

Even if you are fit and healthy, the way some of these companies treat their customers is abominable. On the odd occasion, that I got past the person who answered my call, and actually spoke to a manager, I very much got the feeling that I was being patted on the head like a two-year-old. I told them on several occasions that I was disabled, housebound and needed both my phone and the internet as they are my only connection to the outside world, they still didn’t seem to take it as any more serious than an inconvenience. The problem with these huge companies is they don’t care about those who are making them money, we are nothing but a number and if they lose you, they will replace you with someone else. I haven’t told them yet, but the instance that this is all fixed to my satisfaction, I will be leaving, as soon as I can. I just wish that there was some way of making them feel the pain that they have been causing me, but that is impossible. I quite honestly believe that they have been behind much of the recent downturn in my health. I have been left several times sitting here in tears and with stress levels off the scale, while they continue on happily with their own little lives.

To me, this is yet another hole in the disability rights. Every company has to now supply access to their buildings for the disabled, they also have to employ a certain number of disabled people, but once past those physical situations, there is nothing that says we have the right to service appropriate to our conditions. As someone who is housebound, it goes without saying that my telephone and broadband service are essential. Without them, I have no contact with the outside world, there for, it is essential to my health. Right now, both my gas and electricity supply is protected, even if I didn’t pay the bill, they can’t cut the supply. My telephone company can do whatever it wants, how is that right?

Recently, here in the UK, there has been a drive for staff to be trained to be able to supply service for people with dementia. I don’t have dementia, but I can get just as confused and just as agitated as someone who does, due to the brain damage that I have. That drive is focused on shop and bank staff, there is nothing similar when it comes to their call centers, which these days is most people’s point of contact. I wouldn’t have the slightest qualm in having it written on my account that I have with every company I have dealings with, stating that I have a disability that needs specialist help on the phone. I have said many times before that I have huge issues making phone calls, but it came down to my having to make the calls to Talk Talk for several reasons and despite my telling them, over and over that I have a disability, on some occasions, I have even said it affects my brain, but nothing changed, nothing happened until I broke down in tears. It is so wrong that we are treated this way. Businesses have to change, they have to, as if they haven’t noticed, there is a huge aging population out there, many of whom will in time need specialist attention when dealing with them. The more elderly there are, the more people with chronic illnesses there will be, it’s a simple fact. If companies want our money, they need to shape up.

Sorry for going off on a rant, but as you can probably tell, this whole thing has really got to me, and it’s not even over. Unfortunately, you have to have your life turned upside down before you start to see the wrong in the world. Even worse than that, once you can, you’re not in any condition to put up the fight to get these things changed. Sometimes, I think the outside world knows that full well, in fact, they don’t just know it, they bank on it. We are the forgotten, the ignored and the put upon, simply for those reasons, and like everything else in chronic illness, it simply isn’t fair.

 

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 23/07/2014 – Pulling things back together

Calm and ready to go, well that is the story I am telling myself today, calm being the most important part of it all. After yesterday’s free fall into confusion, panic, isolation, agitation and pure hell, today has to be a better one and the best way I know of achieving that is to stay calm, to hold on to the normality of my day and just work my way through from now to bed time without letting go of total…..

23 thoughts on “From the forgotten”

  2. I work in the health field and feel the same way about pathetic American insurance companies. If the CEO of every insurance company had to maneuver between the pathetic roadblocks his company puts patients through, things could change. Quickly.

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  3. Life is hard enough without having phone and internet problems thrown into the mix – Especially with terrible customer service!! I really hope they will get it fixed quickly for you now that they’ve got the problem identified. Hopefully they’ll make things right for you with the equipment you bought, but I wouldn’t bet on it. In the US, my internet provider isn’t much better. I guess there just isn’t enough competition to keep them motivated to treat us nicely.

    Wishing you well! I have recently found another blogger in Scotland that I really enjoy. I’ll look her up and paste it here for you.

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  4. It is slightly better here in Australia, we have an assured electrical supply for keeping the wheelchairs charged and a Disability telephone service that must supply us with a wireless landlines if they go down. As for Internet they are fools, the problem is always outside. We do have a service with Microsoft for remote service of computers. We have managed to afford that, they are cheaper than Technicians.
    Disability Laws …… Access say one thing and do another.

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    • I know that, but they refused to accept it. What always gets to me is the way they treat you as an idiot. When one of them asking me about my router, I told them it had four outgoing LAN cables, they had to ask me what a LAN was. How do you deal with people like that?

      I honestly feel that the telephone service here in the UK should be protected, along with the internet. There are so many disabled people who rely on it as their link to the world. I now have to order my drugs online, so it’s not just about fun, it’s also about our very lives. The law is always far behind the real world, so it’s going to take time. Probably not in my life time.

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      • Probably they may have understood Ethernet Cables as ours has one with provision for 4 more. Jessica always threatens to speak to their supervisors’ which occasionally works. Having to order your drugs online sounds ominous – even the class As? We still collect ours from the Pharmacy and the restricted drugs must be ordered from the government. At least 4 of mine are restricted and one of Jessica’s is Class A – I would be interested to know how that works? I suppose we are very lucky as some of the pioneering IT work was achieved here and in New Zealand and once you get past the idiot at the switch – recording voice aka ‘robot’ things are usually oK..

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      • All my drugs are now ordered online to my Doctors surgery, they then take the order and prepare the prescriptions. The chemist collects it, prepares it and delivers it to my house. There is no line drawn over with class as even my Morphine is on the list, I just click what I want at that moment. Until it went online, Adam used to phone the Drs surgery and tell the receptionist what I needed, so we’ve ditched the phone call, for a website. It’s all connected to my records so everything is checked and balanced, just as it was before.

        I didn’t just threaten to speak to their supervisors, I spoke on several occasions to managers, not that it made much difference until the final one last week.

        If they had any training, outside of how to use the PC in front of them, I think they should have known what a LAN is. I’m quite sure they don’t because they are trained to preform their role, rather than being IT technicians as they claim. Which is perfectly normal for Call Centres, but they shouldn’t claim to be what they aren’t. I am IT trained, so it quite simply annoys me when I find frauds.

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      • Br Andrew Efo, Australia seems like such a beautiful place. Thanks to Hulu
        and Netflix I get to see bits of it. I don’t quiet understand my fascination with it. Or where that fascination came from, but I have it. Everyone says they get tired of me talking about it. Anyway, I would love to see your country sone day.
        Didn’t mean to hijack your conversation..sorry……
        Also I have been told by quiet a few people who work in call centers that when somene ask for a supervisor, all they do is redirect the call to the person next to them or just a random employee. And many of our calls are answered by people who work from home. Its all a big game, and we are just
        pieces of the game. We have a couple of call centers here in our town.

        Liked by 2 people

      • to brendaflippen – yes Australia is a good place when all is said and done – for those with the means it is a beautiful country to travel though the Liberal Party seems out to ruin things and the Radical First Nation Party seems to want to export everyone except themselves. We have almost no NHS left

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  5. Ahh! the struggle is real. I’ve had horrible phone conversations with service providers and people trying to sell stuff who almost take advantage of the fact I become overwhelmed, flustered and confused. It’s so wrong, but your rant is very refreshing (glad I’m not alone!).

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  6. I’m sorry it got on your last nerve, but glad that you won. I hope you get your money back for the extra work they made you do and the things they made you buy while not repairing your system properly.

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    • I think the chance of that are slim, but I’m going to give a go as I had no interest in replacing anything before the problems started and they refused to listen to what I told them about the issues. I find it so annoying that companies can treat anyone like they did me, but it appears we are powerless these days. Customers don’t seem to count at all, when once they said that customers were always right. Times have really changed šŸ˜¦

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  7. I’m sorry you had to deal with such a frustrating circumstance. Here in the US the disabled are not treated much better. They SAY that everyone must be an “equal opportunity employer” but it’s absolute bullshit. I feel like, at least in my country, there have been rules put into effect that create a facade of equality and understanding, but just as you said, once they’ve hit those marks they cease to care. It is perpetually upsetting and frustrating for people such as ourselves. They absolutely SHOULD pay for all the equipment you had to buy, you wouldn’t have had to do all that if not for them telling you to.

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    • The problem is as long as companies get away with that facade, nothing will change. But who of us has the energy to put it right, not usually those who are hit the hardest by it. Equality is something that will only happens when the business world sees an advantage in it, and they don’t. šŸ˜¦

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