Last week I did something which my parents’ generation would never have done. My son is about to start secondary school, so therefore the days of the school run are over! Walking to school, as we all did many years ago, now seems like a hazardous experience. So like thousands of mothers in my position I cowed to the peer pressure from the media and decided to get him a mobile phone. I know I could have bought him a phone which looked like it came from the 1990s but actually I wanted to upgrade in any case, so I decided to get myself a new mobile phone and give him my old iPhone. It was a frustrating mistake!
If you have walked into a mobile phone shop recently you will appreciate that this is a very time consuming experience. You stand in line for what feels like hours, waiting for a young person, straight out of high school, to serve you in accordance with his script, attempting to sell you the kitchen sink with your phone! My delightful young man had the word “trainee” emblazoned upon his badge. The warning signs were there. All I wanted was a good deal on a new phone for me, keeping my old number, and a pay-as-you-go sim for my son.
Having signed up for a vast amount of money per month for my shiny new iphone6 and a new sim for him I left the store about 2 hours later with a small rainforest worth of paper. I’ve updated my phone many times before so surely this couldn’t be any different. I was wrong!
I set the phones up, popped in the sims and disaster struck. My new phone had a new number as did his and I had no idea what either number was. Back to the shop I went. After another hour of standing in line and a chat with another “trainee”, the problem continued. Eventually I stamped my feet and spoke to a “manager” who discovered Trainee #1 had not ticked the right box on the computer to transfer my old phone number. It was all sorted within a couple of minutes but it was rather annoying as I felt like I had wasted half of my weekend standing in a mobile phone shop on the only sunny day the UK had seen for months!
This experience made me think about things which you buy at great expense and spend hours and days waiting for, only to discover that they don’t live up to their promise. Imagine if you had bought a car or even something personal like dentures. You would certainly feel slightly peeved if you had spent hours with a “trainee” only to discover that your final purchase did not look good, do the job you wanted it too or in the case of dentures fit well. Mind you, if you were getting dentures or looking for private dental treatment you’d be well advised to make an appointment with a highly qualified dentist such as the team at HSORC.
Another thing is a television. You go into the shop, look at all the shiny boxes on display, all lit in such a way to make the picture look sharp and stunning as they are all playing HD Nature programmes. The canny shoppers will note the make and model then go home to search on http://www.google.co.uk/shopping so they can buy it at a better price. Now imagine this – when you get it home, you discover that the holes in the back of the TV, or the ports, no longer match the technology you have at home, so you end up having to buy a new DVD player!
When you are spending a lot of money on something which is almost one of life’s necessities, you just want it to work as promised, look good, and be easy to use (first time around), all without a second trip anywhere!