Choices

So, C got the job, which was good news in one way, but not good news in the sense that she has got a new job and therefore is likely to be leaving her current one. There is a glimmer of hope in that there might be a problem with the terms and conditions (much too tedious to go into here) and so she is looking into that at the moment. It’s a good job that I have a job advert drawn up already and that I am also looking to move on.

I spoke to my mobile phone company yesterday, as I should be eligible for an upgrade. Despite my current contract having expired, every time I’ve logged on to their website to see what is available, it has told me I need to wait until I am in the final month of my contract. As my handset broke several months ago and I have been using one that belongs to G ever since, I do need a new handset. Anyway, it seems that because I am on quite an old tariff I am not eligible for an upgrade. I haven’t tried to upgrade for the last couple of years and have instead reduced my line rental. It seems that my options are: continue to stay on my current tariff with reduced line rental, but pay £1 more than in previous years and I cannot have a new phone as part of the deal; or, change to a similar tariff that gives me more call minutes that I don’t want or need, pay £4 more for the new tariff and have the eligible period to use the free minutes start at 7pm instead of 6pm (so in effect I lose about 30 hours of eligible time). I told them how unimpressed I was, that I thought they were offering me very poor choices and I would consider looking elsewhere. Having thought about it though, I suspect I will actually stick with the tariff I am currently on and buy a new handset. I can’t see the point in changing tariffs to get a “free” handset, when it clearly is not, given I would have to pay about £14 more a month to be eligible (that’s £168 a year! Surely I can get a reasonable phone for less than that?!), but in particular, I would no longer be able to make free phone calls until after 7pm. I think my mobile phone company is being really rubbish, but it is still more competitive than the others. Can I even remember a world without mobile phones now? How I hark back to those days.

Anyway, for any monkey loving readers out there, you’ll like this story (with apologies for linking to the Daily Mail. I used to think I had standards).

Cartoon is from xkcd.com