21 March 2007 19:33
whereas saturday found me flying 10 million bugs and one human across the caribbean, monday found me standing on a 12' stepladder in jdf's parking lot in the capacity of telephone repairman. whatever its faults, my job is not lacking in variety...(part of it is the job description: "pilot/mechanic" instead of just "pilot". that means i can be roaming the world one day, addressed as "Captain"--and the next day i find myself buried to the elbows in jet fuel and engine grease. for the most part i enjoy mechanicking, but somehow its not as glamorous as being a pilot.)
when our phone quit midmorning, we didn't think much about it--happens all the time, chances are it'll come back on if we ignore it. ...well, that didn't work this time around. come early afternoon we finally got around to doing some trouble shooting.
now we'd had our phone cut off for two weeks in late february when the veterinary services division of the ministry of agriculture failed to pay their phone bill. this is a department of the national government whose phones were cut off due to nonpayment of funds owed to cable & wireless (c&w). it wasn't that they'd reneged on the month of january, no, the ministry's bill was outstanding from last september. unfortunately for us, our phone is paid for though the ministry, so despite having paid our share we still had to wait on them. ...and this isn't the first time such has happened, either.
monday's occurrence was different, however, because we didn't even have a dial tone. even when you're disconnected, the phone company is required by law to provide for calls to emergency services. so no dial-tone indicates a physical problem.
last fall the jamaica defense force (jdf) made a lot of physical changes to their property next to us on the airport as they renovated their barracks building. in the months it took them to do this our phone line was cut no less than three times. (is some cable in your way? well then cut it and go about your business, it'll give the guys next door a chance to practice that whole love your enemies idea). getting c&w onto the secure area of the airport is a hassle. first we have to be physically present, second we have to write and deliver a letter to the security office requesting the phone company's presence, but we can't do that until the tech calls us with his name and license number, then he comes out and doesn't have a tall enough ladder and will have to come back the next day....
the second time the line was cut by construction workers, i tried unsuccessfully to talk the tech into rerouting our line to avoid going near the barracks at all. not only would it be a shorter route, but there were already two lines strung up that way from a temporary US Army exercise back in august that were now in disuse. he offered some excuse and routed it the old way. (i wasn't there when the line got repaired the third time, but i found out afterwards that the tech (a different one) had decided it would be easier to reuse one of the old lines rather than have to keep coming out to fix the same line repeatedly. my kinda guy).
then we enjoyed three months of peace until our employers decided they couldn't possibly afford to pay their phone bill. that problem too was fixed and now it seems our line has been physically damaged again. argh. oh well, let's call c&w and get them out here. so i call them on my cell and wade through the menus to get to a very bored human. "hellomyname's{unintelligible}howmayibeofservicetoday?" i give him the phone number affected, a few particulars, a warning about needing a pass to get on the airport, and contact info for paul. he spends a few seconds typing things in and then helpfully informs me that my problem has been logged and that we'll be assigned a tech within five working days... i had him repeat that bit. yup, five working days.
i've never seen the point in sounding off at operators who have no control over the bad news they have to give you, but i can certainly understand the temptation. they used to say two days and i'd laugh to myself at their third-world backwardness--but five days is absolutely ludicrus. the only type of business model that allows for such asinine treatment of customers is a monopoly. oh wait, c&w has that (...for the moment. meet the new kid on the block-- flow: watch. talk. click.).
i was cleaning up the hangar in preparation for bringing the plane down off the jacks when devon wandered in. he works for the jdf as a civilian doing odd jobs around the base, then in the afternoons then he comes over and washes our planes. he'd been over earlier and found out about our phone being dead. he'd just confirmed that the barracks still had phone service, then mentioned something about there being a line down on their property (his patois is beyond me most of the time, but between arm motions and "de line burst" i got the general idea). that was all the encouragement i needed to take matters into my own hands. an hour later, after a crash course in "teach yourself telephone repair by trial and error", we had a working phone. i had to appropriate some cable and wireless property to do it (the other unused line), if they want it back they're welcome to re-appropriate it in a week when they come to "fix" our line. apparently a jdf straight truck had snagged ours where it hung across their access road. the interesting bit was that they made off with about 70' of cable. it would have been a lot easier to figure out if they'd left it lay.
moral of the story?
honestly i sat for five minutes trying to come up with a humorous moral. and failed. so i'll give up the moral and offer instead some sage words of wisdom while sighing and shaking my head. one has to keep a sense of humour just to keep from going over the edge. if that doesn't work and you wind up getting put away anyway, at least you'll have a sense of humour.
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