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I’ve been banging on for ages about the unreliability of my new iPhone. Well, it seems that my long-running battle might finally be over. Ever since I upgraded I have been plagued by constant crashing, a rubbish internet connection and the even more painful battle to quell my desire to hurl the stupid thing across the room or stick it in the new fire I’ve recently had installed in my living room.Having taken the thing to o2, they helpfully informed me that it was a problem with Apple and I had to go and take it to my nearest Apple store (which is a half an hour’s drive) and see an “Apple Genius”. Yes an Apple Genius is an actual job title; probably the stupidest job title next to “Labour Prime Minister”.
The whole experience is quite surreal. An Apple store is quite literally something out of a sci-fi move. The whole room is spotlessly clean, clinically white and there are banks of Macs stationed in millimetre-precision locations along work stations that look like they are made out of exotic materials.
At the end of the room is the “Genius Bar”. It’s quite a weird experience being informed by a cyborg to take a seat at the Genius Bar. I genuinely didn’t know whether to order a pint or strike up a conversation about Star Trek with the nerdy fanboy behind the counter.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Genius was a typical Mac user. Now, let me explain something: Mac users are like religious extremists. They are all convinced that their beloved computer deity is superior to everything else and get really rather angry if you dare to argue against them. They refuse to accept anyone else’s point of view and they preach to you in that naïve but arrogant way and will stop at nothing to try to convert you.
The first thing the guy did was ask me what operating system I used. He gave me that smug, know-it-all expression and sagely nodded his head when I told him I run Windows on a PC. His initial response was to tell me that was the most likely cause of the crashing and informed me that this sort of thing never happens on a Mac. Using the self control garnered over recent weeks that prevented me from smashing my iPhone to pieces, I managed not to punch him to the floor but instead enquired how my computer could possibly cause my iPhone to be so rubbish and, even if that was the case, why it didn’t affect my old phone. He explained it was something to do with iTunes and suggested I reinstalled it.
Naturally I explained that I had already tried that, I had also restored the factory settings, had installed the latest software that was supposed to fix a similar glitch and also sagely pointed out that it is a bit daft to make something that doesn’t work properly on an operating system that is still used more widely than his precious Mac.
Taking the hint, he then did something rather unexpected. He offered to replace it. There and then. No questions asked. I was stunned. Normally people try to convince you it’s somehow your fault that their product is rubbish. They try to make excuses just to get you to go away and leave them alone. They insist you try meditating and pray to Allah and tell you to come back another day when there is a full moon and all the planets are aligned.
For all their blustering about how mighty their stuff is, you have to hand it to Apple; their customer service is superior to most. This is in stark contrast to how the Royal Mail treats its customers, which is basically the entire population of the country. Not only are they slow and unreliable and only seem to employ people who are either inbred or retarded (or both), they are constantly striking and posting letters through the wrong door where they either get returned to the post office or thrown away by the idiotic neighbour.
Perhaps it is because the current state that allows people to live without taking responsibility for themselves means that posties are allowed to stay in bed until mid-afternoon or because they are all so stupid they continue to get lost in the same places on a daily basis, but quite often I don’t receive my post until the middle of the day now. It used to be that first class post arrived the day after it was posted and second class post arrived a day later. Now it seems it is a bit of a lottery and there is no guarantee the letter will even arrive.
They are also very inconsistent. My poor parents are often complaining that they constantly get a knock on the door from Postman Pat asking them to take in a parcel for one of their neighbours who are not in, yet whenever they are out when the postman arrives, they simply get a note through the door asking them to pick up their package from the depot. Even worse is when the stupid imbeciles just throw it over the back gate or leave it outside the front door so that anyone can steal it. This is why it is not a good idea to employ someone who is the product of a brother/sister relationship.
The Royal Mail is basically run by over-paid and incompetent half-wits who are only interested in making money rather than paying attention to the service they provide or what the general public thinks of them. The recent announcement that they are raising the cost of first class stamps from 46p to 60p and second class stamps from 36p to 50p is beyond criminal and just goes to show the kind of extortion that happens when a company has a monopoly. Because they can pretty much get away with charging what the hell they like because they know there is nothing people can do about it, they will.
The bottom line is they need a huge overhaul because they are a stupid company run my people with a penchant for incest. Even better the whole postal service needs to be open to competition because Royal Mail basically has a monopoly. A bit of healthy competition with a rival service will shake them up a bit and probably make the fat executives pull their fat fingers out of their stupid fat arses and improve their service a bit.