HUGGBEES

My trackball on my BlackBerry wouldn’t move left, so last Friday (04/12/2009) I took my phone in to the MTN service centre at the new mall. I was told it needed to be sent to Jhb, and would take between 3 and 15 days to fix. I complained that this is an excessive amount of time, to which the guy said sometimes it does take the 3 days so I should just call to confirm.

I just called their “Technical Services” people here, gave them my tracking number and expecting good news. I was informed that my phone was only dispatched yesterday to Jhb (head office). So I should call back on Monday to check if head office got the phone. Not only that, but head office will then need to send the phone (taking the current trend, probably 3 working days after getting it) to an external repair company. So let’s do the numbers.

Phone MAY arrive at MTN head office on Monday 14th Dec. They will undoubtably faff around for a bit until Tuesday afternoon, and then realise that Wednesday is a public holiday. When someone returns to work on Thursday, it may get sent out (if they don’t take the rest of the week off). So perhaps by Monday 21st Dec my phone will be at the external repair centre. They’ll probably fuck around with it a little for 2 days. This leads us to Wednesday the 23rd Dec. Perhaps it will get sent back to MTN headoffice after the Christmas break on Monday the 28th. The usual 3 day faff by MTN will then apply and they may send it out on 4th Jan 2010. Another 3 working days for it to get here by Friday 8th Jan. Another 3 working day faff, and I may get my phone back on Friday the 15th January 2010; at least before the IronMan cycle on Sunday the 17th Jan.

Moral of the story; it takes as long to get MTN to fix a phone as it does to train for a 90km cycle race.