THE MAN WHO ORDERED 4 GLASSES OF COKE FOR BREAKFAST

Is Coca-Cola an addiction? I’ve just got back from Wetherspoons today Wednesday 15th January 2025 (yes its real time writing)  where I enjoyed my normal Freedom breakfast combo, negotiating my way around the baby farms that form about nine thirty and I sat opposite a fairly stout young man who ordered no less than 4 x 500 ml glasses of Coke.

I thought he was saving them for some friends but no, he had them with his hamburger breakfast. I thought I’d seen it all but this was a first. If you are a Coca-Cola enthusiast you need to look at the contents and what they do. If something is a very effective drain cleaner, are you sure it’s the sort of thing you want to pour down your throat?

SERVICE. WHAT SERVICE?

I am getting more and more fed up with my Sky mobile. For  for some reason it is eating data in greater and greater amounts and it’s not as if I watch videos or anything.  I would really love to know the reasons for this but try speaking to someone or using that absolutely useless sky website which has said for the past six months when I sign into my account, ‘sorry this link is not working please try this one instead’.

Sky mobile

If you look at Trust Pilot reviews, 89% of people give the service one star. I understand that competition among mobile phone companies is high and so therefore they have to economize but I do not appreciate waiting 50 minutes to talk to someone from India, for that is where the call center is run, and scarcely being able to hear what they have to say. I looked around for other providers and the news is not really good.  Below are the reviews from O2

O2

Tesco mobile

This looks better but it appears that you have to pay 25 pounds a month for the privilege of a SIM only card <checks site>  though I see there are deals to get you snared. Triple data for the first thee months when it is 30Gb for £10 then it reverts to 10 Gb.

This is a cutthroat market and I wonder whether suppliers had cut their own throats (pun intended) by over- promising on the amount of data they offer and not spending enough money on service.

WHAT DOES AI HAVE TO SAY?

I asked Gemini (AI)  what it thought and it said

Mobile phone support service can often be considered “bad” due to a combination of factors including: high call volumes, reliance on automated systems, lack of adequately trained staff, cost-cutting measures by companies, complex technical issues, and a lack of personalized attention, often leading to long wait times, repetitive information requests, and difficulty reaching a solution with a single call.  (not my yellow highlighting)

Gemini then gives me a big list of why mobile phone support should be poor. You can look at it yourself but the main reasons are cost-efficiency and using automated systems, high call volumes leading to long wait times, lack of technical expertise on the part of the call center, automated systems which are only useful for basic inquiries, offshore call centers which lead to language and cultural difficulties, lack of accountability which means that the people calling really get called to account.

It is a thankless list and it gives me no pleasure to report it.

AM I A SAD PERSON?

I may be a sad creature but I have come to rely on my mobile phone because I’m one of those that does not like to be out of contact and always responds to something straight away. I cannot bear this ‘ we will come back to you within three to five days’. With most of my correspondence it’s three to five minutes.

I know from the health point of view it is not very good so I try to hold my phone away from my ear and I’ve actually got a little phone rest and I put things on loudspeaker mode so I don’t have to touch the thing.