The efficiency of a privatized service

[fpb]

Two weeks ago, I reluctantly accepted to wait till November 1 to be connected to the British Telecom telephone network. Yesterday - nothing happened. Today I rang up the company. The engineer reported to them that he had been at my place at 15.10 yesterday and been unable to get admission. He had done no such thing, but the company would not believe that the bastard lied. Now I am told that the next available slot is on the 24th. BT live in a world where the customer is always wrong. I will now see if I can find another company to connect me - unfortunately, BT's largest competitor, NTL, does not cover my area.

(Meanwhile, however, I have written one long post at home, and will post it in a few minutes.)

Comments

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Does this mean I get to look forward to this when our national telco provider, which has recently voted to go fully private and one my parents are too obsinate to leave, sells off 'for the good of Australia'?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In a word, yes. Privatization is corruption.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Speaking of corrupt, Neo didn't get fired. Yet at my old workplace, a girl who got a new job elsewhere because she couldn't afford to live on what they were paying her there was escorted off the premises by security when they found out.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

WHAT??????????????????????? That's outrageous!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That's reality. Incidentally, the private security guard sector is one of the booming fields of employment in the modern economy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Evidently Neo licked the right boots. Modern business ethics imply that the company is always right. Only creeps need apply.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

Are you aware that you are creating some very disturbing images in my mind right now?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Mere mention of Neo did that to me. I don't know if you remember the post about him, but it was one of Gun's classics.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

I know. I visualize him like my creepy ex boy-friend. The idea of him in a black leather coat licking someone's boots is *not* an agreeable one.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, thanks Marie, you just solidified that image in my mind!

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Privatization is corruption.
I'd be a bit cautious with such broad generalizations - even for the sake of nice phrasing.
The places were averything was "national" were also fully corrupt.

But my sympathies with Telecom. Sounds like ours (is cheaper than ours, though, in comparison).

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Let me tell you this: as a politically aware Italian, I thought I knew everything worth knowing about corruption, bribery, and the art of relieving the taxpayers' pockets. But until you have made a study of the way the Tory Blur is privatizing the Health Service (all the while denying that privatization is what he is doing), you simply do not have the faintest idea of what looting the public purse is really about. The idea is simple: heads the private sector wins, tails the State loses. If there are profits to be made, the shareholders (or the directors) pocket them; if there are losses incurred, the State pays, because it cannot afford for public services to go bankrupt. Simplicity itself; it makes the old business of passing envelopes stuffed with banknotes to friendly politicians look positively clumsy by comparison.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

But until you have made a study of the way the Tory Blur is privatizing the Health Service (all the while denying that privatization is what he is doing), you simply do not have the faintest idea of what looting the public purse is really about.
Ehrm, I think I could provide equall if not better examples from "our courtyard", as we say, but that's beside the point :)
(I also agree that your older brother is bigger and stronger than my older brother :))

My point was that privatization - properly done - actually may lower the level of corruption enormously, 'cause it reduces the points of contact between business and politics. As you said the govt't denies the privatization happens - so they have some nefarious reasons for this.

Of course much ot it is my knee-jerk reaction to such simple slogans, caused by my immediate political environment: believe me, you don't want to be dumped in one group with people who usually chant these things in Poland ;)

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Sorry FPB, what a hassle for you. I know you're ready to just be settled already.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It is also costing me a fortune which I cannot afford, since I, 1) use the Internet to look for work, and, 2) have most of my social life online (like, oh, for instance, now). So I am losing work opportunity while paying money to be able to speak with my friends. (Don't feel guilty, it's not right now - right now I am at a public library.) Also, I am going to have to reactivate my portable phone, which I have not used for mreo than a year because it cost too much.