ISP'd off

There is a saying in French: “On ne change pas une équipe qui gagne.” Literally, it means you don't change a winning team, figuratively that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, or try to make it better. I heard this saying for the first time yesterday, at the hairdresser's, where an old woman decided to have again the highlights she'd had before, following which came the saying; I sussed out what it meant and thought it a useful dicton to know.

My recent encounter of the saying could explain why I didn't have it in mind when a sultry-sounding woman phoned in early August representing an ISP latterly on the scene in France. Following her seductive blandishments (it's the French accent – alright, she was French and speaking French, but you know what I mean) and the guarantee of saving at least 24€ per month, I allowed myself to be persuaded to change providers, both phone AND Internet, also being reassured that we would have seven days grace to change our minds. (I can hear you all already, saying “Fool, don't do it!”)

Following the phone call, and me beaming with the satisfaction of a job well done, it took a feminine and wiser mind (yes, UPL) to remind me that all our email addresses were currently with the previous company, which had not let us down, we would have to therefore change and broadcast new addresses in due course if we switched and that there were many about who said that this new company were perhaps not as experienced; she had the good grace not to slap me hard around the head, but there was a certain head-slapping look in her eyes, I have to admit.

I blustered, ummed, aahed and prevaricated, coming up with what seemed at the time reasonable counter-arguments, but on the day the new box arrived from upstart company, coincidentally the 7^th day after I'd signed up over the phone, common sense prevailed and convinced me that UPL was right and I sent it straight back again with a recorded delivery letter saying thanks but no thanks, we'll stick with who we were with.

All well and good, in theory, but we got stuck in the interregnum; the day after I sent that letter we lost the phone, and the internet connection, as new company had hotfooted it to the exchange to gleefully put their grubby mitts all over our communication facilities to the outside world. So there we were, hotels for our long trip to Greece unbooked, and no means to find them; money to be transferred online from bank to bank to help fund our long trip to Greece, and no means to do it; a route map for our long trip to Greece to be found, and no means to find it – I was seriously in the merde. It was of some little comfort that, by dint of excessive use of mobile phone and pleading with original company to return to the fold, the phone came back two days before we left, but the internet? I got a text the day before we were coming back from holiday to say that we had it again.

And that was the end of THAT problem. Alright, we had to pay 50€ for the privilege of rejoining the biggie, but they're not the biggie for nought. As they saying goes, with a winning team, it's not worth changing.