The story of the dishwasher now officially qualifies as an Epic.
The fault, which I now understand is a common one after talking extensively to all of one colleagues, was stasis. The machine would start up find a comfortable position for itself in the wash cycle and stay there. The machine would mindlessly wash the dishes all night leaving the dishes looking a little, well, washed out. The poor old bowls started developing what I can only call washing wrinkles which would not rub out no matter how assiduously I applied the non-stick safe scourer.
Just getting the mechanic (you will see later how misapplied that job designation is) to appear and look at the machine took weeks. After multiple visits to the shop that sold the machine and telephone calls to the people who were supposed to repair it we were eventually exasperated enough to consider finding out the telephone number of one of the consumer protection programmes. Unfortunately there don’t seem to be the same number of programmes on the truly dreadful succession of adverts that masquerade as television stations in Spain. I wondered if programmes like ‘The ferret’ or ‘X-Ray’ from Wales would consider doing a foreign report: they would at least be next to the beach if they did.
Meanwhile the ‘mechanics’ were playing the old ’phone and forget’ game. This is an old game played by the unscrupulous where, having been told that the householder is not in during the day and can only let the ‘mechanics’ in during the evening, they phone during the day and bemoan the fact that you are not there. Then, having done their duty they wait and hope that their bloody mindedness will cause you to give up the ghost and turn the washing programme cycle knob round by hand.
Eventually, through a combination of my broken Spanish and Toni’s fluent Catalan we managed to get an appointment. The word ‘appointment’ does little justice to the vague swathe of time that the increasingly bellicose voice at the end of the telephone indicated we should regard as important. Needless to say they did not turn up. Did not telephone.
This contemptuous attitude was repeated ad nauseum until Toni actually took a day off to let the buggers in.
I am sure that no one who has waited for workmen will be surprised that even giving them an entire day to turn up was too restricted a time scale and they . . . well, you can guess.
I left work early on another occasion and – nothing.
Eventually we discovered a little card stuck in the bell push at the street door. They had come and gone. They had received no response to their entreaties to be allowed into our flat to repair the machine. The bell was working. We were both there. The land line and Toni’s mobile were working. But nothing.
Another attempt and the ‘mechanic’ did turn up. He heard that the cycle stuck so he replaced the entire switching mechanism and departed.
His ‘repair’ made not difference whatsoever. Exactly the same fault remained to frustrate dish washing.
On another day off they eventually returned. Late of course. Toni had been told that they would be there in the morning. At half past one in the afternoon Toni phoned the company and within a minute of putting the phone down, lo and behold! he received a phone call from the ‘mechanic’ who just happened to waiting outside the door. Gosh! What a coincidence!
Because Toni has become (justifiably) progressively angrier with the gross incompetence and incivility shown by this bunch of charlatans they responded in the only way they knew how.
They had already demonstrated that their technical ability in electronic diagnosis was confined to the ‘find the bit you think is wrong, take it out, put in a new one and hope for the best’ technique’ – which didn’t work. This time they took the back of the machine off and decided to replace two other bits.
Which they didn’t have.
Of course they didn’t. How foolish of us to think that, after months of non use we would have our machine returned to effective dish washing capabilities.
As punishment for our surly attitude we will have to wait. Again. This time, as a further punishment, they are going to take the entire machine away. For god knows how long.
If I was looking for a literary analogy for what we have experience with these people, I think that my thoughts would be drawn to the Court of Circumlocution in ‘Bleak House’ – the place where, once a case was sucked into the vortex of inactivity it would be lost in procedural inanity and nothing real would be done.
Nice to see Dickensian sarcasm having a living embodiment in modern Catalonia.
If I were you I think I would keep out of mist shrouded graveyards until the repair is completed, Pip old chap!
The fault, which I now understand is a common one after talking extensively to all of one colleagues, was stasis. The machine would start up find a comfortable position for itself in the wash cycle and stay there. The machine would mindlessly wash the dishes all night leaving the dishes looking a little, well, washed out. The poor old bowls started developing what I can only call washing wrinkles which would not rub out no matter how assiduously I applied the non-stick safe scourer.
Just getting the mechanic (you will see later how misapplied that job designation is) to appear and look at the machine took weeks. After multiple visits to the shop that sold the machine and telephone calls to the people who were supposed to repair it we were eventually exasperated enough to consider finding out the telephone number of one of the consumer protection programmes. Unfortunately there don’t seem to be the same number of programmes on the truly dreadful succession of adverts that masquerade as television stations in Spain. I wondered if programmes like ‘The ferret’ or ‘X-Ray’ from Wales would consider doing a foreign report: they would at least be next to the beach if they did.
Meanwhile the ‘mechanics’ were playing the old ’phone and forget’ game. This is an old game played by the unscrupulous where, having been told that the householder is not in during the day and can only let the ‘mechanics’ in during the evening, they phone during the day and bemoan the fact that you are not there. Then, having done their duty they wait and hope that their bloody mindedness will cause you to give up the ghost and turn the washing programme cycle knob round by hand.
Eventually, through a combination of my broken Spanish and Toni’s fluent Catalan we managed to get an appointment. The word ‘appointment’ does little justice to the vague swathe of time that the increasingly bellicose voice at the end of the telephone indicated we should regard as important. Needless to say they did not turn up. Did not telephone.
This contemptuous attitude was repeated ad nauseum until Toni actually took a day off to let the buggers in.
I am sure that no one who has waited for workmen will be surprised that even giving them an entire day to turn up was too restricted a time scale and they . . . well, you can guess.
I left work early on another occasion and – nothing.
Eventually we discovered a little card stuck in the bell push at the street door. They had come and gone. They had received no response to their entreaties to be allowed into our flat to repair the machine. The bell was working. We were both there. The land line and Toni’s mobile were working. But nothing.
Another attempt and the ‘mechanic’ did turn up. He heard that the cycle stuck so he replaced the entire switching mechanism and departed.
His ‘repair’ made not difference whatsoever. Exactly the same fault remained to frustrate dish washing.
On another day off they eventually returned. Late of course. Toni had been told that they would be there in the morning. At half past one in the afternoon Toni phoned the company and within a minute of putting the phone down, lo and behold! he received a phone call from the ‘mechanic’ who just happened to waiting outside the door. Gosh! What a coincidence!
Because Toni has become (justifiably) progressively angrier with the gross incompetence and incivility shown by this bunch of charlatans they responded in the only way they knew how.
They had already demonstrated that their technical ability in electronic diagnosis was confined to the ‘find the bit you think is wrong, take it out, put in a new one and hope for the best’ technique’ – which didn’t work. This time they took the back of the machine off and decided to replace two other bits.
Which they didn’t have.
Of course they didn’t. How foolish of us to think that, after months of non use we would have our machine returned to effective dish washing capabilities.
As punishment for our surly attitude we will have to wait. Again. This time, as a further punishment, they are going to take the entire machine away. For god knows how long.
If I was looking for a literary analogy for what we have experience with these people, I think that my thoughts would be drawn to the Court of Circumlocution in ‘Bleak House’ – the place where, once a case was sucked into the vortex of inactivity it would be lost in procedural inanity and nothing real would be done.
Nice to see Dickensian sarcasm having a living embodiment in modern Catalonia.
If I were you I think I would keep out of mist shrouded graveyards until the repair is completed, Pip old chap!
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