Breakdown

I got off to Newmark in good time to go do some overtime and as i approached the building i had about fifteen minutes to clock in, so i pulled onto the petrol station forecourt opposite and went in to buy a coffee. On my return i jumped in the car and turned the key and nothing. "Ek," i thought. "What i'm-a do now?" I randomly clicked a few buttons, turned the radio on and off once and turned the key the opposite way around in the lock (you never know, i'm sure it has worked before), tried it again and nothing. I decided to give it a few minutes while I sipped my coffee. I turned on the radio. They were reading the news. I laughed out loud at this: "the government is to have talks today about cutting back the Health and Safety Executive, among whose most controversial recommendations is one for trapeze artists - that they should wear hard hats." I recalled hearing a news item some months back that suggested the Health and Safety Executive were not to blame for the way their recommendations had been over-implemented and taken to bizarre extremes by over-zealous judges and shopfloor operatives during the previous Labour government. It struck me a massive back-pedaling from the high-handed way their edicts used to be handed down, an indication that they knew the writng was on the wall under a new government keen to curb nanny state excesses and wasteful job creation schemes. I remember there being some rancour in the house of commons over the health and safety implications of the 'Boris bikes' introduced to London as an alternative way for people to get around. "Not wearing appropriate attire", "in their suits", "without helmets", "wth no training"; the list of tedious and pernickety objections was long, but their dismissal gratifyingly short. Almost a "sit down and shut up" although the MP defending the scheme I think did draw their attention to the health benefits of cycling and the added option for people to exercise their freedom of choice.

I pulled out my phone and searched for Roadside Assistance, not easy to find since the thing recently sync-ed all my contact databases into one massive list consisting mostly of people i have never and would never ring, and many of whom i don't even know, or don't even know how i know. Eventually i found it. Of all the strange new-fangled places my contacts are stored - facebook, numerous cloud-based email accounts, twitter, etc. - it lists those stored on it's own SIM card last. Typical. I tapped 'call' and as i waited for it to connect i noticed the bar indicating my remaining battery life was getting a bit low.

Connection. Good.
"You have reached Avalon roadside assistance," a voice said, slowly and precisely.
After a long pause the recording continued, "this number is for emergencies only".
Pause.
Foot starting to tap.
"You will be charged for this call. If you are happy with this please continue to hold".
Huh, haven't got much choice have I.
Pause. Long pause.
"Hello," said a woman's voice, "Avalon Roadside Assistance."
"Hello, I'm broken down. I need assisance," I said, impatiently.
"Oh, what's your policy number?"
"What! I don't have my policy number. I'm broken down in my car."
"Oh, okay. Well can you give me your registration number?"
She typed my registration number as i gave it, querying it a couple of times and repeating it back slowly using the police alphabet, "that's Romeo...2...5...8...Tango...Bravo...Romeo..is that correct?"
"Yes yes that's correct...look, i don't have much time, my battery is..."
"Just searching for that. Won't be a moment," she interrupted politely. Politely? No, patronisingly.
After another long pause I'm beginning to bite my nails as well as tap my foot.
"Vauxhall Vectra?" she comes back on the line.
"Yes".
"Silver?".
"Yes." For God's sake.
"What's your address?" she asked.
"I'm not at my address. I'm broken down."
"Yes, I just need your address. What's your postcode?"
I gave her the postcode and address and waited. And waited. The battery bar dropped a little.
"Oh yes, here we are," she said. "Do you have a phone number we can call you back on?"
I started to tell her my phone number but forgetting the last few digits, she finished it off for me, adding smugly, "the one you're ringng from now."
"Yes," I sighed. Which other phone number would I be likely to give you?
"Now, where are you broken down?"
"I'm at Newmark. I'm on a petrol station forecourt at..." I carefully pronounced everything clearly and slowly.
"What's the name of the petrol station?" she butted in.
"I...I don't know the name of the petrol station," I explained, "but I can describe to you exactly where it is. It's..."
"I need the name of the petrol station."
"Can you just take a note of this description," I looked at the touchpad. The battery indicator had dropped a little more.
"They will be able to tell you the name of the petrol station if you just go and ask. Just go in and ask."
"Look," I said, regarding the twelve-deep queue to the counter "you haven't even taken a note yet of where I am broken down and we are about to get cut off because my battery is about to die. Can you please just let me describe..."
"Oh don't worry about that, I'll call you back," she said.
Stunned, I said, "Tell you what. Forget it. I'll call somebody else", and hung up.

They are going to get one hell of a letter, i fumed as i strutted off inside to get a coffee and calm down. I thought these roadside assistance people had honed their procedures for taking emergency calls over the years into one of military efficiency and precision, and these people turn into a clown act. Returning to my car some minutes later an answerphone message had been left. It was them, her, informing me that a breakdown vehicle was on it's way and asking that i ring back with my exact location as there were two petrol stations that it could be. "Yes well you'd have known which one if you'd shut up and listen, you silly cow," i muttered, waiiting for my phone to connect.
"You have reached Avalon roadside assistance," a voice said, slowly and precisely.
"This number is for emergencies only".
Pause.
Tension building again.
"You will be charged for this call. If you are happy with this please continue to hold".
"Avalon Roadside Assistance", a male voice answered this time.
I went through the validation process with him without complaining. What's the point? And then informed him of my previous conversation and that i was ringing back to confirm my location. I could feel his hackles rise as he realised he was speaking to that awkward, rude customer his colleague had just had to deal with. I gave him the name and asked, "have you any idea how long it will be?"
"Did she not tell you a time?" he answered.
YES SHE GAVE ME A TIME, I'M JUST ASKING TO MAKE CONVERSATION WITH AN IDIOT ON MY PHONE THAT HAS NEARLY RUN OUT OF BATTERY IN AN EMERGENCY SITUATION WHERE I MIGHT NEED ALL THE BATTERY LIFE I CAN GET. AAAARGH!!!
I did not say that. I just hung up the phone again and got out the car, paced up and down a little and kicked my tyres.
"Are you using the vac?" a voice asked me from behind. I turned around to see a guy pointing to the vacuum machine i was parked next to. "No, I'm broken down, mate. Waiting for assistance," i answered.
"I want to use the vac," he looked at me expectantly.
"I'm broken down, mate. Can't do anything about it," yet another time this morning i was speaking to someone in slow, annunciated words. He stood looking at me. "Broki downi. You speak english?" I mimicked the accent of my many Polish friends, currently beavering away, getting stuck into their overtime across the road. He seemed to grasp the message and walked away. I looked up at the moon still hanging in the brightening morning sky. "Is this something to do with you?" i asked, accusingly. I got back into the car and waited.

About half an hour later my attention was caught by an ARC van pulling onto the forecourt. "Oh, please be here for me," i thought, and sure enough it swung around and pulled up next to me. "Thank God for that." I had been half expecting some beaten up old recovery truck with bald tyres and blue smoking exhaust to turn up, some toothless guy in dungarees to step out scratching his arse saying "What seems to be the trouble?" Things were looking up at last. The young chap got straight on with diagnosing the fault and after forty minutes or so of fiddling with wires, reseating fuses, testing voltages and checking the battery he told me it looked like an ECU problem and we would have to take it somewhere for further testing. I told him i had suspected that might be it and i would rather just take it home and ring a scrap dealer.
"Are you sure?" he said. "I mean, I'm not one hundred percent certain, I recommend you get it tested further. I wouldn't want you to scrap it just on my say so in these limited testing conditions."
"No, I suspected it was on its way out. Let's take it home."
"Okay, well it's your decision."
Matter resolved, he seemed to loosen up some and we started to chat. I told him about my horrendous experience dealing with the Avalon office and all their stupid questions.
"The computer won't let them put a description in," he said about the location problem.
"Well that's nuts," i complained. "What if i had been somewhere that it just wasn't possible to give anything but a description, out in the middle of nowhere or something. They expect you to leave yor car and go walk a couple of miles, find the name of the nearest village? I mean it can't even be beyond the capabilities of modern technology for them to find out where you are just from where your phone is."
"Ah. Can't do that. Data protection," he touched his nose.
"Data protection my arse," i retorted.
" 'Sright," he said. "They go finding out your location without your permission and then it gets passed onto the wife, say, and it's different from what she expects, so she does some checking and finds out you're having an affair, divorces you and takes half of everything you own, along with your kids, leaving your life in ruins, company could get sued."
"So when you say 'data' protection, you're really talking about 'company' protection, the company making everything so complicated, bending over backwards to cover every unlikely angle from which they might get faced with a lawsuit."
"They might be unlikely angles," he explained, "but in our 'blame-claim' culture you've got lawyers running around pulling every trick in the book to raise business and to claim compensation for clients, for a nice fat fee obviously. They'll try anything. I mean look, have you ever done a First Aid course?"
"Yes"
"Well, First Aid courses are good, right. Teach you how to help someone who's in trouble. But they also stress on these courses if you get it wrong and do any damage you're likely to get sued, making it everybody's first thought when they find themselves in a situation, 'do i really want to get involved?' "
"Uh huh."
"There was a guy not so long back. Saved a guy's life whose heart had stopped but in the process had hit him in the chest a bit too hard and cracked a rib. Guy sued him for it. Fancypants lawyer argued 'he cracked his client's rib and the client couldn't work'. Well maybe so but alternatively he could have been dead. He wouldn't be able to work much then either would he."
"So you see," he continued, "they have to ask you which phone number to ring you back on. I've been called out to jobs where it has ended up it's a celebrity, so I have had the phone number of this celebrity. I could then use that number to make their life hell, stalk them, whatever, but the Data Protection Act stops me doing it. If i came out to a job where it was some girl and we got on and decided to go on a date, she couldn't just say to me 'you've got my number, give me a call'. She would have to write it down separately for me."
"Yeah, and you would be well advised to keep it as evidence'" I agreed, " I suppose the way it is, you deviate ever so slightly from laws that are designed to give protection to people to the n-th degree and there's going to be some lawyer lurking there ready to make a quick buck off you for it. And once somebody gets one of these people whispering in their ear, promising all sorts, even the most reasonable of people can turn into opportunistic greedy vultures with pound signs in their eyes, wanting to make something for nothing. Meanwhile the rest of us have to suffer all ths nonsense. I mean, while shc's doing all this silly dance on the phone i might have lost battery life completely and she hasn't even asked the fundamental questions and found out where i am".
The car was hitched up on the brace at the back of his van now and he invited me to jump in the passenger seat. He punched my postcode into his satnav and we set off for home.
"So what's it like working for the ARC?" i asked.
"Oh, it's okay," he said. "Long working hours but they look after you. Good support when you're out there. It can be stressful trying to fix a motor with a wound up customer looking over your shoulder."
"I bet," I could imagine. "And what about targets and all that? Everybody's obsessed with targets these days. Do they set you targets?"
"Ugh, do they," he confirmed. "Targets for upgrades and sales and that."
"What! Upgrades? While you're out in the field fixing motors? I thought you were going to say 'time per breakdown' and 'breakdowns attended' ".
"Oh there's those too, but since we got taken over by this American company a little while back the whole emphasis is on selling more products to the customer."
"That's outrageous," I said.
"Yeh, well I'm not going to bother much with you because you're an Avalon customer, except here, look," he picked up a bottle of blue liquid from a recess next to the handbrake. "Screenwash, £3.99."
"You're joking," I said.
"No, straight up," he continued, "It's good stuff. Won't freeze, down to an outside temerature of -70 ."
"Well that might be worth a go if I were about to commence an excursion to Siberia but right at the moment it's not looking like I'm going anywhere fast in my car. I can't believe it," I continued. "So they send you out on the road to fix people's broken down cars and then assess your performance by how many bottles of screenwash you sell, turning your van into a mobile shop, and you into one of those annoying sales assistants, the last kind of person on earth you want to see when you're stuck out on the road with broken down transport. Unbelievable." I was reminded of younger day of mine when I had briefly tried my hand at selling uPVC double-glazing. As most salespeople, I had looked at many different kinds of things to sell, one of them being a range of soaps and cleaning products. It occurred to me that I could combine the two and make an exta little per sale by selling the 'best possible product for cleaning your new windows and uPVC frames' along with the windows themselves. It was a stupid idea that made me look unprofessional at both, and yet here were multimillion pound, stock-quoted, household name companies trying to pull the same trick. For heaven's sake, what kind of people are they employing as directors, they must be coming straight from market stalls and car boot sales.
At that point we arrived outside my house, and the guy set up a questionnaire on his iPad for me to fill in while he unhitched my car from his van. It asked a question and offered five answers for you to select one, ranging from excellent to poor, and then progress to the next question via a 'next' button.
How do you rate the way your phone call for assistance was handled?
Poor.
How do you rate the feedback received while waiting for the Recovery van to arrive?
Poor.
How do you rate the diagnosis process conducted by your Recovery person?
Okay.
How do you rate your experience today with the RAC?
At this point the guy stepped back up toward me, "You sure I can't interest you in some screenwash for your car then?" he smiled.
I looked across at the hulk of useless metal he was referring to, about to be removed to the scrap yard.
"Or give it a good polish?" He revealed a tin of T-Cut from behind his back.
I looked back at the question on the screen.
How do you rate your experience today with the ARC?
Errm