by Sidney Sweeting, DDS
Like so many other Bahamians we have our share of complaints about the civil service. It seems to be one department one day and another department on another day. The Post Office seems to hold the record for the number of complaints and for the number of years that we have all been complaining about their ineptitude.
Batelnet had informed all its internet customers that they would be switching to a new system. I called and was talked through the process (or so I thought) and then about a week ago I stopped receiving e-mail from them. I called again and again I was talked through the process. I started receiving mail, the same mail over and over again. One morning I opened my mail to find 700 messages (from October 2008).
I finally went in today and deleted everything from mail, trash and spam and went in later to check and a message came up that stated "No mail in your box, your server is being unloved (you read it right). So there you have it. If we want our mail delivered on time and Batelnet to at least answer their phones we have to somehow show that they are loved.
I used to swear by BTC, bragging that through 3 hurricanes, my service at work and home never went down.
About 2 years ago, e-mail got shakey, and after not being able to use outlook for a while but still getting it on their site, it failed completely.
I cancelled the e-mail address, but it is still out there somewhere, collecting spam and mail I cannot access.
I moved on to G-mail, and haven’t looked back since.
Now bandwidth is an issue, but it seems to be a coralwave issue also.
At work I have both, for redundancy, and it doesn’t help speed.
C’est la vie
The only love at BTC is someone looking for a handout, simply for doing their job, that we pay for dearly by the way.If I could help it, I would not give BTC one more dime. It took me two & a half months just to transfer phone lines. Same with BEC, you pay out a fortune in deposits & wait four months to get power ! Pray tell me why ? By the way, I am a proud new owner of a pole upgrade for BEC, only I don’t have the “ownership” papers on it yet !Sorry but BTC sucks, BEC sucks, ZNS sucks, Bahamas Air sucks(8-900 people working five planes),The post office sucks(3-4 weeks for local mail),Courts suck & apparently we suck for just plane old excepting all this crap!
Thanks for your comment Chris.
My experience one particular weekend sums it up. I had been having internet problems and called 914 – “all agents are busy” was the reponse. I left it ringing, saw a couple of patients and it was still ringing. I gave up. The next morning (Saturday) I called at 8am – all agents were stil busy. Every time I called that day they were still busy. I tried again Sunday morning – same thing. Finally Monday morning I tried again and someone picked up the phone and I heard her say “OK sweetie, I’ll have to call you back.” I suppose she had already had her breakfast and read the Punch!
WE are fighting a culture of people who believe in working “when the spirit moves them”
We are facing a dearth of competent people, and for the most part we accept it in silence.
I think the actual tech guys and girls are competent, i think management suck and the clerical follow them. But that is true of all civil services and quite a few private concerns.
There are one or two I will exempt from a firing squad but that’s it.
It is the same everywhere DP, I cannot walk 5 paces without seeing decay or incompetency in almost every direction or situation.
This is not unique to the Bahamas I will add, As the U.S. by sheer numbers is bound to have more Idiots than us.
But they also have more competents also.
We want the best and latest tech, but cannot handle the fundamentals that they are built on.
How can that work?
Don’t feel bad Freeport power is getting as incompetent as BEC so there is no advantage in some private operations.
To: DP
Talk about not wanting to give ’em a dime, I don’t want to giv Govt in any of their nefarious forms another dime. If money was valued by the quality of the service given by the issuer I.E. Govt, It wouldn’t be worth squat.
I do agree C.Lowe. Its almost like Incompetence & Ignorance has taken over completely. Not to mention how they overcharge & kill everybody with the business license fees, and they have no intention what-so-ever in sorting it out.