Isolation Diary — 2 — Jason and the Sky Accounts
Today I had to ring Sky to ask them not to turn the internet off.
The internet was supposed to be turned off today, because we were supposed to be moving out, but now that we’re not, I’d like the internet to stay on for another week, so that I can do my job, watch the Euros, post the things I write and not completely lose my mind.
I had to pretend to be my flatmate as the account is in his name. I was worried about the security checks, but I needn’t have been. The guy I spoke to said, ‘Can I confirm I’m speaking to the contract owner?’ and I said, ‘Yes’ and he said, ‘And can I call you Jamie?’ and I said, ‘yes’ and that was all he needed to know.
Sky were actually OK, as helplines go. The automated lady was very cheeky though. There’s always an automated person now, trying to dissuade you from speaking to a real person and recommending you check the website, even though the only reason anyone ever rings is because checking the website hasn’t helped, nobody actively wants to speak to a person. She asked for my details, and I gave them, patiently keying in Jamie’s phone number and date of birth. Then she asked me what my issue was, and I explained it and she didn’t understand, so I answered it like a caveman, ‘CONTRACT NO END’ and she said, ‘great’ followed by ‘Is that everything I can help you with today?’ as though I had simply rung to inform her who I was and that a problem existed, and so long as they knew, I was satisfied. I said, ‘What? No, obviously not’ verbatim and then she made a big deal about how busy all their staff were before one immediately answered the phone.
He was called Jason and was very energetic but did not know anything, so every time I asked him a question he said, ‘let me just check with my folks’. I assume he meant his manager, or a senior person in the company, but I liked to imagine he was flanked by his incredibly supportive parents who were coaching him through the whole thing.
At the end of the call, Jason asked me to fill out a customer service feedback form that he was going to e-mail to me. Now, obviously, the same rules apply to this as when you get an Uber — unless they drove you off a bridge, they get 5 stars. Customer service jobs like these are so thankless and poorly paid, the least you can do is give them a good review, so when Jason started reading the options to me, I already knew I’d give him a 10 on the feedback form. But Jason wasn’t taking any chances. ‘So, on a scale of 1 to 10, what would your rating be for me,’ Jason said, ‘with 9 or 10 being helpful and anything below 9 meaning I was no help whatsoever.’
Now I’m not sure that’s the official rating system. I think Jason has weighted that a little differently to usual. There’s no way that Sky are ranking 8 out of 10 as utterly useless, but I said 10 anyway, and Jason told me to remember that number when I filled out the form, and I felt genuinely quite threatened. Realistically I think Jason was probably a 7, but in Jason’s eyes, a 7 meant I wanted him hung, so I said 10. I was always going to say 10, and part of me wanted him to know that, but instead I just hung up.
The idea of not having the internet on for the next week filled me with a genuine dread. It’s become such a mainstay of my life, of most of our lives, particularly in the last year, that I don’t know what I would do without it. When I imagined a week in an empty flat, without the internet, I felt itchy. Which I think is bad and, as with most things I feel these days, reflects very poorly on me and my inherent privilege.
In the film ‘A Muppets’ Christmas Carol’ there’s a scene where Scrooge goes back to his flat on Christmas Eve. He gets freaked out when his doorknob turns into one of the Marley Brothers, which is understandable, and then he goes upstairs and just…sits there. He sits in front of the fire, in a night cap and a dressing gown, and he eats a big lump of cheese and a big lump of bread in complete silence. That isn’t the point of the scene — it’s just a couple of seconds to establish the peace before the ghosts of the Marley Brothers come bursting in and sing a song about chains, but it’s the bit that stuck with me, because that’s what people used to do, when they were alone. It’s still what many people do, when they’re alone, if they don’t use the internet, or they don’t have television. They just sit.
I have always said that I’m someone who is very good at being alone. I like my own company. But really, that’s not true. I like being alone in the sense that I am happy to watch television, or read a book, or listen a podcast, for hours on end. I am happy to be alone so long as I am always connected to society by the veins. I like to be alone so long as I have access to everyone I know, through a phone or computer, as well as all the entertainment in the world, and every piece of information that has ever existed, whenever I choose. So I don’t really like to be alone.
What did he think about, Scrooge, as he sat there, every night, after work, in silence in front of the fire? What did anyone think about? I very rarely think when I’m alone, these days. Only if I’m writing material or planning a set or writing something else. The rest of the time I look at other people’s thoughts, or listen to them, or watch them. Or sometimes I think about other people’s thoughts. But I do find that, when I’m in a group of people, after a while my brain starts wanting to think. I find myself needing to finish a thought in my head, and getting annoyed by the people around me, my friends or family, interrupting with conversation. That could be a sign that, actually, I’m a pretty good thinker. Or it could be a sign that I have a very poor attention span, so poor in fact that I can’t even pay attention to the people in my life for very long without retreating back into the Twitter feed inside my head. It might mean that I’m a classic introvert, and I need time alone with my own thoughts every so often. Or it could mean that I’m very self-involved. It could mean that I’m quite bad value as company, particularly in groups, which I think is true. I try to work out sometimes if I’m quiet, or shy, or introverted, but I think the truth is, a lot of the time, I just don’t have much to say. But introverted sounds a lot cooler. Shy people are losers, introverts are mysterious. That’s what we’ve all decided, apparently.
Anyway, I thought about letting them turn the internet off. I had fantasies of it changing my life. Of me reading, working out, cooking an elaborate lunch and then writing a script. I figured, if I had to stay inside, and I had no internet access and no TV, I would, surely, have to read and write and workout, just for something to do. And then I remembered that my phone has 4G so what would actually happen is I would run up a massive bill streaming the Euros onto my phone. So I rang Jason and he saved my life. Now I can watch the Euros on a slightly bigger screen.
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