Having spent the last six years bobbing about in the Sea of Unbridled Chaos that is the largest country in South America, it has been a revelation to me over the past few days that the nation still has the potential to surprise, if not delight.
On Thursday I found it impossible to use my Internet connection as I received the repeated message, "Access denied: username and password not recognised." Imagining it was a temporary glitch, I resolved to try later, and again received the same succinct message. I decided to call the boobie-run, Spanish-owned Telefonica to find out why their laughably-titled Speedy service was even less so than normal.
The first time I called, I was informed by a recorded message to press 8 for Speedy services. After doing that, another recording told me to dial different number, which was babbled incoherently once before the line went dead. I hastily scribbled what I thought was the number in the message, but, of course, it wasn't as I got another, "number unrecognised" message when I called it.
I dialled the original number again, only for it to hang interminably and not get through to anyone. I called again, sat through the whole menu business again and managed to jot down the correct number. When I called this one, I got an engaged tone the first time and some relaxing piano solo the second time, which made me wonder if I'd got through to a secluded corner of a sophisticated piano bar in Grenoble by sheer luck. As relaxing as the music was, the lack of human input led me to hang up and stab redial with growing emotion.
Eventually, after several more attempts, I was informed that the system had indeed crashed and should be back by 1pm. I managed to access the Internet only between 2 and 3pm the next day.
Since then, my connection has been dead, now for a little over three days. The mendacious halfwits at Telefonica published a dignified, full-page, half-truth-ridden apology in the Sunday papers, regretting the inconvenience and informing the people that, although 50% of the entire state of São Paulo had lost their Internet connection, including public services and, most worryingly, the Polícia Civil, due to a worker in nearby Sorocaba spilling his coffee over a router or something, normal services had been restored by 11.30 pm last Thursday.
I am writing this from a cybercafé, surrounded by adolescents furtively seeking adult thrills or eagerly machine gunning each other as if they were in the Polícia Militar.
I would promise to keep you posted, but that would be something of an empty gesture.
On Thursday I found it impossible to use my Internet connection as I received the repeated message, "Access denied: username and password not recognised." Imagining it was a temporary glitch, I resolved to try later, and again received the same succinct message. I decided to call the boobie-run, Spanish-owned Telefonica to find out why their laughably-titled Speedy service was even less so than normal.
The first time I called, I was informed by a recorded message to press 8 for Speedy services. After doing that, another recording told me to dial different number, which was babbled incoherently once before the line went dead. I hastily scribbled what I thought was the number in the message, but, of course, it wasn't as I got another, "number unrecognised" message when I called it.
I dialled the original number again, only for it to hang interminably and not get through to anyone. I called again, sat through the whole menu business again and managed to jot down the correct number. When I called this one, I got an engaged tone the first time and some relaxing piano solo the second time, which made me wonder if I'd got through to a secluded corner of a sophisticated piano bar in Grenoble by sheer luck. As relaxing as the music was, the lack of human input led me to hang up and stab redial with growing emotion.
Eventually, after several more attempts, I was informed that the system had indeed crashed and should be back by 1pm. I managed to access the Internet only between 2 and 3pm the next day.
Since then, my connection has been dead, now for a little over three days. The mendacious halfwits at Telefonica published a dignified, full-page, half-truth-ridden apology in the Sunday papers, regretting the inconvenience and informing the people that, although 50% of the entire state of São Paulo had lost their Internet connection, including public services and, most worryingly, the Polícia Civil, due to a worker in nearby Sorocaba spilling his coffee over a router or something, normal services had been restored by 11.30 pm last Thursday.
I am writing this from a cybercafé, surrounded by adolescents furtively seeking adult thrills or eagerly machine gunning each other as if they were in the Polícia Militar.
I would promise to keep you posted, but that would be something of an empty gesture.
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