Has Telkom Kenya really changed....?

After having spent the whole of yesterday, getting all the paraphernalia of having a 'fixed' telephone line and paying for it, nobody from Orange Telkom (previously known as Telkom Kenya), came to install the line. Why?

After all, they had promised me that it would be installed today and I spent the whole of today waiting for them. First, I was told by the technician, Mwaro, that he would come at 1.00 pm as he was very busy elsewhere. One wonders if they have only one guy to cover the whole of Mombasa.

Well, 1.00 pm came and passed, but, nobody showed up nor did anybody from Orange Telkom have the courtesy to call. So, I did, instead. To enquire first from the techy himself who told me that he was on his way and would be at my place soon. So, I waited some more and when more than half an hour came and went, this time I called various Orange Telkom numbers which were given to me by one of their staff.

This because, their latest directories, do not have a single Orange Telkom number listed anywhere in their glossy pages. And when one starts making enquiries about these numbers and if by mistake, thinking that 991 is a toll-free number, one makes a nasty discovery that it is not! You're charged for calling this number, so BEWARE!!! This is a directory enquiry number and it is an insult to injury when the directory that Orange Telkom publishes is deficient in giving this very important information - their telephone numbers. I wonder if they really deal with telecommunications.....?!

Anyway, to cut a very long and frustrating story short and after having even called their Nairobi number to get some 'action', my phone line has still not been installed and I wonder when it will ever be, for that matter.

I cannot spend my days being dictated to by so-called 'service' providers, i.e. that I cannot go where I want, when I want, just because these horrors cannot keep their word or time. That I have to stick around at home in the hope that somebody will come to install my phone IF, they feel like it. Otherwise I can go jump in the ocean for all they care. It does not matter to these incompetent people that I, too, might have certain important work to do and appointments to keep and I, unlike them, do not want my reputation to be spoiled by not doing so.

Therefore, I wonder now, when and IF, they are going to come. I have a nasty feeling that despite having told them that I will not be available on Wednesday, they will show up tomorrow, and then when I have to chase them away use the excuse that I was not available....., or not there!

So, as far as I and many others are concerned - while Telkom Kenya might have changed it's name to Orange Telkom, they have not changed their attitude one bit!