The MTN Maze

Dear MTN

Please let us have your correct customer service number. Each time I call 135, I get through to a circus. And it's not even  entertaining.

You remind me so of Mr Zuma at his scintillating best. Just like his "Listen carefully", your "Please pay attention to our menu items" is followed by the purest gobbledygook available on the planet.

I am not interested in mobile money or any of the other treasures on offer. I just so desperately want to ask a breathing human being why the internet is suddenly not available, even after one of your technicians 'fixed' the problem for a few hours. That option (human conversation) is not on the menu, as far as I can discern.

Your recorded message tells me that you are improving your IVR (or something) - an automated service that I landed up at every time, regardless of menu choice. This would happen after a mind-bending journey through many-layered, intriguing but useless menu options. Why don't you just improve your service, period? You do realize that these Monty Python experiences are what send people postal or into institutions.

I eventually chose the fraud option and got to speak to a human being. At least, I think she was human. I asked her how one gets to speak to a human at MTN. "Dial 0 after 135". Why not include that among the menu items? Of course, it didn't work, but took me, to my delight, back into the mysterious MTN maze.

As your service seems to be based on the government model, let me quote:

"Consistent energy availability will ultimately lead to the end of loadshedding"

Well, consistent internet availability will ultimately lead to the end of frustration. 

The same message to you, as to our caring government departments. We are customers, not supplicants at your temples of indifference, inefficiency and buffoonery.

A postscript: many calls later, I was informed that there had been an unauthorized intrusion at a nearby tower. I was relieved that it was not an authorized intrusion. It would have been helpful to know that sooner, instead of fiddling around. But then again, I suppose  technicians work in mysterious ways. As, it seems, do our service providers. Incidentally, the problem is not a major one, I was told. That would explain why it's for only two days that I don't have internet. I imagine that we'd be looking at two years for a major problem.

Yours in the struggle to find real service.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Dear Mr Ramaphosa 

I have begun to see loadshedding in a positive light - when there is light to see. 

Thank you for the zen-like advice.

The sublime wisdom of it lit up my inner consciousness like a battery of lights coming on after 3 hours of loadshedding, when, during a hospital visit, I overheard a man comforting his friend thus:

"Try to see this cancer in a positive light. When you die, in about six months, you will fully appreciate the new experience."

It was an Aha moment. "Aha", I cried, doing a couple of the dance steps that our electricity minister so ably demonstrated.  With the dawn of understanding, came many new insights.

I now fully understand the 'you may not have water, but at least you have taps' conundrum. I also see corruption and incompetence in a positive light. What fun we will have reminiscing, once you comrades have ridden off into the new dusk.

"Remember the skinny jeans for sutures saga? Ha, ha, ha."

"What about the statues and the Anglo-Boer War spirits in KZN. Tee, hee, hee."

"And the stuff that Apartheid used to do, burning buildings, stealing, stuffing up everything available for upstuffery. Ho, ho, ho."

"Oh, you're killing me! Covid and flood relief funds vanishing like Tokyo's trillions and the decuplets. Heh, heh, heh."

At these and other comforting thoughts, frustration vanished, replaced by joy, then something approaching ecstasy. Wait, that might have come from the puff of zol I'd taken in desperation, just before I heard your life-changing advice. 

I am drawn to the Eastern mysticism of this philosophical approach. Now, all I have to do is to find a way to view rampant crime in a positive light. But I'm sure that Mr Cele and various think tanks and commissions are hard at work. I fully expect that I shall soon see the sunny side of those murder and robbery statistics. 

I am so glad that the noise of generators in parliamentary villages and elsewhere has not distracted you comrades from this sort of strategic, nation-building thinking.

Yours in the struggle to always look on the bright side of life, accentuate the positive, stop to smell the sewa..., sorry, roses. Long live ANC, till 2024.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Again Apartheid

Dear Ms Zulu

I know that you have been totally engrossed in the grim, fierce battle against Apartheid, who reportedly set a building on fire in Johannesburg. 

You may not be aware that our pensions were not paid out yesterday, as promised. The reasons are as yet obscure.  Still, one does not need the sleuthing skills of a Sherlock Holmes. Nor does one need the finely honed deductive and logical skills of a deployed ANC cadre. There can be only one culprit, the aforesaid, rotten, racist villain, Apartheid. Aided and abetted, no doubt by White Monopoly Capital and van Riebeeck.

And, as in a good Sherlock Holmes novel, the plot thickened substantially. I began to write this friendly letter while queuing at a Capitec ATM. On inserting my trusty SASSA card, hope blossoming in my bosom, I received a printout with the glad news that there were indeed funds available  - a quarter of my pension. Apartheid had struck again. This is the second time that the villainous bastard has dipped his dirty hands into my pension money. Gas explosions, fires, theft, fraud, buffoonery, incompetence  - is there nothing that the swine will not stoop to? 

Ah well, here we go again. Up at three a.m. tomorrow to queue all day at SASSA. Then the delightful repartee, as I'm given a dozen reasons that my stolen pension cannot simply be refunded. Complicating matters is my failure to replace my lost identity document after only four futile visits to that bastion of post-apartheid excellence, Home Affairs. My own fault. I should have awoken at one a.m., not two a.m.  Apartheid is making our lives miserable.

Dr Google notes that you are a communication strategist, Ms Zulu. Your communication strategy during this little episode has been nothing if not interesting. Actually, it's been nothing.

I notice that all you comrades have synchronized your anti-apartheid watches and have been speaking, lately, with one voice against the damned villain. I now understand the significance of my dream of two days ago. I was in a savage battle with a fellow with the build of a rugby lock, wearing a 'Whites Only' tee-shirt. The meaning is clear: Apartheid is on the rampage. Thank goodness for you comrades.

Yours in the climactic struggle against Apartheid.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Struggle Songs

 When you ANC grootmense sing for your suppers, you do sing in harmony.

Your songsheet changed recently from 'xenophobia bad' to 'illegal immigration worse' a la Animal Farm 2023. A subtle lift of the conductor's baton and the altos and sopranos  soared gloriously in perfect harmony; Mr Ramaphosa's somewhat muffled, mumbled warbling,  Mr Mbalula's glass-shattering high notes, Ms Zulu's rather off-key contribution and the rest of the choir chiming in enthusiastically.

Of course, there's five more years worth of suppers to sing for. Who wouldn't pluck those vocal chords fot all they are worth? The apartheid song, like so many witless, lightweight pop songs, has been overplayed,  familiarity breeding scathing contempt. The choir sounds cracked, strained and reedy as it struggles to wring some meaning from badly dated, nonsensical lyrics. You need to plump up your repertoire as one might plump up a threadbare sofa with, say, dollar bills.

Though the  apartheid song has a nice 'one Scheiss fits all occasions' quality, you need to add old favourites such as such as Dis 'n Lekker Ou Jan van Riebeeck, The Damned Dutch East India Company, Send Out The Colonialists.

Let's not forget the newer ballads, recounting the vile deeds of spirits of Boer and English soldiers in KZN.

Let's not omit the machinations and depradations of White Monopoly Capital, Bill Gates, George Soros, the Stellenbosch Mafia, the White Privileged Ones. Apologies to anyone I've omitted. 

We will probably be forced to listen to more of your caterwauling post 2024. How good it would be to say:

'The song is ended though the malady lingers on.'

Oh, you might also like Money Makes The World Go Round, from Cabaret, Drink, Drink, Drink, from The Student Prince and Food, Glorious Food, from Oliver.

Happy singing.

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Chandon se Moer

Dear Patriotic Alliance People 

Good to see another party drinking champagne with our lips (as the ANC once did). This at a recent Johannesburg Roads Agency shindig. (They still have them - roads?).

The Moèt and Chandon flowed like the Tugela on its way to the ocean. There was a garbled speech about the pronunciation of Moèt. It would have been enough to say: "As ons moet drink, dan drink ons Moèt." It was the kind of mindless drivel that draws rapturous applause from those who are on a mystical plane - somewhere below see level.  A subterranean stage of mindlessness, similar to the raptures experienced  by those who yelled "hoor  hoor" to Nationalist Party gibberish. And to think that people spend years in remote caves trying to attain that state. Of course, many of our politicians might as well have been living in caves, remote from the realities of a country crumbling into compost.

Please remind us whether you were celebrating sewage in the streets, sewage that passes for service or the sewage that issues forth from various party mouths. I am not referring to the gentleman who answered a relevant question with "You stupid, racist white man." With a mouth like that, seemingly unhampered by moving parts in the brain, the stupidity of other people would be the least of my  concerns.

I like you politicians' single-mindedness . It's a wonderful "carry on regardless" approach to decay, disaster and doom. Reminds one of the old: 'come snow, come hail, nothing can stop the US mail' Yours is more like "come mud, come rain, we are always up for more champagne." Or, expressed a little more earthily in parts of the mining industry: "kyk noord en v..k voort."  And you surely know how to celebrate. Even when, or perhaps especially when, there is, in the winsome words of a minister, fokol to celebrate. With an attitude like that, you can't lose. Even if you do, you won't notice. What with your 'altitude', way up there beyond the slaughter and the sewage, 'determining your attitude'. 

At moments like these, one feels like bursting into song. Remember 'Chanson d'Amour'? Well, 'Chandon se Moer' would be quite appropriate.

Yours in the struggle to glug it down before the party ends. And end it will.

Richard

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Law and Order I

Dear Mister Cele 

You fascinate me. 

It's the kind of fascination one has for a particularly dark, Monty Python-esque, horror comedy. 

During the recent taxi violence  you told the Cape Town City government in typically restrained, respectful and diplomatic fashion to get off their high horses and negotiate with Santaco. Perhaps they did not heed your advice because they have passed beyond the horse and horse manure era.

On the subject of equines, is it not time that you got off your high ass and did some real work that your portfolio requires? Interesting that, in the first instance, you did not address the ones doing the burning,  barricading, bullying and other barbaric stuff that we have, sadly, become quite accustomed to. But of course they have the democratic right to take a dump on the rights of others. Just thought that, as a staunch defender of the rule of law, that might have been uppermost in your mind.

Perhaps you did mention that  in your thought-provoking speech. I did not read much further. How do I put this delicately? Your speeches are generally not the stuff of inspiration and edification. I stopped there, so as not to take the edge and the piquant flavour off those first portentous lines.  If you did address the issue, please ignore relevant portions of this respectful letter.

Sir, I hope you do not interpret this as a 'talk down to the gardener' approach. As you did with Mr Ian Cameron. Even if I had a gardener (with necessary garden), we would not have this conversation. His responsibility would stop at maintenance of law and order in a small garden. Yours, I think, is law and order in a large, modern country.  Both  of which,(law and order), you might have noticed are in desperately short supply in South Africa. But then again perhaps you have been too busy jumping into various important lecturing and pontificating opportunities.

In recent news is the kafkaesque story of the whistleblower brought to court in  leg irons. Truly we have become a land of bewildering, surreal contrasts and contradictions. Whistleblowers in leg irons, whistleblowers assassinated, a murderer and rapist swanning around Sandton City, at liberty and at ease. But I suppose, sir, that you have far more important things under your hat. Let the reader speculate as to what those critically important things may be. They certainly far override such considerations as the safety of South Africans, some semblance of Law and Order and even a modicum of sanity.

Perhaps one might humbly ask, without resorting to gardener type patronizing, a few questions. 

It would be mildly interesting to know the substance  of your meeting with Santaco,  before the madness.... pardon, I meant to say, the exercise of democratic rights. 

What are your views on the Whistleblower Saga which reflects a little less than brightly on your professional police force? Perhaps such matters are not for the peasants. 

Has there been any movement on the Police Intelligence quotient thermometer since the infamous kzn riots?

What is being done about the frequent reports of corruption and criminality in the ranks of the country's finest? 

To say nothing  of the avalanche of reports  of corruption and criminality  in the ranks  of the country's  politicians and officials .

Has there been any progress in addressing the dreadful malady sweeping through your forces - the sleeping-on-the-job sickness?

When do you plan on gathering the generals,  colonels,  lieutenants, captains and other grandly titled officers? I should think that you would want them to get off their high horses with some alacrity and do something about the shambles that is policing in this country. 

It does seem that your injunction to your forces that criminals should 'see you, feel, smell and taste you' has not been  obeyed. Certainly we, the citizens, can smell something. It's not good,  sir. 

To cannibalize Omar khayyàm. 

'The moving finger points and having pointed,  turns back. '

Well sir,  I am sure that you have many important lectures to give, witticisms to scatter abroad and fine philosophical gems to impart. Please do not let me interrupt your critical business,  whatever that may be. I am sure that it is no business of the ordinary non-honourable citizen in a democracy.

You still have a full year of critical ministerial work to do before you are removed.  May you then ride off into your sunset of choice on a high horse. 

Yours in the struggle to understand what the hell your performance targets and indicators  actually are (what with your not being a gardener, but THE cat in the hat).

Richard

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Guide to Negotiating With Thugs

Bheki Cele tells officials to ‘get off their high horses’ and negotiate with Santaco over taxi strike that turned violent

From a news report 

Dear Mister Cele. 

Your weird...., pardon, wisdom, never ceases to amaze me.  I am surprised that you have not been offered the chair of philosophy or criminology at some eminent university. 

The negotiation idea is brilliant.  I know from experience that it works extremely well.  I was hijacked once.  I did not have a high horse to get off,  but I got off my HiAce.  Using techniques learnt from the book 'Getting to Yes', as well as various negotiating skills training courses,  I was able to pursuade the AK-47 bearing gentlemen to shoot me once only, instead of four times.  A genuine win-win situation,  wouldn't you say? 

I see this approach working in any situation where one is faced by violent thugs or mindless lunatics.  I am sure that negotiating with a suicide bomber, for example,  would at least gain one sufficient time to say a heartfelt prayer, before departing precipitately for the 'bourn from whence no traveller returns'. 

I  trust that this is working well for you in the grim struggle against crime and violence in our land.  I should think that despite the challenges of population growth,  (which you alluded to earlier), expert negotiation is having a significant impact on the numbers of murders, rapes,  hijackings, armed robberies, daylight robberies by politicians and friends, and all the other things that make South Africa special. The thing is that many people do not realise that beneath the hard, AK-47 bearing exterior of your average thug is a very reasonable, rational and perhaps even amiable and gentle person. It is to this person that I am sure that your negotiation tactics would appeal.

I am now filled with regret at having  administered a rather vigorous kick to the loins of the last person who tried to mug me.  I so wish that I had negotiated instead.  I see us leaning against opposite, dead, street lamps in that deserted road,  diligently working on our best-case, worst-case,  likely middle- ground and best-alternative-to- negotiated-agreement scenarios.  Who knows but that the process may even have brought us closer together? Perhaps even forged a friendship. Discussing varied approaches to the gentle art of mugging over tea or a glass of red wine? Co-authoring, for posterity, a seminal work entitled 'The Compleat Mugger'? 

Sir, I don't know whether you also wagged a figurative, righteous forefinger at the protesting taxi gentlemen.   I hope that you were careful not to upset them. One knows how sensitive taxi people can be.  

Of course you are familiar with the five key principles in any conflict resolution situation. 

1. Maintain or enhance self-esteem. Example :

"Your AK-47 looks wonderfully well maintained. Good work."

2. Listen and respond with empathy.  

Example:

"Yes, it must be frustrating to be ticketed so many times for reckless driving. Those tickets do take up space in the glove compartment."

3. Asking for help and encouraging involvement.

Example:

"So how do you suggest that we ensure that all these petty, local and national road regulations don't get in the way of your all important business of serving the community and getting filthy rich?"

4. Sharing thoughts, feelings and rationale to build trust. 

Example:

"I'm going to level with you. It leaves us with a bad feeling when you piss on other people's rights and safety.  How does that make you feel?  Fokol?  Okay,  honesty is good. Facts are friendly. Let's work with that."

5. Providing support without removing responsibility to build a sense of ownership. 

Example:

"Okay,  we are happy for you to have the bus lanes and the other special lanes. But we need you to take responsibility for driving safely and within the law in those lanes.  Can we have your word on that?  We trust you to manage that as responsibly and considerately as you've managed everything else."

So there we have it - a progressive, productive, win-win situation.  The thugs win everything.  The city and  the citizens win buggerall.  Classic South African negotiating, problem-solving and conflict handling. That's the kind of thing that's made us an example to the world. We really should write the best-selling successor to 'Getting to Yes' and 'Getting Past No', namely 'Getting to Eish'.

Thought-provoking stuff, Mr Cele, deep as a zama-zama's main shaft.

Yours in the struggle for mature,  responsible,  interest-based negotiating wins. 

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723