That’s my new year resolution. I have a lot against airtel and little against Orkut, but I believe doing away with both is best for the mankind. Some valid and some stupid, but yes I have reasons!
airtel:
One reason I’ve been with airtel for so many years is- I did not want to change my number. And yet, while the number portability is almost here, I did it. Got a new DoCoMo number, updated all the contacts and airtel is no longer my primary number now. When the portability comes along, it will not longer be my secondary as well (airtel, not the number. I’m thinking BSNL for a change! Let me try!)
If someone related to airtel is reading this, here are the reasons:
- Email will be my primary mode of communication; especially with any Customer Care because no one loves to wait in queue and then talk to someone who, in most probable situation, will leave you with a case number. IF they can do it with email, kool! But, my email experiences with airtel have been bad. A sample is available here. [REF:141551117728]
- When I wanted to get a broadband connection, I thought it would be simple with airtel for two reasons: one- the building I reside in already has multiple DSL connections, so it will be provisioned faster, two- I’ve been using airtel mobile for years, so it would be easy with proofs and documentation. They proved it wrong!
- When I received a calendar from airtel a couple of years ago with my name on a private beach (wow!) on one side and what you see in the picture below on the other side, I felt happy. I even chose to ignore the spelling error about ‘adbuthamaina’ service. But again, it wasn’t so amazing after all! 45 days to change a bill plan?? That’s definitely not ‘adbutham’ for me. Anyway, I got it done in two weeks (which is still too much) after 14 emails (avg, 1 everyday) and one visit to the stupid ‘relationship center’. REF:2112201011501, 2112201013520, 2112201016521, 2112201018610 and 2812201022404. *Sigh!*
- When I complained about the poor signal reception at my place, they promised to do something about it in a couple of months. That was in July 2010. Well, we are done with 2010 altogether and not even an update so far. REF:107201018403 and 107201010103.
- A couple of ‘bill not received’ cases. Not major problems per say, as the bill was resent very shortly, but when am making a list, why not include the number? REF:32966284 and 107201010607.
- I pay bills online. And they can’t help me when my account is locked! REF:250520109303.
- Best of all – Calls to Customer Care 121 are no longer toll free!
So, dear airtel, with all due respect to your limitations and my expectations, I hear by decide to move on. For now, just mobiles (self, mom’s and dad’s). I will try my best to find an alternate ISP and landline telephone provider very soon. Promise!
Orkut:
Where do I begin? It’s been 120 secs of Orkut every 3-4 months for the last year or so. Given that gap between login sessions, something or the other changes every time I see my Orkut page. It’s 60 secs of figuring out where the hell that scrap is. Anyway, I login only to reply to once-in-a-blue-moon scrap and get the hell out of there (not liking the system is not an excuse to ignore ‘hi’ from contacts, is it?)
If I have to mention in bullets, I have only few:
- First and foremost is the login option. I cannot change it to another email address! So, since I changed my primary email address a long time ago, it’s been terrible effort to keep up with Orkut. Especially as it’s tied up with Google single sign on. While I am in my email and receive an invitation or scrap, clicking on that link will ask me to sign up with Orkut
So, I logout this session, login to Orkut and then complete my transaction. Or, a different browser for email and Orkut. It’s a pain in the neck I say! - I believe in the ‘Inbox Zero’ concept. I try to delete/ archive email in my Inbox once am done reading it, or acting upon it. Same with office Outlook setup, gmail, my personal email @viveeonline.com and SMS on my iPhone too. I’d like to do that with scraps on Orkut too! Reply and delete. But you know what? The option to delete scrap is now missing! It shows only ‘hide’. May be there is still a way to delete but who cares? I’m doing away with Orkut once for all very soon.
- Couple of other reasons that I don’t even remember now
- Facebook is here, it’s good and works great with SMS too along with the awesomely clean iPhone app. Why still Orkut?
So, that’s for the new year 2011 for me. Strange but valid resolution. How about yours? Any resolutions other than ‘no more resolutions’? Feel free to share in the comments!
Happy New Year! 
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