You'll have seen my previous quickie about dropping Tivo and may be wondering if me and Tivo have had a big falling out or something. The answer is 'not really' and the real reason for us ditching the service is our friend Jenny.

 

Jenny managed to get a third off the price of her Sky TV bill by ringing up and asking for the complete TV, Phone, and Broadband package. I thought it was worth a try and decided to ring Sky. I'm not naive and know that the only real power lies with the cancellation team. I rang up and asked to be put through to cancellations.

 

 

At this point, it might be worth pointing out that we do only pay a tiny amount for Sky TV compared to some people (£17) but we have to pay £10 a month for Tivo as well( for those that don't know, Tivo was around before Sky+ and is still better).

 

'Hello, you're through to cancellations.'

'Hello. I'd like to cancel.'

'I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like a free Sky+ instead?'

'No thanks, I already have a Tivo'

'What's a Tivo?'

'Nevermind. I really wanted some more channels without paying any more.'

'I'm afraid i can't offer you that. Do you want the free Sky+ box?'

'No thanks.'

'Ok then. Just putting your cancellation through now.'

 

Erm, whoops.

 

But then I remembered about BT Vision. This is Sky+ for the freeview generation (or welfare TV as it's known in Mandy's work). Two tuners and an on demand video service over your broadband connection made this seem quite appealing. Add to that, it's free and with no contract. Mandy said yes but only if BT Broadband reduced our bill.

 

 

I rang BT Broadband (a condition of a free BT Vision box is that you renew your BT Broadband contract for 12 months).

'Hello, I'd like to speak to someone about renewing by contract.'

'Hi there, how can i help?'

'I'd like to renew but can you give me a discount?'

'Hmm, I can offer you a discount of £2 a month'

'Ok. I'll take -'

'Plus, i can credit your account with £5 each month on top of that. So that will save you £7 a month'

 

Well yes I agreed and got a slight deal on a video on demand package for the BT Vision box.

 

So with Sky cancelled, Tivo cancelled, and BT Broadband discounted, we've saved £34 a month. Not bad eh.

 

So thanks Sky. Thanks for ripping me off for crappy TV all these years. Thanks for being so stubborn you wouldn't give me a deal. And thanks for letting me see that there are altervatives.

 

BT Vision comes tomorrow. Better not be crap or I'm going to look a right idiot.

Lovely journey this morning.

 

Car 1 - 0 Pigeon

 

My BT Vision box should be coming on Tuesday.

 

I'm quite excited.

 

Saturday morning my cancellation of Tivo was confirmed and Tivo stopped letting me record programmes.

 

I nearly cried.

 

I was reading Tom Johnson's blog and came across this article.

 

It got me thinking.

 

Do I find Technical Writing boring?

 

There are definitely times when I would rather reorganise my filing system than get stuck into writing procedures (depending on mood this could be several times a day). But there are genuinely times when I'm, if not excited by my work, at least highly motivated.

 

There are days when I need to be creative and days when I need the drudgery. If the software teams' plans force me to do the drudgery when I'd rather be creative, there's a conflict and that causes boredom. On the flip side, there are times when I have a chance to do something off plan, but find myself hitting the equivialent of writer's block.

 

This pattern must surely manifest in other lines of work.

 

So tell me, how boring is your job?

 

Gareth said I should put a post on here.

 

Here it is.

 

 

I wonder how old that joke is.