Still not fixed

Last week, the engineer working on the washing machine decided it had a faulty part. I don't know what the part was. Today, a different engineer turned up, parts in hand, to fix it. Today, the washing machine wasn't even removed from under the kitchen units before he declared it was the wrong part and a new drum would need to be ordered. Yes, it's in stock. No, nobody can come out until next week. Oh, and can I remove the machine from under the units as it was put back poorly, and he doesn't want to damage anything?

As I write this, I have a report from today's engineer outlining what part he thinks needs fixing. I don't have one from last week. The inconsistency of how this process works is just one of the frustrations.

I managed to keep my cool. The engineer was friendly and answered all my questions except for the one that asked why, five weeks after I made the initial call, and in spite of four different people coming to look at it, I still did not have a working machine.

I lost my cool (a little bit; I hope I was still polite) when I called the helpline to complain. No, they couldn't tell me why each engineer diagnoses a different problem. No, they wouldn't send somebody for a second opinion before next week. No, I can't speak to a supervisor (or their supervisor's supervisor) because they are trained to help me. No, I can't escalate because the case is not a month old (although my initial request is a month old, the clock only starts when the first engineer arrives). They can't explain why I have to take the machine out when only their engineer has ever moved it (if it's stuck, they did it). It shouldn't be this hard to get the help I have paid for and for somebody to take ownership of the problem.

But no, I am just a ticket in a system.

I went out in the pouring rain this afternoon to get some pound coins from the Post Office to pay for a load of washing at the laundrette. At least I can use the tumble dryer and bring dry clothes home. Let that be today's little win.