Clowns, that PTCL sent my way

I had been using Micronet Broadband DSL for the last four and a half years and was pretty happy by their service especially their customer support. Since Micronet is the only contender to PTCL when it comes to providing landline DSL, the latter had been creating problems for my internet service and continuously suggesting to switch over to their service, to which I always turned a blind eye.

One fine morning I woke up to see my PTCL number changed. I had been using the number since 1985 and suddenly out of the blue, I see a different number on CLi of my cell phone. I lodge a complaint to PTCL for cross talk and line swap only to find out that they have knowingly changed my number. As a modes operandi I also lodged a complaint with Micronet to which they promptly responded and told me the exact scenario. Two days later I get contacted by PTCL employees, and they tell me the same story of change in LL number. I objected but to no use, they also added that on this new number only PTCL DSL would work.

There was a long pushing and pulling of stuff in between, and I even got my number back for two three days, but then I had to switch over. I also told the PTCL guys to give me DSL on this new number to which they said “You will get internet at blazing fast speed. and we will send somebody to get you a new router and configure it.”

On a Saturday morning I went out to run some errands and in the meanwhile a PTCL Customer support guys showed up at my home. My mom ranged me up and I talked to the guy, the following text is in Romanized Urdu, since translation cannot convey the same effect:

Me: “Asalamoalaikum, Jee aap kya kernay aur kahan say aye hain?”

Him: ” Jee Sir DSL laganay aya hun, PTCL say.”

Me: ”Acha Set up waghaira ker kay meray say baat ker lena, aur configurations likh kay jana, Kya purana splitter aur router use ho jaye ga?”

Him: ”Nahin sir hum apna splitter lagatay hain, wo fark hota hai, aur mein wireless router laya hun sath.”

 

I ranged my cousin and asked him to supervise the process. The next part of the story is what he narrated:

Cousin = C

PTCL = P

C: “Asa”

P: ‘Walaikum salam, hum internet laganay aye hain, phone konsa use kertay hain?”

C: “55XXXXX.”

PTCL guy checked phone, but couldn’t make it work. Although the phone was working.

Drinks were served to the PTCL technician which he refused saying, “I don’t drink sharbat” and later drank the whole jug.

Still struggling with the phone and it was not working. He opened a Diary which had all the configurations. After a while he realized that PTCL changed our number which he tried and the phone started working.

He disconnected an already installed router and plugged a new Tenda wireless router . After switching it on:

P: ”Yaar apkay paas laptop hai?”

C: “Jee, but mein puch kay btata hun.”

He ranged my up and I told him the password etc for my laptop. I asked him if the ptcl technician had bought his own laptop, to which I got a negative:

C: “Why dont you have your own laptop?”

P: ”O jee hum ghar say aye hain, daftar say atay to wo humain koi laptop shayad day hee detay.”

Then he started using my laptop, he didn’t know how to use a touch pad, so he got in an awkward position and brought his hand from under his leg to control the mouse pointer, I am not sure what was the logic behind this, but that worked for him. After that he commented on my desktop:

P : “bhaijaan baray Icon rakhay hain aap nay”

Fiddling with stuff, he asked again:

P: “bhai jaan internet explorer kidher hai?” My cousin pointed to Mozilla Firefox.

P: ”Nai bhai jaan yeh to ‘Mozillia’ hai , chalo theek hai mozilla he try ker detay hain”

Firefox opens a startup page, after seeing that “yeh to internet chal raha hai aap ka”.

Next he received a phone call from another technician. Now on Phone\:

” Sir jee phansa hua hun, wo jo neechay khatarnaak wala icon a raha hai, internet nahin chal raha , aur humara 192 [192.168.1.1] bhi nahin chal raha.”

The other guy probably said that he was coming in a while and asked him to wait and try to figure out the problem, he decided to wait and have a little chat with my cousin:

P: “bhai jaan apkay pas pehla konsa DSL tha?”

C: “Micronet.”

P: ”MICRONET! Iss say acha hai banda card say internet chala lay. [Dialup]
yaar wo bohat tang kertay hain, bohat zaleel kertay hain.”

He received a phone: “kaam ker raha hun, abhi baat nahin ker sakta thoree dair baad phone kerain” – -wife probably

In a few minutes he received yet another call from a PTCL technician and will be referred to as caller.

Caller: ” chala internet,?”

P: “nahin jee” 

Caller:”My computer pay jao”

 P to my cousin [C]:”bhai jaan My computer kidher hota hai?”

C: “Yar yeh desktop per dekho.”

Caller: “Device manager pay jao”

P:”Yahan per local disk c aur local disk d likha a raha hai”

P to my cousin[C]: “bhaijaan yeh device manager kidher hota hai?”

C: “Right click kero .”

P to caller: “Yaar is mein bohat saray network walay likhay hain , is mein say konsa hai?”

Caller: “Network and balh blah”

The PTCL technician then hammered the touch pad on my laptop, had I been there at home I would probably had kicked him out of my home.

P – > Caller: “Is mein yaar TV banay nahin aa rahay , blink nahin ho rahay?”

PTCL technician to C: “Windows konsi hai?”

 C: ‘’7”

P: “tabhee main kahun TV blink kiyun nahin ho rahay.”

Then he started talking again as he could not figure out a way to connect to internet, apologized, said that the wireless device wasn’t working, said:

 “192 wala bhi nahin chal raha, bhai atay hain to hum chack kertay hain”.

After a short while he decided to go, but just as he was leaving :

“Bhai waaashroom kidher hai? mein 15 minute tak ata hun bhai ko lay ker, wo sahee kerain gy.”

By the time a new clown from ptcl arrived I had reached home and both of the noobs deducted that wireless router was faulty, which I believe was not. They gave me a wired router and before leaving said:

“Aap fil haal yeh use kerain, hum aik do din mein wireless router day jaien gy”.

Bravo PTCL, Amazing customer support –[and entertainment]!

How To: prepare a punching bag

The other day I had a grim experience of filling a punching bag, though easy a task it sounds, but putting one together from individual pieces is a drag. The process annoys you so much that right on the first day you get swollen fingers out of the beating that the punching bag receives after being filled .Now, To prepare a punching sack, you need to have the following:

• An empty shell
• Saw dust / Rags
• Sand
• Chains to hang the sack
• A net or something of sorts, to filter saw dust
• A ceiling with a hook in it

Before I start I would like to tell you that there is an easy way of getting things done, and there is a a hard way of doing things, the difference is cost and time. You might be able get hang of a sporting shop that delivers a pre-filled punching sack to your home and even offers installation services, but that, I am sure would suck every penny out of your wallet. If you can afford to spend that amount of money then please read no further, It’s a drag to put together something out of raw materials.

Ideally I would like you to get your hands on sheets of leather and stich the shell yourself, but we let the experts handle that, and not try to play jack of all trades. Filling a punching bag is nothing more than putting the whole thing in place. The only thing that needs to be taken care of is the ratio of saw dust and sand. I will classify the ratios into following.

1. Beginner : 100% Saw Dust: If you have got butter fingers, and are prone to getting yourself injured by getting a hit from a pillow. Weight of sack: approx. 50 lbs.
2. Passionate Starter: Saw Dust/Sand: 80/20 : I am pretty sure that beginners will never make it to real deal because saw dust is almost equivalent to a fully filled pillow, and yes you need to punch something harder than a pillow to get iron wrists. Weight of sack: approx. 70 lbs.
3. Intermediate: Saw Dust / Sand: 50/50: This is most suitable configuration for most people willing to start fresh, or resuming after a while. Weight of sack: approx. 80 lbs.
4. Skilled: Saw Dust/ Sand: 80:20: If you have had your hands hit the ground for a while and throwing a couples of punches at a wall isn’t a problem for you, then this is best suited for you. Sand is only filled to reduce weight of the sack, otherwise it might tear out of its own weight. Weight of sack: approx. 120 lbs.
5. Veteran: Sand 100%: Although the above mixture will do for most of the iron fists, but if you feel inferior using saw dust, and are sure that your sand bag can take that much weight, it is best to use just sand. When evened out and settled, the sand will feel like a concrete wall. Weight of sack: approx. 180+ lbs.

Procedure:

First thing you need to do is to empty the contents of the saw dust bag and the sand bag onto the ground under the sun. Both of them gather moisture over the period of time so under the sunlight the sand and the dust will dry off. The cheapest source of getting saw dust is from a carpenter shop, or a chain saw machine. They probably will give it to you for free, but even if you buy off from market shelves and it blatantly says “refined and cleaned”, there will be useless stuff in it, lots of it. In both cases filter the saw dust, as it contains thick wood particles, which can tear off your punching bag and can even put a hurt on your fist. I used an old net pulled out of an analog dish receiver and it served me pretty well.

After dust filtration check the sand for stones, normally if coming straight from the crusher sand has no impurities as they get crushed through the process.

Start filling the punching bag with some sand first in all cases, since it has got weight, this will make sure that more weight is at the bottom of the bag, giving it proper shape and balance. Then start pouring in the saw dust, you will have to make adjustments to the bag after every kilo of saw dust you pour in the bag, since it needs a little shaking to settle. Fill the bag by putting in 4:1 ratio of layers of saw dust and sand. Put most of the sand on top as it has more weight so eventually it will settle uniformly throughout the bag. Keep a sharp eye on thee weight, it should not exceed your desired range. That’s it.

Hang it under a ceiling , if you live in a building made out of concrete then it must have iron rails running through it, dig one out and hang the bag without worrying about the weight. If your home is made out of wood, you will need a little more effort, i.e. place a crossbar on the roof or the first floor in case you have a multi story house and put a hook around it, to distribute the weight evenly. After hanging, oil the punching sack to prevent it from weathering.

That’s it, punch and kick some sand!