A while ago I wrote a post about the Fedex fiasco , I was trying to point out, that even a well oiled machine like Fedex grinds to a halt as soon as it crosses over the border into Bella Italia. Last week, the camera on my Blackberry Playbook ceased to work, I thought another fiasco was about to begin….
For my birthday, my children bought me a Blackberry Playbook. It is a wonderful device. I use it to read English books, watch films, and to monitor the fat I am losing I have lost two and a half kilos in the past 2 weeks. When I travel I use the playbook to keep track of my business expenses, price lists, quotations, e mails, gosh the list goes on. To be honest, Mrs Sensible tends to get a tad annoyed with me and the Playbook, because it is normally glued to my hand, as I read yet another book.
Disaster stuck on the 14th May 2013, the Playbook camera stopped working. I was devastated, I could still read books and all the other functions worked, but without the camera I couldn’t annoy Mrs Sensible, by filming her while she paints her toe nails or capture her admitting to one of the few mistakes that she makes.
Mrs Sensible is a bit camera shy.
My children bought the Blackberry Playbook in Meadowhall UK, the receipt is nowhere to be seen. I spent two days deciding whether to contact Blackberry, to see if they could fix it under warranty. The main stumbling points were A) I had lost my receipt, B) would my Playbook get lost in the Italian postal system and finally, C) Would my playbook be sent to Giuseppe Garybaldy in some repair clinic in Naples, never to be seen again.
I decided to phone Blackberry; I ignored the Italian helpline and instead phoned the UK helpline. Paula, one of Blackberry’s technical support staff, answered the phone. She asked me what the problem was. I began by explaining the camera fault; I then started to tell her how I had tried to fix the fault myself. I went into great detail, telling her I had researched the playbook forums and I had tried all the fixes, including holding down various buttons and forcing the playbook to reboot. I don’t think she was too impressed. I promised, I would never again try to fix my playbook myself.
Paula told me she needed my Playbook to send her a report. She explained how to do this and promised to call me back in twenty minutes. What a nice woman!
Twenty minutes later, Paula phoned me and said it was a hardware problem, she said I needed to send my Playbook to their service centre. I could just visualise good ole Giuseppe Garybaldy with his screw driver and hammer, plus the next six months of asking “have you found my Playbook.” I told Paula, that I had reservation about sending my playbook to any site within Bella Italia. I think I told her about my driving licence fiasco, and various other problems I have had with Italy. I even offered to pay the carriage, if she would let me send the Playbook to a UK repair centre.
Paula laughed, she said the Playbook needed to go to Germany. Ah the Germans!! I remember them from the sauna Now that is a different story, the Germans are more efficient than the English. In fact, they make the English look like Italians when it comes to efficiency. Paula said, she would send me a box with instructions, I was to put my Playbook in the box, complete the form and ask DHL to collect the box. There was nothing to pay; what a nice lady!
Honest I did a google search for German efficiency and this came up.
The following day, Paula E mailed me and asked “have you got the box?” I had a quick scout around my office and reception, I couldn’t see it.
I asked the accounts lady “I search box, this big, you see?”
COSA? (WHAT?)
I asked the company secretary “box, like this, DHL, errhh you see?”
She gave me a ten minute explanation, which I didn’t understand, but I nodded my head as though everything was as clear as mud day.
I e-mailed Paula to say, sorry but the box has not arrived. As I pressed the E mail send button, I wandered of to the coffee machine, and there on a shelf was my box. Of course it was there, I work in an Italian office and of course, I should expect my box to be hidden. This is why Italy grinds to a stop; no one knows who moved what or why.
I watch movies while I cook, Please note, the playbook stand in use is not a Blackberry authorised stand.
I placed my playbook in the box and sent it back to Blackberry. I was wondering, how I was going to cope without my playbook; would the DT’s set in? Would I have to watch Italian television? 24 hours later, DHL delivered a brand new Blackberry Playbook.
Paula phoned me and asked if it had received my brand spanking new Playbook, she asked if she could phone me on Monday to make sure the Playbook was working and to make sure I was happy. What an incredibly nice woman!!
I am not sure where Paula is based, but I sent her, a link to the Fedex Fiasco. After lunch I checked my stats, lots of hits on the Fedex Fiasco and 72 visitors from Portugal. Now if I was a betting man, I would say the lovely lady from Blackberry is based in Portugal.
Englishman in Italy 
Another wonderful post! As always love the humor -:)!
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Thank you, that is a really nice thing to say.
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Absolutely lovely – adore your writing!
PS. Mrs Sensible camera shy and your Portugal deductions are my favourite parts – I love how much I feel like I’m in a spy movie when I analyse my stats… where they come from, how they find you… all knowledge is at your disposal! 🙂
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Thanks, I feel fuzzy all over from the nice comments.
I love the stats, I want to know what my one visitor from outer Mongolia thought of my life in Italy. And why certain posts attract people from different countries.
I asked Mrs Sensible if I could post a pic of her painted toe nails and she declined.. So I made a quick google search.
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Prima di tutto,congrats per i kg persi!
Secondo, i tuoi scritti sono molto divertenti
Terzo ,mi sono piaciute tanto le foto
Quarto ,ciao , Pecora Nera!
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Ciao Sanfermo,
Sono contento di non offenderti. Sai che i miei post sono solo divertimento, anche voi vivete in Bella Italia e capire come può essere frustrante.
Tutti i migliori
PN
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Altroché !
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First and foremost, congratulations on the weight loss!! Great post that had me in stitches. Maybe you should send the link to Mr Cretino and see if he will step up his efforts?
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I am so glad you found the post funny.
I am tempted to tell Mr Cretino that, people from around the world are watching his progress. But it might spoil the fun.
I wonder what sort of culture shock he would have if he worked for Blackberry?
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Hmm. Interesting idea, could go either way. If Mr Cretino worked for Blackberry, he would be the apple of their eye with all his Italian cuteness. The others would end up playing gooseberry whilst he chatted up the peachy lasses. Life’s not fair.
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I am going to take a picture of Mr Cretino for the next post on my driving licence. He is Italian but he is not cute. 🙂
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First, congratulations on your weight loss! I’m happy if I get off one pound every two weeks 😉 And now I’m wondering if I should get a Blackberry Playbook, just for the wonderful customer service?
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It is a fantastic piece of kit, I have about 100 books on it, maybe 10 music albums, 8 films, photos etc.
I can update my wordpress from it, my e mails. Plus all the boring things like excel, word….
Even with all the games, music and films I haven’t even dented the memory.
I dropped it in December sshh! don’t tell Paula, it bounced twice and carried on working. I don’t think Blackberry recommend dropping it.
Plus you get to deal with great people like Paula from Blackberry. 🙂
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Great stuff! I like the sound of Portuguese Paula… and what a service! When my Ipad gives up the ghost, which it inevitably will as I keep dropping it, I might have to check out the Playbook. I’ve only ordered two things to be delivered by courier in Italy and both times have got so fed up waiting for them to arrive that we’ve just gone and collected them ourselves. This tends to cause even more chaos and confusion though…
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A fantastic service, I was stunned when my playbook arrived almost immediately.
I wanted something to read books on, I looked at the Ipad, the samsung pad and the new kindle. The playbook was light, small but not too small to use. I think it is fantastic.
Couriers in Italy are dreadful, I expect to lose letters and parcels with poste italia, but the Fedex fiasco suprised me.
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Wow something worked out for you in a timely manner! I like to think I am creative with finding new uses for items, but your blackberry stand is one I either wouldn’t have thought of or would be afraid to try.😊
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The playbook wedges just perfectly, the only problem arises when you need a spoon or a pasta fork.
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What a lovely post. I’m glad you told Paula all about your life because I tend to do things like that too, and my mother makes lifelong friends of people on help desks.
I’m also stunned by the AMAZING service you received. That’s a great advert for Blackberry!
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I was amazed how good they were. If I push push push the post, do you think they might send me a new phone? 🙂
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How nice to have such excellent customer service! Great post. 🙂
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You have got to love Blackberry haven’t you.
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Loved reading your posts. Made my day! The way you approach the situations and write about is commendable. We all became big fans of your blog.
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Is this THE PAULA?
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yes 🙂
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Incredible, well welcome to my little blog. thanks for all your help and I hope you have much fun reading my posts as I enjoy writing them.
I wonder sometimes if the people who read my posts think I make it all up. Maybe now they will believe me. 🙂
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I’ve got ‘I’ve got a wonderful feeling, everything’s going my way…’ in my head after reading that post! Congrats on the fantastic customer service and the weight loss! Very feel good!
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HA HA HA!
I have had a pretty good week this week, all I need now is a bit of sunshine.
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Pissing it down here if that helps! Can’t wait to see the photo of Mr Cretino – will you tell him what it’s for? What’s blog in Italian??
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I think I might tell him he is famous and people are rooting for him 🙂
I need to call down to his office this week to give him another poke with my sharpened fork.
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If you can actually say ‘people are rooting for you’ in Italian, I’ll come over there and help you with the fork!
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Cone on over, Mrs Sensible is a wonderful cook and I have a stash of wine and grappa. 🙂
We would make a great double act for Mr Cretino 🙂
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Poor man wouldn’t know what hit him!
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He was a bit stunned when I stropped last time, I forgot all about the British stiff upper lip and threw a number 10 wobbly.
Can you imagine if we both started on him. 🙂 🙂
Book a crying air or sleezy jet flight.
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That would make for some blog post! 🙂
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posts, there would be many 🙂
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Might give Mrs Sensible a little break from being happy snapped by you! 😉
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I really think we should organise a wordpress blog gathering, between us we know enough crazy people to make it a fun day, people like MM, the mad Croatian in fact too many to mention….
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Ooh, that sounds like fun!
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🙂
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If you think about it we are from all over the place, so we need to find a spot that is central, on an sleezyjet or cryingair route and not too expensive. Which rules out Italy. How many Lats does a hotel room cost in Latvia?
We could do something like the eurovision contest, and vote for the next host country, but that would rule out Latvia 🙂
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The Germans more efficient than the English? Come on, that’s not true!!! try an helpline in Germany, where they only speak German and you’ll scream for good ol’ Bella Italia 🙂 ( i have a few nightmare stories myself about a long time ago life in Germany…that said… Hilarious post, as usual 🙂
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You may be correct 🙂
Do you have any idea why German words are so long? They are even longer than Italian words
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No I dont! But whilst there I was told that German along with Japanese is the language with the highest number of words in its vocabulary. It is apparently due to an innate strive for accuracy…:-)
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I have just been reeding at a great wiki page about longest words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_words
I think I need to get back to my cup of tea or get ready for work 🙂
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Wow! Two and a half kilos lost AND a brand spanking new blackberry playbook gained! I’m impressed! Well done on the weight loss! 🙂
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Thanks,
You see Italy is a lovely place.
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LOL what a great post!!!!! German efficiency?… of Portuguese one? …. go Pecora Nera go!!
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Speaking from Portugal maybe the decent customer service can be credited to the overall good nature of the Portuguese as much as to Blackberry.
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🙂
Paula was very helpful, you are probably correct. I would consider moving to Portugal. The only thing stopping me is the thought of having to learn yet another language..
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What laugh!! loved it..and oh how I can relate.
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When a problem in Italy is solved in days, it kind of takes your breath away.
Unlike my driving licence that might be solved in months or years.
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I put my hands up! I pinched your picture
http://adventureincroatia.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/croatian-liquid-gold/
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You are most welcome, I love limoncello….
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All I can say is…Blackberry: a Canadian company. (Not to brag or anything) 😉
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They are my heroes for the year
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Hey, I was looking for a contact email address on your blog and guess what, there’s none! =p … Anyway, was wondering if you would be so kind as to agree on being featured on my blog like this one:http://littlestepsblogdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/june-chat-with-a-dad-the-secret-father/
If yes, do drop me a line at deanbwordpressblogs@gmail.com. Say yes please! =)
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Hi Dean,
Yes.. lol.. Thank you.
I didn’t put an e mail address on the site because, I receive enough spam e mail as it is, but I will have a think.
Also thank you very much for the invitation.
PN
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Wow! I’m sending everything to Portugal or Germany from now on. I’m amazed and thoroughly impressed that you cultivated a follower from your help desk. You should get a trophy!
And thanks for enjoying ‘Impressing Boys’. Obviously, I was not as successful in getting a following.
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I was completely amazed by the level of service Paula gave. I know I normally suffer from Italian customer service, as in no customer service. But Blackberry are no 1 in my books.
I fail to see how they could have improved the service, maybe given me a playbook for Mrs Sensible!
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