Catherine Mayer · @catherine_mayer
31st Mar 2012 from Twitlonger
Herewith the full poem for your delectation (and that of @Electrolux & @johnlewsretail)
Twas the year 2012, the month it was January
When @catherine_mayer made the mistake of buying #AEG
To assist with her deep love of cookery
Which is fuelled by #Masterchef and other programmes on TV.
Her Gaggenau had served her faithfully and well
But after 20 years its faithful service began to tell
So she went to @johnlewisretail who never knowingly undersell
And bought an #AEG built-in double oven D41116 that John Lewis installed in the house where she doth dwell.
For a few months the oven worked but it wasn’t long
Before the idyll soured and the oven went wrong.
She didn’t worry because the oven hadn’t cost a song
And she’d taken out extra cover and assumed @Electrolux (owner of #AEG) would wish to keep its reputation strong.
First the light malfunctioned, then the door seal broke in two.
Catherine thought she knew just what to do.
She called #AEG and after several lengthy calls and a lot of sweet, sweet musak got put through
To a service centre established to serve the many and not just the few.
“I need help,” she said. “Never fear,” the @Electrolux / #AEG franchise Respond Services Ltd (trading as Service Force) replied.
With that, the fears that threatened to overwhelm her died.
“Could you come tomorrow?” she cried.
“No,” quoth they. “You will need to procure a parking permit from your council before we will venture inside.
And if you want us to visit on a Saturday
There’s an extra charge of £24 you must pay.”
“Hang the cost,” Catherine declared. “I can brook no delay
Until I can again, with confidence, cook a soufflé.”
The @Electrolux franchise Respond Services Ltd (trading as Service Force) went on to explain
Their engineer would call the day before to set a 3-hour slot to save her pain
And he would come with everything he needed to set the #AEG working again,
A sentiment to gladden hearts everywhere but especially in Greece and Spain.
By Friday lunchtime, however, no call had come through
So Catherine called Respond Services Ltd (trading as Service Force) to check the call was due.
“Never fear,” they told her. “Your engineer will between 4.30 and 5.30 pm call you.”
Instead, at 5.30 pm, a text message did what her oven with broken seal was too enfeebled to achieve and sent her into a stew.
“Your engineer will arrive between 6 am and 9 am,” it said.
She called the number provided to ask a later slot but the number provided was dead.
As @TIME’s Europe Editor Catherine is underacquainted with her bed
And had planned a lie-in, but prepared to wake with the larks and rosy-fingered dawn instead.
At 6.30 a bell sounded and her knight in shining armour introduced himself as Scott.
He told her what he could do to help, which was really not a lot.
The light wasn’t covered by warranty. The broken seal would stop the oven getting properly hot
But, he said, holding its broken ends, “seals don’t break” so he didn’t carry replacements. Catherine was amused—not.
She vented about the time wasted. “We’re all busy people,” he averred.
“Nobody is busier than me,” she thought, or might have even said aloud but doubts Scott heard.
So she proved how valuable her time was by putting her experience into poetic word
To record the tragick fate of her #AEG oven that has left her profoundly stirred.