I will always remember what I was doing the night I tried to downgrade my Sky package. Scorched into my memory with pain it is, just like the day Elvis died. It started ominously. I had turned on the television. I only turn on the television once every six months. Every time I do so I feel like a battered wife going back for more abuse. I thought I could make it work this time. But, really, what was I expecting from a series of channels called ‘DMax’ and ‘Dave Ja Vu’ and ‘Movies4Men’?
On this occasion I was amazed to find an astonishing amount of excruciating idiocy including Monster Jam, a programme about trucks crashing into each other; Ninja Warrior, a programme about people crashing into each other; Home Video Heroes, people’s home videos of trucks and people crashing into each other; Celebs Off Duty, which was footage of celebrities, using the word in the loosest possible sense, going to the supermarket; Rescue Chef, like Pet Rescue only with lasagne; and Pulse Yoga, like yoga only with…actually, it was just yoga.
When I got to the film channels, most of those that had once been free were encrypted and required a code to be put in before I could watch anything. Suddenly, I could see no use whatsoever for this £47-a-month box in the corner of my living room inhabited almost exclusively by Jordan.
I rang up Sky to slim down my package to include only programmes where people with correctly functioning brains talk about things that weren’t invented by Simon Cowell. Broadly speaking, news and documentaries and More 4 should do it. I began my telephone call at ten to eight at night. Like I say, I will never forget it. ‘Press four to add channels…Press five to reduce your service.’ Like a lamb to the slaughter, I pressed five.
I spent the first ten minutes thinking, ‘No, surely they wouldn’t put all the people wanting to downgrade in a longer queue, would they?’ I spent the 22nd minute feeling so cheated I decided to cancel my subscription altogether once someone answered. But no one did answer. So, after about half an hour, I put the phone down and dialled again. This time I pressed four. As if by magic, someone answered in one second flat. I told him I wanted to downgrade and he said, ‘I’m not actually trained to reduce services, I can only add channels.’ Which is ingenious, if you think about it.
I imagined the banks of hundreds of ‘add channels’ operators at Sky TV headquarters. And the poor little man sitting all on his own in the ‘Downgrade department’ on the lower-ground floor. They probably give him only bread and water to make sure he’s too weak to answer many calls. I informed the operator that I had rumbled their little ruse at which point he seemed to panic and insisted on passing me through to something called the ‘customer service relations team’. After a few seconds of beeping and clunking he cut me off.
I rang back, pressed four again and told the next ‘add channels’ operator that if he didn’t put me through to the little man in the basement I would cancel Sky altogether. He went away for a while then came back to say that the queue was now ‘down to under three minutes’ and put me on hold…
Fifteen minutes later I had listened to so much muzak I was starting to think it might not be so bad watching a documentary about D-listers having their breasts enlarged. There were also a lot of weird announcements. For example: ‘Did you know that your child could star in a TV show if they win a competition and show they care about the environment?’ This was such a nonsensical proposition it had to be hiding a subliminal message from Rupert himself: ‘Gordon Brown smells, vote Tory’, perhaps.
When the lone worker in the ‘downgrade’ cellar finally picked up the phone she was a lovely Scottish lady who could not have been more helpful. ‘Who am I speaking to, please?…Would you like me to call you Miss Kite or Melissa or something else?’ After so much holding I wanted to get my money’s worth so I asked her to talk me through all the available options. I opted for Ms Kite in the end, and she promised to change the designation on my files to ensure that I would always be thus addressed. Which was nice.
I looked at my watch. One hour on the phone and all I’d managed to do was get myself called Ms. I’d have been better off watching Jordan drive a monster truck full of pulse yoga instructors into a supermarket full of rescue chefs.
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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