I’ve just bought another French mobile phone. This isn’t because I’m some kind of gadget freak, it’s because I lost the one that Graham kindly gave me to replace the one I lost about four months ago. Yes, that’s right, I’m on my 3rd French mobile. When I’m leaving a place, I have a voice in my head that says “Wallet, Keys, Tobacco, Lighter, Phone… Ready!” and I’ve had real difficulty adding “Other phone” to the mental list.
This necessitated a visit to the Orange store. I first tried to fix this problem – AKA buy a phone – on Saturday, when I turned up at the store in town with one and a half hours to spare, only to find out that they couldn’t possibly sell me a mobile phone unless I had my passport on me. No, a gas bill wasn’t enough, nor the receipt for the original phone, nor the same credit card – it had to be a passport or driving license. I had to show my passport to get the first phone, but not to get the replacement SIM, so I thought I’d be OK but this time it was not going to be possible.
So I cycled across the Isére today to Meylan
And then I spent 45 minutes of my lunchtime in the Orange/France Telecom store, first queuing, and then watching a saleswoman navigate a web-based menu system in order to give me the same phone number, and finally watching her on hold to some helpdesk when she realised she didn’t know how to transfer the number over. I actually checked my watch part way through the helpdesk phonecall – she was on hold for at least 8 minutes. The queue was building up behind me, and one guy completely gave up waiting and tried to buy a TV package off her just as the helpdesk on the other end of the phone picked up. He got short shrift.
I realised two things when I got back to the lab – firstly, she hadn’t sold me any credit (so I can’t make any calls until I get to somewhere that does mobicart topups); and secondly, that she hadn’t asked to see my passport at all. Oh well. At least the view from the shopping centre carpark was good.
