You don’t hear much good about Orange, and certainly my user experience of their services has been pretty ordinary in the 10 years or more I have been a customer of theirs. But credit where it’s due – I just got a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) from them in exactly 10 minutes.

The gentleman asked me why I was leaving Orange. I said because of generally high prices and because if I joined the same network as my wife we could get free calls to each other. He asked me if an offer of reduced prices would tempt me to stay. I said no, it would make me angry because it would imply they had been abusing my loyalty for 10 years or more. He had obviously heard the same comments before and completely accepted what I said.

I think its only fair to write about good customer service when it happens. Twice in two years, eh?

Now if I can just get Tower Hamlets to empty my waste food recycling bin I will be happy.

But we ran out of the biodegradable bags, and no more were delivered. So I called Tower Hamlets to see if they would deliver some more bags for us. No. No, they won’t deliver any more bags. I have to visit a Tower Hamlets One-Stop Shop to collect some more.

Now, a One-Stop Shop is exactly what it says. It handles every sort of customer interaction that a local authority has to deal with. You arrive, and take a ticket, and sit in a waiting room to see a customer service advisor. Last time I had to go (to renew a resident’s parking permit) I waited for an hour although there were only four people ahead of me in the queue.

So I have to queue for an hour to get some more food waste recycling bags.

Yeah right.

I don’t think you’ve thought this one through have you, Tower Hamlets?