OTE

                                      

OTE are the three letters that represented the omnipresent Greek telephone company even on our little island of Ikaria. A neighbor of ours happened to be walking past our house cradling a phone in his arms one early morning looking rather confused and in a state of mild agitation. Noting his disposition, as a neighbor who normally is a happy go lucky kind of a guy, I immediately asked, “Why such a sullen face on such a beautiful morning?”

 “Well,” he said, “You know I have had my name on the list to get a land line from OTE for years. Finally, about a year ago they notified me that I was next on the list, and within a month they came and installed  my  phone. Since then I have had nothing but trouble and annoyance with OTE. Everything from poor phone reception, to no reception, to billing problems, but what took the cake was my ordeal with them yesterday. Once again I called OTE to complain about the spotty phone service I was receiving. I told them I would be on the phone talking, and without warning my call would be cut off. Sometimes if I stayed on the line for two or three minutes service would resume, only to be disconnected again a few minutes later. ‘Apparently’, said the OTE technician while checking my line, ‘your phone seems to be working fine now, what I suggest you do in the future is to call us back when your phone is not working’. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I just hung up on him. That’s why I’m on my way to Agios to dump this junky OTE phone and get myself into the 21^st century with a reliable cell phone.”

         This fleeting incident reminded me of the T.V. comedy “Laugh-In,” back in the 60’s, you might recall Lily Tomlin’s character, Ernestine, as a dismissive and condescending phone operator. Her celebrated parting words at the end of each sketches was, “We don’t care, we don’t have to, we’re the phone company.”