On saturday I had the misfortune of experiencing the Laurel-and-Hardy style organisational skills of Netheravon Skydiving, near Andover.
A mate of mine raised enough (and a lot more) to do a tandem skydive for the RNIB and she was told Netheravon was the closest place to South Wales she could do the jump from.
Her navigational skill are...erm......
traditionally feminine (
) so she asked me to come along to map-read.
The information pack said we should aim to be at the place by 8:45am and for her to have ID or she wouldn't be able to do the jump.
OK, so just as we passed the Severn Bridge she realised she'd forgotten her passport so we turned around to get it, adding 2 hours to our journey time. We phoned ahead to tell them, they just said to get there as quickly as we could. We made it by 10:30am.
We were told they could not guarantee us she'd go up that day as we were late, plus everyone would be delayed as half of their instructors were out doing a demonstration that day.
Oh nice. So why didn't they tell us that when we phoned to say we'd be late? Why didn't they at least give us the option to reschedule?
By 3pm I was getting really annoyed with them, they still couldn't tell us when she'd go up, apart from it would happen
sometime that day. The conversation I had with the organiser went something like this:
Quote:
Me: So can you give me an idea how much longer it will be?
Them: I'm afraid I can't do that sir.
Me: OK, can you say if it'll be about an hour or two?
Them: I'm afraid I can't tell you that sir.
Me: Why not?
Them: Because it could be anytime today sir.
Me: OK, is it going to be within the next 5 minutes?
Them: Definately not sir.
Me: OK, will it be as late as 8 o'clock (it was 3pm at this point)?
Them: No, not that late sir.
Me: Right, so it'll be somewhere between 5 minutes and 5 hours, is that right?
Them: I'm afraid I'm not prepared to comment on that sir.
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You know what it's like when a company just doesn't want to help? I made it clear that all I wanted was a rough guestimate as to how long it would be and I certainly made it clear that I wasn't going to hold her to a time. Nobody seemed bothered to ask anyone else if they knew. Really it was down to the pilots but nobody thought to (or wanted to) ask them.
Anyway, the jump eventually went off at 6:30pm and my mate raised £700 and she loved the experience - but will never go back to Netheravon ever again and I'd suggest anyone else to avoid them too if they're thinking of doing it.
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