It's incredibly hard to become a customer of @Telstra so you can give them money. They absolutely despise money, and do everything in their power to erect as many obstacles as possible in the way of a normal person establishing a billing relationship with them.

First: "I'd like to buy a 4G WiFi hotspot please."
"Umm, we don't have any. Maybe try K-Mart."

Are you serious? You can't sell me a mobile broadband service, and you'd prefer me to go to a department store. Okay...
So I go to the department store, and they have the same Telstra product $20 cheaper than Telstra does.

Go to activate it. Error message, SIM serial number has already been activated. Well goddamn.
So, back to the @Telstra shop. "Yes, I know I can return the whole thing, but all I want is a $2 SIM to get started. Can you just sell me one of those?"

No. They don't have any. Zero SIMs in the store.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHAT OTHER PURPOSE DOES A TELSTRA SHOP HAVE?
Their first suggestion was to buy one from @AusPost, but they take 24 hours to activate their prepaid SIMs. Maybe try Woolies?
So I do that, and get my SIM, and go through trying to activate it. And ... now the identity check fails, so I can't.

Fuck. What?
Get @Telstra online support involved. "We'll send you an update in 30 minutes." 70 minutes later, I ping them for an update.
After much to-and-fro, it turns out that my identity check failed because someone at Telstra 8 years ago entered "Mark Newtown" instead of "Mark Newton" next to my drivers license number, so now I can't prove any ID at all to Telstra for any product.
Online support has fixed that.

So now the SIM ostensibly works.

It has taken 11.5 hours from first visit to the Telstra shop to having a working SIM in a WiFi hotspot.

I could have given up at any time. I don't know why I didn't.
How can they be so fucking bad at this? Every interaction I've ever had with @Telstra has been horrible, and they just don't learn anything, ever. All I wanted was a simple retail service, the thing their network of stores exists to sell, and they can't not screw it up.
Goddamn. So glad that's over.

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🌿𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓 : 𝑫𝒉𝒓𝒖𝒗𝒂 & 𝑽𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒏𝒖

Once upon a time there was a Raja named Uttānapāda born of Svayambhuva Manu,1st man on earth.He had 2 beautiful wives - Suniti & Suruchi & two sons were born of them Dhruva & Uttama respectively.
#talesofkrishna https://t.co/E85MTPkF9W


Now Suniti was the daughter of a tribal chief while Suruchi was the daughter of a rich king. Hence Suruchi was always favored the most by Raja while Suniti was ignored. But while Suniti was gentle & kind hearted by nature Suruchi was venomous inside.
#KrishnaLeela


The story is of a time when ideally the eldest son of the king becomes the heir to the throne. Hence the sinhasan of the Raja belonged to Dhruva.This is why Suruchi who was the 2nd wife nourished poison in her heart for Dhruva as she knew her son will never get the throne.


One day when Dhruva was just 5 years old he went on to sit on his father's lap. Suruchi, the jealous queen, got enraged and shoved him away from Raja as she never wanted Raja to shower Dhruva with his fatherly affection.


Dhruva protested questioning his step mother "why can't i sit on my own father's lap?" A furious Suruchi berated him saying "only God can allow him that privilege. Go ask him"