Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take


I can't blame poor old Dr Reynolds - he hasn't really been in New Zealand very long.
But his choice of words in laying the blame for XT's repeated failure over the past three months could've been better.
"Enough is enough" he cried in his opening plea to the media (and all credit to him for fronting up for what was a gruelling - and often ill-informed - session with hacks from all over).
Unfortunately the only image I can conjure up with this particular phrase is one of one-eyed hatred and ignorant bigotry. Something that was just as powerful at splitting the nation as the foreshore and seabed - and perhaps a tad more depressing when you boil down the root causes.
Admittedly, you can almost understand his frustration with Telecom's french partner, Alcatel-Lucent and p'raps 'twas dark irony the phone company's flack were playing at, but I don't think so.
So credit to the telco for fessing up and paying out to its customers - I can almost feel the pain the CFO's going through opening up the cheque book yet again - but definitely a "could try harder" over the historical allusion.
PB.
Oh - and big ups to the flack at Telecom for being accessible and human - we (read me) had a bit a mare last week with to-ing and fro-ing over a regulator's statement - don't get me started on that one - but all is well after a good old-fashioned conversation. It's good to be a hack.

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