Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
March 28, 2017

Are you a victim of WCS? That's Worst Case Scenario. Some of us are just to the manner born. The technician comes in because the AC is not working and cooling as it does in those ads where families frolic like they were in the Alps and not their drawing room.

And it is never just a shortage of gas or a simple blockage where you go 'pooh pooh' and it's all over and you are one happy family. No, it has to be the compressor. It has to be the compressor gone to never-never land, beyond rescue and the biggest bill possible shoved into your face plus carriage charges, always the compressor doing the dirty. If it is not the compressor, it is the motor, which is like the heart of the machine and now it has gone into arrest.

Take the car to the garage because it's making a funny tick-a-tock sound and it is never just a dirty spark plug or a dead battery worth a 100 dirhams - it has to be the gearbox or the fiddlebut in the dingleput, which has busted a gasket and that means they have to open up the whole engine block and the bill is unfolding merrily like a roll of toilet paper.

Have you ever heard any repair team walk into your house and say, "Oh, this is so minor a glitch? We will have it up and running in five minutes, nothing to worry about really?" 

Your computer stops functioning, it is not a loose connection or a loss of battery power. It is the motherboard that has burnt out, never to be resurrected. It is like these motherboards sort of gang up together and say: "Let's give these WCS types a real hard time; just when they need us most we will burn out and fry and won't that be fun?" Like if motherboards could rub their hands with glee, they would.

And because we have this misplaced belief that one day some appliance or electronic item will take our side, we say, so is there any way to repair it? And the technical expert will laugh a dry and mirthless laugh - like, where do these morons come from, it is the motherboard, not the second cousin from the village board, nothing we can do, it is charred, and you will need a new one.

Then someone drops water on your phone, just a few flipping drops and it begins to surrender its survival and then just kicks its legs in the air and dies on you. The other person who got 83 per cent of the water spill, somehow escapes the ravages of the cascade and is cheerfully making calls while you are desperately drying out your phone and looking for a bowl of rice to shove it into. People are giving you tips on how to make it work again and now you have to wait for 48 hours to see if it comes covered in rice dust and it is as if the few drops of water had plotted to do this to you deliberately. The rest of the water be safe, you five drops, go wreck this phone.

So whenever we find ourselves in this unenviable position, we fall back on the guarantee card written in that gothic script and full of words like whomsoever and insofar much as to give it gravitas and armed with it we go to battle because the product we bought was, in fact, defective.

And the shopkeeper says, "Fill in this form", and you say, "Look, this toaster doesn't toast, I don't want to sit for an exam, I want it to toast, a nice golden toast, just change it."

Mirthless laughter time again as he explains how the system works and retail has to return it to the wholesaler who will send it to the factory and they will check it out with the manufacturers and the number given to you in case you wish to complain about your complaint is XBC 334211453.

Yes, this is all fine but what do I do about the toast?

I guess you just eat cake till then and check with us after 72 hours on this email.

I can't, my motherboard has crashed. 

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)