Today I went into a vodafone store, to be clear, a proper one, not part of DSE or something, a store on it's own, in the city, doing just voda.

The reason I went in was simple, I have an account already, (with a free2call number also), and now I want to add to that a mobile data plan & sim for a mobile data card which I already posess.  Simple enough.  You would think so at least.

First time I went in, everybody was busy, I waited a couple of minutes, then wandered off to do some other jobs.

I returned a short time later and was served immediately.  Told the young male assistant what I wanted, he gave me a form to complete, and photocopied my ID.

He took the completed form and went to get a copy of the terms for me.  The store didn't have any terms in stock!  The guy suggests that if I wanted I should just tick the boxes and sign anyway.  I agreed to do so, for various reasons which are unimportant.

So after this, he grabs a sim pack and says he'll just scan it in.  A few seconds later he comes back and tells me that he can't serve me now because there are too many people, can I come back in an hour or two. 

I tell him this would be very inconvenient, as this store in in the city, and I do not wish to stay in the city for an hour or two.  If it was a technical issue I'd understand, but it wasn't, I was here, he was there, he had sim card in hand, just do it and I can be out of your way in a jiffy.

He tells me he can't serve me and I'll have to come back.

I continue to tell him how inconvenient it would be.

He continues to tell me he can't serve me.

Eventually he says I can wait, and maybe the store will get quieter.  Maybe.  I relent.

I wander around the store for the next 1/2 an hour, maybe 3/4 an hour (didn't have a watch on me) while the store staff serve various other people.

At this point I'm wondering why he is intent on serving these other people with somewhat complicated things (broken sim, broken phone, doesn't know how to work phone, wants to unlock phone) which earns them no money, whilst me, with the seemingly simple job, who is already paying on account, who will now be paying a somewhat large sum for a data allocation he will probably not use much of (it's so  I can get to servers in an emergency situation whilst on the road), is standing about twiddling his thumbs and waiting patiently.

Eventually, I hear the original assistant talking to another assistant who is advising him that because I already have an account it will only take a couple of minutes to add the card.  Apparently he is still to busy to do it, or doesn't know how.

So the friendly, skilled, efficient and rather attractive young lady assistant makes the appropriate keystrokes for me and I'm on my way in just a few minutes with my new sim card in hand.

To summarize, Vodafone, take note:
  More friendly attractive skilled young lady store assistants please.
  Less (unknown attractiveness) unskilled young men store assistants please.
  More reliable supply of essential documents such as terms and conditions in your stores please.
  More staff in general for your busy stores please.
  More respect to on-account people who want to pay you frankly exhorbitant amounts of money for data and other services please.

NB: I of course did not sign up to a fixed term on the data plan, even though the original assistant tried to get me to do so (by askng if I would like a 12 month or 24 month term, to which I said I did not want a term at all), in the vain hopes that perhaps in the not too distant future Vodafone might get off thier collective chuff and bring out a prepaid data plan, or at least an even half-sane casual data rate.