Let's complain a bit
Remember I told you what annoys me about internet in Czech Republic? Then I complained about crappy quality for a big price.
Well, the hour has come to tell you about Czech mobile service.
Generally, overall it's OK. Internet works, calls go through. I didn't really use the phone - bought a SIM card back at language courses and used it once a year when I called to register at the police. Since this is not a quick process, usually 10-20 minutes of waiting, the bill was just equal to my monthly Moscow one :D
So yeah, first point of hatred - prices.
But, by and large, I don't give a shit about them. I use a secret tariff for 1 euro per month, where there are several free minutes of calls. And I have a work SIM card, I've never paid for it, just like for girls in cafes.
But what has annoyed me almost from the first days of using Czech SIM cards is fucking spammers.
I remember sitting in Czech class, about the 20th day of courses. A call rings. Well, I think - nobody even knows the number, probably police, I'm going to the army now.
I pick up - hello, bullshit, want to buy a sofa with a discount?
Well, I think, okay, it happens, wrong number. But hell no. A year passed, calls ring at least once a week. Your phone shows up here and there and gets into spammers' databases. They call me ten times a day from O2 with an offer of an awesome tariff if I buy a tablet. They call and ask to take some public opinion test. To buy some other crap.
And the main thing that pisses off most, they call, of course, during working hours, when you're expecting calls from normal people. So all relatives and not so close already hate me - I on principle never pick up unless the person writes an SMS before that they want to call.
Yes, at first everyone gets pissed, but nothing to be done. I don't want to deal with spammers.
How to fight? Well, first, I'm not the only poor soul. They call everyone. Not for nothing there are sites with lists where people write numbers that annoy them.
Also I advise downloading an app for Android that shows you on incoming calls if the number is in spammer databases, but it glitches and works like crap.
And you know what's most offensive? In Czech culture it's still quite acceptable to call and talk. They'll call you from stores, police, post office, from anywhere, and will be quite unhappy if you don't pick up or don't call back.
But for me all this is taboo. And it's not that I'm a fool - for example, recently they called me on a work number activated a couple days ago (and I 100% knew nobody knows it, so I didn't pick up). And you know what? If you had called back there, the call would cost a couple thousand crowns, because you would have gotten through to somewhere in Somalia.
Such things. All you can do is teach your friends and loved ones that calls are last century.
PS they told me this is everywhere, but in Russia I never had this. Although there, fuck, it's not better - as soon as I left, they deactivated my number and gave it to someone else, and I had a bank tied to it. But fuck it, nobody expects anything good from Russian operators anyway.