Those affected Raymond Terrace businesses were annoyed but largely understanding, at first, when services went down after the Labor Day holiday.

Lines were dead or at best worked intermittently for days.

For others their lines were crossed entirely. And as the issues dragged on patience and tempers began to fray.

Imagine calling up the florist for a bouquet to mark a wedding anniversary only to get a confused auto mechanic. And vice versa, having a florist tell you they’ve got no idea when the car will be ready.

It’s cost businesses real money. A cost that is hard to quantify but no less real.

Florist Sharon Drew estimates it cost her about $1000 but she holds little hope she’ll be able to hold her telecommunications provider to account. Under fire she battled to remain graceful throughout it all.

Her thoughts quickly ran to the technicians who toiled to patch old technology with new and make it all talk.

“These guys are doing their absolute best and they’re only human,” she said.

And therein lies the rub.

As humans we expect things can and will go wrong. A vast majority will make concessions when faced with these setbacks when there is an explanation.

None of the businesses the Examiner spoke to had received anything of the sort.

That is the real failure in this sordid tale.

Even we – the team behind the website and newspaper – were left in the dark.

Affected businesses had to double down and work a way around the service disruption. Our own editorial and advertising teams to their credit managed to complete the work, largely over the mobile network.

That brings us to Optus mobile customer Bonnie Baker. 

In what appears to be an unrelated fault her phone number started to pop up on other people’s texts. It looked for all the world like she had been stalking another mum’s daughter, and another’s husband.

As you can imagine this caused some very tense phone calls. The messages flooded back to her asking her to explain.

Eventually she just had to turn it off.

These extraordinary tales serve as a painful reminder how much we rely on telecommunications everyday.

So long as it works, it truly is a modern miracle. Hopefully these gremlins have been put to rest now and business can resume.