Starbase Telecoms

What a pleasure it is to promote a business that I have such a high personal regard for and have had the pleasure of doing business with for almost 20 years!

Starbase Telecoms supplies top quality headsets for call centres, busy switchboards, office and home usage, as well as lightning protection for telephone and computer networks, music-on-hold or advertising-on-hold, and small to heavy duty ringing devices for normal to very noisy environments.

I got to know Peter Croft, the Principal of this dynamic business, twenty years ago. During my long stint as a buyer / stock controller in a leading S.A. telecommunications company, I got to rely more and more on Peter's excellent advice, quality products and highly professional service. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him or his colleagues - from Peter himself, to his sales personnel, administrative personnel, or the driver who delivered the products.

Service delivery and after-sales service from this company is of the highest quality and delivered with a rare kind of pleasantness, friendliness and fresh eagerness.

If you're in the market for any of these products, I recommend that you make Starbase Telecoms your first port of call. And if you're not, right at this moment, give them a call anyway and establish that personal contact for when you do need to chuck out that old headset or add some lightning protection - or update your music-on-hold to something more professional. You'll be glad that you did!

Bikes and Taxis

What fun .... I smashed my bike a few weeks ago and for the past three weeks I've had to resort to using the infamous minibus taxis to work and back each day.

On my way home from work on that fateful Thursday afternoon, a gentleman decided to change lanes to get past a stationery bus. I happened to be next to him at the time, apparently in his "blind spot". He hit the bike - not hard, but hard enough to send me sprawling into the road ahead. The bike came tumbling after and climbed up on top of me. My injuries were limited to my left leg - knee, ankle foot ....., and the bike's damage, fortunately, more from the road than from the impact with the car. However, it's taken three weeks for the repair work to even begin.

Hence my introduction to minibus taxis. Three of them to work each day and another three back. One from my home into Johannesburg city, to the infamous Noord Street taxi rank, another from there to Benoni and a third one from Benoni to the Industrial sites where I work.

If there's one thing I've learnt, it's to keep away from them when I'm back on the bike - these guys are serious about their driving!!

The mornings were cold on the bike - very cold. But I never got sick or caught a cold. The taxis are a lot warmer, but with everyone squashed up against one another and everyone around one sniffling and coughing, I suppose it was inevitable that the bug would amble across the mass of bodies to me too. Now I have a thick head, a running cold, and a tight cough!

I cannot wait to get onto my bike again, feel the good, fresh air in my face and the magnificence of independence!