You Had One Job
Posted: Mon 30 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Customer Services, Cynicism, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »[This follows on from a conversation I was having over the weekend, so I thought I’d write a bit more about it here. You lucky people]
This year so far has in many ways been an exercise in frustration. I’ve felt like I’m keeping on having to fight things all the way, just to get people to do their sodding jobs. It’s incredibly annoying, frustrating, and just leaves me tired and pissed off.
I know I’ve written about this kind of thing before – it seems to be a bit of a theme round here. And it’s not even like I expect miracles – all I want is for people to do their fucking jobs right. That’s not too much to ask, surely?
For example, one of the current bugbears has been a particular travel agent, who is supposed to be organising a break. It’s been in the process now for about six months, with the travel happening next month. I’ve given them a decent length of time and space, and absolutely nothing happened. Indeed, the only time anything started happening was once I got in touch with them about six weeks ago, to find out what was going on. All of a sudden the tickets and so on appeared, along with acknowledgement that they’d dropped the ball, that the initial contact had left the company and there’d been no handover or successor assigned to deal with me.
The problem was that the names on all the bookings – flights, hotel and so on – *all* had spelling mistakes. I’ve raised it with them, and they’re “going to deal with it”. But man alive, this is the job they’re supposed to be good at, that they do all day every day, and they still make mistakes like these? I’m honestly not reassured, and won’t be until I’ve arrived at the destination and know that everything has worked out. Which is hardly a relaxing start to a break, it’s fair to say.
The stuff with the bank, the car insurance people, and the windscreen people have also been fine examples. Along with several others I’m not in the mood to add just yet to the list here.
All I want is for people to do their jobs. Why is that so bloody difficult?
More Sorted
Posted: Sun 29 April, 2018 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Following on from last week’s “One of Those weeks” post, things did end up working out OK, I’m pleased to say.
The car windscreen got replaced first thing yesterday morning, and the whole process was pretty painless (once I’d got the appointment organised and so on). The crack itself had definitely grown during the week, so leaving it another two weeks would’ve almost certainly ended up with it being a lot more serious. Considering that I was doing a fair amount of driving through the rest of yesterday, I was much happier to have had it sorted.
The bank issues also got sorted pretty efficiently, once I’d escalated the problem a couple of times. They still can’t explain why the auto-systems didn’t trigger for this – although I’ve heard some interesting bullshit along the way – but at least it’s all sorted, I’ve had the card cancelled and replaced, had some compensation for the hassle and lack of information, and the money was refunded immediately. So I can’t complain too much. I’d rather none of it had happened in the first place, obviously, but at least it’s all handled now. And as a happy side-effect it’s also shown the bank that I’m more on top of things than they are, and that’s now on-the-record.
So all things considered, the week has ended up in a much better place than the one it started in. Yes, it would’ve made life a lot easier if none of it had happened in the first place, but as it had happened, at least it’s done and dusted.
Non-Stop
Posted: Fri 27 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Business, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This last week has been (and continues to be) pretty non-stop, even by my standards. It’s been a weird mix of work, social, and work-related social.
I’m still trying to calm things down – and weirdly, at the moment my weekends seem to be freer than my weekdays, so I suppose that’s some kind of progress? But as usual, something has to give – and this time it’s been writing on D4D™.
I’m aiming to find a better balance of things, but right now it’s all on some kind of weird mutant seesaw/roundabout combination, and figuring out the physics of that is pretty tiring in and of itself.
I’ll get there, though.
One of Those
Posted: Mon 23 April, 2018 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Customer-services-wise, it’s been one of those weekends again…
While driving home on Friday evening, the windscreen got hit right on the edge by a stone, and cracked. Obviously the impact speed must’ve been fairly high, and it caught at just the right point, so it’s a fairly significant crack, and one that would almost certainly fail the MOT test (which thankfully is no time soon)
So when I got home I called the car insurance’s glass repair/replace number, and organised getting the windscreen replaced. (A fix isn’t going to be feasible, it’s new windscreen time) That all went ok, until we got to their next available appointment. Which was… May 9th. Yep, three weeks time, to replace a windscreen. Safe to say, not happy. I went back to the insurance company direct, explained why I wasn’t happy with that – I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I were in an accident while the windscreen were damaged. I’m willing to bet that they’d deny the claim, even with having the appointment in place, and the insurance company informed. They’re like that.
Anyway, they gave me a different number to call. Same company, different number, and as soon as I was speaking to them, suddenly a slot came free for a week’s time, rather than three. How amazing.
So it’s lined up to be sorted this coming weekend. I’m still not entirely happy about it, but it’s better than waiting nearly a month (because of other things, the replacement would actually have been another week after the ‘first available’ slot…) for it to be done.
Then today, I looked at my business account online, and there’s a couple of transactions I don’t recognise, and know I haven’t made. I call the bank, get them recorded as fraudulent, get the money back and so on. And that’s all OK.
But. But. The pattern of these transactions was precisely the pattern that’s used in fraudulent transactions. Two small (or smallish) transactions, this time both at the very top of the contactless transaction limit, in very quick succession, with a company I haven’t dealt with before. And then, within twenty-four hours, another large-value transaction, also with a company I haven’t dealt with in a while. That’s the absolute fingerprint for a fraud transaction – the first two check the card’s validity etc., the second is to make sure it hasn’t triggered systems or been registered as stolen, and then they try to profit from it.
As it turns out, in my case the big transaction was a valid one, but that doesn’t change the issue.
So that pattern of three transactions should have triggered every automatic fraud detection system, and put a hold on my card that would’ve then been dealt with during the big transaction. That’s what’s happened before with the same bank, the same account – except they were valid transactions that just happened to be in that order. And no-one can currently tell me why it’s not been triggered this time.
I’m not harmed in either case. I’ve got the money back, I’ll be getting a new card, and everything’s fine. I’ve raised a complaint about it, and I’m pretty sure that absolutely nothing will happen with it.
But yeah, the two things over three days, it all just gets a bit wearing, I could do with not having to deal with it.
Ah well. Fun and games.
Aging – Making Improvements
Posted: Mon 16 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Single Life, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss 3 Comments »Following on from my general feelings of being flattened and feeling old, I’ve also been doing some stuff to try and alleviate it a bit, or at least to give myself better information.
The first part of that was a general health review, a visit to the GP to get basic information, as well as booking myself in to get blood tests and so on. (I try to do that every couple of years, as there’s a family history of stuff like underactive thyroid, type two diabetes, heart issues and the like.) As usual, that all came back fine.
The blood-tests were more of a pain in the arse – mainly because I live right on the border of two health authorities, and my surgery refers me to the authority that’s not the one for where I work. So it took me a couple of weeks before I could be bothered to go that way and get them done. But again, once it was done and I’d bothered rinnging up to get my results, everything was fine there too. A couple of figures that aren’t perfect, but everything’s still well within acceptable range of ‘normal’. Which is enough for me. I’ll probably work on them a bit, but it’s nothing that’s even important, let alone urgent.
As usual, they all say I’m too heavy – file under “Sherlock, Shit, No” – but then when they see the figures, and the speeds/distances I usually walk at, they seem to worry less. I’m still working on losing some again, but it does somewhat lessen the urgency when they pretty much shrug and go “Oh, OK”…
Following on from that, I got the aforementioned eye-test, which was also positive. Small changes, but nothing major, and the optician said that my eyes are a lot healthier than those of most people who have similar levels of vision correction to me.
Oh, she also worried me by telling me that people with my level of vision correction are at risk of detached retinas – something that has never been said to me before! – but that mine were OK. (I mentioned this to my parents last weekend, and they added to it by saying ‘Yeah, there’s a family history of doing that, too”) So that’s been great, being told all of a sudden about a potential future health issue I wasn’t even aware of. Joys.
Anyway, all told I’m actually doing OK. Now if I could just get my brain to follow the same path, things would be wunderbar…
Aging
Posted: Wed 11 April, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, D4D™, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »One of the reasons (I think) for the current phase of my feeling somewhat flattened is relating to me feeling a bit old currently.
That’s not as in “Oh my God, I’m old” and so on, it’s more just some realisations that I’m no longer the age I am in my self-image. Mentally – and many would say emotionally – I’m nowhere near 46. But this year so far I’ve been feeling older – the fun stuff like new aches, just generally feeling rougher than I have previously. It’s all just a bit wearing, no fun at all, and quite demoralising.
Alongside that, over the first three months I put on some weight, which wouldn’t then easily shift in the usual ways I use. Also quite demoralising.
The final bit of the jigsaw was getting an eye test a couple of weeks back. While the prescription hasn’t changed much, it’s changed enough, and we’re looking at my next set of glasses being varifocals. So yeah, I’m feeling a bit old at the moment.
I’m working on it – and that’ll be a follow-up post to this one – but at least I am working on it, and so far that feeling of being flattened is at least lessening as a result.
Flattened
Posted: Wed 4 April, 2018 Filed under: D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yet again, things round here have eased off a bit, I haven’t been updating as regularly as I could/should be doing. In fairness, that’s not just something that’s been happening here, it’s also been breaking through into other aspects of life, and I’m working my way through the whole thing.
I’ve been describing it to myself as being permanently tired, although as per the title, “Flattened” is perhaps a better description. So, probably, is “Depressed, but Functional” They’d all be fair, for sure.
Thing is, I don’t feel depressed. I just feel tired. I still get up, go to work, do all the idiot stuff I do on weekends. But in many ways it feels like I’m doing a lot of it on autopilot – because I’m tired.
It’s meant I haven’t done some stuff, and some new things (or revisited things) just haven’t happened yet, because I’m too tired, too flat to make the effort.
I don’t know quite what to make of it. I’m figuring it out, and I think (hope) I’ve turned a bit of a corner over the weekend, so in some ways it’s a case of waiting to see what develops. I know that in some ways I’ve done more new stuff this week already than I probably did in the previous three months.
I’m not going to force the issue – as I said previously, Q2 of 2018 also involves more downtime, which I’m hoping will free up some mental bandwidth, and allow me to start doing some of the stuff that’s currently sitting in my brain saying “Well? Get on with it”.
That’s how it feels at the moment, anyway. Whether the same will be true tomorrow morning, or next week, next month – only time will tell. We’ll see.