A short while ago, I said about an utterly shit day I'd had, where everything piled in at once. I wasn't going to blog about it - but somehow it seems like the perfect thing for a rant. Therefore, I bring you... A life in the day of Lyle...

  Customs and Excise

  One of the worst things about self-unemployment (as I call it, thanks to Mike Ripley) is the amazing amount of bureaucracy created by our wonderful government. (Yes, I know this has turned into a theme recently, but there we go - that's the joy of sites like this) Most of it is absolute garbage, designed to allow them to justify their existences, convince the bureaucrats they're important, and generally frustrate and infuriate the average punter. Sometimes you get the chance for revenge - but fuck me, it's hard work...

  About six months ago, I did some work for HM Customs and Excise. (or, as they're known in certain circles, "the VATman", "The Knock", and "Oh, not you cunts again") It wasn't even a rocket-scientist contract, simply creating Word templates so they could use the same printed stuff for normal paperwork and Web-based paperwork (if that's not an oxymoron. Then again, HMCE only understands the moron part anyway) - any gimp could do it. But could I resist taking money off the VATman? Could I hell...

  Six months down the line, the bill still hasn't been paid. I spent the first hour of the day chasing round 8 different departments, being passed round the office, hearing eight different versions of "it's not my responsibility - let me put you through to someone who can't/wont help." until finally getting back through to the person I originally spoke to. At which point the plot was comprehensively mislaid. I think I might have to go through the small claims court, and get a judgement against them - OK, it's pure hassle, because it'll mean that HMCE will audit me every three months for the next decade or so (nothing wrong with a bit of victimisation when it's all in a good cause), but oh, the temptation to get a debt judgement against the VATman - that's pretty hard to turn down. Once I'd got that, I don't even know that I'd chase the payment - just frame the court decision. Something to make me smile come a rainy day...

  Nationwide Building Society

  I used to have a bank account with these knobs. Emphasis on used to. I closed it back in April - walked into the branch, told them I wanted the account closed with immediate effect. They asked "why?", so I told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were inefficient, had no idea about customer service, had contributed massively to my negative credit rating by constantly doing credit checks (one of the "joys" of the credit rating system is that repeated credit checks actually counts as a negative point, for some bizarre reason of logic), and had generally been about as useless and unhelpful in the ways only a bank seems able to manage. End of story.

  Or so I thought...

  Instead, I got a statement through from Nationwide, saying I owed them £200 for bounced direct debits on the account. An account, I feel I should remind you, that had been closed for six months by this time. Impressive. So I contact the "Customer Service" Number...
   "Oh no, sir, we didn't close the account, even though you told us to, and signed the forms."
    "Why not?"
  "Well, we thought you really wanted to keep your account open, and we'd just improve our customer service so you'd come back to us."
    "And did you - at ANY time - bother to inform me of this?"
  "Um." (she checks her records) "Oh. No, we didn't. That's not very good, is it?"
  *Audible intake of breath*
    "No, you could say it's not very good. I'd say 'it's about typical for Nationwide', but I'll agree with 'not very good'. Can you please remove all the debt that's on that account. And close it. NOW."
  "OK, I can do that. I'm very sorry about this..."
    "And I'd like a written letter of apology from nationwide for this, and also confirmation that this will NOT cause me a problem in the future."
  "OK. And are you sure you won't use Nationwide for a current account in the future?"
  "..." (that's me being struck completely speechless,in awe of this particular person's rabid stupidity)

  I've since received a letter from Nationwide, explaining that all the debts have been written off, the account has been closed. And (this made me roll with laughter) £10 has been put in my account as an apology for the problems I've had... (If anyone can work that one out, email me)

EasySpace

  Ah, the company that hosts this site. This one's quite gobsmacking, really.

  I've recently started receiving email from the d4d domain name sent back from mail servers that are obviously getting spammed using my domain as a startpoint. I don't spam - there's keff all to be advertised on here anyway. Plus all the email addresses are like "lyle857fdcg98@" etc. etc. NOT the type of email address I'd choose to have, considering that it's my domain name, I can have whatever the hell I want. Obviously some fuckwit of a spambot has nobbled the address from here, and is using it to send out spam.

  So I sent an email to WeaselSpace saying "There's a problem, I'm getting these messages back when I'm not sending out the originals, so there's obviously an open relay somewhere on your system that's letting someone send out spam from my domain name, let's try and avoid both my domain and easyspace from going onto a spammer's blacklist". So far, I've had a confirmation they've received the email, and that's it. There's no way to contact the cretins by phone, I can't just send an attachment of the emails I'm receiving to them (I get an autoreply that says "use our Interactive Help System") - and guess what? - their Interactive Help System (aka "Help us do our job, rather than paying anyone with an IQ point") doesn't even cover problems with email. I'm so umpressed. No, really, I am.

Net registrar

  This one's connected to the one for Easyspace, but I'm loath to go into too much detail until the problem's sorted. (which at the moment looks like it won't happen 'til Jan 2003) Basically, some of the details need to be changed and some options need to be opted out of. However, it can't be done by Easyspace, and needs to go through Nominet. Only because it's all domain name stuff, you've got to email them with details, they send out a form by normal mail, that has to get filled in, along with duplicate letters, which then get verified, the stuff gets acted upon, and then Nominet inform Easyspace. Who (going on current form) will then take two weeks to do anything at all about it. So yeah, I think probably January 2003 - which is a pain in the arse, because some of it is important enough that it really needs to be changed pronto.

  Whitecross Dentists

  Lord, it just never ends. My mouth's a mess - all my own fault, can't deny it at all, but last year, I decided "right, I want to get this sorted out" so I attended the White Cross dentists in the city centre. Lots of work needs doing (tell me something I didn't know), however, what I didn't know was that a lot of it (if not all - they weren't sure at the time) could be done on the NHS, although it would cost me £400. Still, it's better than the £15-20,000 it would cost to do it completely privately.

  White Cross said they'd have to sort out the NHS approval for it all, and it might take 8 - 10 weeks to come through. (Another example of stupendous bureaucracies in action) This was all a year ago, and I never heard another thing from them. I rang the surgery about three months later, they hadn't heard anything back from the NHS, and told me I should wait to hear from White Cross, because they couldn't hurry the NHS process along.

  So while I was in town and stressing at cretins anyway, I thought "Ah, what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound, see what's going on". Hoping that this might be one instance where efficiency had happened, where things weren't totally tits-up. Knowing I'd be wrong.

  Guess which option was the right one? The NHS approval had come through to the office five weeks after the application went off. They'd just filed it in the wrong place. So I've waited 9 months for a form to arrive that was already there. A perfect end to a perfect day.