Changed Address
Posted: Wed 16 May, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, House Work 1 Comment »At bloody last, my poxy bank has managed to change my address details.
It’s only taken three weeks.
In other news, the credit cards and so on that I have all managed it instantly, online. Even sending off the driving licence parts to Swansea and getting new updated documents back took less time.
Truly impressive.
Invisible
Posted: Mon 14 May, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 5 Comments »One thing I did notice this weekend while driving, thanks to the shitty weather, was how certain cars just disappear in particular types of weather. (And yes, yes, I know, every time I do a long drive, I do a post about driving standards – or lack of them – afterwards. Live with it) With road conditions the way they were – heavy rain, lots of water on the road surface – there was a massive amount of spray in the air, and I realised that white and silver cars just disappear in those conditions.
On the way up, I saw the aftermath of an accident where a silver-grey car (unsurprisingly, a BMW) had obviously been driving with no lights on, and another car (amusingly, another BMW) had come up behind it at speed, and just stoved in the entire back end of the car, run straight into it. I’ve no idea about injuries – by the time I went past, it was only the police directing drivers round the wreckage- but it was impressive.
On the return journey, in the really heavy rain and spray, I was amazed by how many people still didn’t have even sidelights on, let alone headlights and/or foglights. Yes, OK, it was daylight – in theory – so lights didn’t need to be on, but the visibility was so bad, it was worth having lights on so you could be seen, even if they weren’t necessary to see. And the majority of the cars with no lights on were – you guessed it – white or silver. And they just disappeared. You be going along, knowing there was something ahead because of the spray, but you couldn’t see the car at all.
At some points, I even used the fog lights – although I had enough of a memory-span to remember they were on, and turn them off when visibility improved again- because the range you could see dropped right down to about 30 feet max. at some points. And still drivers didn’t turn their lights on. Bizarre. I swear I’ll never understand the mentality of some drivers.
Cross Words
Posted: Sun 13 May, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts 3 Comments »Is it realy sad and geeky if I admit that I like doing the Guardian’s quick crossword online when I get the chance?
Or is it worse to admit that I complete it four days out of six?
You, the jury, decide.
(I’m still crap at the cryptic ones though)
UPDATED : A link to the Grauniad’s crossword page.
IQ Test Necessary
Posted: Sun 13 May, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism 3 Comments »In my opinion, some people just shouldn’t be allowed in a car.
Fair enough, I don’t have a problem with someone being reliant on a sat-nav unit for directions. Hell, I’m using one this weekend, as I’ve never done the drive before. But relying on that sat-nav to tell you “You’re about to get out of your car on a railway crossing” is unreal.
“I came to this crossing at Ffynongain and there was like a metal gate, which looked like just a normal farmers’ gate with a red circle on it. I thought it was a dead end at first and then there was a little sign saying, if the light is green, open the gates and drive through. So I opened the gate, drove forward, closed the gate behind me and then went to go and open the gate in front of me. “
So, go through one gate, stop the car, get out, close one gate behind you, open the one in front. (all the time not noticing the sodding great lines of metal – also known as train tracks- going across the area) Common sense would say ‘open both gates, get in car, go through gates, pull in, get out of car, close both gates, get back in car, continue driving’ – or is that just me?
Change Of Address
Posted: Sat 12 May, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic Leave a comment »Of all the things that need to be co-ordinated when you move, you really wouldn’t think that getting your bank to change your address would be one of the most difficult bits, would you? And in general, it wouldn’t be. Unless you happen to have the Manchester branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland as your account’s ‘home’. And ooh, lucky me, that’s exactly the problem.
In general, dealing with RBS isn’t a problem. I use the online banking, that’s fine. I go into the Cambridge branch, or the Reading one, and everything happens quickly, smoothly, and efficiently. If anything has to go back to my ‘home’ branch though, it goes tits up at high speed.
I don’t know what it is that makes the Manchester branch of RBS into such a bunch of useless bastards, but I do know it’s consistent in its crapness. (Actually, I do have a suspicion about what the problem is – it’s that I had a business account with them as well, and I’ll lay money that somewhere in their system, anything to do with my personal account still goes through the business section)
This time, as with when we moved to Norfolk in December, I called the phone banking section to do the change of address. All fine, apparently. Except that I know they have to send some kind of paper-trail document to the Manchester branch for them to process. Why, I’ve no idea. But that’s the way it is. Joined up banking with the RBS, oh yes.
And when the address change document goes to Manchester, it gets lost. Or mislaid. Or screwed-up and thrown in a bin. I don’t know. What I do know is that it doesn’t get processed. So ten days later, I call the phone banking people again, and ask why it hasn’t been done. Oh, we don’t know – the system says the address has changed, but the Manchester processing centre hasn’t activated it. Why? We don’t know. It must be a small system glitch.
Aye, right. That ‘small system glitch’ is also known as ‘it entered the document black hole called Manchester Processing Centre’.
We’ll see if the change gets processed this time, now I’ve invoked a formal complaint…