Paid Off
Posted: Sun 31 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Having paid the smug twunts at Inland Revenue their 88p, I’ve just checked my online banking, and can confirm that the payment has now gone out of my account.
This was the main reason I paid using my debit card – (well, apart from just so that it cost them more money – what can I say, I can be incredibly petty myself) so that there’s no way they can say “Oh no, we haven’t received that and/or paid it in”, which I’m certain is what would have happened if I’d sent in payment by cheque.
In fact, from the evidence of previous submissions to the incompetent keffers, even if I’d sent it recorded, and been able to present them with proof of receipt, they’d still have lost it. And then it would still be my fault that payment had been delayed, and would thus be liable to that £100 penalty fine for not paying by 31st Jan 2007.
At least this way payment has been processed by the scumbags themselves (can’t you see how much I love them really?) and there’s no way they can make out they haven’t received it.
So in theory (I’m still expecting some shit to hit the fan at some point) the last three years’ farce with the Inept Revenants is now drawn to a close, and we’re all sorted.
Negligible
Posted: Thu 28 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Weirdness Leave a comment »Back at the end of October, I got a letter about how much money I owed Inland Revenue for the tax year 2005-06, which was sent to me first class (and cost about 58p to send) along with a postage-paid response envelope.
Just before Christmas, I got a “statement of account” from Inland Revenue, again sent first class, again with a postage-paid reply envelope.
The amount that all this paperwork and postage is for?
88p
I’ve paid it today, by debit card. (Which should cost them even more) All told, I reckon it’s cost them about £2.00 to process £0.88. Which is impressive in anyone’s book.
Not Informed
Posted: Sun 24 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Currently, I’m a little bit annoyed.
While I was returning the car to Avis the other day, I saw a little leaflet on their desk, talking about making a booking and getting Tesco Clubcard points for how much you spend with Avis. Having booked three lots of cars with them now, and having just spent £300+ on this one (although it’s on expenses, so it’s OK on that score) I was a bit narked to have lost those 300 points, plus t’others.
Now, I know that Clubcard and the like are cynical marketing ploys that allow the card owners (by which I mean ‘people who issued the cards’ as opposed to ‘people who carry the cards with them’) to track people, and target offers to those people with ever more efficiency and effectiveness (I wanted to type effectivity there, but I know it’s a made-up word) but at the same time, I don’t object hugely to them – and I allow my data to be used in that way.
(I used to do a clubcard swapping programme, so that their marketing data went to shit, but haven’t done that in a while – maybe I should restart. It always used to confuse them when a 30 year old man started buying tampons or whatever…)
Anyway, it annoyed me. Not because I’d missed out per se but because actually, it’d never been mentioned when I booked the cars – nothing on the site at all. You really had to search to find this page about it – and fortunately you can reclaim those points afterwards if you want to, by way of that same page but still, it’s just not a great promotion if no bugger knows about it…
Frost and Fog
Posted: Wed 20 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 3 Comments »Last night, I did the drive back from Poole to Attleborough. I left at 5, which was already a bad move – it took an hour just to get to the M27. Absolute nightmare.
Anyway, I got home at 9.30 in the end – so once things got going, I actually made exceptionally good time – the Laguna was an absolute joy to drive, and had some decent speed, which made the journey a lot easier as well.
What was surprising, though, even to a cynic such as myself, was how many drivers seemed to forget that
- they had fog lights on
- they had full-beam headlights on
and on a couple of memorable occasions - that they really should put their lights on once they’d left a services area.
Considering that the weather was foul – although I definitely now have no problems driving in fog – it was amazing to me just how many fucking idiots there are on the roads. I know it shouldn’t, but it did/does.
This morning it was the same thing – the entire drive was pretty much blanketed in fog, and in some areas ice/frost as well – and yet there were people (mainly in white cars/vans, which didn’t help) who didn’t even have lights on, so their vehicles just disappeared into the fog. Very scary.
All went well though, and that’s another set of ticks in the “Done That” list – but jesus, people scare me.
That Festive Feeling – The Bad
Posted: Mon 18 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, Thoughts 3 Comments »
So yes, the bits I hate about the Festering Season.
I hate the hypocrisy, the materialism of the entire season. I hate the obligations – or rather, the perceived and implied obligations- that befoul people when it comes to Christmas. I know I’m a cynic, and in many ways I’m also a hypocrite, because I do get things for the people who I want to buy for. What I don’t believe in is buying stuff for everyone I know, plus work-colleagues, plus others.
Over the years, I’ve seen probably way too much of the bad side of the Festering Season, and I can’t deny that it’s had a lingering effect on me. I spent eight years running pubs and hotels, and every Festering Season I’d see too many people who were either in fairly serious trouble because of their Christmas spending, or who were depressed because they didn’t have the people around them they wanted, or they hadn’t received the number of cards and/or presents that the media and marketers made out the should have. I saw too many of the negative sides, and not enough of the positives. And for New Year, too many hypocrites who would be professing Auld Lang Syne, and peace and goodwill to all people at midnight, followed ten minutes later by beating the shit out of each other.
Once I’d left that side of things, I spent the next few years working over Christmas in a variety of places – Samaritans, Soup Kitchens etc. Again, I saw the negative side of the Festering Season, with not a great deal of the positive. But at the same time, well, I believe that it’s not a bad way to handle Christmas, to be honest – while I’m not religious at all, and don’t celebrate that aspect of it, I do believe that actually it’s no bad thing to spend the time helping out those far worse off than oneself – and that in many ways, it’s possibly a more “Christian” way of working than most.
I haven’t done that for about four or five years now, but I do still find that my thoughts at this time of year still turn to the people who’re depressed by the season, and by the differences between how it’s portrayed to people, and how it is. I don’t know if that makes sense – it’s the difference between the way dramas on TV (whether soaps, American dramas, period pieces etc., or anything else) show it as being this time of plenty, of presents, family, money, food, and happiness while some people’s personal experiences show it as a time of penury, loneliness, solitude, hunger, and depression.
Personally, I’ve had a couple of close friends die around the Festering Season, which never helps much either. I don’t harp on about it – but it’s there, it’s n my mind on occasion during this time of year, and I can’t deny it.
So, yeah, all told, I’m really not a fan of the Festering Season…
Collecting Stuff
Posted: Fri 15 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Festering Season Leave a comment »About a month ago, I ordered something for Herself’s Christmas. Because I didn’t know how long it’d take to appear or where we’d be living at the time, and because the company offered it, I used Royal Mail’s Local Collect® service, which means that the package gets delivered to a local post office of your choice, from where you can collect it. Bloody brilliant – makes life a lot easier than wondering where something’s going to arrive, or when – I can just pick it up on the way to/from work.
Which is what I did this morning. Only, well, it looks like perhaps the actual Post Office people didn’t know what the service was. Or even the meaning of the word “service”.
They tried telling me that I’d used the service incorrectly, and that they’d have been perfectly within their rights to send the parcel back.
At lunchtime, I’ll be dropping in a printout of this page which may help explain it to them.
Ad Break
Posted: Tue 12 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season 1 Comment »
- Currys Electrical
- Perfume
- Someone’s Greatest Hits Album
- Tesco Mobile
- Ferrero Rocher
- Another Perfume
- A ‘best of ’06’ album
- Another perfume
I guess Christmas must be just round the corner…