“I hear those voices that will not be drowned”
Britten – Peter Grimes
That’s the quote on the scallop shell at Aldeburgh. All will be revealed.
Julia had things to do today but she stayed in to accept the redelivery from Royal Mail. By the time I got home at 1.15pm (early day today for various reasons) it still hadn’t arrived. It’s 8.00pm now and it still hasn’t arrived.
Martello Tower Aldeburgh
When you entire Royal Mail’s Circular Nightmare on-line it prefers to keep taking you back to the beginning, hoping you will give up. One of the things it tells you to do is wait until tomorrow as they may still be out on deliveries. That’s unlikely. Even the telephone lines have shut. If you really press the system it tells you to wait two days before complaining as the deliver may still arrive. If I wait two days it will arrive on a Monday, we will be out, the Royal Mail will be unable to deliver, as it needs signing for, and the whole tale of poor service and stupidity will begin again.
At Aldeburgh, Suffolk
I now have two complaints in with Royal Mail, both relating to their automated service and its attempts to put me off using it. There will be at least one more, which will centre on the poor management of the redelivery.
I have obtained a postal address for making complaints too. If all they had done was get the redelivery wrong I wouldn’t even be complaining, that’s just the normal service you expect in the UK of the 21st century. But to deliberately design a computerised system to demonstrate their contempt for the customer by sending me round in circles, that must not be endured in silence. Hence me getting all rhetorical and quoting opera at the start of the post.
The Scallop at Aldeburgh
This is progress, don’t you know?
Yes, back in the stone age that passed for my youth, and we only had real people who actually tried to help, we could only dream of helplines staffed by robots and 50 minute waits on the phone . . .
If all our dreams were nightmares
‘Oh wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! Oh brave new world,
That has such people in’t.’
🙂
Oh dear. You have my commiserations. I do hope you manage to get this sorted out soon.
If we can find the parcel I will just have to go down to the parcel office before work – lovely. The cards, I see, no longer tell me the opening times. I just checked online – they actually open at 8.00 so I can’t do that unless it’s Wednesday. However, they do now open between 4 and 6 in the afternoon . . . Ever more useless.
Good luck with filing a complaint. In instances like these I start going up the chain of command, and have gone right to the top of the corporation on a few occasions. I am not sure how it works with your MPs over there, but that may be an avenue as well. Here we can contact our Senators and Representatives regarding needing help with specific agencies. It can take time, but it has worked for me.
I write to my MP on matters relating to wildlife legislation. She sends a carefully worded reply that doesn’t actually commit her to anything. So far that has been it. At one time I used to send letters to CEOs quite soon in the process. Sometimes it worked. These days they are better at doing nothing . . .
I often wonder if the people who design and authorise those websites know how annoying they are. Is it ignorance or malice that makes dealing with large companies online such a penance? Do they sit around in boardrooms chuckling at their own cleverness? I would like to ask them but you can’t find anyone to ask.
They must do it on purpose. It’s no accident that pressing two or three buttons takes you bck to the unhelpful first page. They probably have awards for irritating automated systems. It’s only about a year or two ago I noticed how truly irritating some of them are and discovered how difficult it is to get an actual answer. Pah!
Try talking to Scottish Power!
I’d rather not. I suspect from your comment that I wouldn’t like them.
I’m thinking of writing a comment but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, if I get around to it. Anyway if I don’t you could write a letter and I see if that makes any difference.
I am about to write to my MP denouncing the lack of service and effort. This will involve a three month wait and a duplicated pledge to possibly do something at some undefined time in the in the future. Your suggestion of writing a comment tomorrow, if you get round to it, looks dangerously concerned and efficient in comparison, so I may have to write to you instead.