Tag Archives: complaints

Contact, Complaints and Compliments

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Another day moving junk. We stopped part way down to drop off several boxes at a charity shop with convenient parking. Last week when we tried it was closed for a week according to the notice in the window. Today it had a notice up telling us it wasn’t accepting donations. We are giving it up as a bad job and will find somewhere else. I’ve also communicated my concern to the relevant organisation.  It’s not a complaint, just a heads up that their management team might be letting the side down.

I have just had an automatic response telling me that if my message isn’t on the list of subjects they deal with they won’t answer.  Add arrogance to unreliability in the list of faults. There are plenty of other charity shops, albeit slightly less convenient for unloading, so we aren’t stuck for places to go.  They need to remember that they exist in a competitive environment, just like any other shop. We could also put it all in a skip. It will cost us, but it’s much more convenient that cleaning things and sorting them and packing them and then taking them to a shop which doesn’t want them.

Tea at Stoke on Trent

It took me several key strokes to get through to the page to leave a message, and that’s what you get in return. Makes you wonder if it’s worth the effort.

Meanwhile, having decided to leave the hospital a message I got lost in their contact section. Apart from a broken link and a needlessly complex system, there is a mass of self-congratulatory text to go through, tinged with more than a hint of arrogance. It came close to me not leaving a message, but it’s not the fault of the people in Rheumatology that the admin system is run by people who can only be adequately described by words that are probably best not written in a family blog.

They should perhaps clone the staff from the Treatment Centre and Rheumatology Department and use them to bring the rest of the staff up to standard.

Nice cup of tea

Complaints, Compliments and Corn

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I checked my emails this morning and found I have a “badge” on Tripadvisor. I am now, after giving five restaurant reviews in three years, a man who deserves a badge for reviewing restaurants. It doesn’t seem fair, as I only go on there to complain. The companies in question never reply to complaints any more, assuming they will even let you find their skillfully concealed contact details, so I started going on review sites. They don’t want to hear my (normally) useful advice on faults in service? Well they can see it on a website along with the other 1,000 people who have read my reviews.

I am just putting my finishing touches to the letter telling the hospital that I was very happy with the way things went on Wednesday, and am also very happy with my treatment in Rheumatology over the last five years. I do that sometimes, you know. I think you should do if you are going to tell them when they are bad. I’m not sure how much good it does, but it’s what I do.

Two sizes of wheatsheaf loaf

The spellchecker just hit a new low. I thought haibun/halibut was bad, but their suggestion for Rheumatology is Hematology. Not only a useless suggestion, but a completely different medical speciality and has the added bonus of a possible medical malpractice suit thrown in. Of course, it doesn’t like speciality either, but as it spells Haemarology incorrectly, what would you expect?

I was checking on the diversity of English spelling earlier in the week and the American writing the article sought to justify his argument by citing the spelling of Shakespeare. I think we all know that he’s not a great guide to orthography. Fifty years after Shakespeare someone (I can’t find the exact reference) was still making the point that it was boring to spell words i exactly the same way all the way through a book. The words of William Shakespeare, mellifluous as they may be, are spelt all sorts of ways There are six known and authenticated signatures of Shakespeare, and his surname is spelt, by the man himself, in five different ways. None of them, incidentally, is Shakespeare.  Strangely, in highlighting spelt, it has revealed it knows little about spelt, the ancient wheat species. It doesn’t recognise  emmer either. Talking of which, the corn in the title is British corn – cereal. Not maize, which is called corn in America. It’s very difficult being bilingual in two sorts of English.

Poppies in wheat field

The Calm Before the Complaint Letter

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I’m not sure much has happened, but I have letters to write, and when I have letters to write I tend to veer into procrastination rather than jump into action.

If you recall my previous misadventures with Urology, you may recall that I went in for a minor operation, then went in for a second, which they cancelled on the grounds I hadn’t been in for the pre-operation check. I had, I had a witness to that effect, but they hadn’t processed it despite the fact that I was actually in hospital at the time. I was in hospital at the time due to the consequences of the first operation, which had not gone to plan. They even went so far as to accuse me of lying.

Next time they tried to admit me they couldn’t find a bed, a fact they only discovered after I had waited for three hours in my dressing gown.

I complained, but fell victim to the delaying tactics of the NHS complaints system. This time I am getting off the mark quicker and they will have the first complaint tomorrow, before they have had time to prepare. There seems little point in being reasonable and patient about it when they will do their best to do nothing about it.

However, as they keep pointing out, a missed hospital outpatient appointment costs £120, and the total is approximately £1 billion a year. It’s my duty to help them cut this cost by stopping them messing up again. I expect they will be grateful for my input, because doctors always love it when you correct them.

I am going to have to be careful how I phrase things as I’m hungry, and this never improves my mood. All this dieting might be good for my waist and health but it’s no good for anyone else I have to deal with.

Robin at Clumber, Nottinghamshire

A Rising Tide of Fury

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Yesterday was quite a good day. I slept reasonably well, woke feeling alert and immediately set to work.

First I checked the appointment that the NHS had sent me. I now qualify for an Abdominal Aorta Aneurysm scan. It used to be 67, but they have brought the age down to 65. I can’t get an appointment at the doctor’s for something that is bothering me, but I can get all sorts of things that I don’t want. It reminds me of a time a few years ago that I found myself booked in for a liver scan. I didn’t ask for one, there were no problems with the results of my regular blood tests and I told the doctor that I didn’t want one as I couldn’t se it was necessary. Being a member of the NHS he, of course, couldn’t see that half a day off work, a journey across town and an outlay of cash for a taxi, tram or parking was a problem.

Belgian Medals

It all went quiet during lock-down. Basically, very little was done, which was fair enough as they had COVID to deal with. However, when they came back from COVID, all these things which they had ignored for the best part for two years, suddenly became life-threatening. I had several letters with appointments for things that hadn’t mattered for years, and were suddenly very pressing. Even more annoying, several of them implied it was my fault that I hadn’t kept up with the tests. I thought it would be churlish to complain, but I did ring the liver scan people and ask why it was necessary. Turns out that it wasn’t necessary. According the the receptionist, they had been bought a new scanner and the doctor in charge was dying to give it a try. Most people, like me, were bemused to find themselves lined up for a liver scan. She asked if I’d like to discharge myself. So I did. I’ve had no recall and no liver symptoms since. That’s the trouble with the health service – they are always exploring new avenues of proving you are sick so they can give you more pills.

American Medals

However, back to the AAA Scan. It fits in quite neatly with my requirements – I am off that day, it’s at a hospital I can see as I sit here typing and there is convenient parking. So that went well and required no real effort. I do have a number of concerns about it, on reading the details, the main one of which is reference being made to “tummy”. That’s a word for children and, like every other similar instance I read on the NHS website, it irritates the hell out of me. It’s like the nurses I sometimes get, who talk to me as if I’m a child. I have not yet reverted to childhood. and yes, AAA does look like the result of a focus group on acronyms, but I’ll let that one ride.

Next up was my Green Flag membership, I’ve already reached 500 words, so I’ve taken enough of your time. I may be back later, though, so if discussions of breakdown insurance and the evils of insurance companies are of interest it might be worth your while to pop back later.

I promise you that the barbs I have so far aimed are nothing compared to what is likely to come later.

More American Medals

The pictures have nothing to do with the text. Sorry about that.

Hectic!

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Yesterday and today were both marked by an upsurge of traffic on the road as kids returned to school and parents went back to work. I was a little later than intended on both days and ran into delays caused by the rush hour. Today’s dark and rainy start did little to combat the congestion or lift the mood.

It did, however, give me time to think about writing and I have just drafted two new haibun. There is, no matter how dark the day, always the possibility of good emerging from it.

We now have four complaints about the non-arrival of packages. One is from Israel, which we were expecting. The Israeli Post Office does not have a good reputation. This is surprising as they generally seem to be an efficient country. I note, however, that they will forward letters addressed to God.

Christmas Stamps

Christmas Stamps

One is from a customer who has had his package. He then changed his story, saying that he wanted to return it as it was a present and the intended recipient already had one. That’s a shame, but not our fault. Unfortunately, we fall under the same legislation as a large company in this matter and will have to accept the return and lose money.

Another has now been waiting a month and now wants their money back. Again, not our fault, but not his fault either. We can, of course, apply for a refund from the Royal Mail but it is likely to be a case where the time spent claiming outweighs the value of the claim.

All these are irritating as we have done nothing wrong but will end up losing money.

The fourth is more annoying. We sent the wrong parcel to someone and had to send them a replacement. Fair enough. They returned the item we had sent in error. While it was being returned (slowly, due to postal strikes) somebody else ordered it. We emailed them saying that there would be a delay but that we would send it in the New Year, if they wanted to wait. They accepted this and we actually sent it to them on 28th December. It is, according to the Royal Mail, on its way. They have just cancelled it as it is taking too long. This seems a trifle unreasonable after we have done our best for them.

Sorry to give so many details of my mundane life, but future researchers may want to know about the reality of doing business on eBay. We managed to hit another feedback milestone today. We hit 10,000 feedback just before Christmas (over 10,000 satisfied customers!) and today arrived at 10,100. So, despite the erratic post we are still keeping most people happy and it is clear that most of the post is still getting through quickly.

More Stampish Inspiration

The header picture is the Post Office 10p from the 2019 alphabet issue of coins. It was, in many ways, a disaster of an issue, with demand far outstripping supply. They were extremely rare in change and mainly being sold by Royal Mint and the Post Office at premium prices. It’s not the way to handle a new issue, as many people like the thrill of searching their change to find coins.

Day 182

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I spend seven hours a day, five days a week trapped in a windowless box of a room staring at a computer screen. On most days I only hear two sounds, apart from the voices of my co-workers – the noise of the rain on the flat roof and the asymmetrical thwack from next door’s food mixer. Commercial planetary mixers have a distinctive sound which I remember from the one we had on the farm.

From this point of view it’s not surprising that my days all merge into one and offer little of interest.

Most interesting today was a customer who ordered a Cigarette Card Catalogue from us. They are  big heavy books and it had arrived damaged. His letter of complaint was querulous. It seems that it was hard to blame the post office for the state of the book when we were the ones at fault for our poor packaging.

We could, it is true, pack them better. If we did so it would increase the weight of the parcel, and its thickness, and put it into another postage category. They are already expensive to post and the extra cost would probably mean nobody bought one. We send one or two a month and this is the first to get damaged.

I would have taken issue with his comment about the post office. The book had clearly been dropped on its corner (hence the damage) and it had also clearly been messed about, as the envelope was seriously creased and tattered. Something had gone badly wrong and as it had been fine when we handed it over it was definitely the fault of the post office, despite the assertions of the customer.

The truth is that it had been damaged by a combination of bad treatment and insufficient packaging. All tyhe customer needed to do was send pictures (which he did) and ask fro a refund. There was no need to start attaching blame or criticism.

Anyway, we apologised and offered him a partial refund or a replacement book. This provoked another long email about blame and fault and unfairness and made it quite clear he was looking for an argument.

Sometimes you wonder about what goes on in people’s minds. However, rather than argue we carried on smiling and being nice. We have already lost money on the book, no point in spending time (which is, as we know, money) on arguing about it.

 

31st December 2020

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Who would have thought that we would spend most of the year indoors and afraid of people breathing on us? I’m in the middle of reading Writedown: Lockdown in the Galloway Glens in the Time of Covid.

I was happy to buy the Kindle edition at £1.99 bit if I’d paid £6.50 for a paperback edition I’d have been less pleased. I’d just abandoned an idea to write a haibun diary of the lockdown because I couldn’t introduce enough variety into it and thought it was dull, so was interested to see how other people had coped with the problem. They didn’t. They wrote a book that is full of interesting thoughts and insights but the little sparks of interest don’t grow into anything better.

I’d give it three out of five if I had to mark it. The writing is all good, and the lives they describe draw the reader in, but there just isn’t enough variety of thought or style, which is down to the editing. However, to be fair to the editor, they can only work with what they are sent. Having said that, maybe they should have asked for something different.

This afternoon’s film was Sharknado: It’s About Time, which was a complete shambles of a film featuring the normal tornadoes of sharks plus Time Travel. It was so bad it was great, but it’s a relief to know that it’s the last one, as I don’t think they could top this. I also don’t think I could cope with another. It’s hard to believe that they made six in the series. Don’t bother reading the synopsis on the link, I’ve just put it there to prove that someone really did make 6 films about sharks and tornadoes.

That’s about it for 2020. The Open University has finally deigned to answer my query about my password malfunction and ASDA sent me an email to check how happy I was with my last delivery. It’s taken the OU two weeks to answer a query about the password, even though they were the ones who insisted on the change in the first place. ASDA have, once again, failed to provide me with the bags I paid for, turning the home delivery into a nightmare for a man with arthritis (although it’s better, I’d still prefer not to have to handle crates of shopping when I’ve paid for plastic bags). I’m seriously thinking of going back to shopping in person as soon as I can get a vaccination.

While I’m here, has anyone being seeing an increase in comments and follows from people who seem to be interested in pushing their own (commercial) sites? I do. I’m not sure whether it’s a growing trend or if WP has altered the spam settings. I’ve decided, despite a vague nagging feeling about manners, to label them as spam and dispose of them.

And that, I think, rounds off 2020 for me. I hope you all have a better year next year and can all get out and about once more.

 

Ho, ho, ho… It’s an old picture – I’m wrinklier, grumpier and less well-groomed these days, but I thought it was Festive in tone.