To bloody hate the admin of life

Who is making £ from these apps ?
It’s not the normal folk is it !

Everything is an app. I’m going to a festival next weekend and the organisers released set times… on an app! I had to download an app just to see what time my favourite DJs are playing. Why not put it in the website?!

Absolutely ludicrous.

Same here!

Plus I've had to use the NHS recently for the first time in decades which started off via an e-consult app and it was all seamless and efficient..

‘Due to unprecedented volumes of calls…’ every single time - just say ‘due to laying off half our call centre staff…’

ive read enough 50/60s dystopian fiction to see the age of the robot is not going to be good for the common man!!!

The amazing Sue Townsend saw this coming.
I’ve just re-read Adrian Mole:The Cappuccino Years, published in 1999.

Adrian gets into a banking password muddle and is told, admittedly over the phone, “you’ll need to open a new account. As from now all of your codes are null and void.”

In his diary he writes, “I begged and pleaded with Marilyn to let me into the secrets of my own account,” but to no avail.

“why did I withdraw all my money from the building society in 1995? All I had to do then to check my balance was to ring old Mr Lewisham.”

and later he needs to call his insurance company:
”A robot answered and asked me to hold. It then told me that my call was enormously important to them. Next it informed me that I was number 13 in the queue. Throughout, Chris de Burgh sang Lady in Red. When Rod Stewart started warbling ‘Sailing’ I slammed the phone down. What has happened to England’s telephonists? has there been a cull? how long have the robots been in charge “

That is clearly deliberate, isn't it. Wankers.

that's what I'm doing one item at a time.

But with everything it's a struggle as he doesn't want people in the house (anxiety), is worried about money (we've more than enough and when I tell him that he buys £300 shoes) etc etc. I'd like to have a cleaner but that's been stomped on. I've got a gardener which means he grumbles how he's not allowed to make decisions about the garden which he won't do even if he's asked!!!

It's tiring!!!

Thank you op I have found my people.

DH and I are finally in the situation where we have some money to do up our house/ go on holiday etc. However we cannot be bothered as everything is so difficult.

So just book it

Have you tried things like task rabbit and air tasker, they can do anything from plumbing to life admin

There’s someone near me who does this sort of thing. She’s a bit of a virtual PA and you can outsource all kinds of things.

I find it particularly annoying when I can’t book things online. I need to book my kids a dentist app and his 2 year check. But I have to call between 9-5 (when I’m working!) and then Spend ages with them going “can you do this day?” And me saying no. They can only really work if you have regular set days and times you’re available and my work diary doesn’t work like that so I much prefer seeing what is available and choosing myself.

Like everything ever, it’s mostly about saving money and simplifying things for whatever company runs the car park. It’s expensive to maintain the machines, they need to be connected to banks if you want card payments, you have to pay wages to humans to check if people have tickets, etc, etc.

Find out who your neighbours are using?

I don’t understand this one. If you’d used a parking app, you could have paid online from your car and wouldn’t have had to traipse around finding a working machine? Surely the problem here was the lack of a parking app?

Virginia Woolf (I believe) said every woman needs a wife. Who of course would do all the PA stuff that's such a pain.

What gets me is that I look around the house and think of a list of about 10 things that need to be sorted but when I mention any of them to my DH he asks why I think they need to be done. i.e. we have roller blinds on the windows upstairs and they are falling to bits so I want to get them replaced with something decent. And we need a blind in the kitchen as well so it makes sense (to me) to get a company in to measure, make, install all of these. And he asks why!! Well because it's beyond my expertise and he won't do it either.

Well that’s baffling! Not sure why dealing with faceless systems would be the price of feminism? I’d personally rather spend an hour digging up turnips than dealing with admin but I don’t see any relationship between the 2 things

Or they tell you the easiest way is to sort it online but I've already tried that and that's why I'm calling. Oh the joys..

Oh yes everything is so robotic these days! I just wanted my b12 prescription sent and the amount of unnecessary questions you have to answer, like surely this is taking up the Drs time as they also have to read through all your answers to make sure they're not missing anything.

Totally agree. I am burned out trying to do my life admin + doing it for 2 elderly parents and feel I waste soooo much of my life on portals. For mum who has Alzheimer’s to see a GP I did half an hour of forms confirming she was born a woman and doesn’t have a gambling problem - EVERY time - why can’t they store this? And conveyancers on remortgage fck up everything but won’t pick up phone, everything is via portal bots. Terrible for society, dreadful for those who can’t do it or have to do it on behalf of multiple people

I can't see how we can escape from it all though. I'm tired of it all, it makes me so stressed. I hate talking to or messaging bots and getting to get through to a person.

Yes, Bosche were really good. I do have an extended warranty with them though, but answering the phone straight away was just fantastic. It’s sad that something so simple can make you happy , especially as most places are just rubbish at customer service.

I imagine the only thing you can do is delete your husband's account and then set up your own.

Car dealerships are a rip off! You’re not covered if you take it somewhere else , you have to pay loads and mostly it’s just all about the money.

Barely a week goes by when I don't have to fix something caused by a combination of a computer system and a poorly-trained, demotivated operator failing to use it properly. The default is "you lose" unless you chase it up.

In the last month:

• A false alarm alert from my bank saying that a new payee has been registered to an account that has quite a lot of money in it.
• A flight booking where the confirmation email didn't include the luggage options that I'd bought. I can see the correct options in the app.
• A speeding ticket for a car that wasn't mine (ANPR glitch).
• My medical insurance telling me that they would, then wouldn't, then would pay for a procedure.

I went outside in the torrential rain at 1am the other night cos I heard our bin falling over and rolling down the steep slope.

I decided that if I left it til the morning it might disappear and I couldn't face the faff of trying to get a new one. I was drenched but I got the bin back.