AIBU to think everyday life admin has become far too complicated?

I said the exact same thing yesterday!

Yes I agree. It's exhausting and wastes so much time.

The NHS in particular is awful to interact with now. It's no wonder so many people end up at A&E, it's the only place open with humans on a desk.

I have adhd and find stuff like this so exhausting to even just think about and put it off and put it off until I forget about it or am out of a contract paying more then actually have to do it and it’s soo mentally exhausting, not accessible at all!

Exactly. So many people blindly promoting LLMs at the 'let's make everyone dependant while its free' stage but I'm dreading when we get to 'you can't function without paying £x a month or be left with the free but strangled by adverts version and its all controlled by a few billionaires' like we are with social media and online news.

Also what's happened to Amazon and the rise of the exploitative Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat models where instead of just phoning or visiting your local takeaway you have to use their app to pay more for the same food to be delivered by someone earning a pittance from a takeaway who gets less money for the food they sell because of the cut taken by the platform. And the service is worse because the driver is making multiple drops and had to stop to pick up someone else's grocery order on the way.

Then we have Get Your Guide muscling in on tourism. So instead of picking up a flyer while you're on holiday and booking something to do in 2 days time they're acting as a third party getting people to book in advance and yet again the consumer pays more and the provider gets less due to platform fees.

And every time you use one of these you endlessly get pestered to review every aspect of the process and people get hung up on every last bad review of a service provider even when it was outside the provider's control or fairly inconsequential. How often do you see people on here panicking because they've booked a hotel and then find there's some bad reviews from strangers where they've no idea whether they're reasonable people with similar preferences or have unrealistic expectations or are the type of people who will complain at anything and just like different things to what is in offer?

This is what really annoys me. The lack of human backup. Fine, you've removed a bunch of transactions where humans weren't really necessary because they were simple. That should free up the cash to make sure there's a human there to deal with the more complicated query, because there are fewer of them now.

Yes, i hate it. I resent spending my time outside of my full time job dealing with crappy and glitchy tech to do basic things.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.... brilliant.

The truly dystopian thing is we all see it but we have to play along....

As for the AI zealots - whelp. That is all.

When I rang the bereavement line for a utility company they asked me why I was ringing. I'd received a letter fue to informing them online, had the letter in front of me and he proudly told me I hadn't informed them and people ring the number to bypass the system.

If the chatbot sends you round in circles it's not ai driven but there definitely too much reliance on tech.

Don't get me started on the NHS app, it's one of the worse apps I've ever had the misfortune to have to use. I've got an illness that needs constant monitoring, my GP and hospital are in different areas. NHS app gives me no info on either. Thankfully the hospital have their own app.

You're right OP it's a nightmare.

I completely agree

I agree on some points but you really shouldn't need to phone someone because you need a password reset. I've never come across any system that requires that

This is interesting. I’m just trying to get some compensation from my car insurance company after being given the wrong advice. Luckily I managed to capture the chat screen where the incorrect advice was given - but they’ve already admitted liability anyway.

I’m now totally sick of really crappy products and services so have decided not to just give in and accept being treated like rubbish.

I agree. I am mid 30s, tech savvy, and it is relentless. Everything is such a hassle. Round and round in circles you go. And when you do speak to a human they often aren’t allowed to help because of the dire processes. It’s such a stress.

Agree and I now actively look for opportunities to deal with humans. I like Nationwide because I can pop in and see someone. I like our local fruits and veg wholesaler with a shop as they are real people.

well so far today:

I have spent 40 minutes on the phone to a major airline because the website wasn't working, partially including going over details that I'd had to ring in last week because the website wasn't working then, either

taken an animal to the vet (unusual pet, the only vet who deals with them now is an hour away), and the car lied to me that it didnt have enough battery left to get me home, and took me off the motorway every chance it could get, thus using more battery up (got home with 15% to spare and my nerves utterly shredded)

UPS delivery -needed to reschedule, took over half an hour to manage that

And an online game I play, someone tried to get into my account so i tried to set up two-factor authentication and that took exactly an hour.

I'm honestly stopping anything that has to have online interactions unless it's absolutely vital, because it takes up so very much of the day and the stress is high.

Exactly. Mine broke maybe 2 years ago and it was dreadful getting onto a couple of things because all the two-step verifications wanted to send messages to my broken phone. It would be far worse now with passkeys. I'm genuinely really worried about accessing things if I lost/broke it.

I forgot a password for a "spare" bank account recently. I dutifully went into the "forgot password" setting, and pressed to reset it:

1. Call this automated number and you will be able to reset your password.
2. Automated number asks me for characters from my password before it will do anything.

It was genuinely easier to initiate a current account switch and close it that way, plus I got £200 as a switch bonus.

Nhs app thing is driving me nuts. My parents are old and vulnerable. I live in another country. They dont have smartphones or use Internet. Im lucky they have an amazing dr surgery who keeps them right other wise id lose the plot

Quite. And in shops when we want to pay for something, even if it's a weekly food shop and all that that entails. And in restaurants if we want to order something. And in airports if we want to check in.

But it's all so much easier, didn't you know?

It's awful-and as you say, we are relatively young and (probably) work with computers.
Since my GP started using Patchs I've never got anything I needed. No appointments, when I requested a repeat prescription/fit note, they just closed my request without doing anything.

I'm getting super frustrated with having to do the check up with my bank app before I pay for something online. Every time I do it, I then lose the page to validate the verification process and I'm back to square one, not being able to pay. It's just one thing out of lots of irritating other tech stuff ( like the authenticator app for my work email which sends me codes which don't work, forcing me to stop doing my job to inform the IT team who are never available of the issue). Soooo frustrating.

Yes it has. For some elderly people living alone it must be a nightmare.
Why do we have to keep phoning to see if there's any offers on our TV and broadband. They should let us know.

Reminding me of when a lovely relative sent my daughter some hand knitted clothes from abroad. Unfortunately I was on holiday and missed the package, and when the postman put the note through he put the wrong reference number on it. I spent literally 6 hours on the phone and online trying to rectify this, but because the number was wrong they basically refused to have anything else to do with me and said the package would be returned to Auntie X in Nevada. She would have been gutted! Last ditch attempt I googled creatively for the number of the local delivery office and miraculously found it in an old online directory. Rang it, they picked up and the whole thing was sorted in 2 mins. Humans are SO MUCH better at sorting things than systems are. Everything needs a human backup, at least.

We’ve all been gradually recruited as unpaid admin assistants for every company and organisation we need to deal with, with no value placed on our time at all. I wouldn’t mind so much if we at least had robust, logical, user-friendly systems to do all this unpaid work, with ready access to actual human support when we need it!

Dont get me started on council tax.

I have had 2 councils threaten me with court action over an amount written as a minus figure ( this means it is an overpayment NOT. I OWE YOU

You minus it off the next payment/ years bill

I over paid as I moved after paying that months dd.

One council had me pay a bill for court fees.
Before I was able to talk to someone about their employees lack of maths skills. I got the minus figure refunded but not the court fees.

Same thing happened in my next house. I now don’t do DD for council tax. I pay what I want to pay and will adjust accordingly when I leave this current house