Anyone else miss just turning up?

[sunhasgotthis]

These days it feels like you've got to download an app to book in a fart! I really miss just turning up somewhere, paying, without everything shoehorned into tight slots.

That's nothing to do with fewer staff, though, is it? Online document approval portals is a requirement of the Data Protection Regulations. You can't be sending confidential documents by email anymore (shouldn't have ever been doing it really). Normal post isn't reliable enough for anything time sensitive. I'm sure you'd prefer to approve documents online rather than wasting time travelling to your solicitor's office to sign the paperwork in person, wouldn't you? I'm sure they'd let you do that if you wanted to!

But your problems are because of a poor online portal, not that all online portals are poor. The one we use in my accountancy practice is simple and we never have problems like you describe. I get all documents signed via online portals, and very rarely do we have any problems getting clients to access and e-sign them, even elderly clients. Once or twice, we have to talk them through it the first time, but, most importantly, the system works, is simple and is robust. Perhaps your solicitor is just using a crap system!

The few occasions when we are required to have "wet" signatures, usually by an antiquated organisation like HMRC., it's a sodding nightmare. Either the client never receives them due to postal losses, or they forget to sign, or they sign in blue or red ink when the form clearly says black, or they spill coffee over it, or they send it back but don't put the right stamp on, or it gets lost on the way back, and even if it gets back to us in tact, HMRC often lose it, or Royal Mail lose it on the way to them. Just on my sodding 4th attempt to get a one page simple form to HMRC - the first three were cocked up in some way, by either the client or Royal Mail or HMRC. I love all the other stuff that can be done electronically, thankfully, the majority of stuff can be online/electronic these days.

My son rented his first flat recently. All done online. No problems at all with uploading all this documents to the estate agent onlune, i.e. passport, driving licence, payslips, contract of employment, etc. No problems at all in him e-signing the lease and other property documents. Again, a reliable and simple app!

As I say, your solicitor either has a crap system or doesn't know how to use it himself.

I had to fill out an insurance claim recently. After the usual logins and codes etc I had to photograph each receipt and go through multiple drop down menus. I was user friendly in fairness but very time consuming. Half way through I realised this is exactly what my job was in 1999 in an insurance company. I, the fool, was doing it for them now. I got so cross I put all the receipts into an envelope and posted it to them with a handwritten cover letter. Let someone on the payroll do the admin ffs. People (like me) who don't want to don't this stuff need to push back a bit.

You'll be absolutely stuffed if your invoices get lost or damaged in the post. Hope you took copies of them!

I find the certainty of knowing something is booked far more convenient and less stressful than just turning up somewhere and facing huge queues/waits or being turned away and having to find somewhere else to go.

Horses for courses!

I also miss the spontaneity. Also, if you're on a foreign holiday and you're not familiar with the area/public transport options etc., it can be stressful trying to figure out if you've left enough time between Attraction A and Attraction B. And you've got to allow time for food somewhere along the way. If you didn't have to pre-book, you could turn up at Attraction A as planned, go for food, and make your way to Attraction B at your leisure. Or maybe decide that you don't have enough time for Attraction B after all. You end up rushing around trying to meet your pre-booked deadlines and that relaxing break turns out not to be so relaxing, because you're checking the time constantly to ensure you're on schedule.

Booking outside events can be dodgy because you've no way of knowing (in advance) if there will be blue skies and sunshine or torrential rain.

That's the thing though, things didn't used to be all booked (or that you could check before turning up). Now people book, but don't turn up so everyone misses out

I hate it too, especially the way you can't book anything or buy anything just as a one-off, you always have to set up an account. In the unlikely event that you want to give them your money again in 2 years time, you then can't because you are locked out of the account you were previously forced to set up 🙄.

This is all the slow drip into being monitored constantly. Our every move logged and approved beforehand....(I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, but this does appear to be the reality. Only it's for commercial reasons and not anything sinister. Yet...)

Very, very good point. It's already happening with electronic payments. It's all about data.

But things DID used to be too full when you turned up randomly. It's not a new thing. Obviously it's got worse because of population increase.

Look at Beamish Museum - it's been there a couple of decades or more. They are still "turn up and enter", but recently they've been too full and people are left in a queue outside to park. That never used to happen. Now it happens on the busiest days.

Inevitably, they'll have to bring in a booking system as it's causing congestion on nearby roads etc.

And as mentioned upthread, even 20 years ago, you had to book Santa Special steam trains several months in advance by phone as soon as the phone booking lines opened. Now you have to do it online.

We've got millions more people in the country (though population increase is also a problem throughout European popular places). Everything is busier and there needs to be ways of controlling and managing that.

It's better having the certainty of knowing you've a slot booked than turning up only to be turned away. It's also better that attractions have better control of visitor numbers to prevent over crowding and the resultant risks in case of fire or other incident.

Yeah, a little bit, used to love just turning up at gigs and stuff

Yes. Spontaneity is dead.

Everything nowadays has to be pre planned and arranged in advance. I'm pretty sure it is contributing to the poor mental health of the country.

More than once I've had to sit in the car on the phone outside the venue to book tickets to go in despite it being mostly empty. Quite ridiculous

Fair enough the legal/data protection one ...
....but other examples are 100% about having fewer staff eg restaurants where you can only order via QR code, or Tesco or Sainsbury's where you can't even enter the shop without scanning the app!
I wanted to buy a drink once and went to a Tesco. I couldn't get through the turnstile unless I downloaded an app to get in. I only wanted a soft drink! I it was quicker to go next door to boots and get it!

And asking customers to do automated stuff imo puts more pressure on the few members of staff that are there. The Tesco metro (non app version) near work, has about 8 self checkouts and 1 person at an actual til for cigarettes, alcohol, lottery etc. But as well as being at that til they also have to monior/sort issues with the self checkouts as well....all for the same pay I suspect, as when they were simply operating their own till.

Totally agree op. Life feels so bloody complicated and joyless some days.

I'm 45 and hate to try to scan a QR code.
I'd rather forgo the (crap) food in the Airport Lounge, than attempting this, when my priority is to relax before a duty visit flight.

And don’t FGS take excited grandchildren to the London Aquarium in the school holidays, without realising that you have to book! And even when you have during the following half term, it’s absolutely heaving anyway.

For me personally the downsides are less human contact (I like chatting in shops etc) and the times when you do get into a massive password tangle, which is fairly rare. Plus concerns about tracking, data , privacy etc. For society a a whole these are big problems. But on the whole they make my life a lot easier, and that of my ND DC (older teens who know their way around a phone). For example:

DC1 (autistic) found it incredibly hard using public transport until apps came along, now he can buy tickets without having to deal with the complicated machines at stations with an anxiety-inducing queue forming behind him, or see exactly where the next bus is (he has a strong need to know what is happening when) and live updates, tell you which stop to go to etc. Maps on your phone so you don’t have to ask directions - brilliant. Tickets in your phone so less likely to get lost.

DC2 (ADHD/dyslexia) works much better with a fixed time to work towards, also can buy her tickets in advance so no worries about not getting to the station on time to buy one before leaving. Ditto tickets on phone easier not to lose. The homework app at secondary school was a total gamechanger, she used to really struggle to copy the homework off the board into her notebook fast or clearly enough, having it all on an app made a huge difference.

I completely agree with this and I agree with you OP @sunhasgotthis

I really miss the days of just saying 'let's go here or there in an hour or two,' because you now have to book in advance - ever since bloody Covid hit. There's so many things - even like a visitor farm that's 7 miles away from me - that you have to book in advance, whereas you could just walk in at one time.

Like The Aeropace museum at Cosford, Zipworld in Wales, Alton Towers, little zoos and little farms, visitor attractions like Stately homes. Attingham House, Weston Park, Dudley Zoo, Chester Zoo, Warwick Castle etc.... ALL need to be 'booked in advance!

If you're lucky, you may wake up on a nice day, and be able to book it right there and go a couple of hours later. But. some of them don't allow booking on the same day. And even the ones that do allow same day booking, will very often already be booked and full for the day. Because they only allow a certain amount in. There's no kind of spontaneity anymore. And much stricter 'roooolz!'

All the times we ever went to places without booking first, we were never, ever turned away ... they were never 'full.' Not even in the school summer holidays... So I don't understand why we have to book in advance. Are the COVID rules going to rule our lives for eternity?

And what about people who haven't got the internet/can't use it? According to Age UK, almost 5 million people over 65 have no internet, OR can't use it/don't know how to use it. So what about them? Do they always have to get other people to book everything for them? How on earth do they cope with 2020s life? Where almost everything is booked and sorted on the internet, or by bloody smartphone? A staggering 80% of people over 65 don't have a smartphone! 80%!

I (late 50s) can use the internet (obvs!) and have been using it since 2001, and I have a smartphone, but if I had to download an app, just to book book tickets into a zoo or something, then I just won't be going.

This must be making some older people (babyboomer) generation feel really isolated. What if people don't have the internet - and smartphones? Quite a lot of people still don't. It feels like society wants everybody over 65 to just fall off the planet. And yes, I'm aware that some people over 65 have smartphones, and the internet, but in that demographic, more of them don't have smartphones and cannot use the internet (or don't have it,) than the amount of people under 65.

I’m not sure it helps all people
who are ND.
There was a Facebook post about this exact same subject and loads of mums were complaining the booking systems are such a pain with ND children as you’re tied to something in a specific venue/time day etc which isn’t always possible. So much easier when you can go when things are right for you.

Totally agree about the booking stuff.

Id be interested to know about the age split over 65s though. My Dad is 68 and everyone he knows and associates with has a smartphone.
He did used to work in computer software so admittedly is much more tech savvy than most but still. We have family friends of that age and they all do too. And the Internet has been around for agggges now. It’s not like it came out last year. I wonder if there is a huge drop off over the age of 75/80 which skews the figures.

I hate having to prebook everything. Like some holiday places still want you to book swimming and dinner times. When I'm on holiday I want to see how the day takes me. Not have it all listed out on a spreadsheet.

Agree. Spontaneity has been pretty much crushed out. For us that means we do less and spend less. When going to a museum or gallery or cafe means endless forward planning and faffing about with apps, it's often easier not to bother.Thankfully you don't need an app to go for a walk in the woods (yet), and spending less is a plus I suppose. But I now live in real terror of losing my phone because of the transport apps and tickets etc on it, while in the past it would just have been a pain.

But my real objection is that app-based society discriminates against anyone who is not able to plan in advance because of disability, chronic illness, mental illness etc. Many medical conditions fluctuate, so it is impossible to say in advance how you will feel on any given day, let alone the precise time slot alloted to you.

Totally agree! Especially where you can’t change the booking. So you lose money if there is an unavoidable last minute change, so the next time you don’t want to book so you don’t go. And you can’t go on the spur of the moment so you don’t go. Leads to a boring life and businesses struggling.

I find it pretty annoying with a toddler and unpredictable nap times as well as sudden illnesses. We’ve lost a lot of money on activities we’ve had to miss out on over the last year or been stressed rushing to get somewhere. I also find it really annoying having to plan everything in so much detail on holiday if you want to visit these sort of places and you can’t really enjoy lunch for instance if you are worrying about getting somewhere on time in the afternoon.

The thing with timeslots, though, is that if you were say, having an escorted tour of a place like a museum or a walking tour of a city, etc. or a heritage train ride, you've got to be there on time as they won't wait for you. That is the case whether you book in person at a ticket office, by phone or by app.

So to a large extent, depending on activity, people have had to be on time and would miss out if they weren't. Regardless of how they booked.

Though I do tend to agree with people who don't like the strictest of time slots for things that don't need it, i.e. just general admission, etc., but I can't remember anywhere that was particularly strict. We've certainly arrived at places earlier than the time booked, and later, and not had any problems being admitted. But we've never been "hours" early or late, so I can't say how strict they are with general admission time slots. I certainly wouldn't expect to be admitted in the afternoon if I had time slots of 9.30 in the morning, for example, but we've certainly been 30/45 minutes early or late and got in OK.