AIBU to wish people would just do what they say they'll do?

[Namechangenell]

First off, I'm feeling brave so posting here. Please be kind! Not sure if I've phrased the thread title well, but recently there seem to have been so many things that have gone wrong due to incompetence, laziness, or when I've bought something, poor quality. Just why? I don't remember my parents having to replace things with great regularity as they fell apart after a few wears or washes, for example. Ditto - if you made an agreement, it was stuck to. This week I've had someone rearrange to fit a new door FOUR times. Can it be that hard? Really?

Other examples - ordered flowers for a bereaved friend, they were delivered to her neighbour. Bought a new kettle - died within a week. DC started nursery - there have been three teachers so far this half term alone due to a mix up over long term sick cover (they FORGOT to renew the original cover teacher's contract). Ok, so all of these things in isolation aren't the end of the world, I'm not living in a war torn country and they're very much first world problems. However, the sheer incompetence that seems to pervade (my?!)everyday life at the moment is staggering.

I'd just like to point out that I'm not particularly highly strung, but I do expect things I've bought to be fit for purpose and people to keep their end of a contract/bargain. I know I can react to each of these situations in different ways and not let them get me down. But when they all come together, I am left wondering, do we just expect less these days? Are standards lower? I don't shop in bargain basements - even higher end stuff seems disposable...

My gripe this week is filling in online enquiries only to be told to call. Saw a local nursery advertising opening on Saturdays but not what times. As we really struggle with weekend childcare I filled in their online contact form only to then receive an email asking me to call for an informal chat, followed by several missed calls. All I meed to know is the opening times. If they don't fit with work there is no ppint calling for a chat. If you don't want to deal with enquiries by email don't put a contact form and email address on your website!

I agree totally Englishgirl. I absolutely hate it when people call me on my mobile at work about something when I'm the customer. I'd much rather sort things out by email, or if they aren't prepared to do that then let me know so I can take my business elsewhere.

When people ring me at work, they don't get it when I'm very short and non responsive to them, in one case a company rung up to tell me something that they'd already sent me a letter about.

What did the kettle forget to do?

You're not wrong OP. I really do think that at some point manufacturers cottoned on to the fact that making something work efficiently for life is not great business sense! The amount of things I've bought that have lasted just long enough to outlive an extended warranty is ridiculous.

And I wonder if there aren't enough people in some manual careers, that they can just pick and choose what they want to do? When our boiler was fixed, the engineer pointed out that there was a hole in the roof and we should get it looked at. We called a roofer, he came, got out of his car and just looked at the roof from the outside (it was snowing heavily too). He said 'Nothing wrong with it' and went to get back in his car. I asked if he'd like to inspect in from inside the loft. 'Nah.' And he was gone!

It really bugs me when things just don't work. We had a spate of household items breaking a couple of years ago, it really got me down having to constantly replace things. It occurred to me the other day that I've had a lot of incidences of bookings going wrong lately too - booking my place and not getting it, leaving answerphone messages and no-one picking them up kind of thing. It makes me anxious so I triple check things now but then people snigger at you for being anxious. Grr.

I've worked a lot in customer/client facing jobs and have had a couple of colleagues that have been really bad for lying to people to calm them down 'oh yes, your item will be here tomorrow' - no, it won't! Tell them the truth, they might be irritated now but not as irritated as when they come back tomorrow and it is not here! Has always infuriated me.

I sigh inwardly whenever someone says they'll 'Get back to me..'. They don't. I know they won't. They know they won't. And yet every time we go through the pretence that they will. .

YANBU and this drives me up the wall. This past two weeks, tried booking kids into half term camp. Found a new provider, looked v good, national chain. All fine. Went to pay on website, it said I could pay using childcare vouchers! Even better as it means I don't have to fork out 'real money' but pay from pre-tax money! Whoopie.

Entered the system, spoke to woman who told me what code to put in etc. Get an email from vouchers people saying its been paid. I get an email the next day from camp people saying this is the invoice, please pay up.

I ring them, they say oh maybe it's not been transferred across. It generally takes 3-5 working days (really? In this day and age?). I say ok, but email tells me that you've been paid. Well we haven't. Are you sure? Yes. After 7 working days, still no email from them saying I've paid them. I ring childcare voucher people, they say ask them to ring us. I tell them to, and they say they will, still no email from anyone saying I've paid.

In the meantime, I get an email saying 'welcome to xx camp!! Blah blah...' So... Can I assume that it's all gone through and I need not worry?? What if my kids aren't allowed at camp? My boss won't be best pleased?!!

Another eg. Had this marketing manager start at ours 1.5 years ago. And no one could understand why things weren't getting done, and in the meantime, lots of things that rely on marketing just are slipping and well, we've had hell to pay recently as a direct result of that (even though not at all directly under my control). Recent meeting, finally fessed up that actually she can't do what I expect her to do, and apparently we can't expect that of her team either... Like wtaf??????

On the point of people like builders and plumbers etc... I am v thankful that dh is in that field and therefore knows a lot of these sort of people (he hires a lot of them for his projects). So we don't really have that problem.... But before when he was in a lot of commercial work, he knew big companies who would rewire buildings but not homes - not any use to us!!!