to be utterly fed up of "because of pandemic" being used as an excuse..

[5foot5]

..for piss-poor service. Particularly on call centres and the like.

Granted in the early stages I can see it would have an impact - people off sick or self-isolating. Initially also I suppose there was some set-up to get people working efficiently from home. But, come on, it has been over a year. Surely things should be sorted by now?

I have just spent 45 minutes of my lunch hour waiting for my call to be taken. And yes I do know that some of my questions might be answered on the web-site FAQ and yes I know that I can manage my account on-line for some things. But not this thing. Even though they gave me four choices of musical style to listen to while I am waiting it doesn't help. Of course I wasn't arsey with the person who eventually answered as it's not his fault (I assume) but I do wonder if some companies are now using this excuse to cut down on staff and explain the long waits away on "unprecedented" circumstances.

DH is in a similar position. He sent a query about something to one of his pension funds. February was when he made the original query. He got the "because of difficult times" excuse and was told it would be in excess of 20 working days before they they could reply. More than 6 weeks later and no response he chased it. Then he was told another 10 days. Of course no joy so queries again and now it is 5-10 days. FFS 3 months to answer what he thought was a simple query

Just how long I wonder are companies going to keep hiding behind the pandemic excuse

@BalloonSlayer

I was about to recommend Nationwide for the bank account too.

Just be careful. My local Nationwide reduced their opening hours to 10.30 - 2.00 pm because of covid.

They have now shut the branch due to 'lack of footfall'. One of the staff told me it was because they didn't want to pay to upgrade the building but covid became a good excuse to shut it down.

DH and I run our own business, and have literally spent the last few days binning any sales material/pricing lists etc from companies who have been absolutely shit to deal with over Covid. There are a shocking number.

@Fairyliz

We’ve had a flyer through the door from a private hospital touting for business. Funny how if you pay to see a doctor you can see them face to face, but my GP is only offering phone appointments. Perhaps private health comes with a magical Covid shield?

Yeah I'm getting shit like that through my door as well. It doesn't bode well imo.

YANBU at all. I work in a call centre although mainly do outbound calls rather than inbound calls. It's honestly ridiculous. Customers are waiting over an hour to get through to us. If they're even able to get through. My headset that work provided me with, does not work. Literally the mic cuts out every 3 seconds. Be annoyed with the company but please don't be annoyed with the person answering the call. They've probably had 100 calls that day of people being equally, and understandably, frustrated. It's a really, really hard job.

To be fair call centres were like that before the pandemic, now they just have more excuses

@Fairyliz I meant for opening a bank account. We opened one online for DC very easily, although we do already have a number of accounts as a family with them and DC in question has two little savings accounts.

It's just getting stupid now. I recently changed GP because I couldn't get an appointment for love nor money. New GP surgery emailed me telling me I had to take a form of ID into the surgery and they would give me a pin so that I could go back home and then use the pin to make an appointment online!

Just one solitary primary school in our area was willing to allow prospective parents in to view the school their child could be attending every day for the next seven years. Outside but still a vital opportunity to help make an informed decision about something important. On the viewing they said they wanted to continue to offer open days within the rules because it wasn't right or fair to expect parents to make uninformed choices. They said it always takes up time and can be difficult for teachers but they made it happen because they wanted to.

Every other primary school in the area claimed it was impossible to manage this "because of Covid" dangers. If it hadn't been for the first school, I would have believed their lies that they "weren't allowed" to do tours.

I'm sick to death of having to book to go to the local recycling centre aka the dump! It used to close at 4pm and now the last appointment is 2.30pm. Pretty much sure it's all councils. They also guilt trip you and ask if you really need to go.

I'm worried lots of services are going to never get back to normal because it's a money saver. Having people wfh rather than using an office which needs to be rented, lit, heated etc etc. With a load of baloney about how in the pandemic people worked more efficiently from home. Yeah right!

I must admit I like the system of booking for the tip . You whizz in now, straight into a spot. Previously there were giant queues, with couples taking one dead pot plant to the tip; they seemed to want a trip out.

I must admit I don't get the reduced hours of many businesses.... Just a bit of honesty would be nice. "To save money, we have cut hours" would be refreshingly transparent, rather than "Due to the pandemic..." No, covid doesn't suddenly strike at 4pm (or particularly at 2.30pm in banks....).

I'm sick to death of having to book to go to the local recycling centre

Oh god, yes. The booking system often only offers one appointment in ten day's time and it'll be at 8.30am. And even when I DO get an appointment, there's no-one else there.

Dominoes pizza not doing half and half pizzas because of covid. How on earth can covid affect pizza toppings??? This is only one, there are so many other stupid new rules

YANBU. It really pisses me off too.

My GP surgery is using it as an excuse to refuse to see someone after a cursory, not qualified to judge phone "triage" with the desk dragons.

To these fuckers, and yes they are fuckers, covid has been a gift. I don't bother with them anymore and my OH had call back about our youngest, who what a surprise needed to see a doctor. The words from the GP on the phone was "I'll need to see who is on the ground in the surgery, as we are working from home".

The way it's going, everything will be open as normal, apart from these lot. What excuse will they come up with then.

Same here been trying to ring doctors, had covid jab 12 weeks tomorrow and haven't heard from them when the next one is, I thought it had to be within 12 weeks, every time I ring it say don't ring about covid jab, so do I just wait 13/14/15 weeks or what.

I was an executor of a fairly complicated will last year, so probably had to phone about 50 different companies and organisations to sort it all out. It nearly finished me off too, the customer service was so poor from nearly every one of them. I started taking to Twitter in the end to send them complaints, they were quite swift to sort it out then

The actual words "because of the pandemic" came out of the mouth of a GP receptionist while I was waiting at the dispensary this afternoon.

Apparently there's a big delay processing whatever happens to driving licenses once you reach 70 and have to renew.

I am at this surgery once a week in a volunteer capacity, and while I cannot comment on the workload of the clinical staff, the admin staff seem to spend most of the time chatting amongst themselves.
I go on different days at different times of day so it's not just a snap shot at a specific time.

I’ve this thought this too but my friend pointed out that as there are so many people furloughed there is often delays through the chain of a business even if not directly in the department you’re dealing with, she did free some are using it as n excuse though.

@Thymeout I totally agree about M&S, I sent them an e Mail questioning why they don’t provide chairs for people to rest on in their large superstore and was told it would be discussed at their next meeting.
I’m sure it wasn’t because no chairs have ever appeared and this was years before Covid.
I’m sorry you are having such a tough time at the moment and hope things improve for you very soon. 💐

@PhilCornwall1 what a ridiculous post. Get a grip.

YABU and entitled.

It’s not an excuse it’s a genuine reason.

YANBU. I am utterly sick to death too of Covid19 being wheeled out time and time again as an excuse for lazyness and poor service. I totally understood it last year during the lockdowns when people were WFH and home schooling,but things have changed since then. I'm just wondering how much longer certain companies and organisations are going to keep using it as an excuse. As long as they can get away with it I suppose.

I am a patient of a clinic that used to be NHS but was privatised out to a small private company. They are paid to see me once every six months.

April 2020 they wrote to me cancelling my appointment and saying they would be in touch when they could make a new appointment.

In September I received a letter saying my next appointment will be September 2021.

So that means they are cancelling my April 2020, Sept 2020 and April 2021 appointments. I bet you anything they still bill the NHS the same fee for having me as a patient.

What possible reason have they deprived me of three appointments and made me wait 2 years between appointment? The clinic is to do with skin conditions, nothing to do with covid or respiratory issues.

If its an organisation with operations in India then their service levels are probably impacted by the dire situation there right now

I work for a big organisation where most people are still WFH. It definitely impacts things.

Instead of trotting across the floor to find the answer from another department you have to call or email said colleague and that's if you know who deals with the issue.

No turning to your neighbour for a simple problem and then getting on with work.

Laptops provided are pretty shoddy quality and the IT seems to break down more than before. People's home WiFi may not be up to scratch.

My personal bugbear is that I worked like crazy during the "real" pandemic, children at home etc to get absolutely no thanks and no bonus earlier this year. So darned if I'm going to bust a gut now. Working strictly to my hours if at all possible. Not going to bother working until 10 at night when the children have gone to bed.

Organisation is taking the opportunity to give up some office premises, too hastily IMO. Doubt staff will see much in the way of cost savings.