To the think people who work in our local post office are nothing more than.....

[lucyellensmum]

USELESS FUCKWITS!!!!

I am STEAMING angry. My daughter recently put through a passport application - and paid the extra seven pounds for the thing to be checked at the post office. I have just received a letter from the pass port people who told me that one of the details was incorrect and now she has to send her birth certificate in. Surely the point of this check is to ensure that no errors have been made at the time and things like date of birth, place of birth have been checked????? I would normally pass this off as a genuine mistake but these people must have gone through some vigorous screening to get that job. The number one priority being that they are as unhelpful, unfriendly and downright rude as they can possibly be, without actually telling you to fuck off we cant be bothered to help you . It now looks like my daughter is going to miss out on a trip to spain with her boyfriend (which was going to be a free trip and she bloody well deserves a break) she is devestated.

I am so angry, and to add insult to injury it would appear that the woman at the passport office, clearly went to the same obnoxiousness training school. Honestly, these people were clearly either bullied at school or are very unsatisfied with their station in life and try to lord it over people and talk to you ilke you are an idiot. Well clearly it is not me who is the idiot, as if i were doing that job i would have read the application back to the customer to ensure things like birth date were correct. OK so my daughter obviously made a mistake filling the form in, and that was her mistake, but that is the whole point of paying an extra seven pounds on top of the ridiculous amount of money to renew the passport in the first place, to have these fuckwits CHECK the form. CHECK, you know, make sure it is right, not just give it a cursory glance and say, yeah thats ok, because you are bored out of your miniscule mind and thinking about what to watch on telly when you get home from the job you clearly hate.

Sorry to any competent friendly post office workers out there, i mean, there must be some, mustn't there???

so your daughter gave teh wrong birth date? how would the post office know it was wrong??

They prob have a list of things to check which most people get wrong, like the photo, references etc. They aren't going to double-check every detail for £7! Also, they probably put up with a lot of abuse for minimal pay.

and why did she get her DOB wrong?

Understand where youre coming from but how would they know it was wrong? Or did they have a copy of an old passport or something?

LEM - I believe you can apply for a passport in person and wait for them to do it. It'll prob take up a whole day, but might be worth it.

Yabu. The po staff probably check to see dob is filled in. It was. How were they to know your dd had put the wrong date in?

Thought you were meant to send in birth certificate

I hope you didn't shout at her or I will be tempted to give you a virtual kick up the arse

you can crokky, we did that for DH, it cost a packet though... £80 IIRC.

They wouldnt know it was wrong, that is why they should cheque, i can only assume she made a typo - its not unheard of!!! The pass port office wouldnt even tell us what the mistake was. I am never abusive to the post office workers, i have probably worked with the public for much less money than they get, and been abused, shouted at, treated like an idiot but i would never dream of being so sour faced and rude. As i said, we all make mistakes but the fuckwits at our post office honestly give an air of "i couldnt give a fuck" that has to be seen to believed. Our old corner post office had the most lovely people working there, but of course that has been closed down now to make way for tesco

ok, your DD made a big mistake re her passport. that is a seperate issue to rude and poor srvice

The PO check isn't to make sure that the applicant has filled in all their personal details correctly - that's the applicant's job. The check is to make sure that all the relevant parts of the form are completed, that payment is correct, that the passport photos are acceptable. They actually expect that the applicant will know their own date of birth.

Why didn't you check that her personal details were correct?

Still don't get it sorry - they wouldn't know it was wrong would they? Therefore they wouldn't check. Or is it a first passport and the birth cert was given with it? In which case they should have checked.

The original plan was to go to the passport office as they were short of time, but she was told not to bother as everything would be OK with the postoffice. I often get my birthdate confused actually, and typos easily happen, how long does it take to read back a form??? No, i didnt shout at her, because i am too polite for my own good, but i honestly don't see why paying customers have to bite thier tongue at blatant incompetence just because someone might have had a bad day.

I TRIED to ask the woman from the passport office whether or not this would be problematic for a travel date of 2 april, she said, oh we cant give any garuntees and we frankly are not bothered about travel dates (her exact words!!). I was trying to ascertain whether DD should go and get the thing in person or wait for it to come through. It is only a case of the birth cert now being checked, so she was obviously covering her arse but if we thought there might be a problem DD could go and get the passport.

O.k. this is a bit of a disaster.
How do we fix it ?
isn't there like a speed process, where you go to one of the national ( there are only a few, say 6) offices and queue all day to get a passport ?

If the PO staff had to read back every form that was presented to them at the counter just to check it was right the queues would stretch for miles.

I should also add that i can only assume it was an incorrect date as the letter lists a whole list of potential problems and they wouldnt actually tell me what mistake was made.

WHoever said, why didnt I check? I SHOULD HAVE checked yes, you are right - so i do take some of the blame. However, DD does not live at home anymore, so she wants to behave like an adult..............hmmmm, different thread.

But as i have said before, it is their general attitude that irks me more than anything else. IF you were to walk in and be greated with a smile, IF they didnt treat you like everything was too much trouble, IF they were anything near polite - then i might say, you know what, fairs fair, as i do recognise that DD must have made an error on the form (Its easily done, i think i filled my passport application in five times before i finally got it right, what with referees and myself cocking things up) so we should have checked it first, but they are not, their attitude is one of the customer is always a pain in the arse and they dont even bother to hide it, so i wouldnt re ally expect them to be that vigilant either.

The thing is, i could have written this thread even without their cock up, just based on their surly attitudes. I should also add that it is only the main post office where i have this problem, the one in tesco is run by a very nice man and he always smiles.

Which came first though? snotty customers or grotty assistants?

I've seen both.

(not aiming this at you LEM, just pondering).

Could i please aplogise for my dire spelling, it gives the impression i couldnt give a fuck about what i am writing.

Mmm sounds like six of one and half dozen of the other to me.

The main thing now is to make sure that your dd gets her passport in time and gets her holiday. I can appreciate that you're frustrated but it really was your dd's fault for putting the wrong date in the first place, it's not really contingent on the PO to check every single detail (although when they issued year passports, presumably they would have had to do a more thorough check....). A good reason not to close MORE POs maybe?

Passport applications are scary though. I did both mine and my daughter's applications online and I was terrified that I'd get some vital detail wrong.

Good luck with the new application .

unknown, these a breed unto themselves, middle aged women who probably need a good fuck to put a smile on your face, oh and one particularly unpleasant old cunt man who used to talk to me poor old confused dad like shit because he would get muddled up with his pension etc, no patience for the fact that the man had fecking alzheimers.

So really, it is just one particular place i have a problem with. I hate snotty customers and i always do my best to be friendly as i have been on the receiving end, but have never ever EVER been rude to anyone, because it is MY JOB to sort peoples problems out calmly and effectively, you know, thats what i got paid for!!