To bloody hate the admin of life

[cheeseomelette]

Why is nothing simple?

have been trying to get the boiler either fixed or replaced, some medical issues looked at, and a load of other house jobs sorted while managing a demanding full time job where I’m out of the house every day. I can do basic things but plumbing, cars and electrical things are just not in my skill set.

the hassle is unreal. Logging on to things at certain times with certain pass codes, resetting endless passwords and waiting for call backs or arranging visits. I end up buying new things because I haven’t got the time or energy to chase someone down to have my existing things fixed or serviced and that’s expensive and not great for the planet.

i’m having this rant waking up in a cold house because the boiler is playing up,again and the plumber I rushed home from work to let in yesterday didn’t turn up.

I’ve booked a private medical appointment this morning because there is no contacting my GP. They turn the booking system off online and don’t answer the phones.

It’s got to the point where I just feel sick when something goes wrong in the house because I know what a load of stress it’s going to be. I don’t know what the solution is here - I’m even contemplating downsizing to an apartment with a service contract.

Sorry to derail as not admin , but our experience with a chain hotel in a UK city this week was beyond awful.
Can’t get in till 3pm, rock up around 10 past to find an empty reception area and both check in machines out of action. After buzzing for five minutes, a surly young man finally appears and is monotone throughout.
Finally, after finishing writing an essay online ( because what he was actually doing I’m not too sure ) we got our keys, hurrah.
Get to our room and it’s not been cleaned or even remotely ready to get into.
Back to see surly man , who doesn’t even say sorry or apologize, but again taps away for ages head buried on his PC. An alarm goes off, he ignores it so do we. More people join our queue giving us and him draggers because he is the only one who can ‘ help ‘ whilst the alarm gets louder. If it was a fire alarm , we’d have been burnt to a crisp by now.
We get another room, eventually, but that only has one towel and there are two of us. I have to track down housekeeping , a poor woman who looks shattered and also couldnt understand why I needed another towel, but she finally realized I wasn’t going without one and she found me one.
Was woken up by a huge row downstairs around 11pm and lots of noise outside where I witnessed an efficient drug deal taking place with people on bikes.
The nearest car park is a bit of a walk away , but the back door that usually leads to the hotel is locked so an even longer walk.
Had the obligatory’ customer satisfaction’ email a few days later , was your welcome a warm one? Made me laugh at least ! No stars from me after all that , but the actual room / shower etc wasn’t too bad tbf.

I have been surprised there have not been far more threads about this.

I so agree.

Sounds like a dodgy hotel

I said to ds2 following on from my hotel ‘ experience’ how do people get these jobs? This person wasn’t receptionist material , had zero people skills and obviously didn’t want to deal with anything or anyone yet someone thought he’d be a good match for a major hotel chain to deal with people !
I know it’s not always an easy job, but just a smile or an apology goes a long way sometimes.

I feel better now knowing it’s not just me.

went to lunch with some friends and said I was selling the house. One asked if I would consider a doer upper.

I literally could not think of anything worse than that. Imagine needing all the tradespeople. The very idea gives me palpitations.

I had a similar experience at a London Premier inn. Normally they're great but this one was awful. Any query or request was greeted with eye rolling from the receptionist and the print your own key card did work. She was by now dealing with a man who was insisting he got all his 8 rooms together so I had to wait half an hour. Beyond ridiculous.

I don't get on with any voice recognition stuff as if doesn't recognise my accent. If I try to say "four" which has the r sound at the end, no joy. I end up shouting "faw" in an exaggerated English accent.

It is hard to get anyone in the ‘ trades’ unless it’s a friend or relative. I look on Facebook for recommendations and that’s how I found a local plumber and someone to do the bath mastic for us.
The rest can be a minefield for the much bigger jobs you want doing. Many builders where I live jusy seem to do up old homes to sell on. Not too interested in the little jobs you may want doing.

I have found a bit of a halfway solution. I was inspired by the book called ‘what they don’t teach you about money’ by Claer Barrett. Which as a side note, if you haven’t read you should buy.

The book is about money. But one of the principles is once a week you dedicate a set 30 to 40 minutes of your life and sort financial things.

So once a week I dedicate half an hour, Tuesday coffee time at 11, where I do these pointless admin jobs. I don’t let them take time out of my day unless urgent.

I know this won’t help for everything, but if you see a message come up n on a Sunday, you just highlight it and think I’ll deal with that on my Tuesday admin half an hour. It really does help.

however, you are entirely right re: overwhelm. Our school has different apps and constant updates. My mum just used to turn up at the gate and parents evening. I’ve started telling people that I’m going ‘off grid’. They might think I’m a bit mad, but I’m prioritising my sanity!

And now they want us to have all our valuable ID information on our phones....Everything on one device. Convenient for some maybe but equally a massive risk and a huge goddamn headache when that one device goes tits up.

My 2 year old phone has just randomly started switching itself off and taking ages to reboot. I can see one day it just won't turn on again. What happens then?!!

I was talking to a you g colleague who only uses Apple Pay and doesn’t have a wallet - I asked what happens if he is out and the phone dies or something and he said ‘I’m screwed’. He was very accepting of the fact but I find the idea very stressful!!!

Most young people don’t carry a wallet or cash anymore. I find it odd , you need a back up ‘ just in case ‘

For passwords, I recommend Bitwarden. For decent tradesmen, try Checkatrade, they seem to be really good.

One thing at a time. The boiler takes priority, especially as we're entering winter.

For the gadget side of things, I believe it is planned obsolescence which is all part of the throwaway society we live in. It's no longer make do and mend because that's far too expensive now.

My NHS app used to accept a fingerprint on my phone to let me in. Now I have to manually dab and click the screen to add a username and then click and then repeat with a password and a click.
OMG it's so tedious.
I love technology but when things change for the worse it's annoying.

The car park outside the Barnados charity shop now requires a car reg to be put in and the green button to be pressed to eject a ticket to go in the window. I imagine they will have caught loads of people out. At least I don't need to register an APP for that yet.

I agree I find everything easier using my phone.

Totally sympathise - finding & then getting reliable plumbers, builders, handymen is a nightmare in itself before then being at their whim of whether they’ll actually show up, or leave early, or string the job out, when you don’t have the time or energy to deal with it - it’s no wonder it’s easier to just put up with stuff. It boggles me how people work like this but then when they’re their own business & can pick & choose what jobs they want to do, it’s no surprise I guess. I hate it tho too.

I feel you. I put my son's nursery money across to the Childcare Choices account the other day in order to receive the government top up. It took 2 days for them to add the funds, they finally went in last night and the bill is due on the last working day of the month.
Low and behold, they ask me for not one, not two, but THREE additional security questions. Just randomised apparently, it's not like I'd forgotten my NINE digit login code or password. Presumably, I must have capitalised/not capitalised the wrong letter, or written 'Bristol University' instead of 'University of Bristol'or whatever, as I was locked out.

So, over £500 of our money is now stuck, nursery still not paid, phone lines of course now closed on weekends. And to top it off, I understand that in order to unlock this shitshow, I have to find the time out of my full time job to print copies of documents, send them to dr/solicitor/teacher friends to sign off, and then send on to HMRC. I mean..... wtf?

For an account I can only pay in to, not withdraw directly from. So yes totally agree with PPs that a lot of these things are designed to put people of using resources they're entitled to.

Don’t get me started on trying to obtain compensation from South West Trains for delay of over 30 minutes. You answer lots of questions online but reach a point where the arrow to take you to the final most important page doesn’t work . You go back and do it all again. Same issue. You give up = no compensation claimed.

Totally agree with PP.

Anything that says it's for customer convenience is a huge red flag. There's nothing convenient about downloading an app, signing up for yet another login , using a maddening online chatbot etc etc etc.
Make it stop!

Same with Scotrail. Sent off paper forms and tickets mid August. Phoned to be told it could take 4 to 6 weeks. Phoned again yesterday. Guy could find no evidence of our applications then I was conveniently cut off and no attempt made to contact me despite having my phone number and email.

Why offer this service if you've no intention of honouring it?

Just more time wasted.

I hear you. Currently coming out of 3rd major plumbing/heating disaster of the year, all unrelated and this one requiring a new boiler (6K) Only lucky in having an excellent and trusted company to undertake (on speed dial ATM) Trying to get the insurance claim sorted for the last one has made me cry and I don't usually.

I'm also recovering from sepsis and having cardiac tests next week and just wish there was someone else to do it all, but there isn't. DH has been bedbound for 3 years now.

Sorry about the pityparty/vent!😂

ETA the plumbers/heating engineers are more like personal friends now, given how much time they've spent here.

They want your data to either bombard you with marketing crap, or to sell onto other commercial entities so that they can target you also……..
we’re just slaves to this shit 🙄

This thread is actually making me more stressed as people call out all the shit in this wonderful technological age we live in.

Google and all its add-ons: total bastards. Trapped for life.
Voice recognition: I just end up screaming at it
Finding tradesman: never ring back
even goddam Freecycle, trying to pass things on rather than dumping it at the tip: fuckers don't turn up when they say they will

Arrrgggghhhhhhh

what about 'accept all cookies' popping up all.the.time. And, if shopping for clothes, countless vouchers (for which you need to sign up for an account, have a password, blah blah blah).

Two-point authentication. FGS. It didn't stop someone hacking into my account and stealing all my money. Oh and that was a really big life admin pile of shit too.

It's time consuming but usually for important stuff so I try to look at it as being fortunate. At least now most can be done online so you don't have to leave the comfort of your home.

I’ve also got some health issues that, whilst being medicated etc, I do need to be monitored every few months for whatever needs checking.
I’m going through a period of time where it seems as though every week I’ve got reminders and requests to make appointments, call for this n that…etc, etc..
it’s relentless…seems that every day now something buzzes on my phone. I’m very grateful for the drs etc keeping me going, but recently I’ve just been totally overwhelmed as it’s coming from all directions….no joined up thinking. I came so close to just screaming leave me alone whilst running for the hills.