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.

@EmeraldRouletteiI'm not joking I just can not be arsed with stuff. The house is held together with masking tape. Only phone GP in an emergency...

@Greedybilly that's a bit different

Dentist and opticians do usually answer the phone IME

And your hairbrush definitely doesn't need an app! Maybe that's something they'll try in the next century 😱

Yes - hang in there and good luck

Just get through to anyone and they’ll either help or tell you who you should have chosen

This has reminded me of the saga I had the other week where it took nearly ten separate conversations on Expedia’s web chat to get them to correct a hotel booking I’d made and immediately then realised was for next year rather than this year. Everyone I spoke to assured me it would be sorted, asked me to do their survey and then didn’t sort it.

The words “formal complaint” were what finally did it. I was losing the will to live but I was not going to just write off £115, or whatever it was.

Exhausting. All.of this
.Plus mp.nuisance calls and adverts

This is why the Upper Classes had armies of servants and dare l say it slaves.

Maybe Al will.give us a free Assistant who will care of.mumdane admin and household stuff

You're not wrong and it's FUCKING EXHAUSTING.

I get a council tax discount and one month a year and a half ago it just stopped for no reason at all even though I'm still entitled to it.

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER they still haven't managed to send me a correct bill. How fucking hard can it be. Its a bill. One document.
I have emailed 36 times!!! And sent a 21 page document with all the emails proving I've tried to contact them. They didn't answer even one.

It's still ongoing.

Who the fuck has time for this shit. I know they think if they fuck around long enough I'll just pay the full bill. Oh how wrong they are.

I'm actually hoping I'll get and waiting for a court summons now cos I'd love to take the whole lot in and ask a judge why the hell the local council couldn't find even ONE person capable of working out a simple bill

I hate that everything is online, password, second verification. Blah blah

Every year I try and pay for my green bin. Every year the system tells me I have to change my password. When I try to they tell me I already have an account with that email address so I have it set up a new account. I try and then it tells me I'm not allowed another account as I still have an active account..... The I ring and get a shirty response that im doing it wrong cos their system wouldn't do that....

5 fucking years this has been happening. And every year they tell me its my problem 🙄🙄

I WISH we could go back to paying for crap at a post office with a paper bill. I have gas and elec meters for this exact reason. I top it up... That's it. Simple and never an issue. I HATE TECH and I'm only 44!!!

Rant over. Apologies but this issue is close to the heart for me 😂😂

Exactly this, summarise a couple of jobs you need doing and ask on your local WhatsApp group. We are doing more job swapping locally.

Also join the local Nextdoor group and get recommendations for a handyman. Given the dire jobs market atm and COL crisis there are people wanting to top up their earnings by doing these little annoying jobs we never get round to.

And they want us to have Digital ID !
Its really frightening to think what could be done to us and completely out of our control.

This is the longest and most satisfying thread I have read on here. It’s so good to find that it’s not just me . All of the above have annoyed me at some time.

How on earth are we going to manage down the track when our brains get more rusty. We will need a P A to sort it all for us.

I couldn't play a game on my Xbox yesterday. I couldn't pass the are you human question after entering username and password correctly. There was no way to tell if they were capital X and Ys. 5 attempts with 2 of us trying and now locked out. The console cost money the game pass cost money the game cost money. All those parts work perfectly but free sign in as Tonto to save progress not happening.

This is my fear about it. The system will be SHIT, and when its not getting hacked it'll be making my life a misery via allllll the techniques detailed in this thread!

This is the longest and most interesting thread I have read on here.
All of the above have been triggers for making me behave in unaccustomed ways in the past . It is good to find yourself not alone.
How we will deal with all this tech as we age is a bit of a worry ….don’t think it will get any better !

I'm not feeling the angst, I like a lot of things being digital.
I'm currently emailing with Octopus about getting a new meter installed, it's an actual person but because it's email I can just respond when I can.
Had an issue with British Gas re a bill for the previous occupier, one phone call to an actual person sorted it.
Issues with a Very bulky item delivery, dealt with by an actual person with refunded the delivery charge and sent a compensation check.
I need a boiler service, I know a couple of gas engineers so I'll drop them a message and one will come out, likely this week.
My drs surgery has an automated line where they hold your place in the queue and ring you back, never not happened. For repeat prescriptions you just leave a voicemail on their dedicated line and they send it straight to the pharmacy.
Things like insurance, I have accounts on Compare The Market and Moneysupermarket so you don't have to keep inputting into.
Banking apps, brilliant, but we still also have local branches if you need something physical

I run a business, and a home as a single parent, and never understand the carry on around life admin. Make a list, set a reminder, do the task as it's required. Being able to send emails, messages etc late at night for someone to respond the next day is perfect, instead of having to wait for phone lines to open. Getting past bots is sometimes annoying but if you press * enough times it just puts you through to a human

Oh goodness, I thought it was just me! It doesn’t help being older and that my technology belongs in the Science Museum. Upload this, download that, scan the other. I often just give up trying. It is actually a nightmare. An on-call admin assistant would be perfect.

There are also tech mysteries that are just illogical. When booking gig tickets, the system won’t allow you to pick two seats out of an available 3 seat row, as “you cannot leave an empty seat”. But when the gig is nearly sold out there are loads of single seats left. How??

I wonder whether we have the same council as the same thing happens with my green bin subscription every year.

i think it’s understandable but slightly naive to assume that other people just don’t get organised enough when complaining about these things. Many things do work well when they work - supermarket deliveries, Halfords car servicing, booking eye tests, simple travel etc.

its when plans change and you need to change something that you find out how user friendly these systems actually are. And usually they aren’t. Or people let you down and suddenly you’re questioning their reliability and competence to do what you need done.

i think there’s no way to be as organised as you’d like when you have a busy life and can’t get things sorted in one go. I don’t want call backs (they always happen in meetings) or lengthy email chains. Wherever possible, I want to ring up or log on to a simple system, agree a date and have it stuck to.

those that read this thread and don’t identify with any of it, I fear, have just not yet met the system that will send them over the edge.

re the council tax thing, i had that and it defeated me. Nothing about anything they repeatedly sent made sense. I decided it wasn’t worth my time to continue arguing it, which is what I bet they rely on happening.

Oh council tax! We’ve had nothing but trouble trying to sort that. Can only do it on paper forms which don’t actually have the questions that suit our situation. Finally sort it out after 3 rounds of the same form going in and now we have to fill in a form for the refund and send 3 ID/bills with address. Funny they didn’t need that when they took out payment

agree that some things work well but as soon as your situation is slightly unusual it tends to go wrong.

my dad is pretty savvy and can sort these things when they happen but I do worry for my mum. She would much rather speak to someone in person at a shop/bank and as she has an accent she finds the phone doesn’t work so well (plus she’s going deaf!) and she can’t get on with internet forms

I don’t know how the elderly or people with accessibility issues cope with a lot of this

I think it’s all the consequence of this country falling apart. Companies only care about profits, not company service. The shareholders and senior management pulling the strings are never going to have to deal with a real customer complaint or have anyone screaming down the phone at them.

Nightmare trying to get tradespeople who are reliable, competent and reasonably priced.

Recently, I knocked on a couple‘s door who were having major work done on their house and garden. I pass their house on my walking route. Luckily, they were very sweet and gave me their tradespeople contacts. I have already booked two of them.

When our teen flies the nest, we are toast. Literally toast. She can do things in seconds that hubby and I can take all day to understand let alone accomplish.

It's tedious isn't it.

I think it doesn't help that a lot of businesses now are using online chat and the handler is answering more than one person at once. What would have been a 5 minute phone call takes 30 minutes where you input the same information in several times.

I've sent three "letters before action" out in the last 12 months to get money back owed to me, whereas I think I sent out three in the previous 10 years!

Luckily we have a really competent plumber.

OP, you’re not wrong.

I avoid using car parks as much as possible because of the apps. Luckily my local shopping area has plenty of street parking (one road away from the High Street). The local council car park for the park only takes cash, which is so unusual (but paying to use the car park for a park makes me so cross).

Some online/telephone interactions are better than others. Most are shit though. Virgin are probably the worst - I think I have actual hate for them. The GP’s app is crap - actually it’s a third party app that asks endless questions and needs so much detail before passing it on to the GP and there’s no free text box to say I want a female GP or a specific GP who has been dealing with this or can I have appointment after 4 pm.

First Direct are great to deal with. Voice recognition means I don’t have to go through the identity rigmarole. Churchill are good. Lands End (the clothing company) are excellent, although they have changed the way they do returns so we’ll see what that is like.

I do all the admin for my elderly parents. I am in the process of contacting all their service providers, with parents there to confirm they have given me permission, to put a marker on their notes to say that they are vulnerable customers/clients and just trying to do that is rage inducing.