AIBU to think everyday life admin has become far too complicated?

[Samben2014]

I just can’t believe how difficult it is to just the most basic of things these days. I forgot my password for my savings account online and I have just been on the phone for over an hour being passed between so many different bots and AI generated response systems before I could even speak with a human. I find doing these things that used to be so straight forward have become overly complicated in the last 12 months. I have no idea how the older generation cope. The NHS trust I work for are pushing everything down the APP route and if you’re not tech savvy you’re going to get left sitting on the waiting list. We are just not prepared for this new way of doing things, I miss talking to humans! I’m only late 30’s and find this is becoming unbearable. Am I being unreasonable?

I hate that just about every time you want to buy a ticket for an event, buy something, or go to a museum etc you have to create an account. Lots of the things are one offs, im not planning to go again. Then be spammed with 5 emails a week telling me about whats on, what offers they have.

During covid we went away for a weekend and wanted to use a council run tennis court. To use it I had to join the local leisure centre (free) and become a member, and create an account, and then be emailed a pin number. Then when I entered my details, and paid, they could email me a code to use the tennis court. Once. For an hour! It was stupidly faffy when it could probably have been a 2 min phonecall

I absolutely hate apps for parking, they’re so unnecessary!

Yesterday I’d arranged a call with my pension provider, they’d sent me a message saying it was a general overview being offered to run through options etc since I’ve left that workplace.

The lady calls me, I explain the only thing I’d like to know is can I restart a direct debit and continue to pay in, she says she’ll need to put me through to a different team.

This isn’t a different team but an automated phone system and ends up with them texting me a link to their online chat to talk to a different person who tells me it is possible, but I need to do it myself via the website, but can’t explain how or where.

The online chat format on a phone is really tricky and annoying and I still don’t have it sorted 🤷‍♀️

If they’re going to offer calls then they should be able to sort basic queries by phone, it ended up being really annoying.

It’s always fun trying to sort out things when the email verification is sent to an email address you can no longer access.
”we will email you a link so you can update your email address”.
”No, listen….I just said I can’t access that address”.

This is even worse if you ever change your mobile phone number, I did and had a right nightmare because it’s actually linked to so many accounts and they want to text you the verification code 🙄

“Madam you’ve come through to the wrong dept, you’ll need to hang up and call again”
”I pressed 2, what should I have pressed?”
”Oh 2 is correct, but if no one picks up it then comes through to us”
[thinking - you need to change that workflow mate]

I changed my name (and email address) after divorce. You can imagine how many places I've had to update my details with. Well, hopefully you can't imagine because it's in the hundreds - every app and many websites I use, on top of the obvious life admin companies.

It's been 3 years. I'm basically never going to be able to close the old email account because so much important stuff still gets sent there. Whether I use online forms or tell a human, the updates often don't go through. And thank god I'm not upset by being referred to as my old name regularly. I'm going to have to accept being 2 people from now on.

My bank caps how much money I can transfer in a day to one transaction and then maximum 2 per week (bloody bonkers!) and do you think I could find a phone number to contact them and try and organise a transfer?! Tried the chat function but that’s AI and got nowhere, tried searching online but every number appeared to present options for fraud, credit cards etc. Google AI suggested the only way I could resolve it was to go into the bank but of course, they’ve got rid of all banks within a bloody 30 mile radius and the one that’s 30 miles away is closed on a weekend 🤬 Arghh, sorry for the rant but why can’t we just bring back normal customer service where we can speak to a human who can transfer me through to the relevant department?!

As a nurse this genuinely upsets me on their behalf! All the years trying to tackle health inequalities and barriers to health and then this right here is it from that very service! I’m an elderly nurse too and see that hospital is the last place they want to be but this system is so flawed as a&e is more accessible than seeing their family gp.

Dont get me started either on the elderly missing appointments they didn’t know they had that have been sent by text with no letter, or a link sent to book an appointment from a referral! And when they miss that they get discharged back to their gp to start the whole wait again. There really needs to be something else to accommodate these people rather than assuming everyone can use technology

As one of my managers said recently, it’s almost like you need an app to help use another app! It’s all supposed to streamline things but in reality it causes more problems and delays!

^ Agree with this, but it’s not just a matter of ‘not assuming everyone can use the technology’. Why is the technology being pushed in the first place? The tech is getting worse and the processes are getting worse. I remember the push in 90s/ early 00s for inclusivity and accessibility too. I was the last person to let those ideals go in my workplace of the time, no one else could think of anything but ‘ooh shiny new tech’. Yet now everyone can see the tech itself is deliberately making process worse!

Don’t most have password management apps now as a minimum!?

I actually wouldn’t know! I’m on the old fashioned little notebook where I’ve had to jot down some of them!

I changed my phone, but not the number and xero cant seem to send the mfa to my "new" (about 2 years old) phone...even though its the same number!

As someone who is old enough to have collected my paper mot, insurance certificate and car ownership papers together, then walked up to the post office in opening hours (shut Weds and Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday) and queued up to pay for my car tax with cash or a cheque; waited while the paper information was scrutinised by the lady behind the counter, waited while the right colour tax disc was found, signed and stamped by her, then taken the paper tax disc back to the car and popped it out of it’s perforations and stuck it to the windscreen of the car - I 100% disagree.

You have absolutely no idea how grinding things like paying bills and keeping tabs on your bank balances were. Making a complaint or communicating with a supplier took weeks. Getting cash out of the bank had to be done in banking hours; if you missed the bank then no spending money until it opened again.

I appreciate some of this seems like a Very Long Time Ago, and some of it was, but technology has transformed my ability to manage my life and will help keep me independent well into old age.

Same! Everything just seems to be getting more complicated! I am in my 50s and have lived on my own since the late-80s so I’m old enough to compare the life admin from the 80s/90s to now, and know that things were much simpler and easier then.

Technology would be fine if it worked properly, but so often it doesn't!

And our dependency on it means that civilsation - or what passes for it these days - would collapse in the event of major outage. I'm beginning to thinkbthe film ",Leave the world behind" was scarily accurate predictive programming....

YANBU. I’ve just spent a week trying to get back into a computer system at work that i was inexplicably locked out of. At least 20 hours wasted due to phone calls, chat bot conversations, emails, meetings etc.

Then my SIPP!! I’ve been trying to transfer that for weeks but it’s virtually impossible because my current one is in my maiden name but I’m now married so the new company won’t believe I’m the same person! 😡 😡

I often get phone calls from recently bereaved people at work. They just need to let us know who has passed away. Lots of them are working through a horrible stressy admin list and are SO relieved when they realise I'm an actual human to chat to. I always take as long as they need and will happily chat as I update our records.

Message chatbots are the worst. Instead of taking 2 mins to type and email I have to spend 30 mins back and forth waiting for "agents" to type.

I think 2 things can be true at the same time. I also remember this method of car tax and agree, 2 minutes on the gov website is infinitely quicker and easier. Ditto online banking, being able to see your balance , what payments have come out etc. Its so much easier and more convenient.

But I think a lot of the issues are where something goes wrong, or the app/website/bot can't deal with the issue....and there is no (obvious) back up human system to assist. (And no actual banks if you have a banking issue)
Lots of websites seem to make phone numbers very difficult to find even though the app or website is unable to sort out 100% of problems or queries. Often once ive spent 10 minutes googling/trawling every page on a website, to get a phone number, then waited 40 min in a queue when I actually speak to someone the problem is fairly easily resolved.

A few years ago, easyjet cancelled the flight we were due to be on - a few weeks before. It said you could swap to another flight to that destination for no extra charge. I had seen a more conveniently timed one when booking, but it was going to be £300+ more expensive for 4 people. When I went on the app it said i could swap but only gave 2 different options, neither of which was especially good. I checked there were still seats on the flight I originally wanted and called up. I got all the automated options, then got cut off 4 times, but got the flight we wanted when I eventually spoke with someone!

I remember when the only way to pay the gas bill was to go to the gas showroom (in the days before privatisation there was a Gas Board and an Electricity Board and you bought your gas from the Gas Board and your electricity from the Electricity Board, how quaint. Then times moved on and for a while, the cheapest way to do it was to buy your electricity from a gas company and your gas from an electricity company, I shit you not). The Gas Board had a showroom for gas appliances and payment counters for gas bills.

It was one of DMs jobs when we went into town and we'd all have to sit quietly while she queued up.

This was also the times when clothes, toys and household items could be bought from massive catalogues and you always had to 'allow 28 days for delivery' (try telling that to the people who expect food deliveries to arrive in 28 minutes and online orders in 28 hours) and if they actually arrived, you could then pay for them over a few months at 39 pence per week or whatever.

Why don't you set up email forwarding on your old address to your new address?

When a forwarded email arrives, if you are using that company, you can update to your new email.

The number of forwarded mails should soon drop.

Tried to park yesterday in town - none of the parking machines were working properly to pay by card - I don't want to have to download an app or phone somewhere to pay for an hours parking! Everything is just too fucking hard and inconvenient. So instead of spending money in town, I went to the supermarket with the free parking.
We really do not need to do everything online!

Microsoft recently blocked my DH'S email address. Unfortunately because noone on the phones can help, this has meant he basically needs to create a whole new identity from scratch and ring around everyone trying to update his email address. I have never known anything like it.

Agree and disagree. On the one hand I find lots of automated systems hugely convenient. I love being able to do online banking, online shopping, online utility bill payment, online DVLA stuff, online car insurance, parking apps, ticket apps etc, etc etc. The amount of time I save is wonderful and I don't have to queue at banks, post offices, ticket machines etc.

However, what is lacking is being able to get in touch with a human fairly easily when these things go wrong! I do miss that. I find going around the "options" when you call the one number you can find buried deep on a website and then being funnelled to a bot really irritating. Usually by the time I need to speak to someone it isn't for something that the algorithms can solve, it needs human intervention and getting to that can be very tedious.

Our town recently introduced one free hour of parking. For me it’s not the 50p I’m saving that brings me joy, it’s that I can park my car and not lose the will to live paying to park.