the to do list

What's really driving me mad these days is that one can never cross anything off a To Do List. Years ago, I could write up a To Do List every day and took great pride in ticking off the to dos landing up with a page of ticked off jobs at the end of the day. Nowadays, you tick it off the list but two days later find out that the next party in the line did nothing about it and you have to add it back to your To Do list. My To Do lists now include daily follow ups and carried forwards. its' becoming like an accounting schedule. And you have to keep records and times of calls and proof of sending emails and faxes. Well, it's just driving me nuts.

And then there's the To Do in trying to have a problem or query sorted out ... those ongoing robotic voices "your call is important to us" and "we are experiencing high volumes" BULLSHIT. For two days I have tried just to get through to my internet bank help desk and finally, after waiting for twenty minutes this morning I made it! I thought they should get this letter:

No matter what time of day I try calling the internet banking numbers and go through all the options of “key 1… 2… 3…. 4…” I get the “we are currently experiencing high call volumes … thank you for holding … your call will be answered shortly” message. And I hold and I hold and I hold, listening to the tinny music and the “helpful hints and messages” from the robot. And I hold and I hold and I hold. Six times in the last two days I have tried and not managed to speak to a consultant and have given up. Meanwhile, on giving up on my own bank, I have tried phoning the help desks of other banks connected to accounts I’ve been trying to register – I phoned FNB and the call was answered immediately by a most helpful man. This morning I phoned Old Mutual internet banking help desk and, once again, my call was answered immediately by a most helpful man. I phoned him back five minutes later with another query as the branch that came up on the code was different to my client’s actual branch, and he checked the number etc and confirmed it was all correct. Oh what a pleasure to deal with such a bank!! Why am I still with Standard Bank? I ask myself. If I had the time to sort through all the changes of debit orders etc, I would not be!
Your call message should not be “thank you for holding, your call will be answered shortly” it should be “#@$%&* you. We couldn’t be bothered to man the help desk with enough staff to cope with the volume of calls or customers needing assistance. So, hold ... don’t hold ... whatever. We actually couldn’t care less.”

I think that wonderful book "Talk to the Hand" has something like this in it too!

oh well.... I have a beeeeeeg to do list to get through!

Agents .. on the other hand

The Middle People!