Frustration, frustration...

There are many things in modern life that serve to frustrate, annoy, and even exasperate.

One that regularly features in people's complaints is 'Call Centres'. In fact, to be more specific, the frustrating electronic bureaucracy one has to battle through whenever trying to sort something out on the phone.

As you might imagine (given that I am writing about it!) I have an example ready to hand.

Today I rang the company (for politeness they shall remain nameless) with which my daughter has a mobile phone contract. Now that she is earning she wants to take over the account.

I duly retrieved the paperwork from my filing cabinet. I then phoned. After what seemed an eternity of navigating through endless "if you want this, dial this" type options (Oh, for the days of a switchboard reply with a human being immediately at the other end!) I finally got to speak to a member of staff.

I confirmed the phone number. I gave my address. He asked for my previous address. Now, the paperwork WHICH I HAD IN FRONT OF ME clearly stated my present address. As a matter of random interest, it actually listed my two previous addresses (I moved twice in a couple of years). This means SOMEONE HAD, AT SOME POINT, TAKEN DOWN MY DETAILS CORRECTLY.

Yet, the unhelpful individual on the other end insisted that the address he had on the system didn't match. I pointed out the information on my paperwork was correct and that, therefore, the problem/fault was his ... or, rather, not his personally, but that of someone 'at his end'.

Banging my head against a brick wall would have seemed rewarding and worthwhile compared with the usefulness of this frustrating, time-consuming conversation. I am not blaming him personally, and I'm sure someone will point out that people like him have to endure the ire of grumpy people like me on the other end. He doesn't deserve that, but that's not the point.

In this case the problem was theirs, not mine - and yet, I now have to sort it out by going down to a local telephone centre and presenting two items of personal identification. I still don't know how easy it will then be to have the account transferred to my daughter. I am dreading more frustration.

We've lost an awful lot in this technological age.