Hanging On The Telephone

www.paulcoia.com

Most of the time I’d be embarrassed to have me as a friend as I’m the kind of happy go lucky idiot who people could, quite rightly, file under “simple”. I always try to wear a smile and I have a great time looking for life’s pleasures. But I confess I’m currently finding it difficult to keep up the Mary Poppins façade at the moment. It’s not been much of a “chim chim cheery” week.

You find me in an angry mood. I’m angrier than a man who’s discovered a band of creepy builders constructing a leaking nuclear reactor next door to his house the day after his girlfriend has emptied his bank account and run off with her gay best friend. In fact, to be as angry as I am, this man would then have to lose a winning lottery ticket, contract dengué fever and later find that someone has posted a photo of him on a feminist web site under the section marked “even if you were blind drunk and the future of the human race depended on it girls, you wouldn’t would you?”.

You, hopefully, get the picture. I’m angrier than Sir Richard Fuming-Irritated.

Britain plc is going bust, the piggy bank is empty, and even our IOUs have IOUs while our poets, who once rhymed Love with Dove, are now coupling Doom with Gloom instead. But, fear not. While we’re all going on a mystery tour to hell in a handcart, the good old British bureaucracy system is doing its bit to carry on regardless in its mission to make us weep.

Two things happened this week that made me forget all the progress we’ve made over the past few years in filling the common sense vacuum in Britain. I was speechless, which happens about as often as Adam Sandler makes a good movie.

So what’s the background to my moody blue? Well, I received two letters within twenty four hours that made my blood pressure rise and then, in trying to resolve matters, I encountered systems that made it soar higher than Amy Winehouse in a crack den as I came up against telephone operators who may have inspired that Little Britain sketch where the punchline is always “computer says No!”.

The stories are easy, if dull, to tell. The first letter was a written warning from The VAT people putting me on notice that I had sinned by filing my return late. I didn’t read it all as the red mist obscured my vision but I remember something about a warning that, if it happened again, there would be no more chances. I would be shot and my children used as a human shield by the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

I rang the tax people and explained that the reason it was late was down to them as the printed envelope they’d given me had the wrong address on it and my return had been, er, returned by the Post Office as undeliverable ten days later. The woman on the ‘phone acknowledged that this was true and that they had a call logged from me when it happened. She even accepted that it was not my fault. “So, can I rip up this warning letter then?”, I asked.

As it turns out, no, I flippin’ well couldn’t, and if I wanted the warning rescinded I would have to write to another department enclosing all relevant paper work. I’m afraid my cries of “But I don’t have time for this, and it’s all your fault”, cut no ice.

I remember that when I was little and rehearsing in class for going to my first Confession, the nuns made us pretend we’d sinned so we could practise the whole forgiveness ceremony. This reminded me of that. I wrote the letter asking for forgiveness, for something I hadn’t done and, before I had even posted it, I received a letter from a debt collection agency threatening legal action and a trip to hell over some other supposed sin.

This new heinous felony I’d committed, they informed me, was to owe the Halifax insurance company twenty pounds. Knowing that I didn’t, but intimidated nonetheless, I resigned myself to another morning on the ‘phone.

A guy at the debt collection agency accepted they’d made a mistake and that it was all very silly, and he agreed with me that I didn’t actually owe a single penny. I’d left the Halifax to go with another insurer, had rung the Halifax to tell them I was leaving, and had put it in writing.

“Since I don’t actually owe the money then, I presume I can throw your letter in the bin and forget the legal action you threatened so nicely?”.

Computer said No! Mr Call Centre Man could not cancel the legal action unless I sent proof that I had a new, better insurance company policy on the dates in question. “But I don’t have time for this”, I pleaded with a sense of déjà vu. The answer again was, basically, Tough Luck.

So my apologies for being a bit down and ranting this week but sometimes, even a happy idiot like I am has to get it off his chest to feel better, and I do now. Doctor Blog has helped and I’m now back to being Mr Happy, but I may check out the feminist web sites to make sure I’m not there, just in case. For now I’m back in love with everyone.

Well almost everyone. As for call centre staff? No. Not even if I was blind drunk and the future of the human race depended on it.