This morning, among the plethora of e-mails offering to ‘enlarge my tool’, ‘make her bEg (sic)’ and something I didn’t quite understand, but seemed to make fascinating use of the word ‘pounding’, was an e-mail from my ever popular estate agent, who, continuing my theme of naming and shaming, happen to be Lauristons of Balham.
This time they wanted to sell me a flat, which was quite nice of them really, especially seeing as they haven’t deemed it necessary to fix the problems with the current one since we moved in, so we’re pretty much prime candidates for wanting to move out. Anyway I wasn’t interested and deleted it. Then they sent me another one about an hour later. For the same flat. Which I deleted, literally minutes before receiving another e-mail. For the same flat. A couple more e-mails, and a newly found hatred for Chiswick, later and I decided it was time to reply.....
Dear John,
I’m afraid I have no interest in this, or any properties you have, or will have, on your books. I quickly established this the first time you sent me this e-mail. The second e-mail confirmed this, the third I considered it a glitch in the system, however the fourth time it arrived I realised that there was something else going on. As I’ve not come across your name before, I can only presume that you must be new to the team, and thus in an effort to blend in I’m guessing that you’re attempting to join the rest of the organisation in their continuing effort to turn incompetence into a competitive sport. While I applaud your efforts on this front, and the continuing dedication of those around you, I feel I should warn you that, while you clearly lack the basic understanding required when sending e-mail, and are as such are thoroughly deserving of your position, I’m afraid your colleges have set such a staggering precedent when it comes to incompetence, failure, and fundamental idiocy, that I fear your current efforts are falling far short of the standards we have come to expect of your organisation. In the spirit of good will I can only make some suggestions that, with luck, should be of use in the future.
Firstly, at no point should you instigate communication. Communication should only be provided from yourself once contacted by the third party. After this initial contact please wait for approximately 3 more attempts to contact you to pass, ignoring all e-mails and voicemails in between times, before grudgingly replying a claiming total ignorance of the entire process.
Secondly, spelling. My surname, while relatively short, is often misspelt. On reviewing each of your e-mails you missed this relatively simple means of error on all occasions. In future I would recommend addressing this, and also advise you make further assumptions over the relationships of the individuals you contact, summarily marrying and divorcing them as you see fit.
Finally content. Your e-mail not only included a link to further information, but also a phone number one which, presumably, I might be able to contact you. All of this could actually be of practical use to the recipient, and therefore should at no point be included, accepting of course, if you were to include incorrect, or out dated information. For further examples of this please see your website, which traditionally only features unavailable property, blurred images, and absolutely no further details at all.
Simply adherence to these, and similar such rules should rapidly ensure you acceptance into the team.
In no way do I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Regards......
Aint it fun?
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Institutionaly stupid
I just got a phone call.
This proves two things. Firstly that on a long enough time line, someone, somewhere WILL want to talk to me (aside from ‘that’ woman *shudder*), and secondly, well okay there was only really one thing that it proved.
Anyway, you can only begin to imagine my excitement when it was a female voice at the other end of the line! (Again, not ‘her’ *shudder*)
Slightly less interestingly however they were from Barclays fraud protection team. Or so they said. Quickly getting over my initial euphoria I started paying a little more, serious, attention. Apparently they wanted to talk about some activity on my account, but before they did that they needed to prove I was me. Fair enough, but seeing as I wasn’t born yesterday I was staying quiet until they proved to me that they were them, and not working for Stavros from Somewerestan just east of fucking nowhere.
Apparently they can’t do that.
I’ll run that one through again.
Barclays fraud team, the people who tell us not to give out personal details, to check our statements, cover our pin numbers and use 56 letter passwords so obscure that you have to write them down (but not to write them down), are calling their customers, luring them with tales of some strange bearded man with excessive sand in his shoes, may or may not be slowly whiling away their life savings. And then expect you to tell them your name, address, date of birth, and if your girlfriend prefers ribbed or feather lite. All without even so much as attempting to prove who they are!
Which fucking work experience kid did they employ to come up with that policy? And we’re supposed to trust these people? Suddenly I understand why everyone who’s ever contemplated using a blue rinse has spent the majority of the past 7 days queuing outside branches of Northern Rock and making space under the mattress.
Dear God.
Anyway, naturally I told them nothing, and instead called them back (using the number on the back of my card, rather than something starting 0891 that they’d probably have offered me). Naturally the first person knew nothing, and then 10 minutes on hold later they decided that putting the phone down on customers was the best way of tackling fraud in the 21st Century. Another phone call later and having been left on hold for 40 minutes, and still nobody will talk to me.
This really does prove two things.
Firstly, the first call was a blip, no matter how long the time line, even people who are paid to talk to me don’t want to. Secondly that I’ve actually got 40 minutes to spend listening to an automated voice tell me that my call is important to it. And now I’m telling all of you about it.
Christ what have I done with my life……..
Anyway, a quick look online and it appears that I’m not bank rolling some rucksack wearer with too many Z’s in his name, and everything is pretty much as was.
Which is nice.
This proves two things. Firstly that on a long enough time line, someone, somewhere WILL want to talk to me (aside from ‘that’ woman *shudder*), and secondly, well okay there was only really one thing that it proved.
Anyway, you can only begin to imagine my excitement when it was a female voice at the other end of the line! (Again, not ‘her’ *shudder*)
Slightly less interestingly however they were from Barclays fraud protection team. Or so they said. Quickly getting over my initial euphoria I started paying a little more, serious, attention. Apparently they wanted to talk about some activity on my account, but before they did that they needed to prove I was me. Fair enough, but seeing as I wasn’t born yesterday I was staying quiet until they proved to me that they were them, and not working for Stavros from Somewerestan just east of fucking nowhere.
Apparently they can’t do that.
I’ll run that one through again.
Barclays fraud team, the people who tell us not to give out personal details, to check our statements, cover our pin numbers and use 56 letter passwords so obscure that you have to write them down (but not to write them down), are calling their customers, luring them with tales of some strange bearded man with excessive sand in his shoes, may or may not be slowly whiling away their life savings. And then expect you to tell them your name, address, date of birth, and if your girlfriend prefers ribbed or feather lite. All without even so much as attempting to prove who they are!
Which fucking work experience kid did they employ to come up with that policy? And we’re supposed to trust these people? Suddenly I understand why everyone who’s ever contemplated using a blue rinse has spent the majority of the past 7 days queuing outside branches of Northern Rock and making space under the mattress.
Dear God.
Anyway, naturally I told them nothing, and instead called them back (using the number on the back of my card, rather than something starting 0891 that they’d probably have offered me). Naturally the first person knew nothing, and then 10 minutes on hold later they decided that putting the phone down on customers was the best way of tackling fraud in the 21st Century. Another phone call later and having been left on hold for 40 minutes, and still nobody will talk to me.
This really does prove two things.
Firstly, the first call was a blip, no matter how long the time line, even people who are paid to talk to me don’t want to. Secondly that I’ve actually got 40 minutes to spend listening to an automated voice tell me that my call is important to it. And now I’m telling all of you about it.
Christ what have I done with my life……..
Anyway, a quick look online and it appears that I’m not bank rolling some rucksack wearer with too many Z’s in his name, and everything is pretty much as was.
Which is nice.
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