I messaged a very well known pension and life assurance company last week to ask about the likely benefits to be provided by a pension fund I have with them,given a maturity date in 2023 and the contributions I expect to make before that date. My message was acknowledged and a reply, giving the information requested, promised with 24 hours. Nothing received,so today sent a follow up message. Received a reply to say they have been unable to process my illustration due to" a manual calculation being required" and my request has now been passed to an administration team,who are " experts in this area",who will contact me directly. So,pardon me,does this mean someone has got to use their brain to work something out? In an office which is very likely full of University Graduates? How awkward for the poor darlings! This,lads and lasses,is an example of why this country is in deep doodoo. Oh,and at the bottom of the reply is a box asking me to "rate the service they have provided today"! ****ing hell man!
Yeah it’s all like that now I’ve been told you have to do it yourself In 2007 I retired and drew my pension I then went back to work part time untill I fully retired in 2016 My point is Before I retired in 2007 I worked out my own figures because I needed to know what my monthly pension and part time pay together would be per month I presented these figures before I made my decision to go part time The head of department said to me vince you don’t need me to sort it out your figures are correct I did the same when I fully retired Many of my mates have not been able to get figures and they don’t know how
not just this, we are into a second generation of people who were allowed calculators in exams, go into shops and the tills tell them how much change to give back...if you ever get a '10 pounds 5 pence' at the till, offer them the 5 pence and watch as the confused look grows into alarm...look at how they all run around and bang everything 'on the card' now and just rack up the debt, i am convinced most do not know how much they owe. those around my age (60-ish) are probably the last line of 'if you cannot afford it you do without or save up until you can', just so easy now for kids to pass the driving test and go get a brand new motor, the value of money has been removed and more and more people are going through life without a clue, they just accept what they are told and rarely look into anything... ask anyone that works in a call centre about the feckwits they get calling on a daily basis.
I went in the queens head in Ambleside with our lass, went up to the till where the skinniest scally I’ve ever seen and asked him for a Gammon with egg and pineapple, he looked at the till and said sorry I can’t do that meal, I said why not, he says you can have a egg or a pineapple but not both, I said just Chuck me a egg on and I will give you an extra quid, he says I can’t it’s not on the till.
Standard of customer service is hopeless. Whenever I need to phone about anything, especially if it's because of their mistake, I tend to write down what i want to get across, in order to check that I'm using the simplest most straightforward words and phrases. Usually get the feeling that I'm having to explain the job and their responsibilities to them . A couple of times it's got to stage where I actually asked them if I should pop into their office to show them what to do.
had a couple of jobs done lately in and around the garden and the state of the work is shocking, i would not even attempt to charge people for a job i could not do, yet when questioned they seemed happy with it as if it was an accepted standard now...what happened to pride in ones work and offering a good service?
I was thinking of starting a thread similar to some experience both from myself and people I know re "Tradespeople". Some , not all are ruining for the many with their ****e attitude towards jobs they deem "not worth it". I've had loads of chew (all sorted now) with tilers, roofers and decorators. The kind that don't phone you back or don't show when they say they'll do a job. I don't know who these ****ers think they are to mess people around the way they do but some are a disgrace. "small jobs" like tiling a 1x2 meter porch space mite be nothing to them and not worth it, but that small job means so much to some people and holds up other aspects of that area. Never trust a trader that says stuff like "check a trader" is a waste of time. I was taking to someone recently ( all sorted now) that was at one time chasing down an electrician that had done half a job, a roofer that kept saying "Al sort it next week" and a joiner. The point to this post is that because you're good at something, don't be a c$$t about it. Because of Covid, rancid couldn't give a **** customer service is now a thing within most sectors.
Here's my fùcking rant. An 80 year old bloke had collapsed outside the other night. Two couples in two cars had stopped to assist. I went out with a blanket and first aid kit and offered hot drinks as it was cold. There was over an hours wait for an ambulance because of bastard wánker government cuts, yet the police managed to drive past slowly for a look without stopping. They also did this when a mate of mine collapsed unconscious recently. These tossers were everywhere in droves during lockdown fining people for being out driving. Yet one instance when my father had Covid and pneumonia, The paramedics couldn't get near his house due to Romanians having a party on the grass verge and drink driving FFS. Even though the paramedics and my daughter reported it the police couldn't be arsed dealing with it as they were "too busy" Too fooking right they were busy, I could see 8 of them pulling cars up on the dual carriageway. Funny, they "the filth" were everywhere during lockdown, now you never see the cùnts (unless driving past an injured person). Now the wànkers have the cheek to demand more money through council tax, to pay for more police. Well, PCO plastic police. Probably so they can send them to Asda to pick up the donuts save them going out in the cold. Arseholes. Rant over
To add to your point, I was in Sainsburys yesterday. Amongst other things I bought toilet rolls. Next to each other on the shelf, same 'type' and make, were packs of 16 for £10.80 and other packs of 9 for £5.00. In front of me was a couple who looked at them, considered what they needed and selected the pack of 16 apparently on the basis that 9 wouldn't last as long. Once they got out of the way I picked up two packs of 9 and walked off. Then I heard them discusing why I'd done this. I'm not at all sure that they workied it out. I'm afraid that society in general is so wedded to their Smartphones that people think that if they stop using them their brains will atrophy. . It's only my personal view, but I think it might be the other way round.
The ambulance service is an absolute shambles at the moment. My wife went into labour on new years eve, hospital told us to wait until contractions were closer together, we waited until they were exactly the time apart that they said, called back, they told us we were too far away from the hospital to wait, call an ambulance! Called an ambulance, told we were the highest priority, long story short, I had to deliver the baby myself, no pain relief for the wife. Took the ambulance an hour and a half to get there, by which time the baby was an hour old! He's fine, thank god, but if something had gone wrong, well, doesn't bear thinking about.
Can't say I'm surprised. The last time my Mam was admitted into hospital there was 8 ambulance crews just waiting with the patients in the corridor of A+E for nearly an hour, because there wasn't a bed/room for them. Surely it would be better to employ someone to capture the patients details/diagnosis from the ambulance crew, take temporary care of these patients, then pass the details on to the nursing staff when a bed becomes available, thereby allowing the ambulance crews to get back on the road?
Some years ago me and some mates got breakfast at a cafe in an Asda. They did a full English deal that had sausage, bacon, mushrooms, egg, etc. One of my mates said "I don't like sausage, does anyone want to swap a sausage for a piece of bacon". I said I'd swap, and we switched them over there and then. When we got to the till the girl started ringing it all up as individual items, before I pointed out that she should charge it as 2 Full Englishes. "I can't do that she said, because that's not what you've got". We had to actually swap the sausage and bacon rasher back between plates before she would ring it in, then swap them back again. She seemed absolutely oblivious to the stupidity of it.
Glad you got that of your chest mate. Some of the young coppers have terrible “who do you think you are to be bothering me” attitude. But not all, thank goodness.
I don't blame ambulance crews mate. I blame the government for the shocking lack of funding. My mother could of been saved if there wasn't a lack of staff. It took too long for a paramedic to arrive and the ambulance crew weren't equipped or trained. That bastard Boris whooping and cheering when nurses pay rises got voted out pre Covid. Praises them during covid. Then shìts on them again whilst his mates get rich through deals. Shower of bastards in government. Another rant
I always look at weight or volume price etc. It's amazing now how buying in bulk can tend to cost more .
