Reminds me of BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens…
I always strive not to write whingey, complaining blog posts. And I certainly don’t do it all the time. But sometimes, sometimes, I write two on the trot…
After last week, I did think this week might fare a little better. Considerably better, in fact.
[BIG SIGH]
Boy! Do I expect too much!
I managed both the weekly tech scan and the weekly backup on Friday. And that’s it. Much of the rest of the day was spent writing a long email to our probate case manger listing all of the outstanding questions and emails. There were a lot. My sister-in-law dropped me a message to let me know they’d done all they could at their end (like, in Canada), and I fired off the email.
I also had to wait in for the internet engineer, who was due between 12 and 2pm. He arrived just before 2pm… He was supposed to call me 20 minutes before he came, but he decided to just come straight here. I was about to call Sky to let them know I hadn’t had my phone call. He spent about an hour here, and the poet came home while he was still here.
Less than an hour after he left, I was calling Sky again to say our internet was still dropping out, and I ended up on the phone again for AGES. The poet’s daughter and granddaughter came to see him while I stressed with the Sky engineer until in the end they went leaving me and the poet to finish fixing it. We did fix it and I ended the call.
But, oh! So much stress at the moment! I determined to have a nice, relaxing, stress-free weekend, and the poet determined to help me.
On Saturday we did the shopping, bought the meat, visited the mother-in-law, and went shopping at Meadowhall to find me a new handbag. I’m not a handbag person at all, not since I had a handbag stolen in London a long time ago when I was there on business. But as the amount of stuff I carry has grown, I’ve decided it’s time to bite the bullet and start using one again.
We couldn’t find one that I liked, that did what I wanted it to, and wasn’t too big. After visiting several different shops, I decided to ‘embrace’ the handbag thing and go up a size. We went back to the very first shop, and I dropped on one straight away. And an almost-matching purse. We went to HMV to find out we’d missed a live appearance by Bruce Dickinson, and we bought the poet 2 albums while were were there.
When we got home I was allowed to try out my new bag for size before the poet whipped it away again. It’s not my birthday until Saturday, so he’s saving it till then to go with the other presents he’s buying me.
On Sunday he took me and the dog out for a nice long drive around the Derbyshire countryside. We had a picnic while we were out and when we got back, he cracked on with tea, I finished a trifle we’d started before we went out, then I went and sat on the settee with the dog for a bit. And fell asleep. When I woke up, tea was ready.
But the television in the dining room didn’t work.
Yes, it’s on the same network as the other telly and the internet. But it didn’t work. We tried resetting the box. No. We tried resetting the booster. No. So we gave up and had tea in our laps (on trays) in the living room in front of the telly there.
Did I mention anything about nothing working properly last week? I really, really couldn’t be arsed to call Sky again, but the poet’s going to have another look today, said she hopefully.
And so the new week dawned and I looked forward to a nice, stress-free week ahead. I thought I’d just put in a quick call to Probate to see if they had an update…And everything went tits up again. (Sorry for language, but it’s really peeing me off now.)
I was kept holding for an hour before I tried to call them on the mobile at the same time.
This time, while still listening to piped music in one ear, the phone in the other ear was telling me that they had an ‘unprecedented’ technical issue and could I please call back later. I tried calling the customer services manager, but got ‘the number you are calling has not been recognised’, so I tried his mobile and it went straight to answerphone.
I think it was at this point that I started to wonder if I should just give everything up.
I persevered, tried all of the phone numbers I had for the Probate team and finally spoke to someone in sales who confirmed that they were currently having all sorts of technical difficulties and even if I did manage to speak to someone, they wouldn’t be able to look anything up. So I gave them a (ahem!) *glowing* review on TrustPilot, seeing as they keep nagging us to do that. (It was glowingly scathing…)
I kept trying the phones until they came back up, and as soon as they came back up I was calling the necessary department again. In the end, I got through to a human being who, after going away and putting me on hold again for a few minutes, came back and told me that the Probate team had only found out on Friday that our case manager had left without telling anyone…
…
[speechless?]
…
Someone on Thursday told my sister that our case manager seemed to be no longer available. On Thursday. So how come they didn’t find out until Friday?
But, more to the point, did our money disappear with him? They do seem to be dragging their feet paying us, or even responding to us, so it does make you wonder.
Anyway, the lady I spoke to promised that the team leader would call me back today as a matter of urgency. At the time of writing, I’m still waiting.
In the meantime, one of my pension offers came through, and it had the WRONG SURNAME ON. I checked my records and they confirmed the correct name in a letter dated 7 February. I checked the date on the offer, and it was… 29 February. So they got a phone call too. I can complete the application with the correct name, but I also want the letter with the correct name. They said one was on the way.
And that’s how my day has gone so far. I’ve spent most of it waiting for someone – anyone – to speak to me on the phone.
How’s your Monday going?
If it’s this chaotic with everything direct, what will it be like when Mercury goes retrograde on April 1?
Urgh.
You’ll read tomorrow about my issues with Spectrum.
That’s extremely concerning, about your probate case manager. I’m confused that there’s a sales team for a probate? What a nightmare all the way around.
I hope the week improves!
I was wondering if something might be in retrograde!
The sales team for probate is the team of staff at the legal business who ‘sell’ you their fixed price probate package, if you get my drift. Everyone on TrustPilot is saying that the sales staff are great, meaning those who try to get you to buy their products and services, the probate package being one of them. They’re all also saying that the staff on the operations side of things are rubbish, complete and utter rubbish, and that it’s a pity those selling the services aren’t delivering them too.