Colonial superiority and customer service
I’ve been in sunny London now for almost three months. Don’t get me wrong, some parts of the city and the people I love. I’ve seen Michael Franti and Spearhead at the Sheppard’s Bush Empire for £15, where I managed to squeeze my way through to about fourth row from front and centre in the 1500 strong crowd.
I’ve seen the most amazing free exhibitions of Greek and Roman history at the British Museum and a free exhibition of From Manet to Picasso at the National Gallery (although to be fair, not so much Picasso… shed loads of Manet and Pissaro though) and I’ve seen some fantastic theatre from the National Theatre. I’m in the heart of London – I can get 1p flights (pre tax and extortionist transfers) to pretty much anywhere in Europe. And despite it all I’m still not happy because I do keep making the “in Australia” connection mentally, which is not helping my demeanour at all.
For example, today: I go to my bank – see previous posts for examples of how hopeless my bank is, to get a bank cheque drawn. Not only did I get the haughty “ we call them bank drafts here…” from the teller to which I desperately wanted to reply “are they different to a cheque?” but I also had to provide more ID than I needed to get a work visa to get a cheque/draft drawn with my money.
Again, identity theft actually is rife here, so I won’t argue. So handed over passport, residential address confirmation, driver's license and a partridge in a pear tree to get my draft drawn. I was told by haughty teller that the cheque would take ten minutes.
So I went to the cattle yards of drawn and disillusioned “customers” who had that fluorescent pallor of having been waiting an eon.
Despite this, always hopefully and dimly naïve I trusted my haughty teller with his 10 mins estimation, as it’s a bank cheque, not a mortgage or line of credit application. How hard can it be?
25 minutes later I stormed indignantly to the “customer service” counter to ask if time had stopped for them, or if in fact my request had been lost, as I suspected. I was told it was still being written and asked to sit down again.
Another 10 minutes later I was called to the counter and handed my draft, which is in fact a cheque, and as I was so furious by this stage I demanded to know what had taken so long.
I was advised that usually you have to give 24 hours notice to get a bankers’ draft.
And it was at this point that all things went a little bit phut.
I stood screaming at the perspex barrier between myself and my teller’s neck something I suspect will be a repeated message “This is my money. What do you mean I have to give you 24 hours notice to get a cheque written. Christ in hell –it’s even hand written…”
By my calculations the words per minute taken to write my draft (for less than £500… it’s not like I was drawing out money to buy an island for fark’s sake) make my draft the equivalent of War and Peace.
“Entire series of Friends have been written faster than this..” I continued to scream, which I admit is not hard believe. Possibly if I’d said Stanley Kubrik filmed faster than this…Although I have found that sardonicism directed at our colonial superiors is never well received or indeed understood.
Anyway, have cheque now and will be looking for a new bank next week. I am assured they are all as bad as each other however. So, clearly the gormless masses who accept these alleged "customer service standards" understand that elephants gestate faster than customers are attended to.
All this and I still had to pay £10 for the pleasure of their contact and their "customer service help" to get the draft drawn.
So, I'm getting up in the dark, coming home in the dark, working in the cubicle farm with people I would like to buy bus tickets to Ipswich… while my friends are swimming, it’s day light savings… why am I here?!
On the up side, I did find the most fantastic real italian cafe/deli about 10 mins walk from my place which will help my caffeine depleted soul repair and I can quite literallly hear Christmas carols from the near by church , complete with bell ringing, as I write this. Swings and roundabouts I guess?
I’ve seen the most amazing free exhibitions of Greek and Roman history at the British Museum and a free exhibition of From Manet to Picasso at the National Gallery (although to be fair, not so much Picasso… shed loads of Manet and Pissaro though) and I’ve seen some fantastic theatre from the National Theatre. I’m in the heart of London – I can get 1p flights (pre tax and extortionist transfers) to pretty much anywhere in Europe. And despite it all I’m still not happy because I do keep making the “in Australia” connection mentally, which is not helping my demeanour at all.
For example, today: I go to my bank – see previous posts for examples of how hopeless my bank is, to get a bank cheque drawn. Not only did I get the haughty “ we call them bank drafts here…” from the teller to which I desperately wanted to reply “are they different to a cheque?” but I also had to provide more ID than I needed to get a work visa to get a cheque/draft drawn with my money.
Again, identity theft actually is rife here, so I won’t argue. So handed over passport, residential address confirmation, driver's license and a partridge in a pear tree to get my draft drawn. I was told by haughty teller that the cheque would take ten minutes.
So I went to the cattle yards of drawn and disillusioned “customers” who had that fluorescent pallor of having been waiting an eon.
Despite this, always hopefully and dimly naïve I trusted my haughty teller with his 10 mins estimation, as it’s a bank cheque, not a mortgage or line of credit application. How hard can it be?
25 minutes later I stormed indignantly to the “customer service” counter to ask if time had stopped for them, or if in fact my request had been lost, as I suspected. I was told it was still being written and asked to sit down again.
Another 10 minutes later I was called to the counter and handed my draft, which is in fact a cheque, and as I was so furious by this stage I demanded to know what had taken so long.
I was advised that usually you have to give 24 hours notice to get a bankers’ draft.
And it was at this point that all things went a little bit phut.
I stood screaming at the perspex barrier between myself and my teller’s neck something I suspect will be a repeated message “This is my money. What do you mean I have to give you 24 hours notice to get a cheque written. Christ in hell –it’s even hand written…”
By my calculations the words per minute taken to write my draft (for less than £500… it’s not like I was drawing out money to buy an island for fark’s sake) make my draft the equivalent of War and Peace.
“Entire series of Friends have been written faster than this..” I continued to scream, which I admit is not hard believe. Possibly if I’d said Stanley Kubrik filmed faster than this…Although I have found that sardonicism directed at our colonial superiors is never well received or indeed understood.
Anyway, have cheque now and will be looking for a new bank next week. I am assured they are all as bad as each other however. So, clearly the gormless masses who accept these alleged "customer service standards" understand that elephants gestate faster than customers are attended to.
All this and I still had to pay £10 for the pleasure of their contact and their "customer service help" to get the draft drawn.
So, I'm getting up in the dark, coming home in the dark, working in the cubicle farm with people I would like to buy bus tickets to Ipswich… while my friends are swimming, it’s day light savings… why am I here?!
On the up side, I did find the most fantastic real italian cafe/deli about 10 mins walk from my place which will help my caffeine depleted soul repair and I can quite literallly hear Christmas carols from the near by church , complete with bell ringing, as I write this. Swings and roundabouts I guess?
