The house that drives you mad

March 16, 2020

DISCLAIMER: This is a rant. Chime in, tune in, turn on, drop out - or better not read it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Asterix, forgive me to throw you into the deep end of francophone humour and culture. Regardless, I hope you enjoy(ed) the little videoclip and get the gist of it. Also, feel encouraged to check out Asterix as a BD (bande dessinee), the French-speaking version of comics, just like manga is the Japanese. They are fabulous and not only for kids, maybe more like graphic novels rather than comics. In fact there is a high chance you are already familiar with or even a fan of one of them if you have heard of The Adventures of TinTin, for instance?!

Without getting side-tracked even more, let’s get to what this wee post is supposed to be about. That’s two things mainly, as the title alludes to: Beaurocracy and money flow partially due to or legitimised by beaurocracy. In the following I shall give you 15 (drops tablets) - three - three examples illustrating some of the many encounters I had with modern madness. Oh, and as a side note, Terry Pratchett, is a master of ridiculing this madness in his discworld series - so, if you like a bit of sarcasm and feel the same as me, go check out some of his books. Oh dear, still trying to get to the point…

I’m mainly writing this out of frustration to be honest. In another post I shall write about why I believe capitalism, at least in its current form, is like cancer, in another one why, based on that, I’m not a Tesla fanboy, and also address why complaining is easy without offering alternatives. BUT, I’ll also provide some of those far-fetched , unimaginable easy-to-do alternatives - maybe they’re not so far-fetched after all.

So here we go. I’m sick and tired of being told I’m a complainer. I’m sick and tired of being pushed around by big corporations that sell you some crap and then make it your responsibility if that turns out to be a pretty bad yet inevitable life choice. I’m sick and tired of clicking 2 buttons to sign up for a lifelong membership to sell my soul just to be be referred from filling in one form to the next on to the next when trying to cancel.

Example 1 - Moving out

I’ve recently quit my job as a programmer in a northern town in the UK. After giving my 4 weeks notice to leave my rental contract, I thought, fair enough, the rest is donating my furniture, sorting out which clothes I want to keep and give the food in my pantry to a friend. Oh, what a fool I am!

You want internet? - Sure Gas, water, electricity? - Sure Council tax? - Not sure, but I guess…

Anyway, takes about 5 clicks and putting in your credit card details or bank account for direct debit. All sorted. The money goes off your account. All online and so convenient. Despite the energy company not being able to install the promised smart meters (they installed one of them and then never came back for the second one), try canceling these things. All of the sudden, you have to call some hotline and talk to and dial through some automated machine response. For the internet, at the time of writing this post, has dropped at different parts in the process four different times now. The energy company got back to my cancellation request with:

[…] I can see that you had contacted us regarding the cancellation of your account however having checked your account I find that the account is active with us since 25 November 2019 which is why we cannot cancel your account. […]

What does that even mean? In fact, asking what they mean in my reply email, I got an autoresponse refering me a link to a live chat. These live chats are terrible. Not only are they not very helpful, they also make correspondence disappear in the void. So whenever you need to talk to them again, you strat from 0 ish. It also makes it near impossible to use the correspondence one has had when wanting to present it to 3rd parties. The main nuissance and pain point though isn’t even that sometimes things don’t run smoothly. It is the mere fact that signing up so money goes out of your pocket is made so easy and all legitimised by some shite laws, and that you pay and get into trouble big time for not (being able to) pay is legitimised and enforced. To get out of the hold of the money grabbing machinery though - oh dear - it’s so painful and frustrating that you almost want to say Ah don’t care anymore, just gonna continue paying 30 quid every month. The council tax, they fine you if you don’t pay by the date. And although I’m pro council tax, my one was extortionate what what you get in return. Alos I moved out a month earlier than what I had paid council tax for. Good luck to myself getting back what I overpaid.

Exampel 2 - Flights

The next pain point is getting your money (back) vs. big corp getting their money. When I left Canada a while ago after briefly working there, I booked a flight to Europe a few days in advance. The remaining few days I wanted to use to play NierAutomata, shag the girl I was seeing and be good boy and sort out some paperwork and “cancel” my official paperwork obligations, so mainly I cancelled my bank account at the, let’s call it, Floatinto Opinion Bank. I went to the branch telling the clerk I wanted to cancel my account. I replied he, well i suppose he was speaking for the bank, was sad to see me go as a customer, but after some paperwork said all done and good to go. he handed me the remaining money in the account in cash and I went my way. A few days later, being a good boy seemed to have gotten the better of me, since the airport saw my arrival well on time with about 3 and a bit hours until my flight. Let’s go check in the bags thinks I. After queuing for about half an hour I eventually make it to the counter. I’m afraid I can’t check you in, Sir - Excuse me, what? Why? I reply. The flight is not paid for - Please go to our service counter over there - he points to some counter somewhere else and rebook your flight. Good luck.. We seem to have variations of this brief conversation a few times over before I surrender and go into the vague direction he pointed to to find that damn service counter.

2h20min until my flight

I got this - calm - there is plenty of time. When joining what I believe to be the queue an assistent tells me I have to draw a number from a little machine in the corner, which I do. Then comes the number game. I check the number on that little ticket against the numbers being displayed on the screen above the counters. I wait a little bit to observe how fast they are going up. Not very fast at all. Two counters are open. After five minutes I decide to go for a cigarette. When I come back a few minutes later, the numbers on the display have gone up by 1. Bloody 1. Only about 30 to go until it’s my turn. 30 times 5 minutes I’ve just been away would make me get to counter to be helped about a flight I had already paid for - I had the last bank statement actually in my bag - and it showed the 472 dollars I had paid for the flight having gone out of my account. I tried explaining to some of the airline employees what my situation was and that i didn’t want to miss my flight. I would have to wait was all I got out of them withing an hour of arguing and waiting for the manager to never appear.

My mental maths turned out to be almost as precise as one of the more expensive swiss watches I could see being displayed in one of the windows of the shops further down the hall. When I eventually made it to the counter my flight had just taken off. The guy behind the counter was quite understanding and helpful in the end and he at least sorted me out a flight the same evening, although I had to pay the initial price of 472 dollars again and instead of my flight to Paris My flight was now to London. From there I’d have to take either another flight or a bus at my own expense. And No, they would definitely not pay for accomodation and let me take the flight I just missed the following day, because it was my fault for not paying after all and I should appreciate their generosity to let me rebook at the price of the original flight. Apparently they had never received my initial payment. But who has? Cos’ I certainly now was short of an extra 472 dollars! … I’m tired. Let’s sort this out when I’m home

Back at my mum’s place for a few days, I tried ridding myself of the jet lag and my mum’s fridge and pantry of all things delicious. Cuppa tea…let’s call that bank

Minutes later I’m waiting in the queue to talk to an actual person, in person, on the phone. That took about 40 minutes of listening to various tunes in the worst possible quality from a phone speaker from a landline service number in Canada I called with Voice over IP using this horrible “Skwipe” by this horrible well-known software giant founded by that tax dodger who now thinks he’s the messiah for donating what he should have paid in taxes to causes where he himself sees fit, which after all is also just a form of marketing at some point.

Anyway, in the end I have 3 phone calls with the bank. All of them last between 60 to 90 minutes. In the second one they eventually agree to send me a cheque with the 472 to an address in Germany, by post. That should take about 2 weeks so I go meet a friend in Croatia for a few days. When I come back, a letter from the bank in Canada is waiting for me. Great - 472 here we g… I open the envelope W…T…F?!. Instead of the cheque the letter contains multiple pages of legal mumbo jumbo and a form. The form is supposed to be filled in by me declaring I have never received the 472 dollars and has to be signed by a solicitor or notary.

I call them again asking what is going on. I am told by a person I hadn’t spoken to before that person didn’t know what had been agreed on before and when I mentioned the name of the person I had spoken to before and their line manager I was told that there is several call centers across the country and person couldn’t possibly know other person.

Getting this form signed would cost me about 80 to 100 euros I figured. Despite that though, the form was in English so I’d probably had a hard time finding some solicitor signing that. That I’d have to post it and the changing fee for cashing in a cheque from an overseas bank in Europe would be another extortionate sum. I mean cheques aren’t even a thing anymore in mainland Europe. I calculated that going through all of this hassle would leave me with about 100 to 200 euros at the expense of paying money for the solicitor and posting and then for cashing in the cheque. Judging how things went so far, I was getting the notion that there is a chance that this cat and mouse game of back and forth and sending me more and more ridiculous paperwork would continue at least for a little bit longer. Despite the time and frustration I would possibly also lose money eventually.

So, I still have that form in the back of my notebook…

Example 3 - The Parcel

One of my best friends came to visit me in Scotland for new year, or hogmanay as the Scots call it. We had a fantastic time together and of course he forgot something of value in my flat. We both only realised a few weeks later that I still had it when I was tidying up a bit more thoroughly. Let’s prepare him a nice surprise On my next trip to the supermarket, I get a bunch of British goodies like Branston pickle, a pack of crumpets, some cream eggs, Tunnocks caramel wafer - just to name a few. Having played an exessive amount of Tetris - actually to the extend that I can barely remember a single time I consciously had a dump as a kid - I manage to fir all of the things I got for my mate into a show box of my size 10 running shoes I had recently bought. Safe the second jar of Marmite. I book it to be shipped a s parcel online with DPD at the cost of 22 pounds. Not too bad for shipping, really

4 weeks later - yes you hear me right - 4 bloody weeks later, the online tracking says the package is on its way. 2 working days approximately I as told this would take. So after a couple of minutes finding the help form on their website I message DPD. They get back to me after two days with a link to the same form on the website of DPDLocal, which looks exactly the same - I mean the whole website has the same design just in light blue instead of red and it reads DPDLocal instead of just plain DPD. Apparently, they are somewhat the same company but not. So I fill in the form again. Void,void, void The form sends successfully, twice, yet I get no email confirmation they ever received anything. And, no surprise, neither a reply. I guess now I’ll have to do more paperwork to claim the 150 pounds for ensurance I put onto the parcel. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they told me that’s not possible because the parcel is technically still “on its way”…And I’d much rather have my friend open that show box and start crying tears of bliss whilst scoffing down some Cadbury’s chocolate.

There’s a few things that strike me. In our modern world where everyhting is ever-more connected and convenient and digital, more and more things just don’t seem to work. And, although, there also seems to be exponentially more services that do work, with ever increasing complexity one find oneself in the quicksand of beaurocracy: The harder to you struggle to get out, the deeper you get swallowed. The problem is as I probably have said already, the fact that (big) companies have a legitimised by law and law enforcement basis to get your money, quickly. However, the right to good service or your money (back) from big companies, not so quick. In fact, it is often so difficult that you just give up on it. The infuriating parts are that this often means that for “normal” modern life you can’t really partake anymore of you want to boycott these services. Moreover, in many cases you cannot possibly even boycott them because you are forced to have a bank account, possibly health insurance (which is a good thing), a phone and so on.You are simply being coerced and bullied by society to opt in. There is no opt out option. Wherever you turn, they, someone, has the right to grab into your pockets and take out some money you possibly don’t have to pay for something you possibly don’t want. All hidden and abstracted away behind walls and mazes of beaurocracy. So, Fu** You!

Interestingly, some of the companies I like least such as Amazon and Netflix have been absolutely brilliant when cancelling my accounts. It was just as easy as signing up. Took a few clicks and at the end of the next billing period all was the way I wanted it to be. Ok, they still try to lure you back in with offers and so on…but, yeah, let’s not get started on that.