rARsh!

Money well spent

<wakes grouchy from a sleep>
£10 million to investigate why two people where weren’t wearing seatbelts while travelling in a car being steered by a drunk driver at speed through a city pursued by the 20th century’s incarnation of the History Monks died?

That’s got to be value for money, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, if Phil the Greek does have connections with hitmen and the like, can he please do something about al Fayed before he wastes any more of taxpayers’ fucking money?

That is all.
<settles back down>

Bits and, indeed, pieces

Well, I’ve told Tall Andy what’ll be happening once I get a financial cushion in place – my plan to hand over the resignation this evening to tie in with the new structure which falls into place in a month’s time was shelved. Soon, though. Oh yes.

Woman warned me about Kirsti and her preference for drinking straight from the tap. To my shame I’d assumed she was exaggerating but I’ve been proven wrong. In fact, on Tuesday evening, the silly madam sat in the sink as I was finishing brushing my teeth, so I left the tap on for a while for her to drink her fill.

When I returned I found she’d been sitting over the plug and was waist deep in water – quite happily so, I hasten to add. My, how I laughed. She ran off when I grabbed a towel so I assumed she’d sort herself out and went to bed.

Five minutes later I was joined by a soaking wet cat. It’s like one of those genie’s wishes that’s been twisted …

I have established that she’s not too fond of hot water, though, as she soon changed her mind after joining me in the shower one morning.

That’s one weird feline you’ve given me, Woman!

The N800 tablet is bloody marvellous. It makes me wish the bus journey from the Park and Ride to the bus station was longer. Who knows – once I’ve handed in my letter I may switch to the train for my last few weeks.

Tomorrow’s potentially Kirsti’s first day outside (not for a lack of trying on her part this week – both the postie and a meter reader had the front door slammed in their face before I’d ushered her to safety, opened the door and explained/apologised). I foresee an interesting time to be had by all.

If we tolerate this, then your children will be next

As I mentioned in passing on Thursday, we’ve had another reorganisation at work. This time they’ve excelled themselves.

As a result of this restructuring I find that I will, from April, be reporting to one of two managers both of whom are, I’m sorry to say, idiots. Yes, they’ve broken up the Lionel:Tall Andy dream ticket.

Now I’m being unfair to whichever of the managers I’ll be reporting (or Tweedledum and Tweedledumber as I’ve christened them (which is probably unfair too)). After all, I have ultimate confidence in the Evil Overlords’ ability to consistently choose the best person for each rôle. Of course I do. Perhaps I’m just bitter because I wasn’t given the option of applying for Voluntary Redundancy but then not all of those who had the option and asked for VR were given it, one of whom was allegedly told they’d not be allowed to leave because they had too much knowledge of something or other. If that’s the criteria, then, I’ll never get VR.

So what should I do? I was sorely tempted to confront the department’s glorious leader on Thursday and demonstrate to him beyond any possibility of misunderstanding my suggested alternative location for my job (although this would need him to remove his trousery garments) but common sense – and Tall Andy – prevailed. I’ve slept on it since and discussed it with young Kirsti. She thinks I should stay at home so that I can be at her beck and call but Woman’s warned me that I’ll not see madam once summer comes and she’s allowed out so I’m treating the cat’s impartiality with a pinch of salt.

The fact remains, though, that we’re going through restructures at an average of one every year at worst. In fact, we’re going through department heads at much the same rate, each one having their own idea of what we should be doing and how. Up until now I’ve been hanging on hoping for VR at each reorganisation but it seems the Overlords are getting wise to this. After all, why pay people thousands of pounds to leave when they’re getting close to walking out anyway? It just doesn’t make economic sense, does it?

My evenings of contemplation have reduced the chance of me telling them to shove it from 100% and taking the Boss with me to a mere 95% or so (+/- 5%) but I’m going to give it until the end of the month before I make a final decision*. After all, the new structure starts from 1st April (a telling choice of date in my opinion) and it’d be very considerate of me to tie in my departure with the new structure, wouldn’t it?

In other news, though, I’ve got a Nokia N800 and it’s bloody brilliant. It’ll pick up a ridiculous number of WiFi hotspots – far more than any laptop I’ve ever had – and will even connect to the Norwhag OpenZone network at my desk when the office’s street isn’t even in the official coverage area. When paired with a neat 3G phone it’ll connect from anywhere I can’t find a free hotspot. An 800 x 480 pixel screen means that I get an almost-normal internet experience (although I do need to use the built-in zoom on some pages). Bloody marvellous, that’s what it is.

It doesn’t seem to like some of the scripts in WordPress, though, but I can install Maemo WordPy to get around that. I think I’ll be returning to the N800 soon as I find more wonderful features.

Overall, then, it’s been a bit of a 50:50 week!

* Of course if someone from the Overlords find this and recognises me that’ll probably make the decision for me anyway

An hour and forty one minutes

I’ve had “The Step-son Experience”.

Anyone would think his birthday was imminent.

Shame I can’t take a hint.

I’m back – inevitably I need to let off steam

Hats off to Abbey.

“The depth of Santander’s experience and the strength of Abbey in the UK can only be good news for both shareholders and customers, who will benefit from better products and service as part of one of the world’s biggest banking groups”

I beg to differ.

It’s rare that a company manages to be both incompetent and officious so I feel that due recognition should be paid to this particular bunch of fuckwitted baboons¹.

I was especially delighted by their member of staff’s explanation of why Wuglums and I had to re-prove our identity due to some information not having been transferred when certain accounts were moved from an Abbey computer system to a Santander computer system.

“But why is that our problem? It’s your system that’s at fault.” was my perfectly reasonable challenge.

“No, it’s a Santander system.”

“YOU’RE PART OF SANTANDER!”

I hadn’t meant to raise my voice so suddenly (although I had planned to complain loudly to anyone who would listen about what we’d thought was just a delay to their issuing of paperwork rather than the incompetence which had been readily admitted) but it was well deserved. I didn’t mention it at the time for some reason but this is the same company who initially blamed the delay on my having been served (back in April or May) by a member of staff who had since left their employ- as if that, too, was in some way my fucking fault! I’ve heard of companies trying to get away from a “blame culture” but Abbey seem to have misinterpreted this to mean that they cannot be blamed for anything and that it’s always the customer who has to be inconvenienced.

The bank admits ‘service has not been good enough’ and acts to tackle its backlog

If you have any financial connection whatsoever with Abbey I would strongly recommend that you sever it with indecent haste. I wouldn’t trust them to manage my worst enemy’s birthday party let alone any aspect of my finances.

There – that feels better.

¹ No offence meant to baboons who are not working for Abbey

Licenced to breed

Surely the day cannot be far off when prospective parents are required to apply for a licence before they can inflict their offspring on the rest of us.

Two stories from this week make me wish the day was even closer:

More than 10% of the 1,000 parents asked had struggled to understand some words in the stories they had read to their five to 10-year-old children.

Parents said that they made up words they could not read or missed out difficult passages, the survey said.

from BBC News

I’m sorry, but if you’re not literate enough to cope with a child’s bedtime story, how on earth are you going to cope with daily living and be able be protect your children? Can you be sure that you’ve understood directions on medicine? You can’t just make up or skip those directions.

I therefore propose that all prospective parents prove that they have the skills to care for a child before being given permission to breed.

What’s that? You’re not convinced? Then read on – but I must warn you that today’s story is even more frightening: More »

It’s only Doctor Who …

… but for goodness’ sake. If they’d wanted to revive an old character then even Bonnie “Irritating” Langford would have been a better choice than the truly awful Catherine Tate.

Oh well. At least it lasted for three decent series before it got stupid.

Lionel vs ShittiBank

It’s my own fault, I suppose. It can’t be ShittiBank’s fault can it?

Allow me to explain.

I’m trying to upgrade my Flickr account to a pro account. Easy enough, you’d think, but you’re not taking into account the bloodymindedness of ShittiBank’s overzealous security department.

I entered the card details and pressed “continue” only to get the message:

There is an error in the payment method information. Please check the information and re-enter it or use another payment method. If the problem persists, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care.

I checked the information and re-entered it (because it was correct the first time). Again I see:

There is an error in the payment method information. Please check the information and re-enter it or use another payment method. If the problem persists, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care.

Grrrr. I seem to recall a problem with this bloody credit card when I was buying the monster lens from WarehouseExpress. Unfortunately, flickr doesn’t offer another suitable payment method. I cursed ShittiBank and – as if my magic – the telephone rang.

“Good afternoon. I am … from the security department of ShittiBank. Is this Mr d’Lion?”

“It is.”

We established my identity before the strange conversation continued.

“I am calling to verify two payments to Yahoo! Wallets were made by you.”

“There weren’t any payments because the website claims there was an error with my details. No payment was made.”

“That is correct. Was this payment for one dollar?”

“No. There was no payment.”

“Yes, but if there was a payment would it have been for one dollar?”

“No. It would have been for $24.95.”

“I see.”

“Can I just clarify something? You’ve just called me to verify that I tried to make payments but failed.”

“That is correct.”

“This means that the transaction got as far as your systems.”

“Yes.”

“And it was then refused. Did ShittiBank decline these payments?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The security department monitors your account and blocks any suspicious transactions if we believe there is a possibility of fraud.”

“You think I’m committing fraud?”

“No, not at all. We believed there was a possibility that someone else was committing fraud.”

“Oh, ok. But you’re now satisfied that I am the cardholder and that I am trying to make this payment?”

“Yes I am. Thank you very much.”

I use my credit card so infrequently it would seem that I triggered some sort of stupid alarm. Never mind.

I give the idiot a few minutes to update their ShittiSystems and then return to flickr.com. Oh for fuck’s sake:

There is an error in the payment method information. Please check the information and re-enter it or use another payment method. If the problem persists, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care.

I ring ShittiBank and eventually get through to someone who is as human as their staff gets.

“How may I help you?”

“I’m trying to make an online payment but your security department is blocking this. I want to know why.”

“How do you know that our secu…”

“Because your security department rang me to verify that I was the cardholder and that I was trying to make the payment and they’re still blocking the payment.”

“Oh. Can you hold while I speak to the security department?”

“Oh yes. I’ll be very interested to hear what they say.”

A few minutes pass.

“Mr d’Lion?”

“Yes.”

“I have spoken with my colleagues in the security department and they have confirmed that they spoke to you.”

“Did they also confirm that they have blocked my attempts to make payment?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Good. How do I make this payment, then, if the security department is going to block every attempt I make? Does this card even work online?”

“Oh yes, the card works online.”

“I only ask because I seem to recall having the same problem the last time I tried to use the card online. In fact, I don’t recall ever being able to make a payment online using this card.”

“I think it is because the card is not used very often that the security department are monitoring payment.”

At this I may have raised my voice a little.

“THEY’RE NOT MONITORING USAGE – THEY’RE PREVENTING USAGE! THE CARD CAN’T BE USED VERY OFTEN BECAUSE YOUR SECURITY DEPARTMENT BLOCKS EVERY PAYMENT I TRY TO MAKE WITH IT.”

There was silence at the other end of the line. I lowered my voice.

“Sorry about that. This is rather frustrating. Can you explain to me how I can use this card to make an online payment?”

“You’ll have to speak to the retailer.”

“‘Speak’ to the retailer?”

“Yes. They will be able to put through a manual transaction.”

“I see. So what you’re saying is that the way for me to make an online payment is to make a payment over the phone.”

“Yes.”

“Not online.”

“No.”

“So how do I make an online payment with this card? Do you understand why I’m getting a little annoyed here?”

“I do. I will check with the security department. Can you hold?”

“Oh yes.”

She wasn’t away as long this time.

“I have spoken to the Security Department and that have confirmed that a manual transaction will be authorised.”

I took a deep breath.

“Ok, then. So we’re basically agreeing, then, that there is no point in my having this credit card if I ever want to use it online because your security department will block any online payment because it thinks they’re suspicious.”

“I cannot do anyth…”

“I’m not asking you to do anything other than confirm that what I’m saying is correct. Will the security department continue to block any online payment because I’ve not made many online payments before?”

“I cannot say.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Right. I’ll have to make my online payment by phone, then. Ridiculous.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with today, Mr d’Lion?”

“You haven’t exactly helped me with my original query so I doubt you can help with anything else. Oh, wait. There is one question.”

“Yes?”

“Is this security department part of ShittiBank or part of Visa?”

“We are employed by ShittiBank.”

“I was wrong, then. You have helped me. I now know that if I change my card provider I will be able to get an acceptable level of service. Thank you, thank you so much.”

“But …”

“Can I just stop you there? Unless you are about to tell me that you can personally guarantee that the next time I try to use my card online it will be accepted, our conversation is over. There’s nothing left to discuss. Were you about to offer me that personal guarantee?”

“No.”

“Good afternoon, then.”

“Good afternoon.“