System Failure

This last year has been a revelation in many ways.

Currently I am waiting for 8 outstanding complaints, some escalated to formal, to be resolved.

• An Amazon seller sold me a supposedly new plinth heater which didn't work.It has a bent casing, broken fan & rusty screws. I didn't know he was an individual seller not a bona fide trader. He admits he bought it for himself & then decided he didn't want it. He hasn't sent a refund label & isn't responding. Getting Amazon to do something about it has been very difficult & wasted huge amounts of time.
• Thames Water got my bills wrong for my rental & the house I've bought. They also tried to debit my account for a monthly payment of £23,537.00 which resulted in my bank sending me 4 warning texts about being overdrawn. It's not resolved & almost caused me to have a heart attack!
• I notified Oxford City Council that I was moving out of the rental & into my house. They have sent me a notification for the coming year council tax for the rental & my own house tax still isn't right.
• The company who supplied my side door haven't done the inside the colour I ordered. I have no keys or trickle vents for the windows, which were delayed by months.
• Another glazing supplier has put some wrong fittings in & used rusty screws. The front door which I ordered months ago still hasn't arrived.
• The gutters & dreainpipes, supposedly matching the metal cladding on my extension, are the wrong colour. The drainpipes actually go on top of the cladding, so it is really obvious.
• My mobile supplier seems to be unable to get me reliable mobile reception in my house or outside it. I live in a city with no tall buildings around me.
• I am still waiting for delivery of fittings for my wardrobes which were ordered before Christmas.

Why are big companies, the building trade & utilities, so broken? Is it really simply the result of a devastating financial crash, Brexit & Covid resulting in a broken supply chain & huge staffing issues? I am really beginning to wonder. I do understand the underlying transport, raw materials & staffing problems. But organisations have had years to adapt & re-organise. The fundamental problem seems to be communication in the 21st century, which has the most effective communications ever. There is also an underlying staff training & skills problem, which hasn't been resolved.

The other revelation is that I have coped with all of this & more. I have taken each problem & eventually found a way to resolve it. But it has taken a massive toll on my time, energy, health & finances. 

My point in Blogging about this is that it shouldn't happen. No system is perfect, but people have a right to expect that when problems arise they will be dealt with speedily & efficiently. I can't tell you how utterly fed up with phone menus, irritatingly repetetive music & messages telling me to hold every 12 seconds I am. It is like Chinese water torture - it can literally drive you mad.

 

You just have to remember that the person you ultimately speak to is hardly ever the one who is responsible for the problem.