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Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Get Real

Had a situation where I had to get a signed document to a government division back at home. This was unplanned and unknown until days after we arrived, but a situation where a response was required within a certain time frame.

Not a problem in this day of internet and instant communications right? Wrong!

First of all in the course of a phone call with the ‘press 1, press 2, can we confuse you’ routine the message includes a reading of almost everything that was included in the written snail mail sent to the home address.

I know what it says and I must be able to read because I am making this phone call because of it. Then the voice says: “You can leave a message, but don’t leave a message unless it is really really important, because all the information is included in the package we sent you. If you must leave a message, do so for only extremely important things. Because our offices are so busy, it will take 3 – 4 days for us to call you back.”

Now I am thinking, they are telling me not to leave a message unless it is really really important. But they are not going to call back until 3 or 4 days, because they don’t think what I think is important is important. Get it?

On top of that they want signed documents within a certain time frame that is already almost expired. But you can’t send an email attachment, you can’t send a PDF file, it has to be faxed, or sent by snail mail.

Faxed, what the h$%% is that? Oh those old fashioned squeaky sounding machines that screech and hum and screech and whirrr, taking ten minutes to send a page – or two.

So it takes me over an hour to compose this fax message, including a drive to somewhere that has a fax machine, and pay to have this signed document faxed to them. It could have been done in 3 minutes.

Why do they tell us to be ‘green', take advantage of online contacting and doing business, save trees by saving paper, yet they only accept a fax?