Gripe of the day - What is yours?

[Sir Trev]

So called support teams. My work laptop has stopped letting me drill into transactions to view the invoices they're attached to. Raised a ticket, two teams passed thd buck, and a third spent about four hours yesterday remotely logged in, stopping me doing anything. It was clear they had no clue and were trying things at random with crossed fingers. Another route I tried today suggested I contact, you guessed it, the same guys who failed yesterday. No!

Gave up and put in a request for a new laptop instead. My old one is coming up six years old but support were adamant it was nothing to do with it. Hmm.....

[Sir Trev]

Well, my new work laptop has arrived, so of course nothing went to plan.

I'm based in our company's head office, which has a deskside support team, so on the order ticket I asked for the delivery to go straight to them for setup. It just sat in the post room all morning until the dopy support guys asks me if it's up and running yet. Give me strength. So I go and get it, power if up and it wants the WiFi password, which we're never given (so visitors cannot be told). Call support. Oh, you have to use the new one. Which is?? The moron didn't know the password... 20 minutes later its connected and takes an hour to set itself up. Then Support of the Year cannot log in remotely to set up my apps as it's on the new network and he's on the old one. He's grudgingly coming into the office tomorrow to set it up, WHICH IS WHAT I ASKED FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

On the plus side (clutching at straws here) this 7340 is tiny and really light compared to my six year old brick.

[Sir Trev]

After walking past my desk twice while on the phone to me saying "where are you?" I managed to get the attention of Support of the Year by yelling "Put your phone down and look around you for the balding old bloke shouting at you!" Not a great start.

I was told at least a dozen times that he came in especially from Birmingham to sort my machine out. Not sure why as I saw his boss later who's in the office almost every time I go in. After faffing about for 20 minutes, telling me another dozen times that he used to fork for RBS when they had a "really bad outage", he gave up and took the machine downstairs. 30 mins later it was working. I bet it was his boss who got if sorted. Apps loaded, drives mapped, he leaves happy. Of course, it did not work when I plugged it into the dock station but I worked out why without him needing to come back.

I can now view all the documents I need to actually do my job, so time to start catching up. Hopefully this one will last six years before I need Support, like the old one did.

[Ruffy]

Well it's that unavoidable bill time of the year, and the Council Tax and Water Rates have just landed.

Council Tax up 4.7% - broadly as expected (due to capping rules) but still almost well over inflation. And we've had the PR from the authorities about how difficult it is to spread the funds, so I guess we're likely to see [continuing] deterioration in services. Why is there always enough money for more speed humps but never enough to fill potholes properly? And ironically, what they never seem to realise is that I'd actually be happy to pay double the portion allocated to "Police & Crime Commissioner" if it meant double the number of real crime-preventing/fighting bobbies on the streets.

But my real GOTD is the 27.3% hike in my annual water bill. WTF, how much!!!! (Severn-Trent Water in my case.) Now I know why I've been receiving so much email about network improvements etc over recent weeks. Propaganda to try to warm us all up to the shock, eh?! Well it hasn't worked and personally I think it's outrageous they can get away with this siae of uplift for an unavoidable monopoly provision. IMHO it's just a sign of underinvestment and profiteering in many previous years - really poor management not to be able to forecast better and justify a smoother long term cost profile. FWIW, letter of complaint to regulator and MP coming!

[svenrico]

Funny price rises should be mentioned. In tonight's local paper ,York and North Yorkshire Council have just announced £31,000 is the cost of rebranding with a new logo. They even try to justify it with bull**** about the meaning of the logo signifying various things about the county that most people will have a job to see even when it is explained .

[Luckypants]

My CT bill just arrived and has gone up 5%. My water bill has barely changed as we are not charged for supply due to it being unreliable. The whole village is on the same 'deal'

[redtrummy]

About time water was re-nationalised followed by the trains and all utility services

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by redtrummy

About time water was re-nationalised followed by the trains and all utility services

Absolutely!

[Sir Trev]

Our water bill has gone up 38%. Thanks Thames Water.

[embee]

The biggest worry with nationalised industries is that the worst possible organisation to actually run anything is the government (of any colour). Politicians aren't interested in running anything, they are only interested in changing things, unfortunately change is just an illusion of progress.

Quote from Gaius Petronius Arbiter, circa AD60 (alleged)
“We trained hard—but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”