This morning, I had occasion to make a phone call. This call was in response to mail from the insurance folk who look after our home insurance. The mail helpfully reminded me this was due for renewal and, if the attached terms were acceptable, it would renew with an automatic payment using my card of record.
This is cool other than the previously used card has expired. How hard would it be to mention this on the ‘reminder’ mail? Anyhoo, I journeyed to their Web place, logged in and found the obvious spot to change card details. I was met by a helpful message along the lines of, “You cannot change any information here as a transaction is scheduled in the next few days.” Bummer. More so for them than me.
And that is wot led to the dreaded official telling-bone call. First-up was, “Please key-in your date of birth in six digit format.” and that I did.
”Please key-in the first two letters of your post code.” This I couldn’t do as the key pad point blank refused to cycle from numeric to alphabetic. “I didn’t understand that. Please wait for an operator.” I can do that.
Surprisingly, a lady operator came along instantly which made me wonder what the first bit was all about but let’s not give that no never mind right now.
After explaining the reason for my call, things went along well with the exception of suddenly hearing loud tones and chimes coming down the line.
”Sorry,” said the lady, “That was my computer.”
”That’s a relief.” Said I, “I thought it was my pace maker. It tends to overload and sound alarms when I’m parting with money.” Okay, not my best line but, going by the sounds now coming down the line, more than well received.
I stated, in answer to her question, that I was happy to accept the quote and she said the funds would be deducted at the time of renewal and that’s when I lost all interest and drifted off.
Why? Well, you remember the paper days when you got your insurance certificate, one sheet, with a further ten sheets of the aptly named small print, font size one, which was ignored and filed away never to be seen again until making a claim and being informed they don’t pay out for that. “Didn’t you read the small print?”
Seems if you do this stuff on the phone you avoid the small print but have to suffer the small talk as the lady proceeded to recite the whole bag load of everything. This failed to hold my interest for as much as a nano-second and I promptly drifted off to another galaxy far, far away.
I crashed back to earth upon hearing the lady say, “Hello? Happy with all that then?”
“I’m sorry, I missed a bit. Could you repeat it all please?”
”Whu...”
”Kidding.”
”Oh. Happy then?” To which there was really only one reply and that was the reply I offered. “That would be entirely dependant upon your definition of ‘happy’.”
I hung up the phone with my ears ringing to the happy sound of my briefly encountered lady friend smiling out loud. There’s absolutely no nicer sound than that of laughter at nine thirty ante meridiem of a grey, rainy morning.
Quote; Ambrose Bierce.
“TELEPHONE n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.”
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