by David Jones
This week, feeling especially curmudgeonly after a couple of unexpectedly high bills, I had intended to complain again about everything I have ever complained about. Sadly, space and time do not allow me to reprise all my rants, but I will enlarge upon a recent observation made to me by a friend of equally mature years.
“Do you know,” he said. “I don’t think anything today is as good as it used to be.” It’s an interesting view but one not uncommon among those on the wrong side of 60. They, or rather we, always view the past through rose-tinted spectacles. It’s on the job description for grey-haired folk about to draw their pension.
Things were always better in that distant land we call the past. They were, weren’t they?
What better place to start than the NHS. To get a next-day appointment with your GP, you first have to convince the receptionist that you only have hours to live. It didn’t used to be like that. These days, if you want speedy treatment, it’s best to be knocked down by a bus or develop a terminal illness. Dodgy hip? Forget it.
The minor injuries unit at our hospital has been closed for weeks because of “staff sickness.” I was asked to make a 20-mile round trip to another to get my foot checked out.
A regional NHS spokesman says the situation at our local minor injuries unit is “not sustainable in the long term.” I fear that is NHS-speak for “we’re going to close it”.
Many of the NHS millions over the last 10 years have been spent on “administrators” – people who do nothing but attend meetings and write trendy slogans on wall charts. So much for progress.
Now for call centres… Make an attempt to get in touch with a large organisation and you will end up dealing with one of these. On average, it takes about four times longer to get in touch with a call centre than it did when you simply dialled the number of a local office.
And why is it that staff in call centres are so poor at communication? You might think that language and communication skills should be at the top of their job description. It seems to be at the bottom.
They also tend to be clueless about geography, because they are based hundreds of miles away or on the other side of the world. “Strood, that’s in Gloucestershire, isn’t it?” So much for local knowledge.
Oh, and I mustn’t forget banks. Remember bank managers? They knew all their customers. Try talking to a “bank manager” today and you will be shown into a small room where you have to listen to the accumulated wisdom of a spotty-faced 20-year-old wearing a name-tag which says “Gary” or “Lee.” Or “Sharon”, who looks as though she is still in the fifth form. So much for knowing your customers.
Supermarkets remain high on my list of despised institutions. They patronise their staff by calling them “colleagues” and they patronise their customers. So, it’s “our” store is it? And I thought it still belonged to Asda or Marks & Spencer’s. They reduce one essential by 50p and put another up by £1. Don’t insult our intelligence.
Energy companies aren’t far behind on my hate list. Watch your bills creep up a month or two after you switch suppliers for “a better deal.”
You can’t even escape “centralisation” if you are unfortunate enough to be a defendant, or a witness for that matter, due to appear in court. Courts are closing all over the country and for some this will now involve an unacceptably long journey. Even if they are there on time they may not be able to get home again if they rely on public transport. So much for local justice.
You will no doubt have noticed, dear reader, that I have not yet mentioned the word “computer.” None of us could exist without them, could we? Do your Christmas shopping online, book a cheap flight online, find out anything about anyone via Google. Computers have made us all lazy. But I will admit they have made the job of the journalist easier. No more carbon paper, no more clapped-out typewriters, just clapped-out computers.
And what would we do without mobile phones? Have a stress-free life is the answer. Strange though it may seem to anyone under 30, there was an age when mobile phones, or computers, did not exist. Unbelievably, we survived.
When we went on holiday, we were on holiday. Nobody rang us or texted us. And we sent postcards to our loved ones bearing stamps from exotic and sometimes not so exotic places. It was a delight receiving a postcard, even from Benidorm.
There was no sending pictures from a mobile phone. Mobile phones have taken the mystery, even the romance, out of holidays. We did not Tweet, or use Facebook to tell all our “friends” what we were doing every hour of every day. Our lives were private, or as private as we wanted them to be.
It was also possible to be a first-time home buyer. I feel sorry for young couples wanting to get a foot on the housing ladder. Today, for most youngsters, the dream of home ownership will remain just that – a dream.
OK, there are some things which have improved. We could all draw up our own list.
Despite what I said about the NHS, medicines and surgical techniques have made dramatic advances, which is why we are all living longer. That’s one change no one’s going to complain about.
Living longer, we can now all spend our twilight years secure in the knowledge that everything is better these days. And bigger means better, we are told. But, fellow Codgers we’re not fooled are we? We know they’re doing it for them, not for us.
“Bigger” might mean bigger profits or a more cost-effective method of operating but all too often the impact on those at the receiving end, namely you and me, does not figure in the equation.
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