Well as Tuesdays go, that was an awful steaming pile of horridness, and whilst I am not sure that horridness is either a real word, or an especially nice one, I shall endeavour to continue. Mrs Plug told me that she can tell when I have had a bad or generally frustrating day when she gets in. Apparently I bristle. Well Tuesday found me not just bristling, but developing a beard of anger that Grizzly Adams would have been impressed with. Where to start? Well emails I suppose. I realise that it is not always possible to get the tone of an email or a text absolutely right, and I have been guilty of having my messages misinterpreted, and misinterpreting others. Today though, seemed to be one of those days that led people to not only get hold of the wrong end of the stick, but to actually get the wrong stick, from the wrong tree in a forest with a different postcode. The vastness of one over-reaction was so impressive that my reaction was unusual in that I picked up the phone and laughed at the person in question, this, and several other emails and phone calls accounted for my morning. I then followed this up with the continuing saga of my youngest daughters bus pass. Oh I haven't told you about this have I? Well it is a long story so I will try to summarise without boring you or swearing, which will take a gargantuan effort. I applied for a bus pass for my youngest in September last year. Two weeks later I received the form back and the cheque advising me that the half empty bus that I see each morning is in fact full up. I asked if the bus operator was called the Marie Celeste, but this seemed to fall on deaf ears. As the weeks of inconvenience continued, I was made more and more aware that the bus was not as they had described it "full". I was collecting my daughter every Monday afternoon and getting a cab, and whilst I waited for her and the cab, I watched as about 6 children got on it and headed off. It has a capacity of 48, it says so on the side. So allowing for my slight mathematical margin of error, their assertion was wrong to the tune of approximately 32. I phoned, and advised them of this, and was told that they had to make pick ups on the way from Point A to Point B. Again, my geography skills are not widely known as anything other than basic, but there are no schools between point A and Point B. I realised though that I was getting nowhere with this particular phone call, and decided to put it into writing, again. Imagine my surprise when the next morning, I received a letter asking if I would like to renew my daughters bus pass, yes, the one we never had. The route they mentioned did indeed start from Point A, but was actually going to Point Z, which is a School that neither myself or my daughter had ever heard of. I phoned again. This time, I spoke to someone who at least understood that there may have been an error. She actually told me that "There might have been an error". I confirmed this with her enthusiastically, and suggested that we moved towards a state of affairs that I like to call "A solution". Somewhere at the other end of the telephone, I heard the sound of what I can now confidently predict, was her brain dying. She suggested that I fill in a form (Which I already had done) for the correct route (Which I already had done), and she would personally ensure that I would receive the holy grail which was my bus pass. With a skip in my step I did this, and heard nothing for two weeks, I then received a letter advising me that the bus was full. At this point, a small part of me died I seem to recall. I telephoned again, and asked to speak to a manager, and on being asked why, I replied that I was concerned that the department in question was misleadingly giving the impression of complete incompetence. As the sound of the "Point" whooshed in one ear and out of the other, she passed me to her supervisor. Her supervisor, then took my details, and promised to look into it and call me back. Three days later, I phoned to ask if she had passed away in the night, only to discover that she had lost my phone number. I suggested that she might find it sitting alongside "My will to live". We moved on though, and she was "Delighted" to advise me, that following an internal audit (Phoning another department) she had ascertained that there was indeed, one place available on the bus, and that she had reserved it for my daughter Amanda. I thanked her for this joyous news, and said that should we decide to have another daughter that I would call her Amanda, but in the meantime could I have it for my daughter who actually exists. This was duly noted. She then asked me to fill out a form (Which I had already done) for the route that I wanted, (Which I had already done). I did this, and sent it off. The letter I received a few days later surprised my in its content, in that it advised that the council no longer had responsibility for that route and that I needed to phone the private company that now had the route. I did this. They asked me to fill out a form. I asked them to email it to me. I received it. It was the same form that I had already filled out. They also asked me for passport photos of my daughter. I decided that I would do that later on in the day after a chat with my new found friend at the council. She was not available, so I spoke to her colleague who advised me that it was correct and that this bus route was indeed in the control of a private company. I asked when this had happened as it seemed awfully sudden, and she advised me that this happened in November. I asked why this wasn't mentioned at any point between November, and now (Which was January) and she advised that they had made a mistake. After congratulating her and her department on the fact that her grasp of understatement was matched only by the department's incompetence, I asked if I could have the managers email address in order that I might register my disappointment. This was given to me, and I dashed off a small essay outlining the brief summary of the debacle that was their departmental practice. I received a phone call the following day. The manager apologised, and again, not wavering, admitted that there had been a mistake. I was beginning to suspect that someone had indeed made a mistake. She went on to advise that they had indeed found my daughter a place on a "Different" bus that was still under council control. I was overjoyed that they had remembered that they also ran another service, on the same route that was almost entirely empty, and cursed their humourous forgetfulness. The lady then told me that a temporary bus pass for the next ten days had been issued to Amanda today. I thanked her, and asked if my daughter could have one too, which she said she would sort out immediately, advising me that she had made a mistake. I then asked what I needed to do about getting a non temporary bus pass. She asked me to fill out a form. At this point I was I am afraid, not very co-operative, and advised that they could use one of the many forms I had already submitted. I posted the cheque for the correct amount to the correct address, which was outlined on all of the forms. All was well. I decided to change my daughters name to Amanda to avoid any further embarrassment for the council, and awaited with child like eagerness the arrival of the permanent bus pass. the ten days passed without any arrival. I phoned, I emailed, but nothing. This brings us to today, some five moths later. They told me that they had indeed received my cheque, but it was sent to the wrong address. I growled a little at this suggestion, and I may have let the side down. I advised that my daughter was now travelling on the route without a valid pass. She advised my that this was not allowed. I asked when the pass would arrive and she said it will take another week. I then requested a new temporary bus pass. She said that I would have to speak to the school, and advise them to speak to the transport department. I did this, and the lady at the school advised my that my daughter should not have been using the service without a pass. I enthusiastically agreed and explained the situation. With her incisive skills, she was able to deduce from all that I told her about the situation, that indeed, the council had "Made a mistake". My daughter has both a new name and a new temporary bus pass. All was then well with the world, up until the point that I had walked the mile and a half to the bus stop, only to receive a call from a friend advising that my daughter had missed the bus and that she was at her house. I exclaimed my disappointment that I had just walked a mile and a half, but thanked her for her assistance, the friend brought my daughter back, She arrived home rather upset, as she had been delayed along with all of her classmates in their last history lesson by the teacher, who also happens to be the headmistress. I phoned the school to ask the lady in the office what had happened. I await a call from the headmistress with excitement and look forward to the explanation as to why a) She delayed the last lesson without holding back the coach b) Why the School didn't phone, and c) Why they allowed my daughter to wander off without really knowing where she was going. My daughter is 11.
The tone for the day was now set, and the rest of it was spent quietly seething. I am sorry if todays post is a little sarcastic, but, as Basil Fawlty once put it...."Just my way of getting through the day dear". I will of course update with further news as and when it arrives.
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