A Slight Delay

In the mail today I received a big envelope with the municipal authorities’ logo, addressed to me. Inside I found two forwarded envelopes from two different sources. No extra note attached.

One was a letter from the bank re my father’s bank accounts, dated back in early July (i.e. a few weeks after his death). For some odd reason this had been sent to the nursing home where he lived the last year of his life, instead of to me. While he lived, all official mail including bank statements were sent directly to my address. Where’s the logic?? And why the delay??

What puzzled me even more was the other letter, though, because this contained a bill and payment forms for the rent for his flat at the nursing home marked October, November and December. But… but… but…? we emptied that flat before the end of July, and no one had been demanding rent for August and September; so why now??

So I got on the phone to try and sort that out. First person could not sort it out, so she transferred me to someone else. This person too was as confused as I was. She said it was impossible. According to their computers, everything was in order, there was no remaining debt or contract in my father’s name.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on me that the bills I held in my hand were dated 2010, not 2011. They were last year’s bills. That means they were also the reason why last autumn (as I now recalled), I had to phone three months in a row and ask why we had not received a bill/payment form for the rent, and each time they had to send me an extra one. Not until the third time was I informed that their policy was to send three bills at a time. (So it was really only one letter that had got “lost” and not three.)

So. I guess someone in an anonymous office at the service center/nursing home just had a bit of an autumn-cleaning… finally getting to the bottom of that pile on their desk that had been building up for a year! (Sigh!)

 

 

  

    

Much Ado About Nothing

As faithful readers might remember, I’ve had some problems lately with my internet connection. I ended up borrowing a test modem from my internet provider for the weekend. Plugged it in when I got home on Friday and all worked fine. Then I tried to switch back last night (because I had to take the test modem back today) – but that did not work. So for a moment I thought – okay, so it was the modem after all…? Until I called them again this morning to tell them so… and learned that they had to do something back at their end as well before I could switch back… (No one had told me that.) So they did. And then it worked fine again. With my old modem. So none the wiser!

What’s more, I spoke to the same support guy today as I did last Monday, and he said he remembered my call last week. Because just after that, they had got reports that there was something wrong with the public network in my area just then after all…

I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask him: Why then did he not call back to tell me so??? I mean… Oh well, never mind… I can imagine all sorts of answers to that question. It’s just not the routine. For them, it’s probably the “simpler” solution to just let the decision already made run its course… Whether it really serves any purpose or not…

The lady at the service desk where I picked up and returned the modem also had that superb office quality of being sympathetic and polite and seemingly efficient, without really giving proper answers at all. I know how it works. I have worked in offices myself! It’s a matter of remaining calm, pretending to listen, looking or sounding like you understand, and either refer customers round in circles to other people, or tell them to wait or call back later, until they get tired and give up.

The picture shows the impenetrable fort where the Provider resides who makes it possible for me (usually) to keep in touch with you all. (Perhaps the people who really have the Power sit up in the Tower…?)

Ah well, at least today we got a nice blue photogenic sky again; even if we also have a fresh layer of icy slush on the ground, not really making long walks very tempting.

And luckily for me (and for the support guys!), the internet was still working when I got back home again.

Keeping my fingers crossed, and my cables straight, I’m hoping it will continue to do so…

One Of Those Days

One of those days. One of those phrases that can mean just about anything. In this case, another of those days when I started out determined to get certain things done; but  didn’t manage to get to “the end of the road”.

First mission was to get myself down to my health care centre and get some blood tests done for a doctor’s appointment next week (an annual check-up of this and that). Spent quite a while in the waiting room, and when I finally got in, the lab assistant asked me if I had been fasting. ?? I had not, because no one had told me that I should; and as my routine tests over the last few years have not required fasting, it had not occurred to me to ask.

I was given the option to either come back and do all the tests early next week, or do some today and the fasting ones next week. Since I was already there, and they often have problems getting enough blood out of me in one go anyway, I decided we might as well start the procedure. Hm. I hope the bruises go down over the weekend, because she had to try twice even today...

From there, I went on to the bank, with some things still to sort out about my dad’s accounts, and the decedent estate after my mum (who died over 1½ years ago). I thought I had got all that sorted last year, but apparently not. After discussions involving what seemed to be the entire staff of the bank (three people – although I guess there must be more of them in the background somewhere), we did manage to find a way round the immediate problem (part of dad’s pension still coming into an account that I can’t access from the internet, which means not being able to use that money to pay bills). Closing that account for good turned out not so easy though. (Which probably explains why it had not already been done.) And until that can be solved we’ll still be receiving bank statements for the ‘estate’. Feels a bit weird…

‘Minor’ problems really (seen in a bigger perspective) but things like this still tend to make me very tired nowadays. Got home, heated some soup for lunch, and went to bed for three hours…

Later, trying to get this posted… My Internet connection went down. Again. It has been happening more and more frequently lately…

All in all – a ‘trying’ sort of day…