Professionally as well as personally I am generally known as a pretty tough cookie. I’ve seen a lot of the world, experienced a lot, worked with a lot of kids and families. I don’t blink that easily. And last week, after two weeks of idiotic (I just stopped to make sure I wanted to use that word and I found I did) and ridiculous, pointless bureaucratic runaround I was brought to tears. Tears of utter and complete frustration.
The cause? I wanted to open a bank account. No big deal, you say. So I would have thought. But no. It took me 19 days to open a bank account—at a bank where I already have three accounts. Is this because I have bad credit? No, that was never checked. Because I have a police record? No, no one ever asked about that. No, the issue had to do with…h’mmm. I’m not sure because no one could ever really tell me. There were just hoops to jump through and the hoops kept changing. Whatever I did one day wasn’t good enough for the next day’s hoop.
I have been a customer of the bank where I wanted to open a bank account for 13 years. I have three accounts at that bank, all in good standing. I have never had an overdraft. I have been the model customer. Did that matter? Apparently not. Why? Well, after talking to one person, then another, then another, then still another, and another, I finally learned that one part of the bank cannot or does not communicate with the other part of the bank. Perhaps that makes sense, but I am mystified as to why. It must have something to do with “too big to fail”…
After submitting my application, I waited four or five days then received an e-mail stating that I needed to e-mail a document to the bank. I did so immediately. Then several days later I received a mysterious communication (that contradicted the other communication I received simultaneously) that I had to call a number at the bank. Again, I complied, There I learned that I needed to produce my telephone bill. My telephone bill? Yes. Now if I were a bit more modern and did not still have a land line, I would have hit a complete stumbling block.
Okay, I won’t bore you with the rest of the saga that finally culminated this very morning with my having my new bank account. My point is the level of frustration, the time and energy I spent trying to do a simple, everyday yet necessary task.
I’ve had some bad luck recently with a $15 credit card charge somehow turning into $15,000. Now everyone involved agreed that it was a mistake. However, it still took approximately 15 phone calls (usually getting different information from the last phone call) and FIVE weeks to correct the mistake. Hearing the scripted, insincere apologies from the people with whom I spoke on the phone frankly increased my frustration because an apology is supposed to have meaning. Again, frustration, time and energy wasted--mine as well as all the people who spent their work day dealing with this made-up problem and my mounting frustration. Can that be a cost effective way to do business? Maybe, but I can’t figure out how.
Am I alone dealing with modern everyday frustration of talking to computers, to people who are only able or allowed to read from scripts that usually don’t have anything to do with the problem at hand? Am I alone? I sincerely doubt it. Well, I know I’m not.
How much frustration do we wish to cause each other in our world? How much frustration can any one of us actually tolerate before we break? And what do those breaks look like?
Important questions, I think.
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