pumpkinstrokemarrow

Off to a good start with an HSBC bank card which was not playing the game. Failed once, worked once, failed twice, so time to visit the card doctor, in this case the once grand branch of HSBC in Clerkenwell Road. Where the helpful ladies gave me money on the strength of my old person's bus pass and told the computer that I would like a new card. New card arrived about 48 hours later and worked first time.

Next off at the Post Office where, while standing in line, I observed what looked like a rather large and newly retired gent. attempting to negotiate with the counter clerk on the rate he would get for his 300 or 400 euros. Not good enough says the gent.. I can do better than that at Waterloo station. So having queued up at a place which was unlikely to offer him anything other than what it said on the board, he is going all the way to Waterloo to queue up again. Maybe he will save himself a fiver or so, but clearly retired to be happy to spend so much time on such a matter.

Then it was my turn, and I present the form and cheque from FIL to purchase a modest amount of great-grand-sprogular premium bonds. We were going to have done the deed by post but 'Post Office' having got onto the cheque, I thought I might as well do it that way. Oh no you don't sez the man behind the jump. You have completed some of the form in blue ink rather than black. Completely unacceptable. Go away and try again with this new form. OK so it did say on the form that black ink preferred, but then they all say that. A custom from the bad old days when machines for reading forms did indeed have trouble with blue ink. But that was a long time ago and I am quite sure that the industrial strength scanners used by the likes of NI&S today could not care less; my bottom of the range domestic job clearly does not. Can you tell the difference? But the man behind the jump clearly could and I did not attempt to butter him up. I just stomped crossly off and I shall dare him to refuse the rewritten form on Monday.

There is something about some front office jobs which brings out the pedant in people. Perhaps the opportunity to have a pop at people who are not stuck behind a counter all day is too much for them. I have noticed the tendency before at Post Offices and at British Rail ticket offices - although I have to say less often at these last now that they have been privatised. Perhaps the managers for the private operators really do care more about that aspect of customer relations than the old style managers for the nationalised industries. I am reminded that British Rail was also, in the olden days, an organisation in which the unions thought that working to rule was a rather nifty way of going on strike.

Another domain where pedants have been licensed is data protection. Not doubt a well intentioned act addressing a real problem, but it has certainly proved a pedants' license. So, for example, the estate agent handling the sale of the next door house for an absent owner refused to have any kind of a meaningful discussion with me about possible problems arising from a large and dying tree on the grounds that such a discussion would infringe the DPA rights of said absent owner. Very similar style of person to the nationalised industry pedant. I expect they breed freely in local authority climes too.

I ought to give the reference to my last offering on this subject, vaguely in favour of pedants as I recall, but neither Blogger nor Google search finds it. But impressively, Google finds this post seconds after it was posted. Maybe Blogger customers get privileged access to the Google indexer.