What you need to do is..... I can think of a choice response. But I won't go there.
David Cameron's new UK has become full of public sector voices politely stating, I'm sorry I can't.... (insert relevant commissioning rule or service led self protection strategy) what YOU NEED TO DO IS...... Even in Boris' government this continues under the guise of austerity……
Banks are also exceedingly good at this, as are some service providers, shops, care services, health services, post offices etc.
All have a spokes person, receptionist, manager, etc who quote rules of practice in a manor which indicates that you are simple minded and ill educated for not knowing the exacting criteria under which they will or will not grant your wishes. Your wishes of course being completely unrealistic as they do not meet the specific criteria box, set by some bureaucrat.
To the fully able adult these rules are easily accepted and adapted to. Possibly for those who are retired or not working full time this may be easier depending on circumstance.
I have finally come to the end of my tether. I am tired of being told that employees are being abused by me and and that they have a policy to guard against my behaviour (this being curt tone only, no swearing, threatening, aggression or anything of that kind, however there is the periodic reluctance to waste my time listening to explanations about services criteria which I obviously do not fit and therefore am not going to benefit from, yet am expected to stand around and listen about as though this will solve my problems and provide me with the necessary paperwork I am lacking)
I was reminded yet a gain of this when I travelled from one chemist to another, to another, to another etc trying to fill a prescription for a medication which cannot be stopped and will have life terminating consequences if it does. After years of dealing with similar conversations time and time again. You may say I should have planned ahead. I did, I placed the order a week ago, the chemist held onto it and did not let me know they do not have it in stock and have not been able to get it. When the last vile we had proved to be faulty causing me to need the new prescription, I was unable to get it, yet obviously I should have planned a head for this
eventuality.
It amazes me that there is no system for ascertaining what chemists have what on stock when a medication is needed that evening at 6.30pm.
At other times you are met by someone smiling, you tell them what you need, for example to amend a Power of Attorney at a bank.
That person is smiley and polite, you explain what you need. They disappear and come back, sorry we are unable to..... In order for us to do that you just need to..... Usually this involves travelling home to collect something, or travelling elsewhere in the country to confirm something or needing to apply for paperwork from another agency who also need another piece of paper completed by another agency before they can assist you etcertera, etcetera etcertera ( yes I have been watching the king and I)
Unfortunately for the smiling helpful person on the phone or behind a desk, this is the first experience of me. For me it is my 10th month of them doing one simple task of many apparently simple tasks, which are in no way simple, and after 9 years that is a lot.
And yet although I have tried every available formula, explaining, planning ahead, providing ample evidence, pleading, clarification simplification, calmness, crossness, minimal responsiveness, and finally blowing a gasket of frustration and listing the reasons why it is not possible for me to 'just'..... In the time frame I have available, I get the composite of two responses 'what you need to do is'. Or 'you are raising your voice to me I find that offensive, we have a zero tolerance policy on abuse'.
I have a zero tolerance policy on being sent on thankless, impossible to achieve errands by public bodies and large companies, who change the rules, blame each other or just respond with the equivalent of 'computer says no' at every junction.But as a single, exhausted person I am impotent, at the will of the faceless rule maker who neither know nor cares for my need to just enter a building as I did when I managed my own care and finances and just spoke to someone, thanked them and went away to get on with my life. Those were the days when I slept, when I went to work and then came home via the gym, when I went out at the weekend for brunch and a walk in the moors.
What makes it even more exasperating, is that not only do I not have a hand book of the rules and regulations which I am beholden to, but as soon as I have heard them frequently enough to try and work within them, than they appear to change and new evidence, information etc is required. No
t to mention staff who have differing comprehension of the rules.
So what corrupt behaviour am I performing? Well it's things like trying to get test strips for blood sugar, or insulin, trying to amend poa's, trying to get my dustbins emptied when I forgot three times in a two month period because I was dashing between university for my child in first year, school for another child, hospital for my husband, chemist's for my mother and hospital for my father as he was dying. Hard enough to do when in the same county, these were five counties apart in apposite directions. And it continues on without my father but still with everyone else.
So has Cameron achieved his big society? No!!!! society is becoming increasingly concerned with self sustainability.
My service, my family, my wants, my needs, my boundaries, my limitations, MY PROBLEM.
As money is squeezed walls are being erected. Gone has the old British fighting spirit where people club together to help one another, it each man for himself now. This is a dangerous place to be. And eats at our very souls.
I understand that in the past, some have been directed and pushed into learned helplessness but I am not one of these I am one person who cannot be all the things demanded of me by the constraints placed upon me. I can't drop everything to drive across town to fill in a form because the consequence will be that I may miss a meal being given on time, or an insulin dose or a dialysis slot, or I will miss my own meal again. Or miss booking my own dentist, opticians, doctor appointment for lack of time.
These things have a cumulative effect, we need some flexibility to allow things to be done possibly in retrospect or on line or have priority options available. Merely telling people off is not helpful and pushes people into ill health, or opting out or mood disorders.
None of which is beneficial for society or the smiley happy person who just happens to be the 15th person that week who utters the phrase 'wh
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