A Few Bad Eggs

26-08-2011

Oh it's been a while, my hands are shaking

Many people will bash the Public Sector, labeling them as a bunch of layabouts that get paid insane amounts of money for doing poor jobs. To be honest it is tarnishing a lot of folks with one brush, unfairly it could be said.

The real problem is the minority number of Public Sector workers that give the majority of them a bad name. The ones that do little work but get huge reward. The ones that claim for hotel expenses they never used because they can drive home, but claim because "everyone else is doing it". The ones that feel that they are entitled to the crazy benefits "just because". These are ones that people hear most about, but sadly there seem to be more stories about this sort than about the guy working for a normal wage and putting in a solid amount of work at the end of the week.

So I'm just putting it out there right now, this is not a Public Sector bashing rant (because everyone knows what I would do if I ran the country for a week ). It is purely directed at two "Governmental" departments, specifically their phone services.

Problem service number one: The Passport Office. I had to go an renew my passport recently because it was approaching ten years old. Myself and the ladyfriend had booked a holiday as well, so renewing it wasn't the worst idea in the world. I applied for the passport about five weeks ago.

Let's be clear here, this cannot be a six week job as advertised on the site of the Passport Office. I know they have to handle every passport, but how can paying a few euro extra reduce six weeks down to ten days? It's filling in a form, printing out a page, sticking on a photo and recording the details somewhere. A monkey could do it.

But let's not get into what animal would be better suited to replace the Passport office, that would be a long rant. I just wanted to know where the hell my application was in the process. So I rang the number and was on hold for no less than thirty minutes.

Thirty Minutes!

All the operators were busy. All of them. For thirty minutes. At two different points during the day. So for an hour I sat on my phone listening to an automated machine tell me bare faced lies. End result? A bloodlust in the Jester who is now going to have to remain calm as he spends his lunchhour in the Passport office trying to not kill the person behind the screen.

Let's just re-iterate here though shall we. They didn't answer the bloody phone for an hour of the day. On just one call. This, this right here, is what is wrong with the Public Sector.

Well one of the many things.

Problem number 2: The good folks down in Shannon who handle Car Registration. I got a letter in the post the other day about an unpaid toll fee, plus fine, for a car that is not mine. I rang up the lovely people at eFlow and they were more than helpful in fixing things for me.

No fee, no fuss. I like that level of phone support. The nice girl even told me I should ring Shannon and make sure that I wasn't on their database as the owner of that car, to avoid future mistakes.

This entire call took ten minutes, from dialing to hanging up.

I have, this morning, rang Shannon six times and been told every time that the lines are busy. Six times in two hours. If that isn't irritating enough, six months ago I sent the change of ownership form to Shannon. Meaning that six months ago they received my form, read it and then presumably wiped their arse with it because they certainly didn't do the five minutes of work to update a database with the correct information.

FIRE THEM ALL AND DAMN THE UNIONS!

See it's these sorts of things that give the majority of the Public Sector a bad name. You can't harp on about Private Sector people making better money so you should get it too if you can't provide the same level of service. eFlow phone call ten minutes and problem resolved. Total phone time with Passport and Shannon, two and a half hours and I am yet to talk with a human on the other end of the line.

The rage is subsiding, the rant she appeases me for now.

But when I am in charge...

Blue_jester

<--end of instaGram Feed-->