Bureaucracy and complaisancy - I despare!

You will probably find the topic of complaisant people especially the bureaucrats popping up quite a bit in my blog. It is something that drives me to despair!

I move house at the end of January and asked for my electricity to be read on 31 January, where after I would expect a cheque with the refund of my deposit less my last month's bill.

Six months later after numerous phone calls and emails, I decided to try one more time today to try and find out what has happened to my refund cheque.
After being put through to firstly to Malusi who put me through to Nokanye who put me through to Lucy, I finally get put through to a Mrs. Kara in consolidated billing. She at first seemed a little puzzled as to my asking her for her name and gave it rather reluctantly . After listening to my query she blithely tells me

"Oh your refund cheque for the amount of R396.01 was posted off at the end of May to the box number you gave us XXXXXXX."

Then there is silence!

ME - "Um well I haven't got it otherwise I would not be phoning you"

MRS KARA - "Oh ................................... oh gosh! can I check the postal address you gave us it was XXXXXXXX"

Me - "that is the correct address, but the cheque hasn't arrived"

MRS KARA - " OH I can't think why not".

silence .....


ME - " me neither"

more silence........................

ME - "well what are you going to do about it?"

MRS KARA - "well there is a whole process to go through, I will have to check with our audit department as to whether the cheque has been cashed or not, and only then can we decide to issue another cheque. This will take at least 24 hours before I can verify if the cheque has been cashed or not an then I will get back to you."

ME - " Will you get back to me, or do I have to phone you back?"

MRS KARA - (In her wisdom obviously because she has heard my tone of voice and I now know her name) "No I definitely will get back to you by tomorrow morning ."

Now I have to tell you that this lady has indeed got back to me. She has ascertained that the cheque has not been cashed so obviously it has gone astray, therefore they have cancelled it and she has asked the auditing department to issue me with a new cheque as a matter of urgency!

Wonderful woman, poor thing doesn't know that her name will be squirrelled away in my mind as the only helpful person to contact in the future should there be a problem.

But honestly jokes aside, why should one have to go through all this procedure? The amount is relatively small but it has taken me 6 months of emails and phone calls to try and get some kind of coherent response to my dilemma. Totally unnecessary if there were proper systems etc in place. And follow -up............

Follow-up is probably the thing that client service people, sales people etc do the least well, and it is the one single complaint that most consumers will voice.

"Nobody bothered to phone me and let me know what was happening! Nobody ever got back to me."

I am in sales and it s something that is always being thrown at me: "Oh you people never get back to us anyway."

How terrible! and if that is such a terrible problem in this world of ours, should it not be something that is honed in on and focused o and taught to kids right from primary school level upwards?

Accountability and etiquette? Would our world be a better place in general if these two simple philosophies were taught to our kids?

I wonder.......

I can't help thinking of the old nursery rhyme:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost
for want of a shoe the horse was lost
for want of horse the man was lost
for want of a man the battle was lost .........

I wonder, truly I do!