Help is at Hand

In the six months that I have been working form home, I have been meaning to secure my passwords, which are now abundant. I’m with an on line system. I can just about remember the password to get onto the site, but t’s so long ago since anyone explained how to use the system, that I will probably get locked out.

Getting locked out was once a job for a socially awkward man who arrived in a van that said “Locksmith” on the side. He knew how to gain entry to your house without a key. Getting “locked out” nowadays means hours on the phone to people who remind you that it’s your responsibility to make arrangements for the recovery of your passwords and that the measure they have put in place to lock you out of your bank account are for your own good. That said, it could be a technical failure at their end. If you lose your tempter at the thought of having slogged your guts out only to find you can’t get at your hard earned cash, the call is immediately terminated.

I bitterly regret my lack of attention to password management. I’ve locked myself out of my on line credit card account. In the time I have spent on hold, a locksmith could have fitted security locks to every point of entry to my house and probably stopped for a cup of tea and a blather about how long he spent on hold when he locked himself out of his on line bank account.

The dear old credit card company are trying their best At least, that’s what they say. They have repeatedly told me that they are “helping” a lot of people at the moment and will get me to their customer service team as quickly as they can. Unfortunately, wait times can be up to an hour.

Last week I finally got through to customer service who text me a special code. They did it several times but it never landed in time for me to enter this code within the allotted time. It wasn’t all their fault. I explained that I wasn’t visually equipped for fast IT manoeuvres. “That’s the system,” the gabbling Shona explained. We had a good tempered discussion about alternative ways to resolve the problem then the line went dead. It was #Argos all over again.

A wide experience of sitting on unanswered customer service calls by people who are “helping a lot of people” has led me to appreciate why being “helped” is such an infuriating experience and causes people to lose their temper.

I know better than to fly into a rage when I’m being “helped”. I also know that making clever comments at the expense of the person who is allegedly “helping” won’t help. What I have also come to learn is that “help” has an increasingly narrow definition. If you should happen to say, “I can’t see to do that at that speed,” you may as well have said “I hate helpful people like you”. Either way is a good way to get the phone put down on you.

If that happens you may feel the need to indulge in a bit of door slamming to let off steam. Just make sure that you have your keys in your hand. If you lock yourself out and you can’t get your credit card to work, you could be sitting on the doorstep for a very long time. Thank goodness for the Right Hand Neighbour who has risen to the challenge on the numerous occasions I have been too stupid to help myself and have left home with neither cash, credit card or keys.

Image is Siobhain Santry's drawing of a grey ribbon with The Blind Truth written on it.