I had a day recently where I truely began to wonder why it takes so long and so much time to get even the most basic things accomplished.
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MissP wanted to enter the National Road Cycling Championships. But we had a problem. She had a cortisone injection 10 days before the competition was to take place. 4 calls with Voice-Mail(VM) to the CCA went unanswered. Finally after three days I make contact with someone - I kept pushing office extentions till I got live person on the phone!! They can’t help us. We need to call the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport. So I call the CCES. Go through the same routine of leaving a VM message. Wait a day. No response. Do the same thing - keep trying extentions at the CCES till I get a live person. We need to fill out a TUE Form. It’s downloadable from the CCES web site. Great Download the form and now it’s onto the next series of calls . .,
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. . .To MissP’s Doctor. Back and forth with VM with his receptionist about what she needs to do with the TUE form and what the Doctor needs to do. Leave another VM with her to confirm that she has the form via Fax and to fax it signed back to me by the end of the day. End of the day comes, but no confirmation and no fax!
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Entry into the National Road Chamionships: The CCA told me that we needed to contact the event organizers. Great I call and . . you guessed it . . . leave a VM. Try again an hour later and actually get someone on the phone. We’ll need to enter online. Great. Go to the web site and spend the next 45 minutes trying to figure out the online entry process. Finally give up. I call the event office and get the lady on the phone. “Yes a lot of people have been having problems with the online entry”. No kidding! She says to email all the relevant information and she will take take of this. I send the email with all of MissP’s information and asking for confirmation of recipt. I also follow up by phone and leave a VM asking for confirmation. However, by the end of the day I have heard nothing via phone or email. MissP shows up at the race three days later and they have no record of her entry!!!
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I had seen my Doc two weeks ago and he said that he would get back to me about booking a minor surgical procedure. I go back and forth with VM with the Doc’s office three times only to learn that they have still not heard back from the hospital about confirming the time/date for the procedure. The Docs office will call me when they get word from the hospital.
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I notice a problem on our cell phone bill. Call customer service and as I always do ask to speak to a manager/surpervisor right away( It’s the only way of actually getting some action). However, I have to wait for 10 minutes on hold for the manager. I get her on the line and then we spend the next 45 minutes on the phone sorting out the billing problem. In the end, we save $200!! Yipeee!
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I get a note in the mail, saying that I fine is due for a parking ticket immediatly. However, I had mailed in a request for a court date to contest the ticket. Three phone calls and a long wait on the phone and I am on the line with the right person. They have no record of my mail-in request for the court date. I confirm that I did mail it. She says it must have been lost. They have been swamped with requests for court dates. I say I understand, and suggest that their by-law officers use a bit more commonsense and descretion in the field when handing out tickest in the first place - this may cut down on court requests. She does not seem amused. Anyway, she does grant me my request for a court date and tells me they will mail me the information and the date for the hearing. I say, I’ll try not a loose it!
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I arrive home from work that evening to find the internet down it’s a bit if an issue because we have a VOIP phone for the home/office. I call our ISP on my cell phone and as per the call to the cell phone provider and ask for a manager right away. The call center is in New Delhi, of all places, so while waiting on hold I ask how the weather is - “Hot, but the monsoon is coming”. I wait another 10 minuets for the manager. We then spend the next 50 minutes on the phone going over various technical things with our router and modem. In the end we sort it out and the internet comes back up.
And so goes my day. I must have spent 2/3 of my waking hours dealing with all sorts of stuff that was unrelated to the stuff that I really needed to be doing. Wow!