FRUSTRATION

These days I'm running into more frustration with technical matters than usual. At the CPC office recently we paid our bill for our virus scanner with a cheque, as instructed. A few weeks later a letter came from the company saying they no longer accept cheques but because we were such good customers they would pay next years account for us. I thought that was very generous but when the computer kept saying that time was running out for protection I e-mailed them to say they had sent a letter saying they were paying the bill.

The return e-mail asked me to scan them the cancelled cheque. "There is no cancelled cheque, it was returned uncashed" I replied. Still no sign that our account was up-to-date and time was really running out. So I continued e-mailing someone in Bora Bora or Timbuktu or cyberspace saying time was running out.
Finally it mysteriously was solved.

I thought that was the end of my frustration until I had to deal with our own government entities. I returned a call to the Charities Division in Ottawa which hadn't received a change of address from CPC National Office I knew they had sent the change of address to Revenue Canada when they moved to P.E. I. So I suggested to the fellow on the phone that he contact the National Office in PEI. That was a silly idea, he couldn't do that until the name CPC came up again on the computer and that could be weeks... Obviously, the Charities Division and the Revenue Department don't communicate with one another so the change of address couldn't be done easily. How's that for red tape?

Another situation has arisen with our printer, but I can't bear to share that chain of events with you. I am sure you have had similar situations to these but I just had to share mine. All I could think was "dummies"!

Then I remembered the Sunday morning friends and I stopped at a marina on the west coast for a coffee. We told the hostess what we were there for and she said, "Follow me". We were seated and the next thing we knew a bowl of fruit was placed in front of us. We said we didn't order it, we just wanted coffee. The waitress said, "You must have it". We said, "No, take it back" which she did only to return with it. So we repeated that we didn't want it and she replied that we had to take it and we protested we didn't want it. Finally we got up to leave, without our coffee, and saw the big sign "Sunday Brunch".

I know what that waitress was thinking!