Press Button Hell

Written last thing on Wed, 7th February.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, the only button you got to press, when making telephone calls, was in a call box, when you pressed Button A or Button B – one to connect and the other to get your money back.

I had trouble with a debit card yesterday, when I wanted to draw cash, not using my usual card. Of course, when I put in my PIN, it rejected me. Back in the mists of time, or actually about a year ago, I lost my purse with this card in it, and in the process my PIN got changed, and I forgot to revert it back to the one I wanted to use. Trying to sort this out on the phone took ages; when I phoned, I had about ten different menus, and when I’d carefully worked my way through them, the final request (after all the button pressing that first went on – sort code, account number, etc.) was to put in my PIN. Could I ring a local branch and talk to a human being? No. Was there an option – do you want to speak to a customer adviser? No. However, I fooled them. I found there was a number to ring if you were not already a customer, and when I rang that, I did find a human at the end of it. When I started explaining to her, she said, ‘Oh you’ve come through to the wrong department – I’ll transfer you.’ Success at last, but not until I’d wasted an hour or so on my abortive attempt to get some cash.

Guildford Writers (http://www.guildfordwriters.net/) in the evening and another good evening. As a result of the absence of some members – Anne with a cold and Irene with a bad back and Helen who couldn’t get in, we all got to read. (Much rather have you there, though, girls.) My new short story went down quite well; I have to prune about fifty words before sending it to Writers’ News ((http://www.writersnews.co.uk/).

Today, I’ve been to another funeral – twice in only a couple of weeks. It was freezing, but bright. Since snow is forecast again for tomorrow, it was good that it was organised for today.

As I was out, I had to get down to a couple of hours’ book-keeping tonight, and I haven’t managed to read much more of The Poisonwood Bible. It’s unlikely I’ll go out tomorrow night, particularly if the snow arrives. It’s a shame I didn’t start on it earlier, because there’s much there to discuss.