It is only mid August but
already the sun has started its journey south and sunrise is now not until gone
5 a.m. I know that because I am up at that time. We have been blessed with a
few days of sunny weather but it will not last long and soon we will start to move
slowly into autumn.
I can’t believe that it is
already time to order some winter fuel again, but that is what I found on today’s
page in my desk diary. So I looked up the company on Google and rang one of the
numbers listed for the company. On answering the young man asked me firstly for
my post code and then a few seconds later he asked my name and the first line
of my address, then for my account number. I did not have that to hand so he found
it using my address. Then he told me that he would put my through to another
office that dealt with my area. After being transferred, I started at the
beginning again this time with a young woman speaking to me. After getting
through the few questions she then told me when we had last placed an order,
only slightly cloaking the hint that it had been some time since we had ordered
from them. She came back on the line after a moment or two and asked how many
litres I required and I replied that I didn’t know that either and had not been
asked that before and that we just wanted the tank filled please, and that I
supposed it would be about the same amount as it had been previously as shown
on our account. She then told me that I was just too rude and disconnected my
call!
So, I started again using
the number that I had dialled previously and when the man answered I started
again by telling him that I just wanted to order some domestic fuel for our
home and told him politely what had occurred when I had been transferred to the
other office. “Wow” he said, “That is so rude, unbelievably rude, I do seriously
apologise”, he said that he would have to put me back through to the same
office but took a while and when he got back on the line he told me the name of
the assistant that had spoken to me previously should I wish to take it
further. I told him that I just wanted to order the oil and that I did not have
time to make a big thing out of it since we all have bad days now and then. He
apologised again and put me through.
I don’t know for sure, but
it sounded like the same person who had hung up on me who this time told me
that the call must have been disconnected somehow! I thought but did not say
that all I wanted was the fuel and not an argument, that’s how wars start for
goodness sake.
This time the young woman
was polite, even when I mentioned that I had previously been instructed to ask
for the smaller truck to deliver since we have a narrow driveway and she said, “That’s
fine, it says that on your delivery details.”
She went on to ask how I
planned to pay and I replied that they usually sent us an invoice. That was met
with the information that because it had been some time since we last ordered
we would be required to pay on or before delivery.
This is a company that we
have used as long as we have lived in this house which is about twenty four
years. However, I asked her if she would give me a moment to speak to my
husband who was sitting next to me and passed this on to him. He said we would pay
on delivery and that was found to be fitting for the company. The young woman
told me the price plus vat and said that they would let us know by email when
delivery would be made.
Although my heart rate had
become more rapid during this quite long process, I had remained calm and
polite, if despairing of the manners and manner of people like this.
It is true that I am getting
old, but this sort of thing happens all the time now. What happened to good old
fashioned civility?
Some company’s have pre-recorded
messages saying that the call is being recorded for marketing purposes, well I
hope these calls were recorded but I
very much doubted that anything would be done.
Please people, please, let
us all make an effort, as am I, to just
be calm and polite to people we have to speak to, in whatever situation we find
ourselves. Good behaviour should be taught in the home before our school days.
At Sunday school? I was always sent on Sunday afternoons but think that may
well be a thing of the past. Then it should be reinforced at school and surely
on seeking a job, we should know how to conduct ourselves before being let
loose on the public and should be properly trained at the company we are employed by.
Manners folks, manners.
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