Patty called me in from working on my book because she was trying to do Aunt Joan’s banking online and it wasn’t working. Twice she called the bank, and twice she got cut off. I’m power of attorney, so before we get cut off, I have to go through all this re-bop about authorizing my wife to speak to a representative. Then we get cut off and have to start over.
Third time: okay, we don’t get cut off, but for some unknown reason the user name and password don’t work anymore and have to be replaced. By way of our speaker phone, says the banker. We don’t have a speaker phone. Well, your cell phone, then. We don’t have a cell phone. And the rules say she can’t talk to my wife about this, it has to be me, and I don’t know nothin’. So Pat goes across the room to the computer while I sit here and talk on the phone, back and forth. They have to converse through me. And my allergies are dancing the lambada with my respiratory system.
Every time we have to do this, both parties want to talk at once and I can’t make out what either of them is saying. And so it goes back and forth, back and forth, for the better part of an hour.
At least it finally has a happy ending: problem solved. I can go back to trying to breathe.
Really, I do understand the need for security in these matters. We don’t want some schlemiel in Pakistan dipping into our bank accounts. But meanwhile I’ve totally forgotten what I was about to write. *Sigh*
Oh, boy, I can really relate to this. It is so frustrating to be involved in the way business is done these days. No wonder my hair is getting thin. ha
Hopefully never as thin as mine!
I don’t have a cell phone and don’t want one. Whenever I have to confess to someone this fact, they look at me like I am a caveman. My wife does have one to talk to our daughter. We love our landline phone – much better reception.
Sounds nightmarish! Remember the days when we had no ‘call waiting’, no answering machines, no voicemail – just a phone with one line that provided a busy signal if it was in use? And phone booths were plentiful – nobody walking around with their faces and attention glued to the screen of a ‘smartphone’? There’s one upside, Lee. At least you had a live person on the other end. These days there are entirely too many automated phone answerers. Frustrating.
We had to jump through a lot of hoops before we found that live person.