Well, baby, if there's a smile on my face it's only there to fool the public. I was forced on Friday to take drastic measures when talking to the people at the local BA. Despite the girly pink wrapper on this blog (skin - I think the cogniscenti call them), I'm not a girly girl. Or even a girly woman. I'm normally a pragmatic, businesslike and no-nonsense kind of a soul.
Ringing the BA every day to see wtf was going on took its toll, though, and when I finally got through on Friday morning and was told that contrary to what had been said on Tuesday (that the claim was on the system and was about to be paid) it was in a queue still waiting to be processed; it was in fact not on the system at all. Furthermore, there was a large backlog.
I lost it and started wailing about the fact that I now had no money to visit my husband in hospital and blubbing. The woman got the paperwork in a bid to calm me down and leafed through and came to the conclusion it was quite straightforward and would only take about five minutes to process. Cheers for that - I already knew that or I wouldn't be hassling you everyday. Anyway, she said she try and get it moved to the front of the queue. I came off the phone feeling rather aghast that I'd actually cried in front of someone not sitting next to me at a cinema re-release of Truly, Madly, Deeply or someone I was related to by blood or marriage.
Don't get me wrong, I cry at the drop of a hat in front of those very specific groups of people - I even cried at the wedding of Peter James Andrea and Katie Price last night on Sky Mix. I try never to drop my guard infront of members of the bureaucracy or to use my tears to my advantage. This is a policy I will be ditching forthwith as on Saturday morning a nice fat giro for gazillion of our British Pounds floated down and landed on our non-existent doormat. So now we're practically solvent again.
Hoorah.
4 comments:
Hoorah indeed! My mother, also most emphatically NOT a girly-woman, broke down in tears in the doctor's surgery when they virtually refused to do any more to help my Dad ... all of a sudden they were falling over themselves to refer him to consultants, get his appointment moved forward etc. etc.. She who wails loudest gets moved to the front of the queue ... . Glad things are a bit better x.
With Ally on this.
It tastes bitter to a woman with self respect, but swallowing just enough pride to let the swine genuinely understand what they are doing to you is sometimes the only way to find a hero when you need one.
So glad that, in an office full of 'its in the post' type liars, on the day you cracked, you happened to have a hero on the phone.
This is not your shame - its theirs.
And Hooray for your giro!
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Hey, if it works, DO IT!
Also, it sounds like you encountered the key person. Every office has a key person. This is the person who gets things done, and their key-ness has nothing to do with their position. It may be the office gofer, or it may be the manager (although that's unlikely). If you want something done, she (usually, but not always) is the one you go to.
I hope you got her name!
I too, do not like to show 'weakness' in front of anyone, more so on the phone!! But the other day I had to phone one of my creditors to tell them I have joined a Debt Management plan.
She was so nice to me on the phone that I just started to cry, she told me to get in touch with the CCCS as the Debt M, P. I had gone for were charging me!!
Sometimes things get too much and when you start to talk about them, it all comes out in tears. !
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