Incompetence

Friday, September 25, 2009

Call me cynical, but I am continually astounded by the complete and utter incompetence of some people.  Three recent examples:

(1) I logged into my University of Edinburgh account to see if my final grade was up.  It was not, but I did discover an anomalous and befuddling charge on my account, which should be closed (since I am finished with school) for about 36 pounds for accommodations charges for the 2009-2010 school year.  (A) I am not enrolled for that school year.  (B) I do not have university accommodations for that school year.

(2) We got a call today from AT&T, threatening to charge us a late fee if we didn't pay our cell phone bill.  But, we protested, we never received said bill.  Turns out when we signed up for our new account a month ago, they took down the wrong address.  Like, not wrong as in a transposed set of numbers, but wrong as in the wrong numbers, the wrong street, the wrong city.  Where they got this address from, I have no idea.  We narrowly avoided a late fee.

(3) This one is my favorite.  We had to sign up for renter's insurance for our new apartment.  This was accomplished over the phone in an excruciatingly long phone call.  The crucial part of renter's insurance, it seems to me, is the actual address of the rental property being insured.  I gave this to the guy.  But, somehow, instead of our real address, I discover on our first statement that he has taken down the following: "3524 Greystpme Dr., Austim, TX."  Now, two things.  "Greystpme" is simply not a word.  I couldn't have even pronounced this to him over the phone.  And, second, this insurance agent is based in Austin, and surely knows that there is no such place as "Austim." Seriously.  I called shortly after receiving this communique to correct the information, thinking that it might be important for the address I had paid to insure to be the one where I actually lived.  The guy acted put out by this, but said it would be corrected.  I just got a form showing the corrected address.  My new address?  "3524 Greyst0ne Dr." Wow.