Today didn’t start well. An email arrived informing me that my automatic TV license renewal couldn’t take place and I would need to resubmit my banking details in order to avoid me being prosecuted. Well, the last thing I want is to be taken to court, so I sent my details immediately. What struck me was the outsourcing that appears to be going on these days and the TV license people are now based in Greece, given that their email address was ser@otenet.gr. Anyway, they’ve taken my money – in fact, they’ve taken all my money and indeed have exceeded my overdraft – but at least I can watch telly in peace. What a relief, eh?
Of course, that didn’t really happen. I can be as gullible as the next woman or man but I can usually smell a rat at a fair old distance and whilst many things have been outsourced by governments over many years, the BBC license fee is not collected via Greece. But my God, there are some horrible people out there.
In recent days, I have had telephone calls from various scammers telling me my BT internet account is to be suspended, which came as a surprise to me since I don’t have a BT internet account and later from a nice Indian gentleman informing me there were problems with my Windows. Imagine the confusion when I told him I was looking through my windows and the garden looked nice? He meant Windows on my computer, something else I don’t have. I must say, I don’t find any of these cold calls particularly convincing but I can imagine that in these unusual, often frightening times, there will be people who are being taken in. Otherwise the lowlife scammers wouldn’t be making the calls and sending the emails in the first place.
As ever, the bad people are heavy outnumbered by the good, but the bad people get all the publicity. Take supermarket and shop workers. This morning, I made a brief visit to my local supermarket for essentials (fruit, pasties, Guardian, Thatchers Lemon Cider – you know the kind of thing) and observed the tail end of an altercation between an irate customer and a member of staff. It was a simple matter of a particular item not being in stock due to circumstances which, I would suggest, are quite well known. The member of staff was far more polite than I would ever have been and I made a point of thanking her for all the work she and her colleagues were doing for us. When I got to the self-serve tills, I learned that whilst most customers were polite and grateful for the staff’s efforts, staff who I regard as being 100% on the front line, as much as any other worker, a minority are not.
One man had been in the store, attempted to pay by way of his contactless debit card and it didn’t work. He let forth a volley of very loud abuse, first at the payment machine – machines have feelings, you know – and then at the staff member. ‘This isn’t fucking working. What are you going to fucking do about it?” She asked him if he could try inserting the card and tapping in his PIN number, at which he completely lost it, “fuck” being the main word he used. Until it actually worked. Did he apologise to the staff member? What do you think? Of course not.
Once again, I thanked the staff member for her efforts. She seemed to think abuse was part of the job at the moment, given how scared and angry some people are. But it should not be part of the job, anyone’s job. The customer is NOT always right.
I’m not sure I would not have stood to one side if a customer had let forth abuse at any staff member. I would definitely have intervened, safe in the knowledge that the abusive customer could probably punch my lights out. I’m not in the first flush of youth – near the final flush of old age, if the truth be known – but I have zero tolerance of this sort of thing. I even get angry when someone stays on their mobile phone when paying at a supermarket check out.
Bad people, these scammers, and so are these covidiots who think it acceptable to take out their anger on people who are actually providing an essential service. In my case, how on earth would I cope for the rest of the week without my essential Thatchers Lemon Cider?
I don’t need to tell you, my loyal reader, to be kind. You wouldn’t be reading my soggy liberal blog if you weren’t. You carry on being kind and and whatever you do don’t set up a new direct debit with an unfamiliar Greek email address.
