When Barely Enough Isn't Nearly Enough

Trust the Germans to have come up with a concept for something that has been bothering me for years. They did, after all, come up with the word schadenfruede to nut out that guilty, unspoken and mostly unacknowledged shameful feeling of joy you get when things go pear-shaped for someone else either because you feel, for whatever reprehensible reason, they're getting their comeuppance, or because phew! the bad thing isn't happening to you.

Anyway, I've always been, depending on the context, fascinated/enraged/bewildered by the type of people I usually call Low Energy Users. These are individuals with a strange mindset who only put the bare minimum amount of effort that they can get away with into their everyday tasks, jobs, and sometimes even their personal lives. They cruise at sub speed, are happy to palm stuff off on others either overtly or covertly, don't question discrepancies lest the answers produce more work, don't correct things as they go, and in organisations, are happy to hide in structural niches and use their co-workers to cover up their own lack of initiative and responsibility. They NEVER go even that extra inch, so forget about that extra mile that is sometimes needed to sort things out or to prevent a mistake that will just get messier down the line. And when things do go wrong, they usually fade into the woodwork and leave the cleanup to others.

Such people drive me potty.

I suppose I'm especially angry about LEUs today because I wasted a whole lot of time in a hospital yesterday - not my usual hospital where everybody knows my name, but another one where contempt for patients seemed to be part of their clinic's medical motto - and ended up finally getting in 3.5 hours after my scheduled appointment. Others were also delayed by many hours. Making it worse, a certain nurse got up a four times and loudly declared the situation was the fault of seven new patients scheduled for the day who were holding up the queues with their newbie questions and demands for attention - it was a deplorable, divisive tactic that had a well-worn feeling about it, and my investigations soon revealed it was patently untrue. Gathering information, I discovered that all 4 of we patients still waiting after many hours in the almost empty room by the end of the clinic were new patients, which, given simple arithmetic, would mean that just 3 of our newbie comrades held up over twenty people for 2-3 hours?

 I think not, which turned out to be the case. I discovered that I, and presumably the many others inconvenienced that day, had been booted a number of times because of reshufflings made by the nurses to cater for squeaky wheel people. I also discovered that they'd known about these delays the day before and that someone could have, with a series of simple phone calls then, told me and the others not to come so early (I got up at 4.30 to catch an early train!). Obviously they couldn't be bothered doing their job properly. Or didn't care. Instead of heading off a known problem and adjusting the schedule to save a lot of people a lot of aggro, they let a roomful of ill people waste hours seething and frothing at the mouth safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't be held accountable for the stuff up. I'm not suggesting people give up their tea breaks or put in unpaid labour or such, but just five minutes spent leaving messages would have cut down on the problem and demonstrated some real empathy for others. And I still can't get over the ploy to deflect blame from themselves by repeatedly blaming of sick people for a problem created by lazy staff members.

So yeah, reading this post this morning which mentions der innere Schweinehund, or 'the inner swine-dog',  resonated with me. As explained there, it's a fantastic German metaphor for the part of ourselves that prefers laziness over productivity, comfort over challenge, and routine over achievement. Apparently, they even have a statue of the creature in Bonn.

 In my present state of mind, I'm assuming that the Low Energy Users are in fact people, like the medical staff yesterday, who even while on the job are in thrall to their innere Schweinehund, cutting corners whenever they can and never straying into the energy-burning areas that just might make the world run a little more smoothly, and in the process make it a happier, less stressful place.

 Not that there isn't a time and a place for heeding the puppy dog eyes of der innere Schweinehund, such as when an exciting, must-see box set or a fabulous new book is calling for one's attention :) As long as the lazy beastie doesn't cause others grief and inconvenience, by all means feel free to indulge it.

Happy Talk

I wasn't going to blog tonight, but was just reading Justine Larbalestier's excellent post about how you don't have to be a tormented soul to be a writer - and no, there's no 'but it helps' punchline to go with that - when I came across, and just had to nick, her link to this Forbes list of The Ten Happiest Jobs, because there, in the top 5 no less, we have:

4. Authors: For most authors, the pay is ridiculously low or non-existent, but the autonomy of writing down the contents of your own mind apparently leads to happiness.

So true. Money, believe it or not, and gasp, gasp, gasp, isn't everything. That said, covetous soul that I am, I would still prefer to be paid a decent amount for my scriberly work and be both happy and well paid, because:

Ya gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream,
How you gonna to have a dream come true?

Amusingly, if you scroll down,  below the list of the Happy Ten, there is also the list of the Ten Most Hated Jobs which were generally much better paying and have higher social status. What’s striking about the list is that these relatively high level people are imprisoned in hierarchical bureaucracies. They see little point in what they are doing. The organizations they work for don’t know where they are going, and as a result, neither do these people.

So, rich, poor, got lots of stuff, haven't got much stuff, happy, not happy - things are not always as they possibly superficially seem...

Good News and Bad News

After waiting for only seven minutes, I finally got past my good friend the automated response system and spoke to an actual real live human being.

It seemed too good to be true. It was.

You see, the service provider's computers are down for the next two hours so the girl couldn't really do anything but tell people she couldn't do anything. That was why she could respond so quickly, I suppose.

She did wish me a good morning though. That was nice. The human touch.

So I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow. Or write that letter.

All Serviced Out

Hey, I'm an adult. I understand that service providers aren't really about providing services but about getting as much money as possible out of us general public schmucks for the least possible effort. They're about profit. They're about PR spin but no substance. They're about sneaky accountancy disguised as customer benefits. They're about cutting service staff from the bottom so there's more money for those at the top. They're about contracting out the nuts and bolts of the operation so they don't have to deal with the messy business of actually providing the services they're supposed to provide. They're about companies doing whatever they like and us desperately trying to get them to abide by their original agreements. I get it. I do, really. Still, you'd think that a smidgen of embarrassment would kick in after a certain amount of stuffing around. 

Oh, what am I saying? That would imply that such companies recognised us as human beings with other things to do besides waiting in phone queues for the opportunity to politely beg them to fix their mistakes. If they never get to hear about their mistakes, well, it's less work and more $$$ for them. It's a cunning tactic. As you can probably guess, I've been trying all day (well, yesterday), on and off, in between multiple naps and getting out of the way a whole lot of grown up, officey stuff that has accumulated over the past few months, to get through to a certain telecommunications company. I've given my intimate details to the automated system so many times that I feel we know each other well enough to go out for coffee sometime, but the very best the machine could offer me was, at one point, to wait for 20 minutes until someone (maybe) got around to me. I'll probably end up calling them a few more times tonight. I'm hoping that that other folk are heading for bed around now, thus shortening the queue. Of course, then there might be the other arvo and night shift people of the world to contend with. And the company might roster less staff to deal with the fewer calls. *groan*  

If I can't get through to them tonight, I have a cunning backup plan -  I'll write them an old fashioned letter. I know for a fact that modern service providers hate letters. Once upon a time not long ago, I sent off just such a quaint thing. In return, I received a rather pompous note telling me how they'd taken care of my problem, although in future they recommended that I use their amazing automated customer service system (which I'd complained about). But. They. Fixed. The. Problem. As far as I'm concerned - major triumph!

Yes, a formal letter of complaint might be the way to go. Maybe I'll even dig out a fountain pen to write it. And some violet ink. That'll really mess with their minds.

And So It Goes

  Well, I can strike off the two potential pro sales. Normally, a week of writerly disappointment like this would throw me into an existential crisis, but there’s nothing like a health scare to fine tune one’s sense of perspective. Anyway, that leaves the two possible semi-pro acceptances, and of course, the countless, as yet unknown possible sales.

What a week it’s been. It was always going to be very busy, what with clearing up my work at the Arvo Job before taking time off and the maddening logistics of preparing for a prolonged convalescence, but so many things had to be done (some fun) and a few things went awry, so  I’m now spending my Sunday evening madly catching up on must-done-by-tomorrow  tasks and madly washing and drying clothes that should already be packed.  Among other things, my SMI kicked in on Wednesday and seriously slowed me down for two days and scuppered my plans (I know, I know, I have to stop making them), I’ve had wrangles with sensitive hospital admin staff over missing paperwork confirming my operation details  (I didn’t accuse them of not sending it, I just said I hadn’t received it in the mail – there’s a difference ), I’m trying to convince other bureaucrats that no, I won’t be up for jury duty in June or July, and the back garden was suddenly knee deep in leaves from all the trees and had to be raked in otherwise they’d rot into a sludge while I’m away (there are only so many things you can ask housesitters to do).

But I did take time out yesterday to go to the Mesopotamia exhibition at the Melbourne Museum while I’m still mobile, went to the movies, and met a friend for a quick coffee  today – all welcome circuit breakers in between prosaic tasks like madly cleaning the house and purchasing a hospital worthy dressing gown and new jammies that I can wear in public.

These jammies are part of the drying extravaganza going on  at the moment,  and Gus is having a ball playing with the ribbons dangling from a pair hanging on the clotheshorse in front of the heater. Little does she know that her comfy feline world is about to be turned upside down.

Anyway, must get back to  it all.   

If You're Not Happy and You Show It

Apparently, if you're a sourpuss academic at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, my old stomping grounds, you'll get in trouble with your bosses, as the university has recently introduced a "behavioural capability framework" that requires staff to promote positivity and show passion for the job, all of which will be measured by "external benchmarks of performance excellence", a loaded phrase open to multiple levels of interpretive abuse if ever I heard one. All staff members have to sign off on this code by April 13, three months before they're due to begin negotiating a new collective agreement with the university. And if you don't sign the framework? Hmmm. I can't say for sure, but there's a word that starts with a letter that is also a buzzing insect and ends with what the postman delivers that might be of relevance in this situation.

So how did this come to pass? When did the world become place where some control freaky behavioural bureaucrat could come up with such a ridiculously restrictive idea, get it past a committee of people supposedly possessed of the ability to think critically, and have a university actually demand that their professional thinkers and questioners act like smiley salespeople pushing a mobile phone plan? What happened to the idea of universities fostering brilliance and individuality and eccentricity? And are kids these days really to be denied memories of a certain surly lecturer, someone they can bond over and bitch about for decades until one day the penny drops and they're old enough to realise what the old grump was trying to teach them?

It all sounds a tad Orwellian to me. Let's measure that smile. Let's weigh that passion. Let's plot points on your personal positivity graph to keep a detailed check on how non-negative you've been.

Gah!

Cooking with Gas

Ha! Take that, you skeptical utility people on the phone who none too subtly implied that perhaps I'd inadvertently turned off my own gas supply, and that I didn't know how to follow their instructions about checking whether the thingamajig on the whatsit was on or off!

First I had a man pull apart the whole whatsit out in the front yard. Then he announced that it was a Real Problem, pulled out his phone and called in the big boys with their impressive trucks and noisy pumps and stuff, who turned up not long after. It seems flooding from all the rain that fell two nights ago while I was at the Arvo Job had cut off the gas supply from the street. Strangely enough, my young neighbours converged on the excitement and announced that they were also without gas. Given that they're home a lot more than I am, why didn't they get the ball rolling with the big boys with the impressive trucks?

Anyhoo, the two mud-caked blokes were kind enough to come around the back and get my hot water system going again afterwards. The chook, who has hung around all day cosying up to the cats and clucking with pleasure at my every appearance (it's nice to be appreciated, even if it is only for the goodies I toss her way), amused the blokes by loudly squawking her displeasure at the disruption. It was cute, but I wish she'd get over the idea that she's welcome in the house.

In between all this, I was on the phone with other helpful and unhelpful folk, an automatic voice recognition system that refused to recognise my first name or even the spelling of it (obviously not an international version) and doing stuff online, and managed to tick off everything on my list, more or less - some things were set in motion rather than completed. Now I'll reward myself for dealing with another country-living adventure (Falling trees! Floods! Fires! Mad chooks!) by heading off for an evening of readings and chatting at the new local centre for writers, which seems to be getting very organised.

All K'ed out

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm dealing with the bureaucracy and non-helpful customer services staff of two gas and electricity companies. This Kafkaesque nightmare has been going on for over five months now. Well, actually longer, but I was blissfully unaware of the havoc being wreaked with my accounts until early this year. Anyway, I spent this morning on the phone with one of the companies. Again. This time the problem should be fixed. Not like last time when it was supposed to have been fixed, or the times before that, because THIS time it REALLY should be fixed. The fixing involved me - surprise, surprise - making a compromise. Even though what happened wasn't my fault at all. So instead of everything being put back the way it was, I'm staying with the company that hijacked my account (for now) and will pay what I owe long as the bill arrives in my name. Not someone else's name. MY name. This is one of the many things they keep not getting right. I'm sort of hopeful they'll get it done this time because they don't have to strain themselves too much with any unreasonable requests that involve them actually putting things back the way they were before they started messing around with my accounts.

Anyway, we'll see.

*Sigh*

Calling K.

Last year in October, someone, a complete stranger, and obviously a nincompoop, incorrectly filled in my address when starting up a new gas and electricity account. Nothing to do with me. I was just innocently going about my life.

Consequently, my account was terminated with Company X without any cross-referencing, and a new one was set up under another person's name with a Company Y. I didn't know this at the time, however.

I paid a bill in November. By late January, I began to wonder where my next bill was. I was also wondering why I was getting letters from a different power company adressed to someone who doesn't live here. But I don't open other people's mail, so I sent them back RTS.

Finally, I put aside the hour or two it usually takes when dealing with electricity and gas companies and called my provider. Or at least the company that I thought was my provider (Company X). They told me about the above termination.

After that, it's all a blur of phone calls, waiting on hold countless times, calling the Energy Ombudsman's Office and lodging a complaint, dealing with unhelpful staff from both Company X and Company Y (who, as the saga progressed, began to snippily refer to me as 'Oh yeah, the one who called the ombudsman'), and then finally reassurances that all was well followed many many weeks later by an official letter from Company Y to that effect. I waited breathlessly for a bill from Company X to prove that my account had been put back where it belonged. Nothing. I gave it a bit longer. Nada. So, I was about to get on it again (oh God, no!) when tonight, after a long day at the Arvo Job, I came home to find a letter from the power company that nily-wily hijacked my account (Company Y) addressed to - yep, you guessed it, the wrong person (a.k.a. the abovementioned nincompoop who does NOT live here).

How. Hard. Can. It. Be? I mean, all I want to do is pay my bill. Hand over money and make them rich. All Company X and Company Y have to do is tidy up their databases and, in the case of Company X, take my money.

Honestly, I won't be at all surprised if I wake up tomorrow and find (alert: here comes the expected Kafka reference) I've turned into a giant, roach-like insect.

Why? Why? Why?

So I've just spent a couple of hours battling the bureaucracy and the confused customer services staff ( I kept hearing the phrases "That's weird!" and "That's strange") of two different power companies and then finished off with a nice chat with the Water and Power Ombudsman's Office.

I'm hoping the outcome of this time investment (I could have written an entire piece of microfiction in that time) will be that I don't come home one night to no electricity and / or gas. Alas, I have a horrible feeling on that score.

The very worst thing of all is that I didn't do a single thing to bring about this situation. Somewhere, someone or somecomputer back in October dropped the ball, account names were switched and turned up and flipped around and whatnot, and poor me is left with the mess to cleanup.

Now, off to the Arvo Job, although I'm wondering whether I should brave the inconsistencies of the world beyond on a day like this. The Gods of Train Scheduling just might want to put the boot in while I'm down.