Room 101

[RuthE]

For me that one depends on the pedestrian crossing - plenty are perfectly safe to cross like that without inconveniencing anyone else (though you do have to know the crossing and whether the lights change in an order which makes that particular diagonal route safe).  My pet peeve is when people barge out onto a crossing when the lights are about to change in favour of oncoming traffic, preventing those coming from the other side from accessing the pavement safely.

[Quintus]

21 hours ago, RuthE said:

For me that one depends on the pedestrian crossing

 

Yes, if the crossing is empty then cross how you like; this peeve was specifically about busy crossings - where a bunch of pedestrians are trying to cross 'straight' and you get someone cutting through them at an angle...

[Fiz]

Our removal company. Our passports have date expired but we are going to France later this year to stay with friends. I went confidently to my husband’s desk to find our passports. He looks after them and the birth certificates. I look after the pet vaccination certificates and ours. No passports. I know they are there. Well, they were when we lived in Hertfordshire...we’ve moved since then...Suffice it to say, I have spent six hours looking for them. They have not appeared despite me finding other desk contents and also weird things packed together such as pizza trays, books, my father in law’s medals and commendations and a small indoor watering can. I have found other things which were never even in the same room and yet a lot of the contents of bedroom cabinets have never reappeared. I am so frustrated and miserable. I am an organised person and this has really thrown me because none of it makes sense.  

[alison]

Oh, Fiz   I dread to think what it's going to be like when I finally get my stuff out of storage.  I'd been packing it neatly and logically, but then (the friend who'd offered to help me having had to cancel) the removal men had to do the rest.  And there were 3 of them.  All working in different rooms.  So who knows what will be where?  My biggest dread is that someone will actually have packed some live food by mistake and that after all this time it will be totally unmentionable - and probably have spread throughout the box, and even worse!

 

I do sympathise ...

[Fiz]

Thank you, dear Alison. I hope your fears do not materialise. 

[alison]

I want to dump in Room 101 the guy who rang and rang, and knocked and knocked (hard), and banged on the (shared) front door yesterday.  I dragged myself downstairs to see what it was about (knowing we hadn't ordered anything to be delivered), only to find that he wanted to read the meter for the downstairs flat.  Given that the doorbells are clearly numbered and the building is clearly not the sort to have everybody's meters easily accessible in a shared hall downstairs, I don't know what he expected me to do about it, and why he persisted in ringing my bell.  I was still in my dressing-gown at the time, yet there wasn't even an apology for dragging me out of bed (he hadn't, but he didn't know that I wasn't ill, or on shift work or anything).

[alison]

Manufacturers of electrical equipment who give you totally impractical lengths of power cable.  I'm thinking not only of the hairdryers which come with 1.2 m of cable, thereby giving you hardly any room to manoeuvre if you're tall and/or the socket is close to ground level, but the (quality) manufacturer of the replacement DVD player I've just bought, who has barely given you enough cable to reach the ground-level extension lead if you have the player at around thigh-height  

[taxi4ballet]

Irons are another prime culprit. The manufacturers have clearly forgotten that you have to move it about a bit.

[Fiz]

Uneven paving stones and councils that do nothing about them! I tripped on one whilst walking our youngest dog. I went down hard and completely flat on the pavement, bruised and cut my face and knees and the force drove a tooth into my cheek. Luckily our good young Labrador was more worried about me rather than running off but I still don’t know how I got up and walked home as I was in tremendous pain and went into shock half an hour later. I discovered yesterday that it also gave me a stellate fracture of my left knee. It’s the last thing that I need since my dear mother, who had been extremely ill, died on Tuesday.

[Jan McNulty]

19 minutes ago, Fiz said:

Uneven paving stones and councils that do nothing about them! I tripped on one whilst walking our youngest dog. I went down hard and completely flat on the pavement, bruised and cut my face and knees and the force drove a tooth into my cheek. Luckily our good young Labrador was more worried about me rather than running off but I still don’t know how I got up and walked home as I was in tremendous pain and went into shock half an hour later. I discovered yesterday that it also gave me a stellate fracture of my left knee. It’s the last thing that I need since my dear mother, who had been extremely ill, died on Tuesday.

So sorry Fiz, Jxx 

[Fiz]

Thanks, dear Jan. x

[alison]

Oh Fiz, I'm so sorry, on both counts.

[Fiz]

Thank you, Alison. Mummy is now free from pain and with my dear father and her father and mother who died when she was ten. 

[Kate_N]

Oh Fiz, my condolences. However ill someone has been, and however expected the passing, death is always a shock. Be kind to yourself, and rest up that knee!

[Sim]

Sending you condolences and all best wishes for a speedy recovery, Fiz.  I hope the pain is under control.  Xx

[Fiz]

Thank you, Kate and Sim. Re pain, it’s not really under control as I am badly allergic to NSAIDS.

[Pas de Quatre]

So sorry to hear about your accident and the loss of your Mother, Fiz.  With all my sympathy.  

[Fiz]

Thank you, Pas de Quatre. 

[Legseleven]

Fiz, I’m so sorry to read about the loss of your mother and your accident. Thinking of you x

[Fiz]

Thank you. x

[bridiem]

I'm so sorry, Fiz. I send you my deepest sympathy on the loss of your mother, and I hope the effects of your accident gradually ease.

[Fiz]

Thank you. 

[Fiz]

My soft cast is off, I have a removable knee brace and I am hoping that I will become more mobile shortly. Thank you so much for all your messages. xxx

[Sim]

Good....now you can start putting that barre to good use!

[Fiz]

😂

[Fonty]

The Government Gateway and Government Verify systems.  I have spent a fruitless hour trying to create an account with both, and failed each time it came to filling in my passport details.  On each occasion I got the message that it didn't recognise my details.  I checked with the passport office and there is nothing wrong with my passport at all.  Therefore, the problem must be with the two systems the government insists I use.

 

What is the point of telling everyone they must go on line, if the on line features DO NOT WORK. 

 

 

 

 

[Anon2]

5 hours ago, Fonty said:

The Government Gateway and Government Verify systems.  I have spent a fruitless hour trying to create an account with both, and failed each time it came to filling in my passport details.  On each occasion I got the message that it didn't recognise my details.  I checked with the passport office and there is nothing wrong with my passport at all.  Therefore, the problem must be with the two systems the government insists I use.

 

What is the point of telling everyone they must go on line, if the on line features DO NOT WORK. 

 

 

 

 

Does the Government Gateway still exists? I thought disbanded although can use log in for some services. 

Not that I’m at all an tech expert but have found numerous times that if I’m having a problem with parts of a website it is because I’m using Safari, when change platforms it inevitably works. 

[alison]

Well, I have to use it if I want to update my driver's licence (for which the wording suggests that I absolutely have to hold a valid passport.  Work that one out.)  I gave up too.  Must remember to try again sometime.

[Fonty]

18 hours ago, Jane said:

Does the Government Gateway still exists? I thought disbanded although can use log in for some services. 

Not that I’m at all an tech expert but have found numerous times that if I’m having a problem with parts of a website it is because I’m using Safari, when change platforms it inevitably works. 

 

It certainly does.  Or it did yesterday, anyway.

 

I tried it on Chrome and Firefox.  I had no problems accessing it, it just flatly refused to recognise my passport details, and because of that I was completely stuck. 

[AnneMarriott]

GP practices.  After numerous attempts to get through on the 'phone after failing to make an appointment online, how maddening is it to listen to a lengthy recorded message about being prepared to discuss one's symptoms with the receptionist so one can be referred to the "appropriate team member",  followed by the need to respect staff and warnings of zero tolerance of verbal abuse before being put on hold for ages and then finding that no appointments are available!  Then, when an appointment is available it is with a paramedic, who, good though he is at his job, is unable to prescribe any drugs so a doctor's signature is required which fails to materialise resulting in a goose chase between surgery and pharmacy.  I don't know about verbal abuse - throwing a brick through the surgery window is tempting at times.

[alison]

Oh dear

 

You've reminded me that I meant to dump in Room 101 all those Sunderland fans who, last Saturday, left parts of Covent Garden (and possibly Trafalgar Square too, for all I know, since that was full of them too) an absolutely disgusting mess of discarded plastic glasses, beer cans and spilled beer and the like.  I've never seen anything like it.  Perhaps Westminster would like to send them the bill for the clear-up?  I know your team getting to Wembley is a Big Thing, but even so ...  As I approached Trafalgar Square, I just assumed from the noise level that there was a very bad-tempered Br#### rally going on, but apparently not.

[Mary]

2 hours ago, AnneMarriott said:

GP practices.  After numerous attempts to get through on the 'phone after failing to make an appointment online, how maddening is it to listen to a lengthy recorded message about being prepared to discuss one's symptoms with the receptionist so one can be referred to the "appropriate team member",  followed by the need to respect staff and warnings of zero tolerance of verbal abuse before being put on hold for ages and then finding that no appointments are available!  Then, when an appointment is available it is with a paramedic, who, good though he is at his job, is unable to prescribe any drugs so a doctor's signature is required which fails to materialise resulting in a goose chase between surgery and pharmacy.  I don't know about verbal abuse - throwing a brick through the surgery window is tempting at times.

I sympathise with the frustration, very much. But the NHS is under huge pressure. I worked in a surgery as a receptionist once. You'd be amazed at the amount of abuse you get. I have 2 siblings who are nurses and they say the same- often come home from work exhausted and fed up with being shouted at ( and in the case of my sister in law, called racist names). What a world.

Many members of the public are incredibly unreasonable- a sizeable group of regulars turn up all the time, just with a cough or cold and many patients expect  instant access to a GP of choice. But if you think about it, this is not really possible and never will be. (Working in a dentist is much easier as noone wants an appointment!)

 

Yes the surgery needs a much better phone service.

But I am perturbed at the idea of bricks through windows to our NHS services. Many of the people working there are downright heroes and all of them deserve a bit of support.

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

Many years ago (while I was on holiday) my late Mum, who was seriously anaemic, suffered a bad do of diarrhoea for about 3 days before she rang the surgery.  The receptionist asked for her symptoms and without asking her name or without any medical qualifications she then told my Mum that the surgery didn't give appointments to people with diarrhoea and she should go to the pharmacist.  My Mum did, explained her symptoms and what had happened.  The pharmacist was horrified that she had been refused an appointment but gave her some off-the-shelf medication and told her if she was no better in 3 days she had to insist on an appointment.  Three days later, the day I was due home, my Mum rang the surgery for an appointment.  She went through the same rigamarole again but said she had done as instructed and was now asking for an appointment on the basis of the pharmacist's instructions.

 

Of course, there weren't any appointments but the receptionist begrudgingly said she would get a doctor to speak to my Mum on the phone.  The doctor, knowing my Mum's medical history, apologised and said there was a known bacterial infection doing the rounds.  My Mum's symptom's matched those of the bug.  He said he would give her a prescription for antibiotics but could someone come and collect it.  My Mum asked me because she was scared what my Dad would do or say if he went to collect it!  So I went and asked for the prescription.  When I said the name, it was THROWN at me.

 

In those days we were scared to complain in case we were dropped from the surgery as there was a shortage of doctors in our area at the time.

 

Suffice to say I have refused to discuss my symptoms with a receptionist since then and I advise others to do the same.  I have to say that the receptionists at my surgery have improved since then.