Not genuinely interested in actually providing services anymore

bout 30 hours ago I published 2 parts. The latter spoke about false “options” or invalid “options” given to my wife and I. Those had already failed, that’s why we came to speak in person. I told them that the privatised Post Office wasn’t Town Hall and accessibility in the Web site was awful. Nobody there could digest those messages. It was like talking to a wall.

2 weeks earlier I attempted to phone the line (call centre) they kept promoting, but it was unavailable every time, even when I came in person and dialled 102 at the main office.

There are several issues here, the least of which is that they’re not collecting money from the public to actually staff their services properly. They are clearly understaffed in some areas but also overstaffed in others (people doing nothing, knowing nothing, barely trying to help anybody).

There are demands for particular services, but that’s above the level they’re able to facilitate/fulfil. They’re collecting money from people and not delivering.

I told them that on two occasions already they were clearly understaffed after 1PM on a Thursday (nobody able to pick up the call), not a holiday or anything like that.

Face-to-face? Not a chance. Only over a phone, even when you’re already right there. Odd. I’ll later explain that it didn’t use to be like that. I’ll also explain that they told us to walk away and try phoning at 9AM as if it’ll magically work that way and that after 10 minutes on the line one can request a callback.

There is no assurance, however, that this would happen.

They were at least sincere about the low expectations. Maybe deep inside they too realised how unreliable the serviced had become.

Gosh, what an awful experience. All for the simple task of updating one’s details!

For profit, against citizens?

couple of days ago my wife and I walked to Manchester City Council and spent just over an hour there. We researched the state of things for this series, not out of choice as much as out of real need.

The first 3 parts were a sort of alta vista and part 4 said this was apparently a global trend (allegedly, because so I am told by people I know).

Today I’d like to focus on one aspect. I try to split those aspects apart to make discussion easier, maybe a formal complaint at a later stage.

When my wife and I went to the Customer Services desk on Thursday she took the lead, but she was then given “false” options that were clearly anything but a real service. That was useless, as we were already at Customer Services, which we had traveled to physically.

They told my wife she had “other” options, such as going to the “Post Office” (another privatised thing, owned by a very rich foreigner) and we explained that this was unsuitable an option as the aim was to change/update details, not make payments. Both my wife and I, separately, said this to them.

It feels like the staff there resorted to a fallback… on some ‘template’ reply.

When a browser option was mentioned both my wife and I told them that several browsers on our (several) computers were not compatible with their Web site, or with that particular portal managed by a third party. What’s worse about it is that I had already told them that two weeks earlier and posted feedback. I spent almost an hour arguing, then writing about it. Clearly nothing was done about it.

They don’t read feedback. They don’t seem to care. Just one single ‘pesky’ customer… probably one in a million! Nobody else uses Firefox in Manchester!

I brought up aspects of accessibility and how much of a problem they would cause not just to old people or ‘technophobes’.

It was like talking to the wall. They don’t want to listen and pretend not to understand (or care).

Customer Services should do better than this.

In the next part I’ll discuss details about the “phone” option they spoke of.

I am utterly ashamed that in Greater Manchester or even Manchester “proper” (with millions of people) everyone must rely on such poor performance at the official Customer Services desk.

I am increasingly convinced we need to publicise this.

In my experience, they mostly squash complaints. They try to keep those private to save face.

Like G4S in Manchester

moment – or even an entire part – is needed to discuss the worldwide or global nature of this trend. I am told by friends in several countries that not only Manchester is impacted. Let’s devote today to this.

The pandemic referred to as COVID-19 appears to have been a major contributor or accelerator of this agenda, namely a rapid deterioration of services, then expecting the public to do (for free) all the work that public servants used to do. This is outsourcing, not automation. In general, in public services (that we all pay for collectively), everything gets worse. Yes, everything, even postal services. And even here, everywhere, any place there used to be something like a “Royal Mail”. We pay more, we get less. Privatisation is a common denominator.

“It looks like a package on the way here will likely not be delivered today,” a friend told me, “and instead spend the weekend in town.”

They don’t even deliver items like they used to. Drive to pick it up… what a waste of fuel! Bad for the climate!

“The goal is to shut down all government services,” the friend told me. “I disagree with the groups and the goals but those are what are aimed at by ignorant society.”

He said “some of that agenda is pushed by tech bros on behalf of the broligarchs who all aim to destroy democracies and, if they can, establish “network states” in their places…”

He noted that “the US won a temporary reprieve, but many (most?) of the elected politicians are beholden economically to either AIPAC or Kremlin or both.”

I am saddened to see how privatisation hurts everybody and everything. It impacts us as well.

“Customer Service” 101 is something like “Customer is Always Right”

t risk of overgeneralising, I’ve hardly found truly useful and friendly staff at Manchester City Council’s “Customer Service” (and yes, they actually used the word “CUSTOMER”!).

Yesterday I identified one lady there whom I said was nice and helpful to me (2 weeks earlier). Instead of receiving a smile another lady there took that as some sort of offensive remark, stating, “am I not also nice?” (Paraphrasing here)

She had only spoken to my wife, so I responded by saying that I don’t know (yet). Having deal with 7 or 8 at “Customer Service” (only one was male), I can say only one or maybe two seemed genuinely nice.

Since “Customer Service” is a person-facing (“Customer”) service, then we clearly have a problem here.

We didn’t walk in to have a fight with them, but I think they get many difficult “customers” (we saw one), so they are easily agitated and generally assume/presume they need to call “Security” or involve threats. As I’ll note in a later part, their security staff there (probably some contractor like G4S) almost outnumbers all other staff, maybe even outnumbers staff and customers combined.

Lopsided and misguided allocation of staff/money?

Way too slow, indicative of severe understaffing issues

s noted in the previous part, when dealing with Manchester City Council it seems like we deal with finger-pointers, who either point to “Web site” or point back at you.

When the stuff – not staff – they point at (e.g. Web site) isn’t working they don’t know what to say. They escalate and get more hostile if not combative – to the point of trying to escalate to “security” and intimidate so as to discourage criticism.

This has all the signs of a failing operation. It’s unwilling to hear or properly deal with problems.

When we went there yesterday we were prepared to present and deal with four problems.

The first concerned a payment. What we discovered was a bit shocking.

A guy called “Josh” (maybe not the same spelling) was there explaining to me that, contrary to what his colleagues said to me 2 weeks earlier, it can take four weeks to process webforms.

4 weeks!

Why not hire more people to deal with this?

Josh explained he knew this because he had worked in a relevant department before. He said there was no “Other Option” and when one decides to “set up” something online it can take almost a month for staff to get around to it. I explained to him that taking 4 weeks to process a request is far too low, more so when there is some urgency involved. I told him that even 2 weeks would be too much and 2 weeks already passed, so we were justifiably impatient. When a Town Hall or local council, for example, takes monthly payments and suppose some address or bank account change/s, it’s unreasonable to take 4 weeks to process the update. It would cause issues, inevitably.

Payments are needed for Town Hall to run. It’s what pays the salaries of the employees we saw there. I sometimes try to very politely get this point across (withoutn seeming rude or confrontational). If they suck at collecting money, how much worse would they be at things they do not financially benefit from?

We’ll revisit the point at a later part as someone in a different department confirmed this delay to me. He said 3 weeks, not 4 weeks.

It’s still way too long.

We don’t need staff to just say “Web site” (that does not work!) or “phone” (where nobody answers!)

s promised and long planned, today we write a report card for the Town Hall, which saw services deteriorate significantly but refuses to hear about it.

If it doesn’t want to improve or even to listen, then we need to write about it.

My wife and I went there yesterday to discover more or less what we expected and had long anticipated.

Confirming this and documenting this is still necessary.

When my wife did the talking she noticed the staff was being unhelpful, pointing at “Web site” or “phone” or “app” or whatever. But we were already there.

My wife spoke first, as we wanted to see how they deal females of ethnic minorities.

Minutes later, when I weighted in, she noticed a guy (almost everyone there is female, this is the first time I see a male) trying to make eye contact with her by which to sort of ask to get me to not talk.

This is bizarre. They simply weren’t open to any critical feedback. They don’t want to know and hear about the issues.

What are those issues? We’ll explain those in parts to come. There are many issues we’ve identified.

Back doors in machines

verybody seems to be talking about politics. Some people do it only privately. Some are very public and vocal about it.

To me, integrity of proprietary voting machines is an important subject. I don’t believe that voting should be done on computers at all. Modern computers have way too many defects in them. The task of managing elections (ballots) is simple enough to be done manually.

I currently have a series going which deals with voting in the US (more recent parts):