As I pondered just what musings I would share with you this week, I was spoilt for choice.
There were the events of Thursday night as UKIP learned that its days might now be numbered when they failed to take Stoke in the Westminster by election. Or when Labour lost Copeland and faced (once again) questions about how, now and why for Jeremy Corbyn.
Or, indeed, the Scottish Labour Conference in Perth at the weekend and an abject failure of news management despite the sterling efforts of Kezia Dugdale to corral her wayward troops.
Or the Trump ban on the BBC and other mainstream media from attending a press huddle and instead limiting access to those who he thinks tell it like he thinks it is.
I could have been self indulgent and waxed lyrical about the slaying of the Welsh dragon at the weekend. How I passed through Edinburgh airport yesterday which was awash with the Welsh sent homeward to think again. And how we celebrated two great victories, for our men’s and women’s teams.
But sometimes, I like to let my thoughts just wander. To see where they go and step away from the obvious. After all, there are acres of coverage on the big ticket issues, so I decided to give you an insight instead into my own wee world.
Which takes me to this.
There is an episode of The Good Life where Richard Briers wants to buy a nail.
Just one nail. A specific nail with a specific head and a specific length. It was for a specific job.
Actually, it may have been in Ever Decreasing Circles. But anyway….
The point is he couldn’t just buy one nail. They only came in packets. And nobody in the big chain shop could help. What was on the shelf was what you had to buy. A dozen nails, or no nails. The system said take it or leave it.
Until, that is, he found his local ironmongers. One with a man in a brown coat behind a brown wooden counter with brown paper bags. With time to serve and time to care about his customers.
“One nail? Of course, Sir. That will be 2p. Can I wrap it for you? Can I get the door for you? Cheerio Sir…”
This half-remembered moment in a long-ago comedy jumped back into my mind last week.
I had spend considerable time trying to do two seemingly simple things on-line.
Renew a driving licence and re-direct my mail on moving house.
The mail should have been easy. Enter all the details, enter my card details to pay, then press the button and wait. Error. Please check all details. And try again.
I did. 12 times. Didn’t work.
The driving licence should have been easier. Except the address on my licence, issued by DVLC, wasn’t accepted. The computer said “No” The address doesn’t exist. I was obviously living in a dream for the 100 months or more I thought I’d been there.
And so, from the virtual world to the real one and to the local Post Office. Good old paper and pen. And real people who gave amazing service. Take a bow, the staff at the Canonmills Post Office in Edinburgh.
For them, a problem was just something not yet fixed and their mission was to find that fix. They really cared.
They even delayed the post van collecting the mail until my forms had been completed and posted. They went the extra mile. With a smile.
All of which got me thinking.
The more we design systems to allegedly make things quicker and simpler, the more we create inflexible straitjackets into which all inquiries must fit. From simplicity, we often end up getting complexity and confusion.
I’ve written here before about BA’s new food service on many of its flights. The one which doesn’t accept cash and as a consequence takes longer to process each purchase. A cunning plan which might have worked on paper, but doesn’t work on a plane.
We have all been through the frustration of call centres desperately trying to find the shortcut to speak to an operator. Because sometimes an issue doesn’t always fit neatly into the preset categories.
Or just because we would rather deal with a human being than a frustrating vacuum of help. We want to talk to a real person, not voice recognition software.
We are social beings. We like real people. We don’t always fit neatly into the tick box virtual world. We like personal service, not slavish adherence to pre-determined norms.
Sometimes, the chance of human error is far preferable to the rigid stupidity of artificial so-called intelligence.
Or maybe I’m just a Luddite, locked into my own wee world of nostalgia for how things used to be. Maybe I’m the one with fat fingers who can’t work the keyboard.
So there you have it.
Nothing world-shattering.
But I leave you with a tip for those automated call centres if you want a human being.
Pressing 0 a few times often works.
