A lose-lose situation

Today was one of those days...

It started as any other normal, boring, annoying, mundane day at work. Phones ringing, customers queuing, stupid people asking stupid questions, me trying to keep it courteous and professional and thinking that two more days of work and then I'll be enjoying my coffee and ciggies while surfing the net and doing the things I love.

Anyway, ten minutes before I finished and was time to go home, a couple of customers, a young lady and a not-so-young man, sat down on my desk and the girl gave me her card.  

I asked her to confirm her address and she did, and then when I saw the date of birth on our system (it was 1955) she confessed the card was her mother's.

I said to her that unfortunately I could not discuss the account with her and if there was a way to contact her mother and I could give her all the information she wanted. However, because she tried to tell me that the card belongs to the highest level of benefits, I informed her that this is not true, the account is on level 2, two levels away from the highest one.  But I could not give her any other information.

The asshole who happened to be her brother, said "And why can't you give us the information?"
I answered politely that we can only give information to the cardholder due to data protection.
He started arguing that data protection is one thing and identity fraud is another, and many other horse shit such as "If they deliver a card to my property by accident, this card belongs to me". No you bozo, this card belongs to the person whose name is on the card!
Of course I didn't call him bozo as this would be an insult to the bozos.
I said to him I don't want to argue and I would call a manager to speak to him, but, as  sodding Murphy's law had it, the managers were all serving other customers.

I politely explained that it is a business policy not to discuss details of the account, to anyone else but the customer and asked him "how would you like if someone was asking details about your account?" As a major ass hole that he was he replied that this card is not someone stranger's but his mother's. Yes, Sir Fuckface, but what if your mother doesn't want you to know how many points are on her card and comes back to me tomorrow and reports me?


The girl was also quite bitchy and was insisting that the card was on the highest level and was asking which transactions were added to the card in January. It was like I was speaking to deaf, dumb and dumber. I repeated I can't give this information.


The bloody managers were unreachable and now it was way past the end of my shift. This conversation was going nowhere. They were stubborn assholes and thank god I had witnesses, a queue of customers and my two colleagues, who saw that the fuckers were actually abusing me. 


At the end the dumb bitch murmured something like "we will take this matter to the Head Office "  (yes please see what the hell info you're going to get out of them) and they eventually got the fuck out of my face and I could finally go home.  By that time, I had become a nervous wreck.


When I went to the back office to pick up my coat and bag, the only manager I could tell my little story of pain was LB, the little bitch manager from my first blog post (go read it :D) who now I know for sure she despises me as much as I despise her.


Because not only didn't she sympathise with me, she told me off as well!
She told me off because I informed the dumb bitch of a customer that the card was not on the highest tier.  I explained to her that that was the only info I gave, and she told me off again! I shouldn't have said even that. At the same time her face was morphed into that of a hyena's, she usually has this expression when she is talking to me.
She didn't even have the decency to look at her clock and see that these wankers had kept me half an hour after my shift ended!

I was saved by the bell as her phone rang and when I got my stuff and I was passing next to her I said to her "Thanks for the support!"
I really did!!!! I hope the little bitch doesn't sack me.

What a bitch of a day. It's good to know I can come in here and rant, swear and write my guts out, otherwise if I expect to find any compassion at work I would go mental!

Coolness cont. and Docklands walk

Happy Woman's Day!

After many days of blogging hiatus (due to overtime and me being ill and grumpy) I am back!

The results for the Cool post (see below it's not late to add your comment!) are in.
I asked many people at work, family, friends, people on the streets, at the pubs, in the public toilets (ok, not really at the last three places...)
Anyway, the results I got varied. First of all, my lovely follower France from FranceRants wrote a comment that Eminem is cool. Well, indeed he is! I'm not crazy about his songs, but I love Stan and I think he's pretty cool too.
A few colleagues told me being able to succeed is cool. I agreed. And I added
"painlessly"!
My sister told me that Clive Owen is cool. My nephew thinks Jason Statham is cool.
My best friend thinks her husband is cool. And my goddaughter thinks Madonna is cool.
I agreed to all of the above!

The conclusion is that everyone has their own definition and perspective of coolness.
I noticed that not a lot of people have mentioned women, except Madge.
Quite disappointing. Aren't women cool?  Keira Knightley seems quite cool to me.

So be cool and enjoy your coolness, no matter how you define it, that's what I say!
____________________________
Today was a glorious sunny, warm day in London.  I was lucky to have a day off, so I decided to grab my iPod and go for a walk.
I have downloaded a podcast called "London Walks", which every time takes me to places in London I didn't know they existed. Today I decided to follow him down the Docklands, a once ill-reputed area full of druggies and prostitutes. Now it's considered hip, trendy and cool (there we go) as it is by the river, with gorgeous converted wharfs and houses.

It is quite easy from where I live to get to the Docklands and extremely pleasant too.
I take a bus (from the same bus stop where Samuel Guidera was stabbed, where people have laid dozens of flowers - it is quite moving) and go to Lewisham to take the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). I adore riding on the DLR it is like a mild roller coaster ride and the views are spectacular, especially as we approach Canary Wharf.

So I managed to get a front seat (the DLR trains have no driver!) and take pictures along the way.

I arrived at Shadwell station and put the podcast on.  For the first time after a very long time I had such fun!  I got lost a few times, because Richard Wright (who is a priest by the way) who does these podcast walks really fast and he goes to one place while I'm still at another.
So a couple of times I missed a turn and I had to go back, pause, rewind, replay the podcast until I got synchronised with him again.

I didn't mind while it was daylight, but after some time I was looking for a street called Rainer street and could not find it! Well, that got me annoyed! I walked up and down the same road twice, I went into streets and there was no sign, there was no one around and it was getting dark.  After I came out of a small street to the same street I was before for the second time (I was going around in circles with no results) I decided to try my Blackberry GPS. I input "Rainer Street, Docklands, London, UK" and the reply was "No Result"!
I started to get a bit desperate.  I tried again with "Rainer Street, London, UK" and boom! It gave me the directions. I finally found it, I went in put the podcast on again, only to find out that Mr Wright just wanted to show us a building in the street and then he walked back to the main street I was before! Thanks a bunch, I've just lost 45 minutes and now it's dark.

All this time he was saying that we are going to walk along the river.  I had not seen the river as yet.  I came to a gate that was leading to Thames Path, but because it was after sunset they had closed the gate and I couldn't go to see the river view, which he described as amazing. Boohoo!
I decided there and then to call it a day. I will do part II another sunny day, and maybe when my mom comes.
I took a bus to the nearest DLR station and started my way home. I had taken plenty of photos and I really had a great time, but maybe I should have started earlier (lesson learned) so that I could enjoy the whole walk. And next time, I'll carry a map as well!

Here is the slideshow from the pictures I've taken. If you'd like to read the comments I wrote about each picture you can go to the photostream on Flickr.