General Chat

Good morning Berona

I had already given you salutations on the Women's thread gladly do so again on the 'Official' thread.

Allan

There you all are:-) I went off to have breakfast and you all posted while I was away.

Tec - I'm so glad our Duchess is well again. Hopefully you'll get a good night's sleep. Thank you for the welcome back. I love catching up with family and hate to say 'bye to them. OH's family are such warm welcoming people and we always enjoy the time we spend together - unfortunately not as often as we would like.

Allan - your thread is good fun. I enjoyed reading the posts.

Pat and Berona - good to see you. I truly missed you all.

Sue xx

Hi Sue,
Who's wedding was it you went to?
I sort of only posted every couple of days and a reference was made about you being away etc etc.
I'm glad you had a nice time and you took lots of photos.
Pat x

Hello Pat. We missed you over the past few days. Well, I missed you, anyway - our numbers on here have been short, but thankfully, seem to be replenishing again slowly.

By all means, pop into the Women Only thread and show the flag. We can't let the men have it on their own.

G'Day Berona,

I would be happy to attend you in my nursing capacity any time you're not 100% - not sure if you would appreciate my efforts.

'Evening Pat,

Much colder here today too, with snow forecast later in the week.
Hope you like your new bedroom - bet it's even harder to get up in the morning now

Tec

Hello Pat,

You posted at the same time I did, and then I went off to do something else in the meantime

Allan

Hi Tec,
My sister told me about the snow. I hope it bypasses Exeter again. The new bedroom is nice. The bed is coming on Wednesday. I'm having the living room done in a couple of weeks time!

Pat, the bride is the daughter of OH's cousin. OH's mum and his cousin's mum were sisters. Both of them gone now but very much missed. OH's cousin is a lovely lady and always makes us so welcome. We took loads of photos including a beautiful photo of OH's three cousins together. As one is in WA and the other in England it isn't often they all get together.

Sue xx

Hi Allan,
I hope you are ok.

Sue,
That's the nice thing about weddings when everyone gets together. I was at my cousins wedding in 1974 and for the frist time in ages my Day and his 2 brothers and 2 sisters were altogether and someone took a photo. unfortunately they've all died now.
I like taking photos.
Pat x

I know that business administration has changed over the years, but has anyone noticed how much it has changed? I sometimes wonder what happened to the phrase "the customer is always right"????

Have you ever phoned a store and told them they gave you the wrong item? Someone says very brightly "just pop it back and we'll replace it". Why should YOU have to do the running around when THEY made the mistake?

The latest trend is charging for services. If a service of some kind is provided, why can't they just send an invoice for the service? Why do they have to say that they want to be able to take their fee out of your bank account, but if you must have an invoice, there is an extra charge for the invoice? Don't they include that as part of their expenses, when claiming tax deductions?

Where I live, in a complex managed by an agent - the agent charges an overall fee for 'managing', THEN adds the cost of issuing letters, postage, sending & receiving emails/phone calls, writing cheques, etc. The latest claim is for the cost of an archive box to store OUR paperwork in! So what's the 'overall' fee for? the honour of them agreeing to be our managers?

Anyone else noticed how this has changed from the original way of charging the same fee as 'quoted'?

Berona,
I understand your point - I think "service" has declined everywhere.
There does seem to be a "take it or leave it" kind of attitude. If you object to extra charges, then go elsewhere is the attitude.
Something that bugs me, although I'm not affected, is in paying my telephone bill. We used to get a quarterly bill, and given 14 days to pay it.
Then British Telecom announced that they would charge an extra £5 ($10)per quarter for the priviledge of sending you a bill. However, if you handled the account online, they would wave the surcharge.
But many people, in particular elderly people, do not have internet facilities. Therefore they are penalised for having to be sent a bill.

There are many examples similar to this - I think it's wrong.

Tec

Tec,

It seems that the Aussie Companies follow the UK lead

Telstra (The telecommunications co.) tried that one but it wasn't the sending of the bill that incurred the charge it was the method of payment.

if you paid in person at the shop there was an extra $2.00 charge to 'process' the cash, similarly if you paid by any method other than by internet banking.

I think that they rapidly backed down on that one, at least for the pensioners.

Allan

The big service industries don't back down on anything here.
We have to pay a service charge for having an electricity meter installed - do I have an option? - then I have a bulk LPG gas tank installed in the garden, there is no mains gas here.
The tank is the property of my supplier, who have the monopoly on LPG gas here. But I have to pay 17.5 p a day service charge for the tank - no time to work it out here, but 365 x 17.5p a year is quite a bit extra on my gas bill..........grrrrrrrrrr

Tec

Enjoy your day everyone,
goodnight,
Tec

Good night Tec

Allan

I guess I'm just cranky at the idea that I have to go see my GP this morning to get the paperwork so that I can have an ECG and a blood test. This is required by my specialist before he sees me again in March.

I paid him $100 (and yes, I know we pay for their study,knowledge, etc) but all he did was take ten minutes to say he would like the tests done. He dictated a short letter to my GP requesting this. I have since had to ring and make an appointment with the GP, just to get the necessary paperwork. I realise that I have to do the running around to have the tests done, but why add a trip to the GP to it as well? Couldn't the specialist give me the requests? Nobody seems to care how much the customer/clients have to run around, as long as THEY don't have to do it!

Sorry. Rant over - it's time for me to go now. Less than an hour to the appointment.

Berona,

I have a similar problem with my eye tests. A letter informing me that I have an appointment with the Specialist for my annual check up but I have to have a letter of referral from my GP.

I am fortunate as my GP has me on a special Diabetes review programme funded by the Feds so she bulk bills me. As a consequence she also bulk bills me for all my appointments with her.

If she is away and I have to see another doctor I am charged at the full price of $60.00 !

Allan

Good evening Aussies and good morning to those up over,
I thought I should even up the numbers a bit, not that Allan and Tec need any support.
As my name suggests I live in Sydney and have been on this thread before under another name. This is the first time I have ventured back here, although I consider you a great bunch of people I don' want to start any trouble.
Sue, nice to read about your cousin's wedding.
Berona, I agree about strata managers. I wonder what ours actually does. The piece de resistance this year was after we requested some fence modifications. We accepted a quote, the builder came, then after knocking down part of th fence decided it would have to be rebuilt. About October II rang asking what was happening. "Oh, ewe sent new quotes in August and are waiting for your reply." Funny, nobody got one. We then agreed on a new quote. Action to date: nil.
Our AGM is soon. I think we will be looking for a new strata manager in the near future. near future. Also, rant over.

Hello there my friend

Nice to see you back,

I was just doing a quick pop in to say I won't be around for a couple of days. Working tomorrow and I have an audio appointment on Thursday so maybe back Friday. (that should give you all peace and quiet for a couple of days)

I went for my hearing test last week Berona - $80 for the test. Then $189 to see the Otolaryngolgist for all of 10 to 15mins. Then we had coffee - followed by one of OH's Tiki Tours and lunch out etc - so it was not a cheap day... can't do anything for under a pound these days.

Diane - I am looking forward to you my darling Liverpool Lass returning from wherever you have disappeared to. You are not burying them in the back yard are you?

Cheers Persey