Grumpy old buggers thread

[JDNSW]

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday I got an invoice for $800 for the ambulance. This raised several issues.

Firstly, it was sent to my street address, which has no mail service. Secondly, they tried to get payment from a health fund I have not been a member of for nearly twenty years. A phone call, with a surprisingly short wait got me a rather helpful young lady who was able to cancel the invoice when I gave her a choice between my actual health fund or my pension card. However, she was unable to explain why the invoice was sent to the wrong address, or why they went to the wrong health fund, or why the ambulance crew made no attempt to get the correct information. Nor was she able to connect me to anyone who could do so, but did give me a complaints number. I phone this, and left a message, but I have slim hopes of any response.

However, kudos to Australia post, who managed to deliver the letter to the right address with only a week's delay. In the past, government mail sent to my street address has usually vanished into thin air, although most recently a letter arrived with handwritten "not here" notes from about four post offices, until one said "try Elong".

[Saitch]

But wait, there's more!

Yesterday I got an invoice for $800 for the ambulance. This raised several issues.

Firstly, it was sent to my street address, which has no mail service. Secondly, they tried to get payment from a health fund I have not been a member of for nearly twenty years. A phone call, with a surprisingly short wait got me a rather helpful young lady who was able to cancel the invoice when I gave her a choice between my actual health fund or my pension card. However, she was unable to explain why the invoice was sent to the wrong address, or why they went to the wrong health fund, or why the ambulance crew made no attempt to get the correct information. Nor was she able to connect me to anyone who could do so, but did give me a complaints number. I phone this, and left a message, but I have slim hopes of any response.

However, kudos to Australia post, who managed to deliver the letter to the right address with only a week's delay. In the past, government mail sent to my street address has usually vanished into thin air, although most recently a letter arrived with handwritten "not here" notes from about four post offices, until one said "try Elong".

..................but, JD, modern technology has made our lives easier.
(Well, it has in a lot of ways.)
Keep on it, JD, as that circumstance really is a serious concern.

Up until a couple of years ago, we would have to give our address using the adjoining, rural district name, as, on most GPS units, our road didn't show as in our district. Also, a large Commonwealth Government organisation would not accept our postal/residential address as valid. Nor a large banking institution.
I suppose, in their defence, the problem was that the two districts' common boundary was our road's Southern boundary and we are on the Northern side of the road.

[Tins]

Ran into bureaucracy again. My current health situation has prompted me to seek a temporary "Accessibility" parking permit. Half my life seems to be centred around two of Melbourne's hospitals, where of course parking is nigh on impossible, and rigidly enforced. Right now I have difficulty walking 100 metres without tripping etc. No problem. Council gave me the form. Took it to the GP. No problem, agreed I should have one and filled the form. In the mail I got a "PX2" label, which gives me double the posted time. This is useless to me, as my issue is not time but distance. Back to council. New, different form. Back to GP. Ok, new form duly submitted. Email allegedly sent to my GP ( she didn't receive it ), CC'd to me, saying that while I met the criteria, I would have to get a seperate assessment done, new form, by a different GP. Why? Is the first one not to be trusted? So, new form duly signed by different GP. Email received "This will not be processed", with a copy of the original email. No further info attached.

OK, I admit that currently I am quite a bit sub par, but I am not actually illiterate. I cannot make sense of the bureaucratic gobbledygook that I am dealing with. But, neither can the two Council officers, a Registered Nurse and two seperate GPs, all of whom seem to possess higher intelligence than the Transport Victoria person we are dealing with.

This is not why I am grumpy, however. I will get through it somehow, preferably with neither swearing nor violence. No, what makes me grumpy is that attached to the first email from TV was a form. I first supposed that it was a copy of my application, but no. Attached to the email was the application form, complete with contact and personal details, of another individual that I do not know, complete also with the letter accompanying it from that person's GP. Obviously this is an egregious breach of individual privacy by a Victorian Government department.

Does anyone know if there is an Ombudsman for the Vic Govt? On second thoughts, I think I'm off to see my local MP. I have no desire to get someone into trouble, but I don't believe I should just let this go. Besides, it may streamline my application

[JDNSW]

In their defence, my address has had issues for some time. When I moved here, I thought I lived in Elong Elong which is where my mail goes, 6km away through next door's, 40km by road. I found out a year or two later when my wife got a jury service notice the day before she had to be in the court in Dubbo. The notice was addressed to Dunedoo, 80km away by road. When I asked the sheriff where they got the address from, he told me "from the electoral roll". Sure enough, the AEC confirmed that was my address. It seems that the then Coolah Shire decided about 30+ years ago that everywhere this way from Dunedoo was in Dunedoo. As the problems (not just for me) increased, a campaign started to get some better sense into locality naming, and eventually the area I am in was renamed Goonoo Forest, which is the area that previously ended at my boundary fence. The extension covers about five properties. Most of the other area between here and Dunedoo also changed their locality to make more sense.

The issue is also partly the fault of the Ambulance people - put my address into google maps and it takes you to the house (usually, sometimes it offers an alternative route that involves locked gates and nonexistent roads). Certainly there is no phone coverage for most of the trip from town, but if you put the route into the phone when in coverage, my phone (and I believe most) will still work GPS when in no coverage, having stored the route. But don't use Apple Maps, unless you really want to get lost!

[Tins]

Was with a friend who commented that you do not see nay BMW X5 or equivalent Mercedes of the same vintage pad my 2011 Range Rover which is still common. Had never noticed this before but this started me looking for these vehicles and to my surprise they were right. Not a scientific exercise just observing traffic when out and about. Have lived through the traumatic experience of owning a BMW X5 of this vintage can understand why they would be in short supply. The bigger question that arises is if the Land Rover product is do unreliable why are there still lots around yet the competitors have disappeared?

Go back further. When I go out later I guarantee I will see at least one D2 and D1. And no, I don't mean mine. The owners can't all be masochists. Of course, I will also see 80 Series, 100 Series, and GU Patrols. Not much else of that age, apart from the ubiquitous FalcoDores. Oh, and Camrys.

[Saitch]

Why would the ride-on safety, kill switch, in the seat decide to die on Easter Saturday? Yes, I can bypass it, but I'm not going to, for safety reasons!

Murphy at his best, I suppose. The main reason I'm grumpy though, is because the good woman was all psyched up, ready to use the mower!

[NavyDiver]

"Your package couldn't be delivered " Thats the package I paid $$$ to be delivered as it's a bit big without my DISCO

I was home all day. Another person in the house. I found a card delivered at about 1pm after getting a email and text saying it was a failed delivery?

Guess who has to drive to a pick up point and have something stick out the back of my car a long wayFedexrated feedback inbound

[JDNSW]

Just to make my day. I have just heard that the local shop that hosts my Community Postal Agency closed permanently on Thursday afternoon (without notice).

It is unclear what my postal address can now be, and it also means that there is no feasible way for me to get any deliveries of anything. This was the only active business in the village.

[V8Ian]

A bereavement or simply unprofitable?

[JDNSW]

A bereavement or simply unprofitable?

Unprofitable, but not exactly simple. Starting in about 1980, or maybe a little earlier, one of the enterprising locals, who had been running a fuel delivery business for a few years, expanded to be a real estate agent in a small way, and started to sell a few other items, including small rural supplies. After the manual telephone exchange was replaced with an automatic one, and the post office which was combined with it closed, him and his wife took on the postal agency.

Around 1990, it was doing well enough that he expanded and built a solid brick shop/showroom with attached tyre repair facility and petrol pumps, and gradually expanded to include industrial gases and lpg refills.

Around 2010, with his wife having cancer, the kids grown up, and old age coming on, he retired and sold the very successful business, including his fairly new house to a fairly large, statewide rural supplies business. They stopped tyre repairs, and service deteriorated a bit.

During covid, they shut up shop in the village, having stores in larger towns about 40-50km away, and sold the business.

But without the fuel delivery, or fertiliser sales, and on the condition that they did not sell rural supplies. It has been going downhill ever since, and the writing was clearly on the wall when the fuel pumps shut off a few months ago, according to the gossip, because they could not pay the bill to the oil company.