It’s not often a letter makes me snort with laughter but today it did. It shouldn’t have. I should’ve been raging. I’m amazed with how low my bar is set when dealing with institutions and the people that represent them. More often than not I start to question if my ability to communicate is impaired.
When I compose correspondence, I tend to keep it to the point and in basic English. I only try to impress people with long words when I’m seriously annoyed with them. It does happen. The other time is when someone has treated me like I am dumb. I’ll admit I can be but no need to put me down to get your point across or make you seem more educated.
So today I received a reply from our local council in response to my emailed letter asking them to consider us for a reduction in council tax. My original letter stated about my husbands Parkinson’s diagnosis and how due to the size of the property we are unable to customise any room to help with his needs. It also highlighted that we are unable to improve access to the property.
I would ask you to guess the contents of the response, but Christmas is fast approaching, and you might still be guessing when it’s the last shopping day. Please don’t have a hot drink to hand as I fear you will spit it out. Here goes. ‘In order to verify (husbands name) is suffering from a severe mental impairment….’ What now? Seriously. I state Parkinson’s and you get that! How?
Originally I wasn’t going to tell my husband but I did. He was stunned. I did joke and say on occasion I wonder if they were not wrong. How can you explain that response from the council? Are the staff not aware of what Parkinson’s is and the main symptoms and effects on a person? I’m not sure I can assume they misunderstood my letter. It was pretty basic and to the point. Also I would like to point out it was not written in Klingon like I have joked about previously.
Sitting here I can not for the life of me figure how that leap from one to another happened. Did they search it online and AI misfed them information? Did they do ip, dip, dog….. and put a pin in a list of items that they allow deductions for? If a member of staff has no idea what an ailment, illness or diagnosis means, does the system not have a process in place where someone finds out, or the request is referred to a more experienced member of the team?
Now don’t tell him but I fear my husband is correct with his theory. They do that so people don’t bother to take the claim further. I’m not going to. If they can get it so wrong from the first point of contact I very much doubt anything else would be smooth sailing. I wasn’t hopeful anyway. As the Parkinson’s nurse said, it couldn’t hurt to try. I’m just so glad I emailed rather than paying for postage!
Again this is another situation to file under the heading you couldn’t make it up. Maybe I’m wrong and I should fight it but I suppose I’m aware that my energy and time is better spent on battles that I’ve a better chance of winning. This is not one of them. So their letter will be shredded and given a better job….in the compost. So from me and my fruit loop husband we wish you well. E x