Status-Q

Bemused by two examples today of silly things that big organisations do:

• A letter arrived from the NHS for a friend with information about an important and urgent medical appointment, which was sent by second-class post. “Please contact us on this number”, it said, “if you haven’t heard from the hospital by the 2nd November”.  It arrived on the 2nd November.  

• A financial institution says it needs certified copies of three months of my bank statements.   That means I need to go and show them to a neighbour who will sign them to say they are true copies of the original, and then I can scan and send them.  But it’s been years since we received our bank statements on paper, so I will be printing out a PDF for them to sign.  Are they signing it to say that my printer hasn’t made a mistake?  In that case, what about my scanner?   But I checked, and yes, that’s really what the institution concerned wants me to do.

  So I will send both the scan of the signed printout of the original PDF asserting that it is indeed a true copy of the original PDF… and the original PDF.

Imagine if I actually had anything else to do, like earning a living…!