P WAS SAYING to me the other day that The Register General Department [RGD] with all its public relations and blah, blah still ranks among one of the worst public entities to interact with.
Even if you want to say that the RGD is a WIP, [a work in progress] and that they are way ahead of what they were let's say 10 years ago, fine. But they are still a way to go before you might think of using the word efficient to describe them.
And we know that they have an excuse for all of their shortcomings.
But let's take this. They say you can apply for your documents online and get them delivered to your home. Brilliant, I thought, I would be spared the agony of going to the RGD office and wasting a day from work to apply for my sons' birth certificates and my marriage certificate.
No such luck. I go to the website, fill in the form to apply and get a response saying that I need to go to an RGD office with a print-out of my application to pay or send a postal order.
Clearly someone is not too clear at the RGD about what an online application means. It really means that you ought not move from in front of your computer complete your transaction with the RGD.
Has anybody at the RGD heard about things like online credit card payments, debit card payments, or facilities like Paymaster, Bill Express or institutions like banks and building societies? Hmm, I guess not - or of course they have a legitimate excuse as to why they have gone that route yet.
It gets better though. I go to the office and pay for three documents, birth certificates for Young R and Young P and marriage certificates for me. The expected wait - seven days.
On day eight early in the morning a bearer arrives at the house with certificates for Young R, three to four hours later the same bearer arrives at the house with the marriage certificates and two days later the same bearer arrives with certificates for Young P.
If this bearer is being paid per delivery well, more power to him, if not he must have been one frustrated man. Either way was there no system that allowed the RGD to see that they had three documents that were to go to the same place that were applied for on the same day at the same time?! Who foots this bill of wasted man-hours?
But I am sure the RGD head will have some plausible excuse for this blatant waste of resources too.
There is no in between efficiency. C'mon RGD, get with the programme. Get fully modern.
Email comments to: myfriendp@hotmail.com
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