A Royal pain

We have been clients (they used to call us "customers") of the Royal Bank for a thousand years, yet they still can't get our name right.  It's beyond belief.

Firstly, just moving here and transferring to a local branch was a big mistake.  This region doesn't talk to our old region and neither do their computer systems.  A year-and-a-half later and we are still not completely moved over!  Not to bore you with the gory details, but you get the picture.  It was just one screw up after another. 

"You have to go into the bank and sign a document," B said to me the other day.  You have to understand, that I enter that place under severe duress and only if I absolutely must.  "Why?"  Well, she just said they need your signature to complete the blah-blah, he said.  "It'll be no fuss, the document will be right at the front desk for you, you don't need to see anyone, just sign it," he added.

How did I know it would not quite work that way.

So, in I go.  "May I help you," said the young man.  He was seated beside another young "helper" woman.  I could see a 100 other employees milling around -- not at tellers' wickets, of course, too busy doing.............????...........while the docile customers, long used to no-service, lined up zombie-style waiting. 

"My name is....and apparently there is a document here for me to sign."  "Mrs. Clarke?"  No, Mrs. Marley-Clarke.  "May I just see some ID please," he asks.  I show it.  It clearly says, "Nancy Marley-Clarke".  He shuffles around, on and under the desk, looking for what I knew with complete and absolute certainty would not be there.  "Do you know who your husband saw?"  No.  "Let me just look up your account."  I hand over my client card.  He looks.  "No, nothing here about signing any document," he says, now a tad nervous because I am looking daggers at him.

Then we played guess-the-client-advisor.  "Was it Sue?  No.  Lindsay?  No.  Helen?  No.  "P"  Yes, that was her name.  "I'll just go and get her."   And up he gets and returns with "P".  Apparently, she was in a meeting -- presumably with another annoying customer -- and I had the nerve to interrupt her. 

After looking under the desk and staring blankly at the computer screen, she says, "No, there is nothing for you to sign, your husband must have been mistaken."  I knew he was not.  She departs.  The young man says, "Let me just go and see the customer (non)service people and check again."  No one in the entire branch had a clue about what I was to sign.  "Well, that was a waste of a half hour," I said, as I left. 

A day later the phone rings, as I knew it would.  "Mrs. Clarke?"  No one here by that name, I said, about to hang up.  "I mean Mrs. Marley-Clarke," P adds quickly.  "We finally figured out what you were to to sign."  I guess it took an all-day special meeting for the branch to get to the bottom of the mystery.  "The document was there all along, but it was addressed to Mrs. Clarke," she actually said. 

"You know, we have been customers for many, many years, it would be nice if you got our name right," I snapped.  "Did (the young man) look around?  What did he do?" she stupidly asked.  "I'm not his boss, I wasn't going to tell him what your procedures are."  "Well, can you come in and sign it today?"  No.

After uttering a curt goodbye, I hung up.  No clue when I will get there again, but any bets the document won't be at the front desk of that hopelessly-muddled, left-hand-right-hand mess when I do!!??