Friday 11 February 2011

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

When I was in the process of winding up Davy's estate this time last year I rang up the Inland Revenue to enquire about his overpayment of tax. I was told that if a rebate was due it would triggered when his final tax return had been submitted.

This was duly sent off in December and I waited patiently for the rebate. In mid January I rang the Inland Revenue with another query and while I was speaking to their "operative" I asked when I could expect this rebate.

The delightful young man checked and said, yes there was a rebate due, but I had to submit Form R27 to claim it. No-one had told me that! Out of interest I asked what would have happened if I hadn't asked the question and was told it would just sit in the account, unclaimed.

The form went off on 21st January and as I hadn't received an acknowledment of receipt I thought I'd better check it out. Another delightful young man told me that he doubted if it would have been dealt with yet, put me on hold while he looked into it and came back with this information, and I quote, "Post received between 22nd/28th January will not be dealt with until 25th February". I laughed. "What do you mean "will not be dealt with?"" and he said "it won't even be opened, it just sits in a pile". Now I'm not normally a rebel but come the revolution.............

Calm down Ann, deep breath! OK, I'm in the zone again. A friend sent me this joke this morning and it lightened my mood again:
________________________________________
A Little Christian Humor

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, 'THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.'

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused
They faxed
They e-mailed
They e-mailed with attachments..
They downloaded
They did spreadsheets!
They wrote reports
They created labels and cards
They created charts and graphs
They did some genealogy reports
They did every job known to man
Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off...

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.

Jesus just sighed....

Finally, the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:

'It's gone! It's all GONE! 'I lost everything when the power went out!' Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.
Satan observed this and became irate. 'Wait!' he screamed. That's not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don't have any?' God just shrugged and said, JESUS SAVES ...

Have a good day.

15 comments:

Sueann said...

I hate dealing with government officials! I hope you get that rebate soon. That really sucks. As for the joke...groan!! Ha!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Jay said...

Love the joke! LOL!!

Yeah, the taxman takes and takes and takes, doesn't he? And is always extremely reluctant to give back our dues. I often wonder what happens to those who don't have the brain-power to argue and wonder. Poor souls must get short-changed right, left and centre!

Unknown said...

Beauracracy is such a pain to deal with! Good luck with that.

Maggie May said...

I had a hefty rebate from Mr Taxman recently and I shared it out! Hope he doesn't ask for it back!

Loved the tale of Jesus v Satan. An open & shut case really!
Maggie X

Nuts in May

ADDY said...

Don't get me going with Inland Revenue. I used to be a Civil Servant, but the IR are a breed all of their own. I am still sorting out tax returns for Greg for 2009/10. I tried ringing them recently as they suggested on the bottom of their letter, I could always ring. It took over 30 minutes of hanging on listening to music before someone picked up the phone and then they had to go away to ask the supervisor so I waited a further 10 minutes. Aaaaargh!!!

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

I hate dealing with any public/uncivil servant SueAnn

Unknown said...

You mean WE aren't the only ones that have to deal with beauracy?

Another enjoyable post>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>kt

Unknown said...

Just visited your travel blog.....Mannnnn, I AM jealous.
I have always wanted to travel but, never had the opportunity. Right now I am the sole caretaker of my 100 year old father (24/7/365) and it is hard to get away. kt

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

There is a sequal to all this Jay. The form I sent was returned with a covering letter saying I had omitted some information. The instructions were to skip page 2 & 3 if a Tax Return had been filed (which it had been).

When I queried this by phone it was agreed that the information omitted was not to be included (are you with me so far?) so the form shouldn't have been sent back to me.

I returned it and now it will sit in the next pile to be opened God knows when.

Never mind, I suppose I am doing my good citizen bit by delaying my tax rabate and,thereby, helping the dire cashflow situation.

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

Thanks Eva, but I'm not having much luck with this one.

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

Ah! so you are the cause of the cashflow problems Maggie. No wonder they won't pay me out :)

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

Tell me about it Addy!

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

I guess beauracy is the same the world over Karen. It just seems to me that this country has got really bad the last 10 years.

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

Yes, my trip will be really something won't it Karen?

RNSANE said...

I know I must have heard this joke sometime in my life but had forgotten it...how delightful it is and I sure needed a chuckle today.