Curse of the psychic octopus

The eight legged egghead did it again. It predicted correctly that Spain would beat Germany in the world cup semi-final. I got this one wrong, leaving me in second position in the office tipping competition. I expect most will tip Spain to win the final. I have the dilemma of safely choosing the favourites Spain, and maintaining my second place, or risking my second position by choosing Netherlands. If Netherlands win, I can end up in joint first position (assuming of course, that the person who is now first tips Spain, which I think she will).

The struggle with institutional juggernauts and their inefficiencies continues. The other day I was at the office of MBF, my health insurance provider, to put in a claim. A representative at the door informed me that I should expect delays as they were implementing a new system which would improve service levels for customers, and the staff were still coming to grips with it. [Inadequate training before go live]

My turn came shortly after, and the woman at the counter who had obviously seen better days, took my claims, struggled with her new system for a few minutes, muttered something a couple of times, and then apparently decided it was all too hard. She looked at me and said, “I am sorry. I can’t do these here – as per our new policy, we have stopped paying Overseas Visitors claims over the counter. I will need to send this to Queensland.” [New policy- yeah sure. You just think this system is too hard, and you avoid as much work as you can, and you think I just look like a pushover who will walk away without questions].

I walked away without questions towards the exit. On my way out, I thought I would give it one more shot, and asked the MBF representative standing near the entrance if this was really the case. If it was, this new system upgrade seemed to be making things worse, rather than better, for customers. He seemed as puzzled as I was at what the lady at the counter had said about this new procedure. He asked me to wait, disappeared for a couple of minutes, reappeared, and told me to go back to the same counter, and that it would be done. On my way out, mission accomplished, this kind soul gave me a shake of the head, a knowing smile, and a thumbs up sign.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I am tipping Netherlands for the final.