In the last post, I wrote about the English school system, and the assessment of a former teacher that neither students, teachers nor parents are interested in passing on real knowledge and understanding, because to start a career it is enough to give the appearance of competence rather than having to demonstrate actual skill.
Can her impressions be generalised? There are examples of the opposite of course. But what is the exception, what is the rule? A general lack of education would explain the gaps in knowledge of many politicians and citizens, see the views on immigration or the belief in Britain's special status in the world. But a conspicuous lack of competence can also be perceived in everyday life, on single occasions, for entire organisations and more. Let me share a few examples.
Driving in the UK is absolutely annoying and dangerous. I was once told that in Britain one does not drive but avoid accidents (A Brit told me that). And I can only confirm this assessment. Drivers forget to signal, take the wrong turn, and cutting off other road users seems to be a popular sport.
We liked to hire a car to visit friends in other parts of England. On every trip, EVERY trip, we nearly got into accidents. In several. I highly recommend to always be aware of your surroundings. The small car you are about to overtake on the motorway may want to change into your lane for no apparent reason.
Secondly, the street sign situation. Not only are there often several street signs in place for one piece of information, but the British makes excessive use of useless signs.
For example, at pedestrian islands, parking bays(!) and roundabouts there are signs indicating which lane to use: drive on the left, not on the right. Apparently, even the British need to be constantly reminded of their weird left-hand traffic. Near our apartment block, three single-lane roads met at a roundabout, and there were as many as seven of these signposts. And they were lit from the inside, what a waste!
Speaking of roundabouts, Brits love roundabouts. Even normal junctions are transformed into them by a thick white dot in the middle. Roundabouts can make sense, for example to avoid expensive traffic lights. But that doesn't stop my British friends from adding traffic lights to even simple roundabout systems. Preferably directly at the exits. When a red signal is given, traffic is blocked in all directions.
Traffic lights are another issue. Why are they often arranged in such a confusing way?! A good example is the A501/A1 junction in London, where, coming from Islington, one hits the ring road surrounding the city centre. There are three masts for signaling, two on the right, one on the left. On each mast, four signal lamps are mounted in a column and one on the left of the column.
On all installations, the upper lamp initially lights up in a full red. Even before it switches off, the lowest and the left lamp light up green, with an arrow straight ahead and to the left respectively. Only several seconds later does the main light switch to yellow and then green, without arrows. Which means the main traffic light is for turning right… Would you have guessed that? Many road users are too confused to understand the logic within one phase of green and just don’t move.
The strange traffic routing also seems to confuse navigation systems. At least the apps we use from Apple and Google regularly fail to find a route. A trip to the countryside quickly becomes torture. The Apple app at least tells you that it doesn't know which road leads to your destination. Google's counterpart conceals its own ignorance and lets you drive merrily in circles.
Even in a medium-sized city like Leichester, both systems reach their limits. We just wanted to drive from the city centre to friends in a suburb. Apple once again told us the journey was impossible. Google directed us first to the other end of the city and then along winding paths to our destination. A 10-minute drive turned into a 40-minute odyssey.
In London, the map services work better. The skills of drivers are also above the average of the country. However, the city makes higher demands on drivers. There are too many cars, mopeds and other vehicles on the road. And London is a city whose street plan was largely laid out before the invention of mass motorised transport. Many streets are narrow, winding or the number of lanes changes with each new block of houses.
While larger streets are usually congested, driving on smaller streets is like a slalom. Due to the lack of parking spaces, car parks have been created ON the streets. In addition, you have to be careful not to hit cyclists or moped riders who whiz past you left and right.
If one doesn’t have a car or doesn't want to drive, one has to rely on driving services like Uber (expensive) or public transport. As described, the air on the tube is miserable. If one switches to buses, one can get around the city cheaply and enjoy the view. And thank goodness, London buses are less affected by breakdowns than those in the countryside. But one has to have time. If there is no dedicated lane, they get stuck in traffic jams. Also, drivers tend to drive past stops, despite stop signals or waiting groups.
The other big topic I want to dive into, is handling money. In Germany and the Netherlands, I was used to making regular payments for electricity and heating by direct debit mandates. In the UK, we paid all bills manually ourselves and I quickly understood why. Companies fail to charge the same amount every month. Sometimes they want too much, sometimes too little, sometimes they forget to send a bill completely, only to overcharge you the next month when they correct it.
It's a similar story with employers. In my wife’s 10 year career in the NHS, hardly any of the institutions she has worked for have managed to transfer the same, i.e. correct, amount to her every month. Even the transfers to the pension fund were wrong. At least her surgery noticed the error at some point. But was the newly calculated amount correct? It was impossible to find out. The pension fund's website was down so often that I almost suspected intent. And with the tools of the BMA, the British Medical Association, we calculated completely different amounts. To clarify, we wanted to talk to an expert at the BMA, but the waiting time was more than three months and longer than we had time to appeal.
And then there is the tax office. There they had come to the conclusion that my wife owed Her Majesty several thousand pounds in tax and sent us a reminder. The tone of the letter was nasty, only the announcement to send a goon squad over if she doesn’t pay immediately was missing. But it was the deadline that had us nervous. She had just under three weeks to meet the payments, otherwise hefty fines would be due. The three weeks started with the date of the letter. But the letter reached us two and a half weeks later.
Either the office had sent the letter late, which would not surprise me, or Royal Mail had delayed delivery, which was at least as likely. The British postal service is my personal nemesis. Even express letters can take several weeks to arrive. If a parcel is to be delivered directly, it goes to the post office, if it is supposed to go to the post office, it is delivered directly. And our wedding preparations had been thrown into considerable chaos because Royal Mail had lost every third invitation.
But back to our tax problem. My wife frantically called her tax advisor. He is one of the few people in the country I trust. A day later he got back to us: the tax office had made a mistake, my wife did not owe any money, on the contrary, the office must pay her several thousand pounds. He had already sent all the documents to the authority.
Of course, the story is not over yet. Although all the documents were received before the deadline, the office commissioned a debt collection company. They contacted us again with a deadline, more threats and, of course, the letter arrived two and a half weeks late.
Once again we contacted the tax advisor. He reassured us that all documents were send and we should call the authorities directly to sort out the mess. Of course, we had to wait half an hour and had to dial through all possible menus before a human voice answered: Yes, the consultant's documents had been received, apparently my wife had been assigned the wrong tax code. The mistake was corrected, sometime next year (!) they would probably transfer her money. There was nothing in the documents about a debt collection company, but they would check it.
The collection agency got in touch again, the office was called again. And then... everything started all over. Because when the tax code was corrected, the office had again entered a wrong one... The story dragged on for several months....
Oh, how that story still upsets me. I would have more examples to tell, but they will have to wait until I have calmed down a bit.
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