Disappointingly, I still haven’t received a Yes / No reply from the “Department of Customer Service”, Service NSW as to when we might ever see our repaired van again but thankfully our handyman has moved it to his backyard where at least it won’t be stolen. Plus Nigel’s bike is back on the road so I now have the ute to go grocery shopping or take Bowie to the off-leash park….. or the vet, as is happening today…. Shhhhhhh
So brickbats to the Department of Customer Service at Service NSW, who’ve pretty much confirmed their motto: “If in doubt, waffle on thereby avoiding all responsibility if our advice turns out to be wrong”, which reminds me of another less couth version called the C.A.R.E. factor:
Cover A!?% Retain Employment
But enough negativity because this blog is about celebrating a positive encounter of the political kind, involving our lovely neighbours, whom I’ll call Sally and Mike.
Sally and Mike manage one of our local stores and, while I’m at home pondering whether to cull my computer folders, exercise Bowie or work on my current carpentry project, they have no such deliberations to be made. For them, like other essential workers, life pretty much involves long hours at work, home-schooling and household chores before crawling into bed.
A couple of days ago, Mike needed to renew his drivers’ licence and, after waiting more than two hours on the phone to Service NSW (amazingly, there’s only one phone number) he was informed by a customer service representative that he’d have to drive to Nyngan to do the eyesight test because the Cobar Centre was closed due to the lockdown.
Now, to be fair, perhaps the customer representative didn’t realise that Nyngan is 130 kilometres from Cobar and in a different LGA, and perhaps she didn’t know that, while Cobar has never had a known case of Covid, there’s currently one in Nyngan. But surely it was her job to know that Service NSW’s own website was advising that eyesight tests were being deferred during the Covid lockdown.
So who gets the bouquets? Well, not Service NSW or their “Customer (lack of) Service Department”…… was that too harsh?
It was actually our local MP, Roy Butler, who took the time to look into my Facebook message before intervening and then coming up with a solution – all within 24 hours. It seems that common sense has prevailed and Cobar Council will now open on Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment.
Special thanks should also go to “Mel at Narrabri” who sent me this reply on Roy’s behalf.
Hi Nigel (Facebook calls me Nigel).
It’s Mel from the Narrabri office. There seem to be a number of offices closed around the electorate at the moment. We will raise this issue with the Minister and let you know as soon as we receive a response.
PS So what’s my latest carpentry project? Well, remember the broken bed? It’s been re-purposed and is currently in the process of being painted.
Married to a Country Cop 