Frustrations

  We all have things that annoy, irk, vex, exasperate or any of a thousand other adjectives that describe the stuff that makes us want to scream. This week hit a new high (low?) in frustration. I'll start at the beginning.

  Charlie, the dog, makes only one sound - a growl. It can be low, medium or harsh. It can indicate he's hungry, wants out, senses danger or, mostly, he's bored. I've told you all how he follows us around when we're in the kitchen but it gets better.

  Consider first that he gets fed at his normal, expected time. We let him out in the backyard about six times a day in addition to his daily walk. I've mentioned we're not allowed to have dogs, horses, cattle or any other semi-threatening animals displayed on the TV screen. You would think we've satisfied all his needs. No.

  When we sit at the table, regardless of the reason, he seems to take offence. He wants to sit with us on the couch. He sits on the floor between us and picks one of us to stare at like he's the Amazing Kreskin trying to read our minds. Then he starts the low growl. Then he'll get on his hind legs and put his paws on the table to ensure he has our attention. We've determined that if we a) throw his toys at him to catch and never return or b) sit on the couch the staring and growling stops.

  He's a fine dog and we like him. Sometimes, though, we don't like how he behaves. A little frustrating.

  Our sit here is done at the end of the year so I'm actively searching for our next destination. Because it will be January we're focused on someplace warm. That means we ignore, out of hand, all the unsolicited requests we receive from strangers on the house sitting platforms who want us to stay at their wonderful house in Edmonton, Buffalo, Thunder Bay, Fargo and similar snowbound retreats.

  Unfortunately, we're not the only folks looking for a warm escape from the winter. Literally every post I read where the location is warm attracts multiple applications immediately. The biggest platform, Trusted Housesitters, closes the post when it receives five responses so the poster can review them. In many cases it only takes a few minutes to reach that limit. That means I spend a lot of my time refreshing the listings to try to catch a tasty morsel before the vultures descend upon it. We've never had this issue before so I'm chalking it up to an increase in popularity for the house sitting life.

  Along with more house sitters there appear to be more homeowners posting house sits. Popularity swings both ways. In most cases now, unlike our previous experience, homeowners don't know how to deal with respondents effectively. It used to be an automatic that we'd be accepted for postings we applied to and, if we weren't, we'd get a nice message explaining how they'd found someone else who they preferred over us. No problem.

  Now, it seems, civility has been abandoned like we're in an American political campaign. We're being rejected out of hand, many times without explanation. I can deal with it. There's more people responding so there's more work for homeowners to find someone. A simple, "we found someone else" message would be nicer than the "rejected" message the platform sends us. But it gets better.

  We've had about six instances in the past couple of weeks where homeowners led us to believe we were "it" only to reject us without reason the next day. One person had us on a video chat for an hour, everything going swimmingly, only to tell us at the end she had nine more people to interview. We didn't get that either. I mean, she's looking for someone to look after cats. How hard can that be? She offers that litter only needs changing weekly, they're fine having three days worth of food in their bowls... this is not a demanding assignment. I guess she was looking for something we didn't possess, like a love of nineteenth century Russian literature or a hookah fetish.

  We have two video chats scheduled for this afternoon, one near a beach in Florida, both of whom seem to want us. We'll see how that goes. A little more frustrating.

  The topper was today. Because Penny turns 65 in January she'll qualify for Canada Pension. A few months ago we went to the appropriate government website to ensure all her info was correct. That's when the nightmare began.

  In order to access this site you must confirm the information our government has on file, starting with one of your parents' name at birth. Simple. We entered her mother's maiden name. Error. We entered her father's name. Error. We triple-checked everything else on the screen but, nope, those names were the problem. Next step, spend an hour on the phone waiting for a government functionary to confuse you.

  When, let's call him "Jacques", finally got on the line we explained the situation. He calmly reviewed everything and sent us to a webpage where we could update the info, requiring images of Penny's birth certificate and marriage license. We did it, submitted the changes and received a nice letter a few weeks later telling us all was fixed.

  We went back to the offending webpage, answered the questions just as we had weeks earlier, and voila! The secret passage opens and no grue awaits us. We checked her applications were correctly submitted then checked her mailing address. Uh oh. Old address. Well, we thought, that should be a simple online change of address form, right? Wrong.

  Clicking on the "Change address" link brings you to a page that says you can't do that here. Ok, there's an option to submit the change using a form that someone in the vast bureaucracy will review and enact the change. We clicked on that. Error 404. Way to go government of Canada. Apparently you have to go to a Service Canada office or call them on the phone because it's 1987.

  Well, no one wants to call them on the phone so Penny went to the office. Two hour wait. See ya. Now it's time to phone them, but wait! There's an option to have them call you. Done. Much easier. Amazingly, within a hour Penny's phone rings. Liking this even better.

  Penny explains she needs to change her pension address and the nice lady starts asking her security questions. The first one is, mother's maiden name. Uh oh. She gives it to her and is told she's wrong. Wait. She's wrong? Penny explains we went through all this and fixed the offending record. No, the nice lady says, it's not fixed. But wait, I say, we were able to log in to the webpage so the info on file must be right. The nice lady says we must be mistaken as it's not what she sees.

  This is where things start sliding downhill in a "you're not really hearing what you think you're hearing" kind of way. The nice lady tells Penny that she'll have to talk to someone in another department to fix this. We already did, Penny says, somewhat exasperatedly. The lady (no longer nice) tells Penny she can't do anything until this gets fixed. Penny is starting to lose it and the lady cautions her not to speak to her that way. The cliff looms.

  I ask if I can speak to the lady. I explain, slowly, using monosyllabic words, how we've already done the things she's asking. I explain that Penny tried to go to the office but had a life so a two hour wait was not in the cards. This is where it gets good. The lady asks if we called the number on the webpage. No, I explain, as there was an option for them to call us. That's why we're having this conversation. Well, she says, we should call the number. Penny and I look at each other like we're in an Abbott and Costello routine trying to figure out who's on first.

  Finally, we get past who should be calling whom and she deigns to look at the address record and tells us it was changed last week. Huh? No one changed anything. Oh yes, she says. The tax people updated it. With the old address. No, I say, I've seen the tax department webpage and it shows the correct address. No it doesn't she says. My head explodes, littering the dining room table with Who's on first, What's on second and I don't know's on third.

  This is the point where she finally decides she should do her job. She tells us to wait while she makes the necessary change. Huh? We had to go through all this idiocy and now she's going to do the change of address? We say thank you and the call ends. Alcohol beckons. Total frustration.

  It's been a trying week but I think the worst is behind us. I have a good feeling about the two people we'll be talking to today. I can almost feel the sand between my toes although I do feel like Lucy is holding that football I'm about to kick.