blog.andrewl.net

I dropped out a couple of emails last week. Nothing spectacular, just general enquiries – one to my local council, one to my building society. Maybe it’s me, but in these days of blackberries, ‘always-on’ messaging and twitters going off left, right, and centre I’d be disappointed if I didn’t receive a response within a day or so.

From the council I received this auto reply:

"Thank you for your e-mail you sent to XXXXXX Borough
Council Customer Services. This is to confirm that we
have received your e--mail. If we cannot deal with your
enquiry ourselves then we shall forward it on to the
relevant department/officer who will endeavour to reply
within 7 working days. We will notify you who the email
has been referred to."

Seven working days? To forward and reply to an email? (It’s been six working days and I’ve heard nothing yet.)

I never heard back from the building society – not even an autoreply, and I’d forgotten all about it. Until today that is, when I received a letter from them which started:

"Dear Mr Larcombe
Thank you for your email on the 30th June. I can confirm...."

Yup. They’d replied to an email by letter! I guess it’s all done in the name of security (A Good Thing), it just seems very quaint.