If You Can Use The Website, I Don’t Have To Do My Job!

One part of my job consists of calling the Rental Board (a tribunal dealing with landlord-tenant relations) to ask for certified copies of their decisions for the collection agency we deal with. This is necessary when we sent our one and only certified copy to the bailiff to have a tenant evicted.

The vast majority of the time, I call, I wait thirty to forty-five minutes on hold with some annoying Musak and repetitive messages, I get a Rental Board representative, I ask for the documents, they tell me it will be in the mail in a couple of days, and then, I receive it.

Then, this morning, after forty-five minutes of high-volume Musak and low-volume droning, I get this employee.

Me: “Hello, I am [My Name] for [Landlord], and I am calling to get several certified copies of Rental Board decisions.”

Employee: “Please hold for a moment.”

Cue ten more minutes of auditive torture.

Employee: “Good morning, what is your request?”

Me: “I would like to get some certified copies of Rental Board decisions.”

Employee: “I suggest that you register with [Well-Known Provider Of Rental Board Decisions].”

Me: “This provider only gives regular copies. I need certified copies for our collection agency.”

The employee speaks to me like I am some kind of cockroach.

Employee: “Then you can go to our website and choose ‘Transmit a document to the Tribunal.’”

Me: “But I don’t want to transmit a document. I want to receive a document.”

Employee: “Like I said, you have to go to our website for that. Choose ‘Transmit a document to the Tribunal.’”

Me: “The ‘Rental Board decisions’ option is not even available.”

Employee: “Then you choose ‘Other Documents,’ and then you transmit your demand for the Tribunal.”

Never mind that this website is not even designed for that kind of request.

Me: “You don’t get it, I—”

She cuts me off in a tone of voice one uses on a petulant child.

Employee: “If you are not satisfied with the way I handled your request, you may deposit a complaint on the website. If there’s nothing else, I will disconnect this call. Goodbye.”

This afternoon, I will call again, and I fully expect another representative to tell me that my decisions will be in the mail in a couple of days.