I went to talk to my bank to transfer some money to Blighty.
“It’s much easier to do if you go online” said the helpful girl.
“Yes but I can’t log in, and I need to send some money to Blighty”
“Why can’t you log in?”
“I don’t know why – it just says ‘accounts not mapped yet’. Do you know what that means?”
“No. Call the support team and ask. Transferring money is so much easier online!”
“Yes I know but I can’t log in…”
She paused to think for a while as I had clearly stretched her customer service skills to the limit.
“Can I arrange to transfer some money from here, now?”
“Yes but I will need your IBAN number and your Swift code!”
“I have the IBAN number. If I give you that can you find out the Swift code?”
“No, you need to look it up online. It is actually much easier to do a transfer online because our system will find the Swift code for you!”
“But I can’t log in online…”
“Then I need the Swift code.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You should talk to our support guys, they will help you to get logged in. It’s easy to then transfer money online!”
I smiled and said ‘Thank you’.
I walked away wondering how we got so technologically advanced.