My time as a retired person who has worked for decades, self-employed, bringing up children, paying for my holidays, my maternity leave, my sick days... my time is being stolen and it feels as if I'm having my pocket picked, my bag grabbed, my car nicked all at once. My time is being stolen and who knows anymore what is behind the inability of companies, retailers, local authorities, who take my money happily and with so many rules attached to how I must behave, but who have invented mazes, walls, invisible lazers, to keep me on hold, at bay, without speech, without the right to speak, without a person to speak to, without reason, without normal language, normal sentences, without engagement, without empathy. And if it's not hard enough as a single human being, add to me another human who can't do it for themselves. And then more than double the time, obviously, because they have even more needs than me and so add in the hospital, doctor, pharmacy time, the shopping, dealing with the council, the managing personal assistants time, the overgrown garden and trees time, the leaking pipe time. And whether it's the gas company or the GP the language is the same, the hold time is the same, and sometimes I wonder how anyone keeps their cool which is why there are so many notices in windows about kindness and respect and of course everyone should be treated with kindness and respect, but me too, and those of us, all of us, on the other end of the line, email, on hold constantly, on hold, being given endless excuses, or not, on hold for an answer that is not coming but is promised anyway to get me off the line because I no longer have a right to reply, a right to an answer, a right even to ask why is this happening. I am reading Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto. There's a line about a would-be politician. "Slick motherfucker. Pepper didn't trust him for dog catcher. If he wasn't running for something now he would be soon." Crook Manifesto. It is one of the most brilliant titles for these days.
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