foolhandy

Why? Well with apologies to Steve for cutting and pasting from a previous e-mail - here goes…

The hoops they get you to jump through and the lack of trust. Just taxing your car is so wrapped up protocols and presumption of guilt that if, like me, you’ve just recently bought a car you need extra documents and different pieces of paper. Why? Because the DVLA themselves haven’t processed the paperwork quickly enough. But because it’s assumed that everyone is trying to illegally register stolen cars I have to put myself out for their lack of efficiency. And what’s more, because the system is so complicated normal Post Offices can’t deal with it, so I would have had to go to my nearest DVLA office which is an hour’s drive each way. Oh, and I’d had to leave work early to get to the town Post Office because they’ve stopped village Post Offices issuing tax discs because of cost involved in training to make sure that people don’t cheat the system - and they wonder why people don’t make use of local Post Offices - because after all, we’re all bastards who are hell bent on breaking every law there is.

And then I went to the Co-op and the (probably) 12 year old lad behind the till made a big point of holding my £10 note up to the light to make sure it was real. I’d taken it out of the Co-op cash machine moments earlier, and what with having been turned away from the Post Office to go and get more documentation to prove I wasn’t peddling cut-and-shut Smart Roadsters (is this in fact possible?) I flipped. I just couldn’t handle yet another presumption of guilt. So I grabbed the £10 note off him and snapped that it was real and that I’d like him to check all the coins he gave as change because I didn’t trust the Co-op either and he looked scared and I walked out with my stuff shaking and close to tears because I’d let my frustrations with always being assumed by the state and businesses to be a criminal get to me in a fashion that’s so unlike me.

When I went back into town (with the required documentation proving my inside leg measurement…) I went back into the Co-op and apologised to the very wary looking check-out guy. It hasn’t made me feel much better, but I know I would have been unable to cope in my mind if I hadn’t gone back and spoken to him.

So there you are. I hate that I am seen as a drunk-driving, TV licence dodging, tax evading, money laundering, cut-and-shut merchant and so must be checked up on and judged as guilty until proved by myself to be innocent. And although it’s the same for everyone I take it personally.

And so enough is enough. There is another way…