This week I had cause to contact our government. A Centrelink matter – you know the department of human resources, a question of the security of the society. Human resources. They’ve developed apps Im told, through which people, humans, can contact our government but they unfortunately always direct me back to a previous page or tune. Tune… oh my lord what tunes! I dont like them. The apps. They dont work.. or at least they dont work in the way we are told they do. I think they work… in the fashion they are designed.

Anyone contacted the government lately? Are they there? And where’s there? Lets hope they’re comfortable and that their jobs give them no cause for alarm.

Anyway back to the question. How do you contact our governors – other than fronting up to a ‘unmanned’ station somewhere in the outback or if you’re lucky you can drive up to the ‘local’ and stand in the que of an under-manned office. Note how these undermanned government offices always, these days, have a human being circling around a bank of government computers which you know one of the government humans is going to direct you to use. Its going to solve all your problems. The machine. That’s why they need a government human supervisor guarding them. Its the future, its gold.

So, the two hour phone call didnt work even after tricking the machine on the other end of the machine to put me in contact with a human being. This being the department of human services and a matter of the security of the society, I thought I should talk to a human. Like the old days.

Now it appears, after two humans – one of which had the ability to change the music, something in the system is blocked (?) and I have to contact directly, by phone, someone in Outback Queensland to verify that I am not in Outback Queensland. The story is a looong one…

This is because I am currently not in Outback Queensland but in NSW. I have told that to the lovely young lady I finally managed to get hold of – the first one – she managed to change all details I was attempting to change (really just the fact that I am not in outback Queensland) but then threw me into the holding pattern to see what was blocking the machine. Lord, the music, the music!

This wasnt the one with the ability to change the music. 15mins later another young human lady picked up the phone. This one with the ability to change the music! Oh joy!

This one however couldnt help me either. She verified that it was me, that I had changed my address and that the machine was blocked… but I’d have to go to Queensland to let them know I was in NSW. You got to give it to em, they do SPEND our money very well!

 ‘We are but children picking up pebbles on the shore of a boundless ocean.’ John Stevens 1908.