While the peasants of the past felt noble pride in rebelling against the wealth of the overlord, the corruption of the kings and the unfairness of dictatorship we the modern equivalent are so bamboozled by the mere processes of equality that we lie down by the side of the road on the way to achieving anything rather than have an uprising.  After all we can vote. 

We are the first generation to leave the fray because we got hungry, tired or confused or perhaps all three.  Who is the enemy?  Why don’t they wear uniforms any more that tell you what side they are on?  All of us simply want to know how to get things done.  The sheer weight of the process involved in getting answers or benefits is enough to turn many people away.  On top of that there seems to be a mind blowing amount of jargon and ‘professional speak’ that would make a nuclear physicist feel like a third grader with a lisp.

I feel like a right moron in all government departments because I don’t even know what to ask for.  What do you want us to do for you?  I am too embarrassed to let the words that are in my head out—how the hell would I know?  I wanted to know what they could do but one look at the huge text and reference books on the shelves had the effect of making me want to lie down.  If I asked them what it was they did they might make me read one.  And then I would get hungry, tired and confused all over again.  With the added insult of feeling like a right moron all over again. 

I have however, stumbled on one bright ray of hope.  Politicians have the nicest secretaries on earth.  How they achieve this in the interview process is beyond me.  Perhaps they have a sliding scale and a questionnaire titled—How Nice Are You? 

When I first started ringing them I blah blahed so much that I wonder I didn’t put them in a coma.  But at the end of my blah they were still listening; marvelous people.  Perhaps they have attended seminars on The Rise and Success of Your Minister Depends On You.  Because they are the best listeners in town. 

Real estate secretaries are there to get you in.  Director of Nursing secretaries are there to keep you out.  Doctor’s receptionists are there to sort you out.  And some secretaries are there purely to terrify you.

I began to relax when I realized I had found someone actually willing to help me.  I stopped talking like a rusty machine gun and learned a new technique.  I just stated the problem and then said, ‘Can you help me with that?’  I learned to get shorter and more precise as I went along.   ‘I can’t get answers.  I don’t know where to go’.  ‘I am looking for a needle in a haystack and in this new world I don’t know haystack from needle.’ 

I even learned to say, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, can you explain, what does that mean.’ 

I carried a little notebook and asked them to repeat things so I could write them down.  If I hadn’t given the appearance of an idiot before this, I did then.  With my scribble pad, purse and pen; my glasses on and off.  The glasses were a ‘spectacle’ in themselves, held together with Elastoplast—hey if I was Donald Trump I wouldn’t be here asking for help.  I would be getting my secretary, who would be fierce indeed, to ring up the Local Member and invite him over to the Penthouse for a chat. 

Then it wouldn’t matter if I got the blah blah right at all.