Computer says no again and again

Around Sheffield, I started to feel knackered. I stopped at the M1 Wakefield Woolley Edge Northbound services and spotted a handy Travelodge where some welcome shut-eye might be achieved. I used my Blackberry to check the room rate and saw that it was a bargain £19. Whoopee do!

I ventured inside the hotel and spoke to the receptionist, only to discover that the room had to be booked online to achieve that rate, which wasn't a problem as I had my laptop in the van and free Wi-Fi was available. However, as the time had advanced to two minutes past midnight, the Travelodge computer system had rolled over to the next day and suddenly said “no” to my bargain room booking. If I wanted my six hours kip, I’d have to pay £46.50 instead. However, five minutes earlier, and I would have been resting inside my £19 room.

I looked at the receptionist in horror. “Can’t you access the database manually and override the online system,” I asked. After letting slip that exactly the same thing had happened to another potential customer on a previous night, the receptionist phoned a colleague who backed up the resounding “no”. I walked out in disgust muttering “turning customers away, and in a recession”, treated myself to an espresso in the nearby petrol station and continued with my journey.

When I eventually arrived at my destination – the Grandparental home 100 miles away – the old folks were fast asleep and could not be woken until 7am. I ended up sitting in a freezing cold van for five hours, fostering evil thoughts about Travelodge.

Don’t you just love “modern technology” - the catch-all phrase that describes the gizmos and gadgets that “help” us with our daily lives? It’s easy to forget the days before we had the internet at our fingertips but I, for one, remember the early 90s when we still used MS DOS and floppy disks, “killer apps” such as Google were just a twinkle in a research institution’s eye, and we didn’t regularly have to put up with “the computer says no” or “our systems are currently down” when we phoned a hotel, bank or utility company.

And look at how we’ve advanced since that era! We can share our every waking thought on Facebook, play online poker all night, feed fake farm animals in cyberspace and do all our shopping and banking without leaving our armchairs, thereby exacerbating the nation’s obesity problem.

Recently, I tried to carry out my regular online currency transfer through my usual money broker and Barclays bank. Although this process had worked just fine for two years, the online systems suddenly failed to authorise my debit card transaction. I made several lengthy phone calls to the money broker and to Barclays in the hope of resolving the problem. At first, both institutions blamed the other’s computer system and denied all responsibility. Eventually, it came to light that the problem lay at Barclays’ end. “Aha,” I thought. “Barclays is a reasonable sort of institution and I’ve been a customer for many years. The debit card team will be able to resolve the problem.”

But, ahem, the computer said “no” yet again. Barclay’s debit card team is based in an offshore call centre in India. Problem solving clearly isn’t a strong point. “Errr, our systems are running slowly today,” said an operative when he couldn’t see what was wrong with my transactions, before cutting the call short. Eventually, I gave up – the phone calls were becoming far too expensive and I couldn’t justify making any more of them.

Computers have evolved to control everything from the 'climate' of our vehicles to our washing machine cycles and our TV recordings. Don’t get me wrong: my working life is conducted online and I’m more of a Geek than a Luddite but it’s obvious that the incidence of “the computer says no” is rising.

And, when it happens to us at the ‘wrong’ moment or defies all logic – as with the Travelodge late night booking fiasco - it isn't "ha ha funny" like the popular ‘Little Britain’ sketch. It is a mockery and a travesty of a modern technology sham.