The Day I Cancelled Nothing and Triggered the Machine

While going through my bank account the other day, performing the sort of archaeological dig that passes for financial management in retirement, I noticed something curious. A direct debit to British Gas was still sitting there. Nothing had been taken from it for about a year. I had left them long ago.

Naturally I cancelled it.

At this point I assumed absolutely nothing would happen. After all, nothing had been happening for twelve months.

This was a grave misunderstanding.

Within hours the emails began arriving. Apparently I had just committed a serious administrative offence. I had removed my direct debit and therefore lost my "special discount", and the system was now very concerned to inform me of my newly calculated estimated annual bill.

For energy they were no longer supplying.

This, I suspect, is the modern corporate algorithm in its natural habitat. The system does not know whether it supplies you with gas. It does not know whether you are even a customer. But it does know, with immense confidence, that a direct debit has changed somewhere in the universe and that corrective action must therefore be taken immediately.

At this point one attempts the traditional British remedy, which is to telephone someone. Finding the number required navigating a series of websites apparently designed by people who believe humans should never speak to other humans again.

Eventually I found it.

To be fair to the lady who answered, she was perfectly sensible. She cancelled the account within about thirty seconds, which raises the awkward question of why the machine had been threatening me with imaginary bills in the first place.

I asked her to log a complaint.

Not because I expect anything dramatic to happen. No one is going to storm the server room and shout "stop the algorithm". But somewhere, in a quiet spreadsheet in a quiet office, a tally will go up by one under the heading "system behaving like a confused Labrador".

If enough of those accumulate, some poor IT engineer will eventually be told to adjust the rule that says:

Direct debit cancelled - panic - invent bill.

Until then, the machine will continue doing what machines do best. Confidently misunderstanding the world and sending emails about it.