Utilities

From time to time, usually on receipt of an email from our electricity company (EDF) inviting me to take a look at my account, I have a moan about the incomprehensibility of our electricity bill. Pots of information, probably yes. Accessible, certainly not.

Today it is the turn of Microsoft, who sent a notification to my laptop - to the place where they more usually send notifications about things like the result of a virus sweep - about my needing to renew my subscription to Office 365. Which I had thought just looked after itself, with their docking a suitable amount from my credit card each year, about the time, as it happens, of my upcoming birthday. 

While HSBC are thoughtful enough to preserve my credit card number across their renewals, although this is not usually quite enough, as I do have to tells the likes of Microsoft about the new expiry date.

That apart, having been prompted, I thought I ought to check, and fairly quickly get lost in a morass of Microsoft accounting and billing information. Every bit as inaccessible as the stuff I get from EDF.

Is it all a marketing device to make me focus on matters Microsoft for a few minutes, to make sure that their name is still properly stamped onto my brain? 

I have learned that I have probably bought more Microsoft than I actually need, having bought for family when I am the only person in our household to use computers. But the more only amounts to a few pounds a year and I probably won't get around to rocking that boat. In fact, I probably won't get around to doing anything at all, in the hope that my subscription will renew itself in the usual way, in a few days time.

15 minutes of quality time.