Phone Common Sense

Posted: Thu 11 December, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Work-related | 3 Comments »

Here’s a hint :

If you call me on my work phone, and I don’t answer it, it means either :

  1. I’m not at my desk
  2. I’m neck-deep in some other bizarre problem
    Or
  3. I’m talking to someone else, and dealing with some other query

So, in any of those contexts, don’t fucking ring me straight back again once the phone’s gone to cunting voicemail. Take the fucking hint, you cuntburger fuckwit arselick.

BugHunt

Posted: Thu 27 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been bug-hunting on some code that needs to go live on Monday. It’s a whole new development, and has been done from scratch in less than three weeks, including ecommerce, credit-card payments, the lot.

In short, things here have been fucking frantic.

But the BugHunt was primarily around the credit-card payments, where we decided to test the newly-sent-live payment portal. The test system worked fine, the live system didn’t.

Of course, the first phase is the paranoid “What’ve I fucked up?”.
The second phase is checking everything that I’ve written that deal with the transactions.

And when that’s all been checked both by myself and by someone else who hasn’t seen this project before, and it’s all come back fine, then you start on Phase Three : “It’s some other fucker’s fault”.

And lo, Phase Three was right.

The people providing the payment portal services had – um – not typed in the Merchant Number correctly.

Sometimes I despair. Two days of wasted effort, when I could be doing something much more interesting…

Still, at least it’s all working now.

Secret Satan

Posted: Mon 24 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Festering Season | 1 Comment »

Bah, HumbugSometimes, you just have to love ScaryDuck. Today is one of those days.

The post “On Christmas Cheer really does take some beating. An ace idea for the office Christmas Party.

Brand/RossGate

Posted: Mon 3 November, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, News, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

I’m going to come into this one a bit late, now that the hype around Russell Brand,Jonathon Ross, and those phone calls has faded a wee bit.

First of all, I didn’t hear the calls when they went out. Secondly, I’m not a great fan of either Brand or Ross, as I tend to think they’re both pretty much complete cocks at the best of times.

However, I don’t think that Brand deserved to lose his job (resign, quit, whatever – he still lost his job) for being a cock. I don’t think that Ross deserved a three-month suspension for being a cock. I do think that the producers of Brand’s show should have been fired – something which I don’t know whether it’s happened or not – as the calls were pre-recorded, and should’ve been checked pre-broadcast. And I think that the R2 controller should’ve fired the producers, not quit herself.

My personal opinion is just that the entire thing was Daily Mail-fuelled spite and hysteria (not for the first time) considering that at time of broadcast, a grand total of two people complained, and the complaints only exploded in number once the Daily Bigot had gone up in arms about it. (As usual, the Guardian’s Charlie Brooker sums it up far better than I ever could)

Yes, Brand and Ross are utter cocks. But they’re paid to be utter cocks. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up for debate – if I had control of a radio station, I wouldn’t employ them, but as I don’t, I’m left with the option to just not bother listening to them, or watching them. Which is in fact pretty much what I do. And that, so far as I can see it, is how things should be – we can all make the choice of who to listen to – and if we want to complain about something they’ve said, then fine – but at least complain about something that you’ve heard, not what some hate-mongering bigoted black-shirt rag tells you to complain about, or be offended by.

Electoral Prejudice

Posted: Fri 17 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

I’ve been fairly good about not mentioning the US Presidential Election campaign, but Holy Jesus Fuck, sometimes Americans scare me.

Some of the sentiments in this report are just bizarre – you have to wonder how people get to be so bigoted and prejudiced. Very, very scary viewing.

Staying in Business

Posted: Mon 13 October, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Sweary | 1 Comment »

Sometimes I wonder how some companies stay in business at all. I’ve recently had two perfect examples of this.

1. Three months ago, I ordered something from a bunch of shysters called Urban Junkie. When it hadn’t turned up after a month, I chased them up, and on the third chase-up, finally got a response.

“I have checked your order, unfortunately the item has gone out of stock and is not due back in for a few more weeks. No payment has ben taken and we fully understand if you wish to cancel due to the delay.
Sorry for the inconvenience.”

And that’s been it. Two more months and no word at all.

So I’ve cancelled the order.

2. Back when I was using the bunch of shyster twunts known as Parasol IT (I’ve now had £1800 of tax refunds for two consecutive tax years because of Parasol’s inefficiency – that’s £150 per month for two years that they were fucking up) I also got a stakeholder pension through one of their related companies.

Since leaving Parasol, I’ve told Parasol Financials on no less than four occasions that I’ve left Parasol, and need the details of the pension so I can keep on paying in to it. Last week they called, denied having ever heard from me about leaving Parasol (although that soon changed once I forwarded them copies of the emails, and replies to them) and getting quite snotty.

The snottiness changed when I then asked them to send me details, and asked what address they held for me. And (again despite repeated updates from me to them) the address was still the one in fucking Bracknell. From two years ago. Useless twats.

So yes, needless to say, I think I’ll be pulling the pension out from Parasol Financial’s control ASAP.

Really, you just have to wonder how organisations like these stay in business, don’t you?

At Long Last

Posted: Sat 20 September, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic | Leave a comment »

We’ve finally received confirmation from Anglian Water that we are now allowed to use our water again.

This farce has only been going on since mid-April.

About fucking time.

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