Drip, Drip, Drip – Extra
Posted: Thu 22 June, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Green Leave a comment »Ah, I do like annoying people.
I’ve just emailed the following to Thames Water’s customer services.
To whom it may concern,
If, as your current news story puts it, “Approximately a quarter of all leakage is on customers’ pipes.�, that still means that three-quarters of all leakage is on TW’s side of the pipes.
How does a utility company justify selling people a product, and then telling them they can’t use it?
How does a utility company justify leaks that amount to the equivalent of 6.6 million people’s daily usage ( using the DFID’s estimate of 135 litres per person per day ) every day ?
I’m just interested to know.
Sincerely
Lyle
Should be interesting to see what they come up with…
Avatars
Posted: Tue 25 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Thoughts, Work-related 4 Comments »
At work, Arsehole Boss has insisted that we use Google Talk as a messaging client so he can keep tabs on everyone, and/or nag them at a moment’s notice.
Google Talk is an utter piece of crap. However, it does have one semi-fun feature. You can have a photo as your “avatar”, an image that sits beside every thing you type, and beside your ID in the main screen.
Because Arsehole Boss has been treating us all like dicks, and because one of my colleagues has the head of Michelangelo’s David as his avatar, I opted for the image you see in this post. Everyone else in the office has seen the humour, but Arsehole Boss has just sent me the following message…
AB: dude please use a different image for gtalk i cant look at the fucking dick all day.
AB: remember we are using this as a company tool here…
Me: and i’ve a tool as an avatar. Seems apt.
Anyway, I’ve now changed it.
To a tube of Anusol.
Spammage
Posted: Mon 17 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, D4D™ 1 Comment »I got an email today, that’s just pure spammage…
Hello
My name is Joe Butch and I’m with [website]. Our site is
dedicated to informing the public about accidents as well as providing
the service of locating local attorneys and law firms for anyone in the
United States.We have recently come upon dummies-for-destruction.co.uk and we believe
that your site’s audience will take advantage of the service we
provide. That’s why we would like to inform you about our site and to
propose submitting our link to your web page located at
www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/2004_10_01_archive.html
In true Lyle Style™, for once I’ve replied…
Dear Sir,
Might I suggest that your organisation takes time to figure out that a .co.uk is a UK-based domain name, and thus not interested in American lawyers at all.
Then might I suggest that you take your spam, and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Sincerely
Lyle
Ticket Barrier
Posted: Thu 6 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Travel 2 Comments »Bracknell train station has automatic ticket barriers. In general they’re no bad thing (we’ll gloss over the fact that half the time they’re left open while the ticket inspectors sod off somewhere else) and just make getting on and off the platform into a bit more of a bottle-neck than usual. Could be better, could be worse.
I’ve got a season-ticket for using the trains on the way to and from work, and again, in general this works fine. However, somehow this month the ticket’s magnetic strip has been blanked, so the automatic barrier won’t accept it, and I have to go and deal with the Numpty Bint on the gate, who lets through people with knackered, or non-standard-size tickets. I don’t care that this person is female, but I do care that she’s a fucking numpty with, on current evidence, more feet than IQ points.
Last week I made the cardinal sin, while going past her, of having my ticket upside down. Now, bear in mind it’s got “12th April 06” on it in friggin’ huge letters, the fact it’s upside down shouldn’t really matter a toss. But oh no, to Numpty Bint we’ve got to have the “I can’t read upside down, turn your ticket round” episode. Is it really that difficult to figure it out? Obviously so.
Today, though, was the last straw. After a week where I’ve been face to face (and generally fucked off) with Numpty Bint every day, twice a day, today she says “Oh, you’ve got to prove to me that your ticket doesn’t work. I’m not supposed to let you through until I’ve seen your ticket doesn’t work.” So I’m supposed to walk back down to the other end of the ticket barriers (through a shitload of commuters all flooding off the train that’s just arrived) to have the fucking ticket barrier beep at me, tell me to ‘seek assistance’, wade back through the commuters, and get back to her.
Instead, I opted for
If the fucking ticket worked, or had worked in the past fucking week, I’d be through the bloody barriers, and going to the platform, rather than dealing with you
She let me through.