Tipless
Posted: Mon 24 December, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic 1 Comment »The BBC has a story about bin-men complaining because they’re not getting tips this year, and in some places they’re getting abuse instead.
Now, I don’t actually believe in giving them grief – any policies that are in place about bin collection etc. aren’t really going to be rectified by having a go at the binmen, but instead by complaining (repeatedly) to the local authority – but I can give you one reason they’re not getting tips.
It’s because they do a lot less than they ever used to. Now it’s the householder’s responsibility to take the bins to the front of the house (top of the drive, whatever) in time for the bin-men to come, and then to take it back down the drive to its proper place afterwards. You’ve got to make sure that any extra rubbish is put in the “proper” bags (not that we ever have any extra rubbish, but other people do) or they won’t collect it, and will instead leave it sat by the (now empty) bin.
So all the bin-men actually do is load the wheelie-bins onto the back of the wagon, push a button, and then unload the bins again. And they want a fucking tip for that as well?
Perhaps if the bin-men did something extra – say, even for “just” the pensioners and infirm – to take the bins from their place up to the lorry, and then put them back – like they used to do- then they might get a bit more gratitude and respect. And maybe even some tips.
Delivery Times
Posted: Fri 7 December, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Festering Season 3 Comments »
Recently, I’ve had the fortune (or, in some cases, misfortune) to do a bundle of different purchases (No, not for the Festering Season™, but for birthdays, myself, and all that guff) and it still amazes me the difference in order processes- and in particular the delivery processes.
About a month back, I used DrinkOn.com for some wine, to be delivered elsewhere. The order process was really nice, dead easy – but wow did the delivery side let them down. They used a bunch of couriers called APC, who are (in my opinion) nothing short of shit. The first attempt at the order ended up with three bottles out of six broken. We complained, and DrinkOn sent out another order – which did get delivered OK, but all told it still took nearly three weeks to get it right.
Last Monday, I ordered two things from Amazon for my mum’s birthday, which (as it turned out) came from two different suppliers. One was despatched the same day, and got to my mum’s place the day after. The other one – ordered (and supposedly despatched) at the same time – finally arrived there today.
Then yesterday afternoon I ordered an OWL Wireless Electricity Monitor for us. And it arrived today – less than 24 hours after ordering it.
Now that is impressive.
B&Q Fuckwitticus Commentiara
Posted: Sun 2 December, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, B&Q, Customer Services 5 Comments »Last night, I got another comment on one of my B&Q posts, obviously by someone who doesn’t really understand the entire concept of “read the post, then comment on it”.
This time the comment was
this place is full of shit! did your mum and daddy not teach you fucking manners? try being in our shoes for a day then you’ll know.
Which, considering it was related to the post where I was very polite to the fuckwit chimp “manager” when we were trying to get a sample tile in order to buy 125m² of them. (And yeah, B&Q did lose the sale because of the attitude, but I was still polite to the cretin)
Still, it all adds to the amusement, I guess.
BBC Good Food Show – Birmingham NEC
Posted: Sat 1 December, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Travel Leave a comment »Yesterday we went to the Good Food Show at the NEC, despite me feeling like someone had buried me, resurrected me, added some voodoo, and left me as a shambling revenant version of my normal self.
We’ve been a couple of times before, so we know that the show is a good one, and that didn’t change this time round.
Personally, I still find that the shows are too busy, and/or that the aisles are too narrow – you can’t afford to have massive traffic jams around whole bundles of stalls/stands where they’re either giving loads of stuff away or doing endless demonstrations. It’s not like the NEC hasn’t got the room to handle some extra space between stands either – to me it just shows a complete lack of understanding when it comes to customer flows and so on.
Anyway, that’s a bugbear I have with most trade shows and their ilk, so it’s nothing related to just the Good Food Show.
We did do pretty well this time though – got some supplies from our favourite places (Snowdonia Cheese Company and Lime Tree Pantry, I’m looking at you in particular) along with decent discount packs from a few other places, and generally had a really good time.
The Good Food Show is something that (in my opinion) is always worth going to. It’s not cheap – somewhere around £17 per ticket for the basic entry – but it’s worth going. Well, so long as you’re into food, anyway.
Shortages
Posted: Thu 15 November, 2007 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 4 Comments »How on earth does a decent-sized “one-stop shop” run out of Coke? (As in Coca-Cola®, not coal or dodgy white powder from Columbia) Even more relevantly, how do two similar shops run out of Coke?
That’s what happened this morning – I went in to the normal place to pick up a couple of bottles, and nothing. No Coke, diet coke, coke zero, or even the diet stuff with lime. Plenty of Cherry coke, but that’s because it’s disgusting, and no fucker ever buys it.
So I nipped over the road to the other place. Same story.
How? The mind boggles.