Out of Office

Posted: Fri 5 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Weirdness, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Sometimes the habits of recruiters and agencies just completely amaze me.

I got an email at about 7pm last night from a recruiter about a web-development job based in York. Now, OK, I’m not interested in it (for many – and obvious – reasons) but I figure that if they’re still trying to put me in jobs in York, perhaps it’s an agency I haven’t updated (in two years) about my current situation/location. The job’s a fairly urgent start, with interviews next Tuesday and Wednesday.

So I send a reply email – to the email sent just last night, remember – with an updated CV attached, and get an “out of office” response to it.

I’m out of the office until Wednesday 10th January

So – spot the flaw in this – you’re advertising a job for interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday, but you’re not back in the office ’til Wednesday?

Bizarre.

Price Rise

Posted: Wed 3 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, General, Travel | Leave a comment »

Ah, the joys of a New Year, the time when a train operating company’s thoughts turn to a) profit, and b) gouging customers. And thus, yesterday’s objectionable New Year price increases – always above inflation, usually for no good reason, and most certainly not indicative of any improvements in the service.

However, you can tell that I’m now out in the sticks.

My month’s season ticket for travel between Norwich and Cambridge has gone up from £240 to £250. For once, that’s “only” a 5% increase.

Last year, when I was in Berkshire, it went up by 8%, so a “mere” 5% increase isn’t too bad at all, although obviously it’d be better to not have a price rise at all…

Back to Normality?

Posted: Tue 2 January, 2007 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

So, back to work, and all that goes with it.

Train journey in went OK, but then I had to renew my season ticket for another month. Simple, you’d have thought – but you’d be wrong. The drongo in the ticket office printed the season ticket on the wrong ticket paper, which means that it looks like it’s invalid. So that’ll be fun for the next month then. I questioned it at ‘customer services’, who agreed it looked wrong, and said to take it back to the ticket office. Doing so, a different drongo completely failed to print out a replacement for it (I’ve no idea why, other than general incompetence), then wrote the photocard identifier on the (dodgy looking) ticket, and assures me “that’s all it needs”. Suffice to say, I’m not convinced.

Getting in to work, my pass has expired (as I was initially due to only be here ’til 25th Dec) and no-one’s bothered to extend the authorisation. Hopefully that’ll be sorted today, so that tomorrow can get back to some semblance of normality.

Other than that, because other people have used the laptop that is my main work computer, I’ve now spent most of the morning reconfiguring it to how I want it. The tossers didn’t even charge it up, they left it with a completely dead battery – and in hibernation.

All in all, not a great start to the working year…

Paid Off

Posted: Sun 31 December, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Having paid the smug twunts at Inland Revenue their 88p, I’ve just checked my online banking, and can confirm that the payment has now gone out of my account.

This was the main reason I paid using my debit card – (well, apart from just so that it cost them more money – what can I say, I can be incredibly petty myself) so that there’s no way they can say “Oh no, we haven’t received that and/or paid it in”, which I’m certain is what would have happened if I’d sent in payment by cheque.

In fact, from the evidence of previous submissions to the incompetent keffers, even if I’d sent it recorded, and been able to present them with proof of receipt, they’d still have lost it. And then it would still be my fault that payment had been delayed, and would thus be liable to that £100 penalty fine for not paying by 31st Jan 2007.

At least this way payment has been processed by the scumbags themselves (can’t you see how much I love them really?) and there’s no way they can make out they haven’t received it.

So in theory (I’m still expecting some shit to hit the fan at some point) the last three years’ farce with the Inept Revenants is now drawn to a close, and we’re all sorted.

Amnesia

Posted: Sat 30 December, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Arses, I knew there was something where I’d forgotten to change my address details. Yesterday I found what it was…

One of my credit cards. I’d obtained a new one just before moving, and while it was arriving, kept the registered address as the old place, so as not to confuse things (well, not too much, anyway) by swapping addresses halfway through the process.

Yesterday, I needed to call them and sort out some other stuff on that credit card account, and – of course – gave the wrong address as verification. Oops, and indeed bugger.

Ah well, it’s been changed now, so that should be all of them.

I think.

Negligible

Posted: Thu 28 December, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Weirdness | Leave a comment »

Back at the end of October, I got a letter about how much money I owed Inland Revenue for the tax year 2005-06, which was sent to me first class (and cost about 58p to send) along with a postage-paid response envelope.

Just before Christmas, I got a “statement of account” from Inland Revenue, again sent first class, again with a postage-paid reply envelope.

The amount that all this paperwork and postage is for?

88p

I’ve paid it today, by debit card. (Which should cost them even more) All told, I reckon it’s cost them about £2.00 to process £0.88. Which is impressive in anyone’s book.

Not Informed

Posted: Sun 24 December, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Currently, I’m a little bit annoyed.

While I was returning the car to Avis the other day, I saw a little leaflet on their desk, talking about making a booking and getting Tesco Clubcard points for how much you spend with Avis. Having booked three lots of cars with them now, and having just spent £300+ on this one (although it’s on expenses, so it’s OK on that score) I was a bit narked to have lost those 300 points, plus t’others.

Now, I know that Clubcard and the like are cynical marketing ploys that allow the card owners (by which I mean ‘people who issued the cards’ as opposed to ‘people who carry the cards with them’) to track people, and target offers to those people with ever more efficiency and effectiveness (I wanted to type effectivity there, but I know it’s a made-up word) but at the same time, I don’t object hugely to them – and I allow my data to be used in that way.

(I used to do a clubcard swapping programme, so that their marketing data went to shit, but haven’t done that in a while – maybe I should restart. It always used to confuse them when a 30 year old man started buying tampons or whatever…)

Anyway, it annoyed me. Not because I’d missed out per se but because actually, it’d never been mentioned when I booked the cars – nothing on the site at all. You really had to search to find this page about it – and fortunately you can reclaim those points afterwards if you want to, by way of that same page but still, it’s just not a great promotion if no bugger knows about it…

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