Posted: Thu 14 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Weirdness |
Over the last few days, the iTunes music store has been annoying me. OK, I know I’ve got some fairly obscure tastes on occasion, but even so, when looking for things like “Leonard Cohen” the list is missing some fairly relevant stuff. The last couple of albums, for instance. Let alone some of the older stuff – and finding the album I particularly wanted, which is a collection of cover versions of his stuff, well, that’s just never going to happen.
And I can’t find anything on iTunes for a bundle of other bands – OK, some of them are old now, but isn’t that what “The Long Tail” was always supposed to be about? But no, nothing on there for Timbuk3, The Pale, or a couple of others.
Anyway, back to Leonard Cohen, and in fact it’s easier to go back and find the exact album on Amazon, and add it to the basket.
However, Amazon’s not perfect either. I was also looking for an A-Z map of Cambridge, for obvious reasons. But hang on – a £1.50 sourcing fee? What the hell? And up to 14 days for delivery? Fuck off. In that case it’s far easier to go direct to the company and order it direct. No sourcing fee. No postage. A flat £3.50. And I’ll get it by Monday. Perfect.
Posted: Wed 6 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts |
Ah, memories. This post on Waiter Rant has brought back lots of memories of idiot customers and the things they used to say, back when I was in that game.
Makes me even more surprised I’m still thinking about the possibility of going back to it…
Posted: Wed 6 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised, Work-related |
I have to say, I love getting utterly pointless bits of post. Particularly when I’ve paid for them, in one way or another.
I’m not talking about junk mail, because that just gets ignored, shredded, and binned. Simple. I don’t particularly care about that – although we will be opting out of the Royal Mail’s junk mail service (email optout@royalmail.co.uk for more information) in order to reduce the amount of crap we do receive once we’ve moved. But no, the stuff I’m talking about is stuff from organisations and government groups that has absolutely no use in being sent, and just costs money.
Today’s fine example of this came from Inland Revenue. A statement of my account with the money-grabbing incompetent shit-for-brains jobsworth cock-knockers. Having finally sorted out the fucking about they did with me over the last three years (which reminds me, really must fill in that form this week and get it sent off) I’ve got a statement of account again.
Right at the top of it?
You have nothing to pay
Well, that’s just bloody brilliant, isn’t it? I know that already. You’ve told me twice already, and the next set of bullshit demands don’t come due ’til the end of the year (roughly). And what’s the point of sending out repeated statements saying I owe nothing?
Posted: Tue 5 September, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Work-related |
Well, that’s the council told.
I’ve already spoken to the agency I was dealing with about the job, and they’ve been brilliant. In fact, he was pretty much expecting me to call with something similar, as I’d already said I was going to be looking for other jobs, but the nice bit of the conversation was
Well, when the contract in Cambridge comes to a close, give me a bell and we’ll see what we can do for you
Quite reassuring, considering that they could’ve been really snotty about the entire thing. But they’ve been frigged about by the council as well, so they don’t have a problem with the entire thing.
And now I’ve sent a letter to the chief executive of the council, copied it in to the head of HR and to the agency, and sent it off.
Should be interesting, seeing if there’s any response at all to it from the council.
Posted: Mon 21 August, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, D4D™, Getting Organised |
OK, having done some checking, and also discovering that Webstats was now also shoving in a pop-up ad when people looked at d4d™, they’ve been kicked to the kerb.
Instead I’ve just installed the MyBlogLog stats tracker as a replacement, so it’ll be interesting to see how that works out instead. Yay me.
Posted: Tue 15 August, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Work-related |
So, yes, yesterday’s email that needed to be written. Depressingly, it’s about the new job.
Having waited a week longer than promised to get the verbal offer (so that they could ‘sort out all the paperwork, make sure everything’s right, and get it all signed off’), and accepted that offer despite it involving a £7000 pay-cut (I figure that if nothing else, it gets us up to the area we want to be in. After that I can work on the rest, and make that money up with some *ahem* independent work.) and then waited another two weeks without hearing anything, or getting any written confirmation (which also means I’ve not handed in my notice to the company yet – that may yet turn out to be A Good Thing) I got two phone calls on Friday.
Call One : “Oh, hello, I’m just calling from HR to get details of two references.” Which should’ve been done already through the agency. “Well, I didn’t know ’til today that you were even starting.”. Not the most reassuring.
But the best is yet to come…
Call Two : “Hi, it’s [Future Boss]. I’ve been going through the figures, and it turns out we can’t pay you £xx,000, so we’ll have to drop it to £xx-1,000 .” You must be taking the mickey. (that’s an exact quote, by the way – “taking the mickey”, that’s all I said) “No, we’ve made a mistake, and it’ll be £1000 less than we initially offered. That’s the council’s payscales. I can’t do anything about it”
Now, bearing in mind that I’m getting this job through an agency, the council shouldn’t have even been contacting me direct, which doesn’t help. I get hold of the agency, and ask them to find out what the chuff is going on. They come back and tell me that yes, the offer is now for £1000 less, because they’ve made a mistake. Also, [Future Boss] turns out to be a somewhat sensitive soul, and has taken the huff about me asking if he was taking the mickey, and now worries that I won’t be able to handle the “high-stress” work in the council. (I’ve done this shit before – high stress it most certainly isn’t)
So the snotty email was to the agency, basically pointing out that a) they’re taking the piss, and b) if [Future Boss] is going to be that sensitive, my concerns about what’ll happen if/when (emphasis on the latter) I’m forced to suggest something new, or criticise something existing.
At the moment the application and so on is still going ahead, even with the extra pay cut. I’m epically pissed off about it (oooh, won’t be able to use that expression around [Future Boss]) and seeing what the agency do about it. And in the meantime, well, really it could be back to Square One, and sending out CVs and applications, although that depends on what happens between agency and council, I suppose.
Bloody Fuck
Posted: Tue 25 July, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic |
You know, sometimes customer services things can be really bizarre. For ages you don’t get anyone who’s decent at all, and who all drive you utterly insane. Then all of a sudden you get a splurge of semi-decent ones, although you’re still stuck with the knowledge that it’s far more likely to return to the status quo, rather than becoming the norm.
Anyway, about a month ago we got a quote for a replacement garage door, as the current one has been knackered for at least 18 months. However, when it comes to selling the house, any buyer would object to the door, so we might as well get it done now. Absolute bog-standard door, nothing special at all.
At the time, the company (the National Door Company) gave us a quote for about £360, which included VAT, delivery, installation, and taking away the old door once they were done. Pretty damn good price, for all that, so we went ahead and got it booked in to be done today.
Herself was going to be at home to deal with it when they came in the afternoon. However, it turns out they arrived earlier than expected. And they’ve fitted the door, dropped the keys through the letterbox, and buggered off, job done. Talk about painless! Of course, now we have to pay the final dollop, so we’ll wait to make sure the invoice is correct before singing their praises too loudly, but on current evidence, they’re a bloody good company, and have got their shit sorted out. Which is definitely a novelty.