Posted: Fri 5 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: B&Q, Cynicism |
As someone called Chris pointed out, it really is quite surprising in some ways that I haven’t yet mentioned about B&Q’s Norwich store, and their bizarre interview techniques. (Except of course, I now have – and was planning to anyway)
Mind you, I think it’s actually pretty apt that they’d ask prospective employees to dance and pull funny faces. After all, B&Q have always appeared to have a preference for employing clowns…
Posted: Thu 4 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism |
So, New Year, new Celebrity Big Brother. Oh goody.
Worryingly, I know (or can at least connect a name and face) about half of them this year – OK, I only knew one when DG provided their alias as well, but still, knowing 50% of the so-called celebrities is pretty scary.
The Guardian had a wonderful piece about the entrants, which made me chuckle too.
But in general, well, it’s a pretty good reason to avoid the majority of Channel 4‘s output for the next month or so.
Posted: Wed 3 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season |
How can you tell that the Festering Season is finally over and done with?
Because now all the adverts on TV are for either :
- sales
- diets
- stopping smoking
or
- holidays
Now we’ve got rid of the materialistic crap of new posessions etc., we’re on to the ‘resolutions’ and ‘future plans’ bits of the marketing maven’s bible.
Posted: Wed 3 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Weirdness, Work-related |
The company that I work for has several buildings in Cambridge, all of which have glass ‘security’ doors, where you have to swipe your identity card through, then the doors open and let you in. In short, they really aren’t rocket science.
Today, we’ve had an email through from the company’s Health and Safety directorate, explaining that some 20% of the reported workplace accidents/injuries in 2006 were due to these doors. So we now have – posted on the intranet, no less – instructions on how to use the security doors. I’m not kidding…
- Upon approach stand back behind the barrier so that the ‘person’ sensor within the barrier wall is not obstructed.
- Present your security badge, which should “beep†in recognition.
- Proceed through the gate.
(You’ll note that there’s no proviso about ‘when the gate has opened, proceed through the gate’)
- This is a precise operation and many accidents occur due to
- Confusion on the part of the ‘person’ sensor, if you stand too far forward when presenting your badge it assumes that there are possibly two people in the channel and thus shuts prematurely
- A lack of concentration especially when there is a queue at peak times, or when talking to colleagues.
I really really worry about some of the people I work with…
Posted: Wed 3 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, General, Travel |
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…
Posted: Tue 2 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel, Work-related |
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…
Posted: Mon 1 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism |
One thing that’s a joy to read is always the Darwin Awards.
Dedicated to the stupidity of people, it invariably makes you either laugh, or despair.
The 2006 finalists are just as good as usual…