Something New – Quick Update
Posted: Wed 19 July, 2017 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last week, I wrote about starting off with getting a new card from Monzo, and how things had gone so far. At the time, I was waiting for the card to arrive, so I could connect it to the account and so on.
The card actually arrived on Saturday, rather than the expected/predicted Friday, but I can live with that. Even out of usual business hours etc., it was a simple case of opening the phone app, doing the linking process, and it was immediately sorted with the top-up I’d put on it.
I’ve used it for some payments over the last few days, and so far I’m really impressed. It’s all been painless, and the updates and notifications come through to the app so fast you can’t really believe it’s been that quick.
As I said last time, I’ll write more about the entire thing in a month or so – but right now, yeah, I’m actually impressed with Monzo. Let’s hope things stay that way.
Reburgered
Posted: Mon 17 July, 2017 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Customer Services, Domestic, Food, London, People, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Last weekend, I went to one of my favourite food places in London, Mac and Wild. (OK, I went to a couple of my favourite places, but that’s a different story) They had a special burger on, which was only happening ’til yesterday, and I wanted to try it.
I ordered it (along with their cocktail of the month) and everything arrived and was lovely. As expected.
But then I saw other people’s photos of their Murray burgers, and mine was… different. I had assumed that the black pudding was mixed into the patty, which gave it a really deep meaty taste without being a dollop of black pudding – but all the photos had a layer of black pudding on them.
So I mentioned this to Mac and Wild on Twitter, along with the above photo. And within a couple of hours they’d come back to me, saying “Oops, looks like you had the Highlander instead of the Murray Mound. We’re really sorry – if you can make it in before the 15th, we’ll do you one for free“. Note, I hadn’t asked for this, nor expected anything at all. So already I’m pretty impressed.
As I was already planning to be back in London on Saturday, I took them up on that offer.
And bloody marvellous it was, too.
Now, I did pay for the burger – because I insisted on doing so. Mistakes happen, and I’m fine with that. And I don’t feel like it was fair to get a freebie for a simple mistake – I love Mac and Wild anyway, so it was actually the simple offer, and the speed of it, that impressed me, rather than getting free food.
It’s that service (well, and the excellent food!) that keeps me going to places like Mac and Wild – they always give the impression that they give a damn. To have gone straight to “Oops, sorry” rather than arguing the toss, to accept and own the mistake and make amends for it, that’s impressive.
And long may that continue.
Something New
Posted: Fri 14 July, 2017 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last week or so, I’ve been trying something new (well, new-ish) in the financial sector – Monzo.
I’ve been aware of a few of this type of “new banking” start-ups of late, but Monzo interested me when I read this article that talked about how closely it kept track of payments, and their whole customer service set-up. In my own experience with banks, it’s customer service that is their greatest weakness, so I’m interested in how other ‘non high-street’ new financial organisations address it.
At the moment it’s “only” a pre-paid credit card option, driven entirely through a smartphone app – but they’ve got their banking licence, and are aiming to be starting a current account as well, again all driven through smartphone apps.
So far, the experience has been pretty good. (Note – for purposes of this, I used my iPhone – I can’t say anything at all about the Android version) I got the app through the App Store, and went through the initial stages. Basically, just a name and date-of-birth for verification purposes, and then they order your card.
This took some time – but the expectations were managed all the way through, showing the queue of applicants, where I was in that queue, how many people were before me, and how many after. Now, my cynicism kicks in slightly here, as I noticed that the number of applicants always stayed around the 25,000 mark, so it *could* just be a steady flow of incoming customers, or it *could* be all smoke-and-mirrors guff to make me think they know what they’re up to.
It took about four days to get to the top of the queue (I could’ve jumped places if I’d promoted Monzo on social media, but frankly, fuck off) and once that happened, I got a notification to say so. This was where the identity stuff came in, and needed address details, plus an in-app photo of driving licence for proof-of-address, and a 5-second video to prove I’m real.
I’ve done an initial top-up (of a completely manageable amount – if the entire thing turns out to be a scam, I won’t be screwed) and the card has been sent to my home address. It’s due to arrive today, at which point I’ll have to connect it to the app – slightly annoying, as surely they know all the necessary details already – and then it should be ready to go.
I’ll write more about it in a month or so, once I’ve used it and seen how I feel about the entire thing. So far, though, it’s been an interesting and positive experience – I hope it continues to be so!
Unintentional Racism
Posted: Wed 12 July, 2017 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, People, Thoughts 1 Comment »Yesterday, an MP got suspended for using ‘a racist term’ in public, while talking about Brexit.
Anne Marie Morris, the MP for Newton Abbot used the term “n****r in the woodpile“, in a similar context to ‘the elephant in the room’ – i.e. something that shouldn’t be discussed, but needed to be.
Her excuse afterwards was “The comment was totally unintentional.” – which is what I have an issue with.
You see, if a comment like that, with such a loaded word – and particularly if you’re also a politician, and thus likely to be recorded on everything you say, for fuck’s sake – then I agree, it probably was unintentional. As in “not thought about”.
But really all that tells me is that it’s likely that such words and attitudes are part of her everyday life, thoughts, and experience. And that’s where the story should really be – that she perceives these words and phrases as ‘normal’, that they’re something that’s part of her unconscious thoughts and speech.
It’s not “I used the wrong phrase”, or “I mis-spoke”. It’s just “unintentional” – used so normally it wasn’t even worthy of a thought.
I can (sorta kinda) live with people who use racism intentionally. They’re at least voicing an opinion – albeit one I don’t like – and a mindset that goes with it.
But unintentional and unconscious racism? That shit’s pernicious, because the people who do it don’t even realise it’s bad…
PIDU – Ill-prepared
Posted: Mon 10 July, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, I Don't Understand, London, People, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »As I’ve said before, I tend to be ridiculously early for things, primarily so I know it’s all sorted well in advance.
However, I find it utterly amazing how many people appear to be so chronically ill-prepared for just about anything and everything in their lives.
My primary office is near(ish) to the local test centre for the theory part of the UK driving test. By “nearish” I mean “it’s walking distance, in a straight line, but over a significant road, so maybe five minutes walk”. On a regular basis I get stopped outside my office, and asked where the test centre is, by people obviously already running late, and get this “Oh shit” look when I tell them it’s still five minutes away. These tests are renownedly run punctually, and they don’t have much tolerance for lateness – but from memory, it makes all that very clear on the paperwork that tells you where the test is to be taken.
So because they haven’t checked where they’re supposed to be, they’re now running the risk of not even being allowed to take the test – and you don’t get a refund on it for being late and/or disorganised. I’ve never seen it as all that difficult to do, to be in the right place at the right time, but it’s obviously an issue for some people.
Similarly, a couple of weeks back I was with friends in London, and their son was meeting other friends of his so they could go to a concert/festival thing in Hyde Park. We’d got other plans once he was in the venue, but they were somewhat dependent on the friends actually having IQ points of their own. They’re similarly pathologically early to me, which helps – but the son’s friends…. weren’t.
Despite the concert tickets telling them where they needed to be, which entrance to use and so on, they decided to turn up to the wrong Underground station, at the wrong time, and at the wrong entrance. There’d been no preparation, no thought, not even an understanding of how best to get around, yet still left it all to the last minute, as if expecting some fairy godmother to wave a wand and everything would be All Right.
And it kind-of was. They got there, and we got to where we were going, but a couple of minutes late. (Anyone else, it would’ve been late by twenty minutes or more, but we can all shift our arses when necessary) So it did work out OK, but only because we knew more about where they were than they did, and walked the extra to find the fucking idiots.
All told, it’s just an attitude I don’t understand. I know I’m at the opposite end of the scale, but still, it never seems that difficult to me, to be prepared, to know what you’re doing, and get wherever on time. But obviously it’s more of a challenge for others…
Fixing Things
Posted: Wed 5 July, 2017 Filed under: Bankruptcy, BT, Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Rebuilding, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »So far, this year has involved a number of customer service clusterfucks, some of which I’ve mentioned on here, and it looks like a number of those issues are now on the way to being sorted, thankfully.
That list includes
- The Cat boots – successfully returned to manufacturer, and a replacement pair are (apparently) on the way
- The Credit Card company – seems to be sorted, with outstanding issues rectified.
- My Accountants – this has been something that’s been ongoing for a year or more, where they’re just ridiculously slack and uncommunicative. If it weren’t for the fact that they’ve been free (for the last 18 months!) then I’d have moved on well before now.
The free stuff is a story of its own, but basically when I complained to director level at the end of 2015, they told me I wouldn’t be charged until they’d fixed the issues. Eighteen months later, the issues are still there, although having had some productive conversations with the Operations Director, I think they’re turning the corner at last! - BT – Hopefully, that’ll be sorted today. The engineer is due between 8am and 1pm, and fingers crossed things will be sorted.
There’s a couple of other things coming up that so far seem positive, but I’m waiting for them to come through properly before I write about them.
All told though, yeah, it’s all feeling a bit more fixed and positive.
Connectivity
Posted: Mon 3 July, 2017 Filed under: BT, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Technology, Thoughts, Utilities, Weather Leave a comment »Yet again, my home broadband connection has gone to pot over the weekend.
It’s an ongoing problem – basically, there’s a leak in the outdoors part of my connection, so when it rains heavily, water gets in, and corrodes the connections in the master socket. I start to know it’s going to be bad when any phone call I make (not that I make many on the landline, but still) starts to get crackly. After a while, it then gets bad enough that the next ingress of water breaks things properly, and leaves my modem/router dropping the connection and reconnecting on an all-too-frequent basis.
In the five-and-a-bit years I’ve been in this house, I’ve had four master sockets. Now soon to be a fifth.
BT refuse to believe that this is the problem – this has been going on for ages, and they’ve done line checks etc., but won’t replace the outside part of the connection, for some reason.
So we go through the farce of doing fault-tracking, “We can’t find anything” and then booking an engineer to come out. Every time, I get told “If it’s a problem past the master socket (i.e. with my own wiring) then it’ll cost £129.99 on your next bill”. It won’t be with my wiring, because I’ve got precisely one socket, and one connector/splitter (also supplied by BT) on it.
Everything else will be fine, it’ll just be corroded connections in the master socket. Again.
This time, I’m going to aim to get the engineer to reinstall the master socket, but do so higher up the wall (so water doesn’t get in, as it can’t climb cables) or on a longer cable inside the house, so I can put it on a shelf or whatever, and again, let gravity deal with the problem.
The engineer’s coming out on Wednesday morning, so we’ll see what happens from there. It’d be nice (and really quite novel!) to have it sorted properly this time. But only time will tell whether that’ll happen or not.