hey, keep your breakfast to yourself

This morning as I walked into my local Wishbone I was greeted by the sight of one of the employees chewing on her nails. Eewww was what I thought. She looked up, saw me, removed her fingers from her mouth but only so she could present me with the biggest yawn I’ve ever seen. I swear I could see her breakfast. So I went to make my purchases and she undercharged me. I’d given her the right money, I pay the same every morning for my coffee and scone. She was quite rude in the way she decided to tell me I was wrong – actually, I wasn’t. Besides, what was annoying me more at this point was that on top of the nail chewing and yawning, now she was fiddling with her hair.

I thought it is too early for all this, just give me the damn coffee and I’ll go. Run your bosses out of business with your undercharging and poor hygiene, see if I care. She was starting to get the heated lunches ready, one thing was for sure it would be prepackaged sandwiches for me.

At lunch I went back to buy sandwiches – I’m addicted to the chicken and almond ones – but again she was standing there yawning. I just had to walk out and go to Concorde next door.

I got back to my desk and pondered whether to complain or not. In the end I did. I don’t want her to lose her job, I just want her to be reminded about hygiene. I also want her to understand how much she damages the company brand with her actions. So I emailed. I have to say I’m quite impressed. I got an emaikl back pretty quickly acknowledging my email, explaining their process and letting me know they’d update me on the outcome. Now that’s customer service.

slow news day

Honestly, I can’t believe the harpies and the media beat up over Phil Goff’s comments. Is that really the best they can do for news. Sometimes the media needs reminding they are there to report on the news not twist and distort it. Watch the clip and decide for yourself.

puncturing the doctor’s pomposity

Fab interview with David Tennant on Radio 5, 2 April 2008. You can listen via YouTube. 26 Minutes and 21 seconds split over three parts.

Part one (9min 24) David is brilliant at avoiding probing into plot developments.

Part two (9min17) The sadness and loneliness of the Doctor. He lives forever. Any mortal he gets involved with will just never live long enough for the Doctor. Discussion of his shakespearian role and next year’s 3 Doctor Who specials.

Part Three (7min40) Discusses his experience being on “Who do you think you are?” Explores his directing aspirations.

16 plastic bags

Online ordered groceries have arrived and everything was intact.  Somethings impressed me, somethings didn’t.

What went well?

• glass items were wrapped in newspaper
• all the veges look very fresh and unblemished
• everything had best before dates well into the future
• delivery was on time
• fantastic having someone else carry all the heavy stuff to my door

What didn’t go well

• 2 of my 3 saturday morning treats didn’t arrive
• One of the missing treats was the newspaper – now I have to go out and get one. Really, I don’t understand this. If you pre-pack everything too early to inlcude a newspaper, why put it as an option. Maybe there was a printing problem – if I’m being generous.
• there were 16 freaking plastic bags. SIXTEEN. And I didn’t order that much. In a supermarket I’d have packed into 3 smallish carry bags I have.  I can sort of see why they did it but it made me cringe. All the posibly able to contaminate items were bagged separately – dishwash liquid etc, as were the likely to be contaminated – smoked salmon, bread etc. The onions were double bagged – DOUBLE BAGGED – that seemed excessive, I know they smell, but 2 bags? Some of it seems to be because there’s a separate bag for the freezer, chilled, deli departments too. And yet the irony is not everything even comes in a bag. Bagged or not everything is packed into plastic crates – sort of the domestic equivalent of a bread crate.

So all in all how do I rate it? Well, the excited pleasure of it only being just after 11 on Saturday and knowing my fridge is full is pushing the whole experience to a 7 out of 10. I’ll do it again and now I know how the whole process goes I’ll feel more comfortable about opting for substitutions.

supermarkets, why do you torment me?

I hate grocery shopping.  I may have mentioned this before but I hate going to the supermarket with a passion.  Nothing bores me more than pushing a trolley up and down the aisles getting stuck behind dawdlers and aisle hogs.  Then there’s the torment of watching someone pack the tinned goods on top of the bread.

I decided to take the plunge and go online.  How hard can it be? Hmm… Having considered my online options, which are fairly limited I opted for Woolworths.  Honestly, what muppet at New World thought putting an ad for online shopping on their website was a good idea – WHEN THEY DON’T DO ONLINE SHOPPING. Sheesh. Anyway, back to Woolies. Registering was easy – possible too easy.  One thing annoyed me, endless mention of the onecard and the savings to be had but do you think they provided a link to apply for one? Okay, so I understand in the middle of one registration process they don’t want to send you off to another but for goodness sake would it have been too much trouble to add a box to the form “Sign me up for the Onecard” and dynamically add another page to the form for those who tick the box.

The shopping experience took some time – partly I think since I could not get my head around their taxonomy. It went to too finer a level, just show me all the rolls and buns don’t make me try and figure out what type. Browsing the aisles of words got a bit frustrating.  Making a list and searching turned out to be much easier. I realised too I have no idea what a carrot weighs.  Fortunately one of the few good things is that you can buy your veg by the kilo or piece. So I’d like to see a visual representation of the aisles and I want to see the product details. Don’t just show me the front of the packet, either let me rotate it or give me the data from the back of the packet.  If I can’t read the contents and nutritional value I don’t think I’d try something new in an online shop. Woolworths need to watch the labelling too. There were a couple of things I didn’t buy as the pictures didn’t match the words and I couldn’t be sure which I would get.

So, the order was submitted from the comfort of my couch.  I got the confirmation email, all fairly standard. I was sort of surprised there was no evidence of any checking on the first order. Sure enough “Wendy” contacted me at a highly inconvenient time to ask me if I knew I had ordered groceries. She then wanted my birthdate and address – over the phone! Hello, how stupid are you Woolworths? In this time of identity theft do you really expect me to hand this over to Wendy? How do I know she is who she says she is? You don’t say you are going to do this. How do I know it is genuine? The first time you order a pizza with Hell they make it clear they will phone you back to confirm. Why don’t you state this in your email notification. “If this is your first order we will phone you to verify”.  It isn’t rocket science. So many usability issues in one process.  I’m sure they can only get away with it due to the lack of competition.

Fingers crossed my groceries will arrive tomorrow morning complete with Saturday paper and fresh bread and delivered within a 2 and a half hour window which isn’t too bad. Will they be on time, will it live up to expectation and will the bread be on top of the tinned goods for once. In 12 hours or so I will know.

 

too old for sardines

Why do I have to pay to travel home on an overcrowded, late running, clapped out bus, driven by a wannabe rally driver? Why? Well, yes I could walk, ride a bike, take a taxi even but I choose to bus. Today I couldn’t decide whether to be grumpy with the driver, my fellow passengers or the sadist who came up with the timetable.

It was 6.30pm – hardly peak commuting time. The bus was late, 15 minutes late which puts it half way between the time it should have arrived and the next bus.  It was packed, well at least the front two thirds of the bus was. Sure enough, the very back of the bus had empty seats no-one could get to thanks to standing passengers who were “getting off at the next stop” but surprise surprise still on the bus when I got off. This bus route never NEVER never runs on time. And of course it only gets later and later as every stop brings a passenger who decided to grill the driver over his/her tardiness – as if that’s going to help the rest of us.

Then there’s the usual problem of Stagecoach Wellington bus drivers who drive as though they are on a racetrack. It would be entertaining were we to be all seated with the safety of a seatbelt.  Treating the standing passengers like dominoes to be toppled at every stop is not my idea of entertainment.