Tis the season

for rubbish customer service.  Let me give you a few examples of December debacles.

I contacted a supplier because a parcel scheduled for local collection had not arrived, the day it was due or the following day.  The explanation was that my parcel had not been delivered because it was delayed.  No apology, no reason, nothing, I'd already worked out myself it was delayed thank you so much.
I received an email from another supplier saying my delivery was delayed because of a glitch with the courier.  I replied asking what they meant by a glitch, when I might expect the parcel and if it was delayed for some time could I have it redirected to the intended recipient.  I didn't receive any response to several emails so I googled glitch but was no wiser, I suspect it wasn't the couriers fault at all.
I have for the past four years been receiving mail from a building society for a tenant who lived in the penthouse at least five years ago.  I have dutifully sent back every letter marked to say the person no longer lives here, but still they come.  So I went to the local branch and explained the situation.  After much computer tapping, building societies have to do that, I was told because they didn't have any other address for the person and because they cannot have an account without an address, they kept using mine though they were aware I was sending the mail back.  I suggested they just made up an address because if any more post came to me I am putting it immediately into the bin.
Mr FF is also joining in the battle.  He had an issue with Microsoft, he phoned the help line with a problem and the person he spoke to ended up practically wrecking our computer.  Mr FF spent days rebuilding and reloading everything, he keeps asking Microsoft for their complaints procedure, they don't seem to have one, there is no phone number on their website and when by email you arrange a phone back, citing date and time, it never happens.  So he contacts them again, so far he has 5 different reference numbers, it goes on and the point blank refuse to apologise.  The last time they had not phoned at the arranged time because they were too busy, but obviously not busy sorting customer complaints.
On the bright side we are currently experiencing no problems with our energy suppliers, lets hope they don't read this and get ideas.

This notepad was a gift from Pam that I received last month, I told her the other day its almost full and I'm hoping to get it published.

Time for a rant

We were never going to get very far into the new year before I needed to rant and it's poor customer service again.
Mid November last year I ordered some Origins toiletries to be delivered to Pam in Scotland for her birthday, I completed a gift tag on line, ticked for the free gift wrap and completed all the details.  I thought it was a bit odd when the billing address came up as Pam's because I thought that had to agree with the information on my credit card but when I phoned to clarify that Pam wouldn't be getting a bill they said everything was fine.
I didn't hear from Pam for about a week after her birthday when she phoned and mentioned she'd received a nice box of Origins products with no idea who it was from, I told her it was me and that I'd get in touch with them about the mistake, the box wasn't gift wrapped either.
I emailed and Origins replied offered to send me a gift tag and some wrapping paper, I felt they hadn't fully understood the problem or my disappointment and got back to them.  Then they said I had paid less than the normal price for the product, not paid any extra for the tag or wrapping (which were offered free) and so it was fair enough that they hadn't fulfilled my order properly. This made me even crosser so I asked for my complaint to be dealt with at a higher level and suggested I should receive some compensation.  There was a string of emails, at least a dozen in total, mostly saying we can only apologise, not their usual standard etc, each response from a different person.  I got so cross that eventually I phoned and spoke to a lady who insisted on calling me 'my love', agreed it was annoying, confirmed I had ordered a tag and gift wrap.  She would look into it and phone me back, which she did saying that having checked the emails no one had been rude to me (I never suggested they had) so they wouldn't be offering any compensation.  I said they only had to stick a bar of soap in the post with a letter of apology and I'd have been happy, as it is I won't be shopping with them again.   I really don't like this attitude and I won't support companies who explain away their mistakes as 'human error', say that the mistake happened in the warehouse and they are not responsible for that. Now that I live within walking distance of shops I shall not be ordering online so much as I've experienced several problems recently and because I want to do what I can to shop locally and maintain our high street.   I won't buy Origins in store either which is a shame as I do like their products, it's their attitude to customers that stinks.

Words fail me - almost

Its impossible to tell you how stressful putting our house on the market has been, or how expensive, and we aren't there yet.
Firstly in Scotland we are required by law to have a home report prepared before we can offer the house for sale, this gives a condition report, an energy report and a valuation.  None of this is worth the paper it is written on, full of get out clauses and based on a walk round the property without proper investigation, the energy performance section is supported by companies who want to sell you condensing boilers, solar panels etc, which are recommended to improve the rating.    
We arranged for an appropriate surveyor to come round to do this and will eventually fork out £840 for the pleasure.  Mr FF had ready the house plans, specification, even delivery notes for materials to explain how things worked and how well insulated the property is.  Bad start, the surveyor, lets call him Mr Clipboard, wasn't interested, said he'd prefer to wander round on his own and that he could only rate the house according to the building standards at the time it was built, pretty low.  We greatly exceeded these standards when we built, but apart from shoving Mr Clipboard's head into the loft or down a hatch to inspect the underfloor there was nothing we could do to get him to believe us.  We felt that was unfair, he said he was only the messenger and I suggested he take a message back that the system is rubbish.  Anyway to cut things short, he produced a survey that contained 19 errors, making various assumptions, though we were available to ask, like that we might not have planning permission for the 'alterations' to glaze the roof of our hallway.  We obtained planning permission for this when we built the house, it was never an alteration. He asked if our heating was zoned, ie could parts be turned off, and Mr FF showed him the switch in the hall that turns off the heating to the bedrooms during the day so that only the living areas are heated.  Because it was a manual switch, like turning on and off a light, Mr Clipboard wasn't able to accept it, he said it had to be automatic.  I thought Mr FF might launch into his regular rant about the chair being the killer and that people should get off their bottoms more often, perhaps he was stunned by the stupidity of it all.   
The energy report was dire, we know our house has a low carbon footprint and is cosy and warm at little expense, but Mr Clipboard had no box to enter information on our link up stove and oil boiler system, computer says no.   However, he hadn't anticipated our Yorkshire determination, Mr FF spoke to various bodies including the software manufacturers and after 3 weeks we eventually got a decent (average) rating.    However Mr Clipboard had the last laugh because once we said the report was OK he took himself off for 2 weeks holiday, we have no idea if he has issued details to the estate agents, we hardly care.
Then we had the photographer and the man who comes to draw up the plan, again the latter was not interested in the fact we already had plans, we appreciated he needed to check dimensions but he could have saved himself some time and possible got the room names right.  The photographer was pleasant and easy to have around, but again we didn't receive the photographs for several days, by which time they had been inserted into a draft brochure.  I had walked round with the photographer, pointing things out but felt that he knew what he was doing and left him to get on, wrong. Dreadful pictures, completely distorted by fancy lenses, presumably to make the rooms look more spacious.  Who needs to see that there is a bed in the spare room and a window, no indication of fitted wardrobes or garden views. Our lovely morning room that looks onto the balcony, across the garden and to the hills, shows a red sofa and a bookcase, no outlook or double patio doors in sight.
We were so disappointed, again we have forked out over £900 for the marketing, this morning I went out and took our own photographs for the brochure, we re-wrote the blurb that describes our small village, no shops or services, as a town and dare I mention the 2 W.C.'s - I would happily go round and give them a lesson on use of the apostrophe, I'd do it for free.  The sales negotiator was pressing us to approve the brochure, she sent it through at 4.00 pm yesterday and was on the phone at 9 am to ask if it was OK, no pressure there then.
I honestly feel that we have barely been consulted in this process, we have spent almost £1,800 and ended up doing most of the work ourselves. The arrogance of people who are selling their services is outrageous, I am sure we are already marked down as the clients from hell, so be it at least we might eventually get something like what we are paying for.

We value your call

so much so that we will make you answer many questions by pressing buttons before we put you through to a totally irrelevant recorded message to ramp up the money we make on your call, including our standard connection charge as shown in very small print on the website.  Only when you are sufficiently angry and frustrated will we speak to you our valued customer.
Yes its time for a rant.  I may have managed not to buy yarn this year or unnecessary toiletries but I can't stop myself banging on about dreadful customer service.  Just a couple of brief examples.
I bought a Bosch iron on line from John Lewis in December, it was a large good looking item but every time I used it water spilt out onto my laundry. I phoned Bosch to speak to their technical people in case I was doing something stupid, but they didn't have anyone with knowledge and after suggesting I make a 50 mile round trip to John Lewis carrying a heavy iron, they agreed to send me a prepaid label so I could return it to them for a refund.  On 08 January I received a letter saying they had the iron my refund would arrive within 28 days though no explanation about the fault.  45 days, many emails and several phone calls later I am still waiting to receive my £54.99, I have passed the matter to Trading Standards.
In the January sales I ordered a few little items online from Emma Bridgewater, 10 days later they hadn't arrived despite the delivery promise of 3-5 working days. I contacted them to be told that most of the items I had ordered were not available and had been cancelled, though they hadn't bothered to let me know this.  I made a bit of fuss, I expected them to have some form of stock control, they hadn't been bothered to keep me updated or offered any alternatives at similar prices and eventually they said I could have 10% off a future order, valid for the next 30 days.  Some of the things I ordered were reduced by 70%, I asked how getting 10% off compensated for not getting 70% off and they suggested I look at outlet mugs, not that I had ordered any mugs.  There were about half a dozen items in the outlet section none of which I wanted so they can keep their 10% discount but not their customer.  Then this week they had the cheek to send me an email asking me to review the purchases I didn't receive, sadly my review was rejected as it didn't meet their guidelines, what a surprise.
We feel sorry when we hear of companies closing down, they rarely come back again and putting staff out of work effects more than just that person but I do wonder what kind of management encourages this blatant customer alienation.  Whoever invented call centres was evil, operatives with little experience give wrong information knowing that you will never speak to them again because its a different person every time and even if you do manage to get a name that person won't be available next time you call.
I heard at the weekend that Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut approximately 20,000 jobs, comments on line were very much in favour of this to the point of jubilation.  Since my own branch refuses to open mail forwarding everything to Glasgow for processing, unless the envelope is addressed to a known member of staff, I have to wonder if this isn't symptomatic of their whole disregard for customers.   For goodness sake if I send a letter to my branch I want them to deal with it, do they now need specialist staff to open envelopes, when I've been in my branch they haven't exactly been rushed off their feet.
I can manage without any more Bridgewater, I bought myself a new iron at quarter of the cost of the Bosch and while I will be sorry if my local bank closes leaving another empty building in the high street, I can only express my disappointment and frustration by not supporting companies that let me down and next time I hear about another business closing I shall wonder if they operated a truly awful customer care call centre.

Let it go

I'm not a great hoarder (yarn doesn't count) but I really have been trying to get rid of clutter this year in the hope that we might eventually downsize and in the meantime enjoy this house more and more as it improves.  Mr FF has done quite a lot of sanding down and painting or re-varnishing, we are looking smart but he in particular finds it impossible to let go.   
Two of Mr FF's favourite reasons for retaining items are they were expensive when we bought them and they don't make things as well today. To me high costs doesn't equate to high value and the fact that something was well made while admirable doesn't necessarily make it either beautiful or useful  
Here's an example of not letting go, when we had our first house in the 70s we bought from a friend for £40 a G plan dining table with four upholstered chairs.   More than 20 years ago we stopped using the table but kept it, it was circular teak and extended into an oval to seat up to 6. The wood was lovely, the extension worked smoothly but we didn't need it.  Eventually I advertised it in the village as free to a good home no takers, I tried to give it to a charity but none would come out from Edinburgh for it.  One cheeky organisation said they would only take the table if it came with chairs, by this time it didn't.  Finally friends of a friend were delighted to have it for their holiday house and gave us a bottle of wine.
Now we have in the front room a low white bookcase and a couple of low cupboards, we bought them again for our first house 30 odd years ago. They are so dated I've taken to putting a throw over the brown fronted cupboards, I keep the Christmas decorations in there and not much else so they serve no great purpose.  

Again Mr FF has explained to me how well made the units are, that he doesn't mind the dated style, that they are much better than anything you'd find in Ikea.  Fair enough, but I don't want to replace them with anything from Ikea or anywhere else, I want them to go and leave a space in the room.  
I had a look through our collection of photographs last week and while they need more sorting I threw out the ones of people and places I didn't recognise, a sure sign they'd been kept too long. And don't get me started about Mr FF's amazing selection of construction industry slides, yes slides you remember those don't you.

They live in these boxes under his desk and relate to his last but one job that he hasn't had for at least 5 years.  He promises me he's going to sort them out and keep just the good ones as there are some really interesting images, there are 1000s.  He did offer them to a couple of engineering related organisations but no one was interested.    At least he has now disposed of his projector and light box which gives me hope the slides will go soon.

Then he can get started on his office bookcase, all these dull tomes, technical papers and magazines, I'd love to have some of this space free and make our office a bit calmer (perhaps even a bit more studio-ish).  I know its not easy to let go of these tangible parts of life and particularly things associated with a long and happy career but there is a part of me that resents having to live with unused clutter.   
Let's face it if you don't sort your own things someone else will have everything to throw away when you've gone.  My sister in law has been emptying the cottage of an elderly relative who died aged 93 and found in a cupboard 25 years worth of Daniel O'Donnell calendars (he's an Irish singer that more mature ladies seem to appreciate).  I bet they were never taken out of the cupboard, I doubt they were that expensive and certainly no better made than any other calendar so each one should have been binned at the turn of the year.  (Mr FF please note.)

Found

You recall I started this aran patchwork cardigan some time back but discovered as it progressed that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish (I know you've seen it before but I'm so pleased with it, its worth a second look). 

I contacted the wool manufacturers, who do sell direct, by email I think 4 times and by phone twice, though was only ever able to leave a message. The only response I got was that they didn't have the batch I used, 504, and that their current stock was batch 71111 or something like that, which told me absolutely nothing.  Anyway the yarn was out of stock and though I kept checking the website it never came back in stock and eventually the website closed for reconstruction, this will be the third week it has been down.  
So frustrating.  However, I tried ebay and lo and behold someone was selling 4 balls, not of my batch number but better than nothing.  I was prepared to buy 4 balls but once the price went beyond the retail price I ducked out.  I was then tempted to sell the balls I hadn't used and forget the whole thing.  Every time I saw the finished back and one sleeve of the cardigan I wondered if I should start pulling it out, order some nice soft cotton and start again.
I did a check on Ravelry and a few people had one ball in their stash but no one was selling.  I was tempted to contact them and beg but fortunately I couple of people had posted where they bought their yarn.  One was a National Trust gift shop in the Lakes, I emailed them over a week ago and am still waiting for a reply.  Confirms my opinion of the National Trust, I cancelled my membership when they started closing the little houses and building vast new visitor centres to sell tat and mass produced food.  
I also saw someone had bought their yarn at Iriss in Penzance, I sent off an email and next morning there was a reply saying yes they had two balls of 504 and if I emailed my phone number they would contact me for my details.  I was on the phone straightaway though I was impressed that they actually offered to call me.  Mr FF was already asking if we should set off to drive the length of the country to collect the yarn, 550 miles each way now that's devotion especially as I hadn't at that stage cleared the drive of several inches of snow

David at Iriss took my details, explaining how he had found just the two balls of 504 in a box but had plenty of more recent batches.   When he told me the price I said I'd pay anything and he laughingly suggested £25 per ball.  I paid £14.23 including delivery for 200 g of pure Yorkshire yarn or realistically a finished cardigan.  Amazing service, restores some of my continually diminishing faith in business, lets face it two out of the three companies I've been in contact with didn't bother to reply.

So I'd better stop knitting the little socks that I've been making with spare yarn and I must finish Amelia's ballet wrap.  Then I shall put my concentrating head on so that I can complete the cardigan because the yarn arrived within two days, apart from a different label, the shops own, it's identical, its just what I wanted.

Happy days thank you Iriss.

The good and bad of big business

If you know anything about me you must know I am no fan of big business.   Hearing recently that disgraced Barclays boss Bob Diamond is to fore go his £20m bonus and leave with just £2m as severance pay does nothing to improve my impression of the way things are done at the top.

I've recently had a debacle with that once doyen of British retail Marks and Spencer.  I ordered on line a plant to be delivered to my sister in law for her 60th birthday, the order duly acknowledged and the day before it was due I received an email to say that the gift was on its way.  I didn't hear from SiL until a couple of days after her birthday when she told me her gift had arrived, 2 days late and the decorative terracotta pot was smashed to pieces. 

I phoned M&S who were very helpful, apologised and said they'd send another immediately.   Next day SiL phoned to report that the new plant was much fresher and a completely different variety to the first one.  I'd ordered an alstromeria but they had initially delivered a zinnia, strangely at complete opposite ends of the alphabet.  I was a bit put out by this and spoke to M&S again, extracting from them £5 compensation which since they put this onto my online account would probably incur £3.50 delivery cost so not much compensation after all.
I then received an email from M&S asking me to review my purchase, I wrote that the gift arrived 2 days late, the pot was broken and the plant was not what I'd order so basically everything was wrong.  M&S rejected my review as it didn't meet their guidelines, again causing me some irritation. I rewrote my review giving the lowest scores possible and saying simply I'd been disappointed, they published this but really it was no use to anyone, readers might imagine I was simply a fussy shopper.   Much of the fault here may lie with the courier but my contract was with M&S and delivery on the right day was a big part of the product.
Recently M&S published reduced sales figures, why am I not surprised.  It never fails to amaze me that in these days when money is in short supply the paying customer is not more valued.

At the opposite end of the scale, Mr FF had a pair of Timberland shoes he bought at least 5 years ago and loved very much.  The soles started to come away and despite his attempt to glue them back he couldn't fix them so he spoke to Timberland asking for advice.  They suggested he return them and they'd take a look, reporting back that the shoes couldn't be fixed but he could select a new pair to the same value from their website and they'd send them out.  The ones he decided on were more expensive than the originals but he was happy to pay the £35 difference after all he'd already had good wear from the old ones.  Timberland wanted to deliver the new shoes while we were away in May but as this wasn't possible they agreed to wait till we came home.  Unfortunately the shoes went out of stock and couldn't be delivered until late July so they said they would waive the £35 extra charge to cover his inconvenience.    Today a brand new pair of Timberland shoes arrived by courier, no fuss, no argument and customer service beyond what we expected. 
Finally, on a slight tangent, Mr FF though retired is still on some online networking site and received notification the other day that one of his contacts has been promoted to Chief Imagineer and Ideation (though shouldn't that be Ideationer).  I had to google these job titles as they meant nothing to me and guess what both have references to Walt Disney, yes the magic kingdom, the world of make believe.  Personally I'd rather be called the Office Twit that the Imagineer, but then I'm from Yorkshire where folk can't be doing with flannel.  Come on business giving each other fanciful names and ignoring the customer won't get you anywhere, the great majority of the public is not as stupid as you seem to think and this one and her husband in his brand new Timberlands will be giving M&S on line a wide swerve.

Time for a rant

So we have this lovely house in Italy and I'm really grateful that we do but I have such mixed feelings about renting it out.  I'd be so happy to leave my clothes in the wardrobe, find everything where we left it when we return and not have to worry about keeping up standards generally. However, letting the property out to holiday guests does bring in money to pay the bills, community charge, tax, water, refuse collection (even though the door to door collection recently introduced is not coming up our road because the electric vehicle can't manage the climb so we end up taking the rubbish to the tip or isola ecologica as it prefers to be called ourselves while still paying full whack).  I also think its better for the village generally that the house is occupied, it must bring in some income for the local shops and services and our neighbours who look after the property for us love having guests around. So that's what we do, the guests book direct with us, no agency or middle man, Mario lets the people in and explains whats what, Lina does the cleaning and laundry, to an exceptionally high standard I'm pleased to say.
However, the last time we went to the house Lina hadn't been too well so she had simply stripped the beds and not done any cleaning.  What an eye opener  that was.  The only guests, 5 adults, had been in the house 5 days and the place was filthy, old food and wrappers on the kitchen floor, fag packets under the bed and lets not talk about the state of the toilets.  I got stuck in and cleaned the place, fair enough, but what really annoyed me was the way pans and crockery had been put away dirty, the coffee maker put back in the cupboard still with the old grounds in it.  

Even my pretty oil cloth, that matches the bigger one so that both outside tables go together, had been put away in this condition, totally ruined which made me very cross indeed.  Everything was mixed up, I know its hard to remember where you got things from but logical to keep similar glasses or plates together.

I try to provide nice things in the house, I've stayed in places where its been hard to find a tea cup that wasn't cracked, but I have a tea pot (with a cosy)

I have good quality equipment. 

Originally we provided playing cards and an assortment of jigsaws till we went back once and I found cards in the garden ruined by the rain and pieces of jigsaw blowing around from goodness knows which box. We take a small security deposit but this wouldn't cover a major breakage so really we are working on trust.  Obviously its impossible during a short changeover time to check everything and few people admit to breakages hoping they won't be noticed.  

The great  majority of our guests are lovely, give us useful feedback and have been known to leave small gifts for the house, herb plants, candles, little bits of pottery, all of which I really appreciate.  I don't want to stop renting the house, I don't want to lower the standards but I do want people to realise it is actually our home they are staying in, our personal items they are using and treat it all with respect.  Not too much to ask surely.

Time for a rant

I don't think I've had a major rant for a while, well I am having one now. I have a health insurance policy, you may not agree with this but having never been in hospital or touch wood had any major illness in my life I do have something of a fear of these places I'd like to think I might be able to hide away in a quiet and private room if I needed treatment. It has nothing to do with queue jumping and I certainly keep myself healthy, don't smoke, one glass of wine does me, not overweight. I've had different policies over the years and been with my current provider for probably 10 or more years, obviously I've never made a claim. Last year my premium went up quite a lot so I opted for a £1,000 excess which gave a decent reduction and I calculated that a couple of years on a reduced premium would cover any excess I might have to pay in future. My policy is due for renewal next month and when the paperwork arrived there had been a 30% increase from last year, despite the covering letter stating that the average increase for my age was 17%. I phoned up and of course got the same guff I get every time I complain to them, big increase in claims, medical inflation (which I believe is running at around 3%) and when I said that I might not go ahead there was certainly no fawning for my custom, the operator merely asked me to let them know if I wanted to cancel.
So this last week I've been trawling around for a better deal and I've received three different quotes for a policy with the same provider varying from £450 to £1,000, allegedly for the same cover. I have pages and pages of small print to get through but my overall impression of the insurance business is one of deep suspicion.
For example, when our tv in Italy was struck by lightning we spoke to the insurance company who said we'd have to cover the first £100, fair enough, plus obtain two written reports about the incident from tv engineers and we would lose our no claims discount adding about 15% to future premiums. It was cheaper just to buy a new tv ourselves, we gave the old one to the repair man in the village for spares.
When we came to renew our Italian house insurance this year we were told we couldn't have cover for earthquake or land slip. We live on the side of a mountain on the edge of a seismic area, those would be our two main concerns and given the tv debacle we have little confidence we are covered for anything at all.
I might say its a long time since the days of the Man from the Pru, the insurance adviser who used to call round to collect payments from customers door to door, and that the aggressive call centre selling is a deterioration of customer service, but then I bought endowment and pension policies from the man from Equitable Life in a face to face way and a big con that turned out to be. Who can we trust.
Lets not end on a bitter note, here's my lovely amaryllis flowering it's pretty little head off. If only big business was as honest and straightforward, no small print on the bulb, performs as expected, customer satisfaction big style, happy days.

The gentle art of gratitude*

I'm sure like me you were brought up to say please and thank you and I'm sure like me you still do. For example after a meal with friends I'll always send a card or perhaps an email depending on who it is. I met up with an old friend last week for lunch and gave her a bottle of our olive oil, within a few days there was a lovely thank you card that I really appreciated. However I've had recently a few examples of total lack of gratitude.
So far this year I have posted off separately two hand knitted items and left another gift to be passed onto the recipient, I have heard nothing back from anyone. So I've begun to wonder if the gifts actually arrived and at the embarrassing stage of considering whether I should make contact, thus shaming the recipient into expressing some seemingly solicited appreciation or just keep quiet.
I'm not looking for a standing ovation, I don't need to be carried shoulder high round the village, but none of this is good enough.
On the other hand, and on the basis of two positive comments to each negative, my darling Amelia always makes a big effort whenever she receives a gift, this was her post Christmas thank youand I still have last years which was equally delightful.
Also I knitted this week a pair of fingerless gloves for Pam's Mum who is 95, currently not too well and likes to read in bed with gloves on to keep cosy. Pam provided me with a couple of balls of Rowan 4 ply soft, gorgeous yarn, I used slightly more than one 50g ball and could probably have managed with just one but I'd been asked to make the gloves nice and long, presumably to tuck into the sleeves of a nightie. When Pam collected them she thanked me and that evening sent me an email thanking me again and saying her Mum was delighted and was using the gloves straight away which was great to hear.
I give gifts that I think the recipient will enjoy and the giving is in many ways enough satisfaction but surely it doesn't take much, especially in this day and age, to make some acknowledgement. That's all I'm saying, my first rant of the year and by the way thank you for taking the time to read this.

*with apologies (and thanks) to Jane Brocket

Speaking up (aka Time for a Rant)

It's been a fairly quiet week, a time when enthusiasm for the New Year New Me has faded but still too early for real signs of spring. The weather has been horrible, a sprinkling of snow, high winds and torrential rain. Lots of time spent knitting in front of the stove interspersed with a bit of dorissing including my infrequent duty of knocking down the cobwebs in the double height atrium using the step ladder and a feather duster on the end of a long cane, so that's the spring cleaning done.

Mr FF and I have both agreed that this year we are not taking any nonsense (except from each other of course), that we won't support unfairness, bad practice or business that doesn't provide good service and that we will give credit where it is deserved. For example

We are still without central heating, or indeed a boiler, and coping really well. When our 20 year old, usually reliable and fuel efficient boiler started to leak water just before Christmas. Mr FF in something of a panic because of all the problems caused by the very cold weather ordered a new condensing boiler that we put into the store until our plumber could connect it up. However because of the condensing function our existing flue arrangement won't work and Mr FF received such appalling customer service from the manufacturers, basically they didn't have a clue what we should do in our slightly more complex than usual situation, that after 4 weeks he sent the bloomin thing back and got a full refund. We had such bad reports about this new and enforced type of boiler (apparently you need permission to use a non-condensing one) that we are looking at alternatives, including the possibility of an air source heat pump that would be so eco friendly but not necessarily suitable for our current system. It would mean that we could no longer operate the back boiler on our stove that provides so much hot water and runs the radiator in the hall. It's either an expensive environmental system or an infrequently used conventional boiler and stick with our lovely stove and back boiler. Apart from in really cold weather, we never use the central heating, we have the stove burning 24 hours a day, Mr FF has a small thermostatically controlled electric oil filled radiator in his office and we have one in our bedroom if required. Otherwise we are using our own calories and wool jumpers each to keep us toasty.

This week Mr FF received by email a ticket for a business event he is attending in a few weeks. The ticket was an A4 sheet, black background with a white image of some structure, venue details and the ticket number. Mr FF replied saying it would probably use all the ink in his printer, to which the company running the event responded that they would happily print it out for him and post it. At this stage I suggested that he needed to get his message across a bit stronger, that the whole ethos was wrong and so he did, not only suggesting that the expectation of each delegate producing an ink heavy paper ticket was wrong, but that emailing such a thing in large scale format was wasteful. The ticket was a 2 Mb file, sent to a minimum 200 delegates and stored on sender and recipients systems and possibly also backed up, this could amount to 1600 Mb (equivalent to 50,000 average size letters), half of which may be stored in specially built data warehousing that uses energy to build and maintain. He received a reply thanking him for pointing all this out, the company had not previously considered the impact on the environment and they would be taking it on board. They also agreed that since delegates had already enrolled for the event there was no need at all for tickets and that they could simply provide identification at the registration.

I walked out of TK Maxx sticking my intended purchase on the nearest rail because there was a queue of about 10 people and only one till open, such a place doesn't deserve my money.

I've written to thank a mail order firm that provided me with a (1/3rd) more expensive item at the same price when the sale article I ordered was out of stock, despatching it by special delivery again at no extra cost so that I received it next day. The lovely cardigan is back to full price now, I paid £69 for my grey one.

I had a call from a guy saying our Sky box warranty had run out and he could renew it over the phone for us taking either the full amount or setting up installments. I asked him what we usually did, he said last year we paid the full amount. I then explained that we'd never had a Sky warranty, that we consider warranties a complete rip off and that he wasn't telling the truth, he was soon off the phone. I know call centre people have to make a living but blatant dishonesty surely isn't the way, his friendly confident tone could easily mislead people.

A friend once told me that sometimes getting your message across can be like throwing mud at a wall, you throw an awful lot and not much sticks, but a little bit of it does. I intend to throw lots this year.