Who is Laura Jane? Well I don't actually know but she has a cute photo on twitter and writes tweets that often amuse me. I only got in touch with her originally because she required burrito expertise and I answered the call via Secret London.
Why am I writing this post? Because she asked me to :)
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Monday, 18 June 2012
Pas encore Pret A Manger
This post is a special announcement.
Pret A Manger, who I must spend about £1000 a year with for my breakfast in the morning, are facing a trade embargo from... Me!
Why? You may ask?
The answer is simple. Until Friday, every morning I would walk in with a smile, ask the lovely staff for my usual Mozzarella & Tomato croissant and coffee and they would happily serve me. We'd enjoy a little banter and every once in a while I'd even get a coffee on the house!
Sadly all this changed last Friday when they decided to implement operation Pasty Tax.
What they did was to move the croissants from the safe, warm cabinet by the tills to the badlands that are the hot food area in the shop.
Ordinarily this wouldn't be that big a deal, but it now means I lose the friendly banter, have to take the croissant to the till myself and also pay 6p more for an extra bit of card that makes it difficult to eat on the move.
So far all the staff I've spoke to have said they think it's a stupid idea and I should complain. So I did. Called head office and asked for an explanation. They were quite helpful and I'm hoping to see some positive action, but I also complained on twitter. Sadly the response from whoever controls the twitter account was something along the lines of "all our branches have a different layout but we've taken your feedback on board" which was rather disappointing.
Anyway, I refuse to eat there until they resolve the problem :)
Update! Day 2 and I received a letter from Pret Customer Services. A rather patronising letter. Contrary to my own investigations and what the twitter account said, the letter told me they ran customer trials and received positive feedback, the placing of the croissants with the other warm food is in line with other bakeries and is in accordance with health and safety regulations. They also blamed the 6p increase in price on the cost of rent. So it tells me that the level of customer service at this company has dropped a lot since I last contacted them.
But I have NEVER seen croissants out in the open on the bottom shelf of an open full height cabinet before. They have no wrapping on them and it's quite nasty thinking about what might land on them, including the dust from people walking in and out of the shop. And so far all the other branches of Pret I've looked inside have the croissants in the correct place by the tills with the original price.
Pret A Manger, who I must spend about £1000 a year with for my breakfast in the morning, are facing a trade embargo from... Me!
Why? You may ask?
The answer is simple. Until Friday, every morning I would walk in with a smile, ask the lovely staff for my usual Mozzarella & Tomato croissant and coffee and they would happily serve me. We'd enjoy a little banter and every once in a while I'd even get a coffee on the house!
Sadly all this changed last Friday when they decided to implement operation Pasty Tax.
What they did was to move the croissants from the safe, warm cabinet by the tills to the badlands that are the hot food area in the shop.
Ordinarily this wouldn't be that big a deal, but it now means I lose the friendly banter, have to take the croissant to the till myself and also pay 6p more for an extra bit of card that makes it difficult to eat on the move.
So far all the staff I've spoke to have said they think it's a stupid idea and I should complain. So I did. Called head office and asked for an explanation. They were quite helpful and I'm hoping to see some positive action, but I also complained on twitter. Sadly the response from whoever controls the twitter account was something along the lines of "all our branches have a different layout but we've taken your feedback on board" which was rather disappointing.
Anyway, I refuse to eat there until they resolve the problem :)
Update! Day 2 and I received a letter from Pret Customer Services. A rather patronising letter. Contrary to my own investigations and what the twitter account said, the letter told me they ran customer trials and received positive feedback, the placing of the croissants with the other warm food is in line with other bakeries and is in accordance with health and safety regulations. They also blamed the 6p increase in price on the cost of rent. So it tells me that the level of customer service at this company has dropped a lot since I last contacted them.
But I have NEVER seen croissants out in the open on the bottom shelf of an open full height cabinet before. They have no wrapping on them and it's quite nasty thinking about what might land on them, including the dust from people walking in and out of the shop. And so far all the other branches of Pret I've looked inside have the croissants in the correct place by the tills with the original price.
Update. I did finally get the call from the CEO. He completely appreciated my complaint, but the problem is their sales have gone up by 20% since they made the change, and he has a business to run. So I’ve given up. I don’t eat there as often anymore, but when I do I still have mozzarella and tomato croissants. I just pick the one from right at the back. And ask them to remove the box. I hate losing, but nobody wins everything, every time!
Friday, 15 June 2012
Fiddlesticks!
For some reason I have taken to saying the word 'fiddlesticks' a lot. I kind of like the word, even though it's only supposed to be used when things go wrong.
I guess it means things have been going wrong a lot lately. Mostly at work.
Why?
Communication problems for the most part. Email wars, and obscure processes also have a large part to play in things. Letting tension show in written communication is never a good thing. Evidenced by picking up the phone and practically resolving the problem I've been having in an email war for the last week. As BT says, it's good to talk. If the person I am referring to reads this, I thank you for giving me the slap I needed, and for your honesty. I'd let my own standards slip and it was good to be reminded of that by someone.
A lot of the tension comes from obscure, complicated processes in the first place. Many of these can be avoided and I have several ideas on how things could be improved. It seems many people where I work agree with me, so it's only a matter of time before we start making changes in the right direction!
So what else is going on?
I think last time I wrote a post I was talking about how amazing the weather had been. Sadly since then it's mostly been raining. My motorbike probably has a flat battery, I haven't been skating as much as I'd like and I caught a cold from being out in the rain too much the last few weeks. This irritates me immensely, not just because I caught the cold in the first place but because I am attributing it to being outside in the cold. I usually tell people you don't catch a cold from being out in the cold; all that does is weaken your immune system and you catch the cold from people around you. Maybe my immune system got weakened.
I'm going to Dublin next weekend. That should be good. I've never been there before and I'm looking forward to it, but hoping the weather improves.
Following that I have the Le Mans 24 hour inline skating event at the end of the month. That takes lots of planning and I've been busy organising my team and ordering t-shirts and such. I'm slightly worried I've ordered all of them too small, but hopefully they'll be ok.
Not much else going on really, at least nothing to report. I've been thinking of getting another Android phone, because as I expected it's becoming quite the mobile phone platform.
There are also potentially some other career developments happening. I will post if there's anything to report on that front.
Finally I realised when reading back through my blog that I mention how rarely I write posts quite a lot. I am aware of the irony of mentioning it again when talking about it, but I will endeavour not to do it again.
Wheeeeee!
I guess it means things have been going wrong a lot lately. Mostly at work.
Why?
Communication problems for the most part. Email wars, and obscure processes also have a large part to play in things. Letting tension show in written communication is never a good thing. Evidenced by picking up the phone and practically resolving the problem I've been having in an email war for the last week. As BT says, it's good to talk. If the person I am referring to reads this, I thank you for giving me the slap I needed, and for your honesty. I'd let my own standards slip and it was good to be reminded of that by someone.
A lot of the tension comes from obscure, complicated processes in the first place. Many of these can be avoided and I have several ideas on how things could be improved. It seems many people where I work agree with me, so it's only a matter of time before we start making changes in the right direction!
So what else is going on?
I think last time I wrote a post I was talking about how amazing the weather had been. Sadly since then it's mostly been raining. My motorbike probably has a flat battery, I haven't been skating as much as I'd like and I caught a cold from being out in the rain too much the last few weeks. This irritates me immensely, not just because I caught the cold in the first place but because I am attributing it to being outside in the cold. I usually tell people you don't catch a cold from being out in the cold; all that does is weaken your immune system and you catch the cold from people around you. Maybe my immune system got weakened.
I'm going to Dublin next weekend. That should be good. I've never been there before and I'm looking forward to it, but hoping the weather improves.
Following that I have the Le Mans 24 hour inline skating event at the end of the month. That takes lots of planning and I've been busy organising my team and ordering t-shirts and such. I'm slightly worried I've ordered all of them too small, but hopefully they'll be ok.
Not much else going on really, at least nothing to report. I've been thinking of getting another Android phone, because as I expected it's becoming quite the mobile phone platform.
There are also potentially some other career developments happening. I will post if there's anything to report on that front.
Finally I realised when reading back through my blog that I mention how rarely I write posts quite a lot. I am aware of the irony of mentioning it again when talking about it, but I will endeavour not to do it again.
Wheeeeee!
Fiddlesticks! I forgot to rant about Paris or burritos. Oh well!
Monday, 26 March 2012
2012 So far
My blog posts have been few and far between this year.
This has been deliberate. A girlfriend moving out of my flat all of a sudden, 2 ski trips, my work contract ending and joining match.com all conspired to make me either too talkative or not too talkative for various reasons.
So what should I rant about first? Well it would be rather low of me to rant about the first item, and she's not worth ranting about.
Ski trips are far more interesting anyway, so let's talk about those.
The first one was in January, and was an epic skater group trip to La Tania. It was awesome, except for the accommodation which was very badly organised by a friend who seemed to want to profit from doing so. That was the impression we all got even if it wasn't his intention. It's a real shame because I'd considered him a good friend until that point. So 2 good connections broken... but new connections made in the form of new friends so not all lost. 5 days of skiing and 3 days of snowboarding, all brilliant!
The second trip was last week, and was excellent. It was my third trip to Italy without injury, and my second to Sauze d'Oulx in Italy. Not much to say really... snow getting thin, sun shining all week, lovely weather, lovely company and I hope to see my friends soon for a reunion drinks night or meal.
My work contract ended too, and I did have a permanent job lined up which I started, and quit after a week. Why would I quit? Well, I was hired to a fairly senior position by an online gaming company, but when I started the job the following issues made me not want to work there:
1. The manager who hired me quit suddenly the Friday before I started.
2. The working hours were 9am to 6pm, already long enough but made worse by:
3. "You should arrive early, probably 8.45. You may take a break of up to 15 minutes at 11am and 4pm but if you do, you must deduct that time from your 1 hour lunch break which you may take between midday and 3pm" Let's just say I haven't been treated like this since I was about 13.
4. I went to the toilet and went around the corner for a coffee, and when I got back I was asked where I'd been.
I can't work in those conditions, so I quit.
What this meant is that for a month of lovely sunshine I had lots of free time to walk around London getting addicted to Instagram, before being hired by a previous employer just as this horrible weather started!
And what do I have to say about match.com?
Well not much really. I think it's rubbish. It would probably be good if I was a 6 foot tall caucasian male but I'm not, which immediately excludes me from requirements of the losers on the website. Most of the descriptions go something like this:
"I am happy going out and love travelling but equally happy staying at home and cosying up on the sofa. I'm easy going but I want a confident man. He must be tall. And white. Don't contact me if you only have a picture of your naked torso. If I don't contact you back, sorry but I'm not interested."
Anyway you get the idea. All the women on match.com seem to be after James Bond, not realising that James Bond isn't on match.com. And it's the same with all the other dating websites. Everyone who winks at me is either fat, ugly, old or a combination of the three, or they have put up some old photos that look cute, but they don't look like that anymore. Do I think it's good value for money? No, absolutely not. In fact it's a complete waste and I wouldn't encourage anyone to use it. Same goes for matchaffinity, the sister website that's supposed to match your personalities. It seems my personality matches well with fat old people, despite the fact that my interests are all extreme sports and fun things that fat old people have never imagined doing.
So I've met one interesting lady from the site but I suspect she's not so interested in me. Maybe I rant too much :)
I'll rant about my trip to Paris in my next post, and more about Burritos!
This has been deliberate. A girlfriend moving out of my flat all of a sudden, 2 ski trips, my work contract ending and joining match.com all conspired to make me either too talkative or not too talkative for various reasons.
So what should I rant about first? Well it would be rather low of me to rant about the first item, and she's not worth ranting about.
Ski trips are far more interesting anyway, so let's talk about those.
The first one was in January, and was an epic skater group trip to La Tania. It was awesome, except for the accommodation which was very badly organised by a friend who seemed to want to profit from doing so. That was the impression we all got even if it wasn't his intention. It's a real shame because I'd considered him a good friend until that point. So 2 good connections broken... but new connections made in the form of new friends so not all lost. 5 days of skiing and 3 days of snowboarding, all brilliant!
The second trip was last week, and was excellent. It was my third trip to Italy without injury, and my second to Sauze d'Oulx in Italy. Not much to say really... snow getting thin, sun shining all week, lovely weather, lovely company and I hope to see my friends soon for a reunion drinks night or meal.
My work contract ended too, and I did have a permanent job lined up which I started, and quit after a week. Why would I quit? Well, I was hired to a fairly senior position by an online gaming company, but when I started the job the following issues made me not want to work there:
1. The manager who hired me quit suddenly the Friday before I started.
2. The working hours were 9am to 6pm, already long enough but made worse by:
3. "You should arrive early, probably 8.45. You may take a break of up to 15 minutes at 11am and 4pm but if you do, you must deduct that time from your 1 hour lunch break which you may take between midday and 3pm" Let's just say I haven't been treated like this since I was about 13.
4. I went to the toilet and went around the corner for a coffee, and when I got back I was asked where I'd been.
I can't work in those conditions, so I quit.
What this meant is that for a month of lovely sunshine I had lots of free time to walk around London getting addicted to Instagram, before being hired by a previous employer just as this horrible weather started!
And what do I have to say about match.com?
Well not much really. I think it's rubbish. It would probably be good if I was a 6 foot tall caucasian male but I'm not, which immediately excludes me from requirements of the losers on the website. Most of the descriptions go something like this:
"I am happy going out and love travelling but equally happy staying at home and cosying up on the sofa. I'm easy going but I want a confident man. He must be tall. And white. Don't contact me if you only have a picture of your naked torso. If I don't contact you back, sorry but I'm not interested."
Anyway you get the idea. All the women on match.com seem to be after James Bond, not realising that James Bond isn't on match.com. And it's the same with all the other dating websites. Everyone who winks at me is either fat, ugly, old or a combination of the three, or they have put up some old photos that look cute, but they don't look like that anymore. Do I think it's good value for money? No, absolutely not. In fact it's a complete waste and I wouldn't encourage anyone to use it. Same goes for matchaffinity, the sister website that's supposed to match your personalities. It seems my personality matches well with fat old people, despite the fact that my interests are all extreme sports and fun things that fat old people have never imagined doing.
So I've met one interesting lady from the site but I suspect she's not so interested in me. Maybe I rant too much :)
I'll rant about my trip to Paris in my next post, and more about Burritos!
Monday, 12 March 2012
Hire Me!
If, on the off chance, you happen to be looking for someone to provide you with insightful strategic guidance, and fantastic management and delivery of IT infrastructure solutions, please get in touch.
If you happen to be reading this shortly after receiving my CV, please appreciate that I don't just fire my CV off to anyone and that if you've got this far you really ought to call me.
If you happen to be reading this shortly after receiving my CV, please appreciate that I don't just fire my CV off to anyone and that if you've got this far you really ought to call me.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
You cant just do social, you have to be social!
I've not been socialising in recent times. Various factors have kept me at home and it's really liberating to be out and about again!
I'm already bringing people together for a curry at Raavi's on Drummond street, and I may have mentioned I'm off to the Alps next week, which will be awesome!
Working with some organisations who have little to no experience of social, it can be a struggle convincing them they need to deal with the platform differently to the way they deal with a regular website. They often don't understand that it needs to be easy to use and all about the community members; you don't get to the centre of a social circle by forcing people to do what you want! Flexibility and understanding is key, and there are several subject matter experts who deal with how to introduce these new concepts to an organisation.
I'm already bringing people together for a curry at Raavi's on Drummond street, and I may have mentioned I'm off to the Alps next week, which will be awesome!
Working with some organisations who have little to no experience of social, it can be a struggle convincing them they need to deal with the platform differently to the way they deal with a regular website. They often don't understand that it needs to be easy to use and all about the community members; you don't get to the centre of a social circle by forcing people to do what you want! Flexibility and understanding is key, and there are several subject matter experts who deal with how to introduce these new concepts to an organisation.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)