wendy house

I received a long message puportedly from Google Blogger

It was difficult to understand. I think it was saying that I will loose my Blogger Blog if I don”t click on these links and do something. I dont have a Blogger blog.  I deleted my blogger trial blog in 2004. What are they on about? I wish they’d test thier mass-mailings on people who don’t speak Blogger techno-speak then write translations before sending them to me

Unsure if the email was legitimate or some form of scam, I decided to log into my Blogger account and report the email. An excellent reporting system took a screenshot of the page I was on when making the report. I asked what I should do.  I didn’t get any submission confirmation – not even an email….. and no guidance on what to do – at 24 hours later…

While logged-in to my Blogger account I looked for a way to solve the problem. I looked for evidence that the email was real – a big button saying

“You need to do this”

It looked like Google wanted me to “merge” my blogger and google accountsIs this merge the same as the ‘upgrade’ mentioned in the letter? For obvious viral infection risks I like keeping my services distinct. No merging. If Google is determined to merge my stuff – I don’t think I can hold out against it’s repeated requests, especially when I’m getting something for free.  The feel of bullying make me gradually dislike Google more and more…..

After much tutting I did the merge thing

Later I went to read my highly organised google reader feeds only to discover that Google had duplicated the blogger account feeds in a newly created Blogger folder. Now I have the originally created feeds and the merge created feeds.

Tush.  Bullying me to integration

Giving me tidy-up tasks – delete the duplicates

Tush Tush

Southern Electric sent 3 identical text messages

All sent within one hour. Despite my

• overwhelming need to please others (ahem)
• effort to dash back home and read my electricity metre (sspppppllllltrrrr)

I failed to comply with their instructions promptly enough to avert this repeated messaging eperience. Like McAfee, Southern Electric appear dedicated to using modern technology to harass me, uneccessarily

Tush and hurumph

wendy: Can I take this on as hand luggage, it feels a bit heavy?
airport check-in specialist (ACS): Can you lift it?

I demonstrate that I can lift it

ACS: Yep, there’s no weight restriction on  hand luggage, just size and I can see that’s the right size

Result! A 7 day vacation and all I’m carrying is hand-luggage!

Later I checked the information provided by the airline, there is a weight restriction. I preferred this ACS’s flexible, cheerful attitude towards his role.

wendy: I’d like a return rail-airbus ticket to Heathrow Terminal 3
Rail ticketing agent (RTA): Returning today?

Maybe he hasn’t noticed the suitcase I wheeled to the desk!

Wendy: No….
RTA: Tomorrow?

Does he think this case and shoulder bag add up to an overnight bag? If so, I have achieved my goal of travelling light!

Wendy: Returning 7 days from now. Can I use my network rail card for discount on that?
RTA: No, we don’t accept Network Rail cards….

I’m sold an off-peak ticket that looks exactly like a train ticket and wonder why the service provider who supplies the network rail card doesn’t allow it’s use on a Network rail service….

The Italian tourist on Paddington station asked me

“what times are off-peak travel times?”

Gradually realising the sysem craziness I reply

“That depends which direction you are travelling, peak time applies to trains into London in the morning and out of London in the evening, so if you are travelling into London in the evening – there is no peak time

but I’m not sure”

Then I asked my Londoner friend for clarification

“Are there peak time restrictions on the tube?”

My friend didn’t know about ‘peak times’ so we assumed that tube trains within London didn’t have travel restrictions based on time of travel. How could this Italian distinguish between tube trains and other trains when they use the same stations?  Should we say ‘you can travel on the grubby looking trains  that are travelling around London, sort of, at any time”?  I felt daunted. Such a simple question, such a complex answer.

Then, to make matters worse, I remembered that at peak times you can catch some trains which are not covered by the peak time travel restrictions, so added

“You can travel at peak time with a non-peak time ticket on some trains, normally the slower trains, but some of the fast trains”

The Italian looked suitably baffled. We hadn’t really helped her. I had a passing thought of Franz Kafka, imagining him stuck on a train station trying to get out of London at 5pm.  No matter how good your grasp of the English language, this explanation, this system is

• fundamentally confusing
• really difficult to remember even if you can work it out in the first place.

it’s not designed to make ticket purchase and use easy, its evolved to satisfy diverse organisations that lack customer perspective. The best pracitcal suggestion that we could give the Italian was

“Find the train you want to travel on and ask one of the rail staff if it works, and what’s their best suggestion,  it’s the only way to be sure”

When I asked a train station employee at Reading main station he whipped out a PAPER leaflet that listed trains that travel at peak times but accept off-peak time tickets. This work-around suggest that the service providers recognise the problem. The cute, archaic, work-around made me smile. But why not make it easier for the traveller in the first place (or time)!

Currently peak travel times are defined by a mixture of train

• time
• service provider (not applied on the tube)
• direction (relative to London, and maybe other citiies?)
• train speed (sometimes)

I know what name I’d like to give the ticket pricing and travel system, but that’s unpublishable …..

Your’s huiffily, wendy x

PS here are the peak travel time trains from Paddington that accept off-peak time tickets:

The telephone pole’s spider silk lightly clings to the nearby houses

I wonder how long this will last when a substantial swathe of people find it easier to get connected and  manage thier bills using a “Pay as you go” mobile phone – no connection charge, no deposit if you have no credit history….

I called 6  hotels, all fully booked, none knew of other local hotels with spaces…

In desperation I discovered that Loughborough had a tourist information centre with a telephone number!  The automated answer machine message told me that the answer machine was ‘full’ – unable to take any more messages

Apparantly, the local University’s “Freshers Week” has filled the town to bursting

A lucky call connected me to a working-mens club, converted into the sort of hotel that has permanent residents. Bargain price. Such a bargain I knew it was seedy before even seeing the place

Which of these hotel services do you think I tried out?

I didn’t add any holes in the doors, judging by the holes already there – they come at a discout rate if you bulk-buy:

falling over

When I lived in the US my job provided comprehensive healthcare insurance. I fell over on a green slope while learning to ski. It felt like I’d broken my left, writing, arm. A friend drove me to the local hospital accident and trauma centre

It took 90 minutes to drive there, it felt like 90 minutes

checking in

 The centre’s foyer was like an empty hotel foyer, large tropical fish tank, carpetted floor, quiet with easy listening music playing. A lady in a blue suit sat at the large oak reception desk opposite the double, automatic doors. The lady asked me what was wrong, to see my insurance card, then gave me two paper forms to complete and explained that the financial adviser would see me in a minute. There was no sense of emergency about the situation. When you’ve just broken your arm, it hurts and your sensible thinking can go to pot. Maybe she didn’t hear me the first time so I repeat:

wendy: I think I’ve broken my arm, its the one I use to write with, the form probably wont be legible

receptionist: do your best

She didn’t look busy, she could have offered to complete the form on my behalf.  It fet impersonal, like my NHS experiences. Unlike the NHS, the environment screamed of wealth. I slowly filled out the form with my other hand, then waited

It was probably only five minutes later, but it felt like an hour…

Can we get money for this?

Another lady in a business suit introduced herself and walked me into a side room where she photocopied my card and forms. She then filled in more paper forms on my behalf. I wanted to scream:

Where’s a doctor? I want to see a doctor! it feels like an elephants trampled on my arm

Clearly they needed these forms filling in and copying, my crying and screaming would just delay everything by making me incoherent and her difficult to hear. She took me back to the waiting room and reassured me that the doctor would be along soon. Pressumably they were flying in a doctor from another State

It was probably only five minutes later, but it felt like an hour…

Should we X-Ray the patient?

A lady in pristine blue lab coat introduced herself. Hooray! This must be the Doctor. She took me to a large room of empty trolley-beds and asked me to sit on one. She drew curtains around the bed, which felt weird because I wouldn’t need to take any clothes of and there was noone else in the room. Getting onto a trolley bed that is higher than your natural bum-height, with one arm, when you’re in shock and pain is not easy. She watched me struggle without offering help. It made me want to cry, but I wouldn’t be able to hear or answer her questions if I cried so I fought off the tears

The lady used a checksheet to ask me monotone questions… “no, I’m not likely to be pregnant“ …I giggled, a little light relief.  The X-ray nurse would be along to pick me up in a couple of minutes, when the x-rays had been developed I would see the Doctor

wendy: You’re not a doctor?

nurse: No, I’m a registered nurse

It was probably only five minutes later, but it felt like an hour…

Get the patient to the X-Ray machine

The x-ray nurse turned-up with a wheelchair, repeated the questions the registered nurse had asked then offered me the wheelchair

Wendy: I’ve broken my arm not my leg

nurse: enjoy the ride

I felt bullied to conform to her expectation that I use the wheelchair. Asserting my preference to walk might lead to confrontation and cause tears, I wasn’t up to confrontation. She watched as I carefully slid from my trolley and moved into what looked like a racing wheelchair. 6 or 7 xrays later she unceremoniously dumped me back at the trolley. This time I stood instead of wriggling dangerously back onto the trolley. I suspect the hospital charged my insurance company for wheelchair and trolley rental – both unnecessary. As the nurse left I noticed the signs forbidding mobile phone use. My only entertainment device, forbidden

It was probably only five minutes later, but it felt like an hour…

Instruct the patient on proper behaviour

A Doctor appeared! He glumly showed the x-rays while announcing that I’d broken an arm. I think he was disappointed by my lack of of surprise at the diagnosis because he went on to chide me for not having made it more obvious that my arm was broken.

Apprantly, saying “I think I’ve broken my arm” to the 4 people I was required to meet before him didn’t count as making it obvious that I had broken my arm.  He was quite clear about my poor performance as a patient, more crying was required.

I started crying about being reprimanded for failing to follow a hospital behavioural code that I didnt know existed.  The Doctor demonstrated his skill of ignoring tears while he prescribed earth-movingly strong pain killers and talked me through the treatment regime. I never took the pain killers. If he’d waited until I had stopped crying I could have asked him not to prescribe pain killers, not to charge my insurance company for them. But he wasn’t there to listen or understand. The Doctor was all about delivering instructions.

The lecture probably only took five minutes, it felt like 5 minutes of detention in the headteachers office…

Get reciepts and discharge the patient

Checking-out of the emergency room involved more form-signing,  another visit to the financial lady, and another visit to the receptionist

I’d collected an armful of paper forms at different stages in my visit. The discharge added yet more to the pile.  Each form decorated with my, new, right-handed signature

A spider dance

Next…

It felt like being gagged, prodded, and pushed along a clean and good-looking production line.  I was ‘the patient with insurance’ not wendy who believes that being aware of internal pain is mainly a good thing and  conversations will include critical misunderstandings if one party is crying and ignored 

If a miner incident like this is made distressing merely because the services are set-up to remove illness, not treat people – the prospect of a long term relationship with medical services becomes frightening.

Unlike people in the USA, at least I know that I will get some form of healthcare from the NHS whether I have an income or not

Scribble inspired by Nick’s post on how a desperate uninsured US man commited a crime to get healthcare provided by the prison service

As I wait to pay for Thomas’s annual MOT I watch the Halford‘s service man sort through at least 10 pages of A4 documents, sorting them into piles, stapling them together. The queue of 6 people behind me is getting ancy. They’re leaning against the counter, the wall, adjusting their positions and loudly sighing.

Wendy: Wow! Thats a lot of paperwork

Halford’s Engineer: Tell me about it! You wouldn’t believe this company. All you need is a Tablet and one document, but not here. When they computerised the process it quadrupled the paperwork!

The Wendy House toilet has a high wall-mounted cistern. Fabulous water pressure flushes the toilet with a gravity induced whoooooosh.

But the cistern has always filled slowly with a noisy trickle of water. The whole arrangement is reminiscent of Victorian school washrooms. While waiting 15 minutes for the cistern to fill is not a problem when I am alone, for guests  it introduces a timing problem at peak use times.

With an imminent Wendy House party, home improvements are on the menu. Replacing the limescale clogged cistern valve. Yay. No problem. Or so I thought. A quick trip to the DIY shop where the sales assistant didn’t even know what a valve that controls the waterflow into the tank above the toilet was. Sigh. I picked the valve that looked most like the one already installed and toddled off home. So far so good. I switched off the water supply to the house then climbed on a tall bar stool to reach the cistern, remove the lid and start trying to unscrew the current valve.

Things started going wrong. A bit of the old valve broke off in my hand. A close inspection of the instructions for the new valve revealed that despite diagrams I could now work out what this meant

fit ballvalve using backnut(s) provided and ensure that the spigot(s) are used to centralise the tail of the hose

The backnut, spigots, tail nor hose were labelled in any of the 4 diagrams. Quickly I resoted to visual matching, make the new one look like the old one currently looks (without the limescale or broken bit). Then I realised that I would probably have to take part of the wall away to access the pipes.

The doorbell rang

Hello I’m Rob White and I’m canvassing for the Green party in May’s election. Can I ask you if you know whether you are going to vote in the election

yes

I can ask you, you know if you’re going to vote, or you are going to vote?

errr… ..um, I am going to vote

Are you going to vote for the Green party?

Valve in hand, I look at the two young perky faced boys on my doorstep

Have either of you ever changed a cistern valve?

Oh no, that’s very complicated, I’d call a plumber, you’re a brave person

They start backing away slowly as if I’m holding a loaded weapon. I’ve replaced cistern valves before. Normally its a couple of minutes, an easy job. Their lack of willingness and skill is a tad disappointing. I reassure them about my vote and non-violent intentions then call Kevin.

Wonderful Kevin sorts out my cistern with Canadian calm

Cistern refill time has sucessfully been upgraded from a 15 minute trickle to a 30 second flow. Result! Almost grounds for a proposal.

Wendy: I’d like a Finnish Flag decal for the roof of my Mini

Mini Salesboy: Sure, a checkered flag

Wendy: No, the country Finland, the country’s flag, a blue cross on a white background

We laughed and he gave me the name and phone number of the company the local Mini outlet uses for all their custom work. The staff at the local Mini outlet in Reading town always manage to make me feel good, even on the rare occassions they actually take some of my cash

It’s not dating, I’m sorry

Laura seemed concerned that I might have misunderstood the Central Library’s Read Dating event

That’s ok, I like how inclusive it is – you don’t have to be single to take part, anyone who has a book they love can join in, that’s great!

Unfortunately they hadn’t received my online sign-up and now the popular event was fully booked. I’d been excluded. Laura was very apologetic.

Can you put me on a waiting list incase someone drops out?

Laura explained that people just fail to turn up on the night, they never let her know first. Sadly, I thanked Laura for taking the time to be so helpful then checked that she had my phone number just incase. Disappointed at missing what sounded like a good evening out:

Read dating, like speed dating but with literary attitude!  Reading Library presents a fun and friendly evening where you can share you reading passions with like-minded people.
Come ready to enthuse about your favourite read 1:1. You will have just a couple of minutes to woo readers to your book. Prize for the reader whose book scores the most “dates”.

Later that evening Laura called

Cinderalla you shall go to the ball (Library)!

Actually she said

I’ve phoned round everyone that signed up and found a person that can’t come, so there is a place for you. Can I take your library card number?

Wonderful personal service! Laura asked if I had any idea what book I would be bringing. With no hesitation I blurted out

Mervyn Peake‘s – letters from a lost uncle

Reading Library staff’s humanity  humility and imagination – you can get some without a prescription, it’s FREE!

Optical Express said they could replace the lenses in my ski-chic wrap-around graduated-grey tint,  reflective Ray Bans for a reasonable price. Hooray. Phew! I was thrilled at being able to get the lenses replaced in my favourite glasses.

That’s the highlight of the story over. It’s downhill from here on in, though luckily no broken bones.

3 frowns: Ratings explained

The following summary actually omits many of the details that added to the paucity of my experience. I made 4 trips to pick up my glasses, each time and transport:

1. Optical Express explained that their ‘labs’ no longer had the specialist equipment so the glasses had been sent to another lab and I’d have to come back next week
2. On this visit they made me wait in line, did not know what had happened even after checking their computers to find that my glasses work had been put ‘on hold’. The labs were not answering the phone so they suggested that I come back next week,  when they knew more, Sigh
3. This visit they explained that actually they could not fit new lenses in my current frames, but they could give me 5%  (about £6.00) on a different, new, set of Ray Ban frames. This discount amounted to less than my cumulative busfares for the previous trips to pick up the glasses. I turned down the measley offer, explaining why, and asked for my glasses back saying I would go elsewhere. This prompted them to offer 50% off a new frame (£60) which I rashly accepted, and selected a Holly Golightly pair of Ray Bans
4. Finally picked up my old glasses, without new lenses, and new glasses with new lenses. New lenses were scratched. How poor is that? I gave-up and walked out

It seems that British optical laboratories provide customers with substantially fewer lens treatment and fitting services than those in the USA (tint colours, coatings). Opticians prefer to sell you a whole new pair of glasses than try and replace lenses in existing frames. Even more sadly, Optical Express lead me to believe they could supply a service that they could not, then compounded this by substandard service. I’ll be going elsewhere to replace the lenses in my other glasses.

Generally rather disappointing

Two men from John Lewis’ electricals (JLE) arrived to take away my defuncted Indesit and replace it with a magnificent miele. Miele’s company slogan is ‘Forever Better’ they build products to last and provide better user experiences. They pass-on the cost of achieving this goal to their customers.  I’d rather not have to replace a washing machine several times in a decade. This machine should last me several decades. Awesome!

The men from JLE  looked at the old Indesit which came with the house 3 years ago. Audible tutting noises….

JLE: its not disconnected. We can’t do anything until its disconnected. I’ll go away and come back in 10 minutes, that should give you time to disconnect it

wendy: Oh, I thought you guys would do that as part of the removal and deliver

JLE: Oh no, that’s a whole different service, that’s installation, we haven’t been instructed to install your machine, you’ll have to do that

wendy: ashame, if the sales-process had offered me disconnection and installation I would probably have bought it

I pull the washing machine out from under the kitchen counter, turn the valves on the hot and cold water supplied to the off position, disconnect the supplies, remove the water-outlet pipe and unplug the machine from the power source. Easy. Didn’t need to pay someone to do that, I’m glad John Lewis’s didn’t sell me that service.

JLE: remember to remove the transport bars before you use it.  If you don’t remove the bars it will break the machine

wendy: transport bars? what are they, where are they? are there any instructions?

JLE: just read the manual miss, its all in the manual, do what it says in the manual

After loading the Indesit onto their trolley, both removal men washed thier hands it my fabulous butler sink. The transport bars hold the drum in place while the machine is being moved. The instructions were clear and easy to follow, within 5 minutes my Miele was connected to power, water supply, water removal pipe and ready to go.  Awesome.

The handbook had lots of user instructions

Did I read them? Did I?

Not yet

After another reboot and windows update

I was priviliged to again see the black screen of file verification. Apparantly my usn journal has been verified. Phew. Not that I needed to know about this. I’d rather they showed me a video of kitties playing, or potters potting, or even mentioned they are sorry for interrupting my usage.

After recieving a note in the post from the Royal mail saying they had tried to deliver a package, but it was too big to go through my door, it hadn’t been left with a nieghbour and it hadn’t been left at my local post office, I decided to drive to work via the delivery centre where it would be stored for pick it up.

I bounced into the delivery centre, handed over my note and my ID to the delivery centre staff (DCS). The DCS looked at the note and ID, grunted, then shuffled off away without a word, pressumably to get my parcel:

DCS: your parcel isn’t here

wendy: can I arrange to have it delivered to a local post office?

DCS: No, we can only send things to a post office once we have them here

wendy: can I phone the number on the note and get them to arrange delivery to my local post office?

DCS: No, we dont know where your parcel is so we cant arrange to deliver it anywhere

wendy: what can I do?

DCS: Complain

I chose not to complain, instead I waited a couple of days, called the number and discovered there was nothing in the fully automated phone menu system that could tell me whether the Royal mail knew where my parcel was. The delivery centre did not answer the phone.

At the delivery centre I happily picked up my parcel a momento from my time in the USA. The girl who bought LooSea, my car, has sent me Loosea’s number plate from 2001:

wendy: I live in a converted coach house

moben sales staff (MSS): you live in a bus station?

wendy: not that sort of coach, the victorian horse-drawn type of coach, it used to be a stable too

MSS: what size is the kitchen?

wendy: small, 87 x 111 inches with 2 doors and a low sloping roof with a skylight

MSS: shall we call it a square kitchen?

wendy: No, lets call it an oblong or a rectagular kitchen

MSS: approximately a square kitchen

wendy: No, its an oblong

MSS: approximately an oblong?

wendy:  87 x 111 inches

MSS: approximately an oblong then

waiter: alone?

wendy: yes

waiter: ok

It’s the little things that keep me entertained on the short frosty winter days.

I am learning about my woodburners rate of log consumption. Approximately 1 cubic metre of wood per cold autumn, £60. I’m still using Simon’s July delivery, but it could run out if the Northern snowfalls flurry down to Reading and linger this week. Another, sturdier, purpose-built flat-pack log-store is being screwed together under the low white sky hinting at snow. As my fingers turned blue, I left the store half finished and called Simon.

Simon: Have you ordered before?

wendy: Yes, in July, I live in Reading

Simon: Oh yes, I remember you, near cemetery junction, does 9am tomorrow suit you?

wendy: YES.  That’s FAST, I wont even have put the new log-store together by then…

Recently I’ve moved home and contents insurance providers from, you guessed it, Natwest to the Building Society that provides my mortgage. This has increased my coverage, reduced my cost, but best of all I’ve had two fun phonecall with the insurance phone service people who were memorable as real people.

The first lady, Nicola, that produced the quote and posted the documentation told me all about how her cat’s tail set-off her neighbours motion-sensitive alarm. The nieghbour had adjusted the sensor to be above cat height without taking into account her cat’s unusually long tail. Excellent, I found out lots about her neighbour; the history of her doors, all stuff that I didn’t need to know that made me smile. It was wonderful, I didn’t feel like Nicola was getting through a required script as fast as possible to reach a quota. She gave me her name, extension phone number, and told me her working hours while reassuring me that anyone on the help line could help me.

The second chap I spoke to, Sam, after reading the documentation talked to me about his philosophy of life and how things have changed

10 years ago if you smiled at 10 people when you walk down the street, 8 of them would smile back. Nowadays only about 6 people will smile back. A smile doesn’t cost much and it comes back to you

Again, he seemed like he had the space to be himself, I didn’t feel rushed, we made progress but best of all the phone call was enjoyable.

I discovered a fabulous events list while I was exploring Reading Borough Library service’s website. But it was a non-interactive web page, I’d have to keep coming back to the web page to look for new events and changes in events. Being unable to resist the opportunity to share the wisdom of my knowledge about blogging and RSS I wrote to them suggesting that they consider changing the format of their events calendar to a blog so that people could subscribe.

The response was quick, personal and positive, very impressive.

Now I just have to resist making lots of suggestions that range from the simple, plausible and valuable to pure science fantasy and fun

With the message ‘help not available’ Blogger successfully manages to end my search on how to report the error message they’d given me. Time wasters.

They asked me to report it without providing a clear link to do so. I tried their support forums where I found one other message of someone reporting this error but no support on what to do about it or reassurance that Blogger is doing anything about it. I tried their help documentation with different queries and found nothing useful except this message ‘page not avialable’  that included a suggestion to use the Chrome browser.

Given this experience of their support for my encountering an error, I am not inclined to want to extend my use of their services. How can they refine services to high quality if they don’t provide an adequate error tracking, reporting system? By asking me to submit the error they implied they we’re not tracking it by any other means.

Useful of them to remind me that Chrome is a service they provide, which I might not want to use at the point they tell me they are not going to help me.

roll your right sleeve up!

I was slightly shocked by the services provided by a local General Practice (GP) in Reading town. It reminded me of 1975 when I won a copy of  ‘ It shouldn’t happen to a vet’ in a school competition. I was also a bit shocked to realise that a vet would have to stick thier arm up the backside of a bovine. Vets roll up their sleeves before doing this

Goodbye Natwest banking

Hello Co-operative Banking

The subtle differences in the way the companies are can be seen in the promotional designs for their current campaigns. The Natwest prmotion is neat and tidy with photographs of brochures, big old buildings and staff wearing a uniform and name tag. By contrast the Co-op promotion includes an imitation of hand-written text corrections, a childs plastic toy, the colloquial word ‘dump’, and anthropomophises the Bank by refering to it as ‘someone’.

Moving from being treated as a sales opportunity to being recognised as a person feels really good.  The Natwest customer charter, to become the most helpful bank is definitiely an admirable goal that shows they are aware of one of their key shortcomings. They have a long way to go, helpfulness is not something I’d noticed in their recent everyday service. By contrast, the staff at the Co-op actually

• listened to me
• asked me sensible questions that I could understand
• made fun little observations that made me smile and demonstrated the lack of corporate dehumanising of their staff, and 
• provided understandable advice.

YAY

While in the Reading Co-op branch I overheard someone comment on the recruitment poster in the branch suggesting that people dump their old bank :

‘The coop is my old bank – what should I do?

masseur: you know how you associate places with people?

There’s a moments silence while he’s pulling my arm, seemingly out of its socket, and I think of places and people. The gentle melancholly when I visit a place filled with happy memories, that is no longer the same place without the people that made it happy. The distracting sadness when I visit a place full of painful memories and the forgotten pains flood in.

masseur: I cycled through that village in the new forest that you mentioned, Lyndhurst, and the place reminded me of you

Thats a beautiful, peaceful, place to be associated with.

I’m on a roll with the making of changes. I’ve moved my current and credit accounts to the Co-op bank. Hoorah! I love their values and helpful staff. I leave NatWest with a fabulous sense of relief and freedom.

In 1982 a girl I’d been to school with opened my Natwest Bank account in my local village. As one of the less than 10% of people that went to University I was a valued customer, a potential high earner. They promised me a free £5 for opening an account with them. One third of the cost of a pair of Levi 501s (£14.99).

In the 1980′s Natwest was small and friendly, my whole family and most of the village either banked or worked there.  Natwest saw me through my BSc, PhD, my first job, first car, and first mortgage. Some bumps, but generally they were supportive and I stuck with them.  In 1992 I lost my job. I wrote to Natwest to let them know (a condition of the mortgage). They told me that they were going to put my house on the market and charge me for a valuation and sales services.  I had not defaulted on my mortgage. I had sufficient savings to live on and pay my mortgage for months and they could see that by looking at my accounts.  This was an outragoeusly insensitive and unsupportive act. Also, they were not legally allowed to do this, this was bullying!  I replied telling them that they did not have my permission to spend my money on selling my home when I had not broken the conditions of the mortgage agreement.  I got a job, changed cities, changed home, changed mortage provider.

Things really spiralled downhill in the naughties.  After they were purchased by RBS the service standard nose-dove into corporate solelessness and ignorant, if cheerful, front of house staff.  Luckily I missed experiencing the gradual decay because I was living and primarily banking in the USA. Since returning to the UK they’ve actualy reduced me to tears twice, by aggressively trying to sell me services.

Today they treated me with their normal intrusive and condescending rudeness. AaarggGHH. The last straw. I calmly asked the informations desk for advice on the most efficient and effective way close all my acounts with them.  It felt good to stride out of the shop upright, hanky still in my pocket, knowing that I wont be going back.

David Bowie sang Changes

The people that packed my belongings in Seattle, unpacked my belongings in Reading, had no interest in maintaining the integrity of the alphabeticalisation of my CD collection.  I cringed with the knowledge that I would not be able to find a CD in less than 27.5 sec (on average) because I would not know where it was, on which shelf….

Strangely, for nearly 2 years, there was always something better to do than spend an afternoon reinstating the alphabeticalisation of my CD collection. Until today.  Today

David Bowie sits next to David Byrne and Nirvana by No Doubt

Paul Bendell, MBPR,  from Berkshire pest control took one look at the nest and in classic call-out service person style he shook his head slowly, sucked air through his teeth and said

Matrix watches the drive as Simon pulls-up.

 is all that for me?

Yes, where do you want it dropped?

Oh, thank you!  I dont have a wheelbarrow, here by the shed its going in would be good

It wont fit in that shed

Stacking the rest out doors should be ok?

yeah

I didnt tell him about the wasps, he didn’t notice.

While unloading Simon chatted to my neighbours.  He visited at least one of them before leaving.  Simon is a bit of a charmer.   Who wood have guessed that would delivery and stacking could be this much fun?

In less than 2 minutes I’d fallen deeply in love with a youngster, he must be all of 30yrs.  His name badge says Glen. A good name, other members of the wendy house family are called Glen, but that wont cause a problem.  Glen can solve problems.

He smiles, talks sense, makes constructive left of field suggestion, shows me diagrams, puts different phones in my hand while he uses a real pen to do some quick maths on a sheet of paper. He compares the prices of different solutions for me.  I’m totally hooked.  After this brief and productive conversation, this performance, we make a date for next Saturday. I bounce out of car phone warehouse with an abundance of teeth reflecting the hot glow of the summer sunshine.  Maybe I should propose on Saturday.  Before or after I’ve purchased something, what’s the ettiquette?

 Well done Reading town’s carphone warehouse, your staff recruitment strategy is excellent.  Looks like I’ll be dropping my service relationships with t-mobile, Orange, and BT all in one go for the ‘TalkTalk’ service that some of the Wendy House family are already using.  Hoorah

Thankyou to Happy Frog’s friend for pointing me to the carphone warehouse