JustListenToMe’s Neighborhood

Not feeling altogether healthy today, so have been lying a little upon my bed. I have the blinds open and a crow is spending large amounts of time sitting on the lamp post outside my bedroom window and looking in at me. It flies away and then returns to take up its post again. I am not overly superstitious, but I am starting to get a little spooked out by the damn crow. I would indeed like to stone the damn thing.

FD and the crow : not friends at all

Look you saggy bag of black feathers take your business somewhere else! SHOO!

Yesterday Mr FD and I experienced two ends of customer service - the good, the bad and the bad was ugly.

As mentioned in a previous post, Mr FD and I have been in the process of buying a car for the company that Mr FD is currently setting up. He started some two week ago on this process and he told everyone involved that he needed the car to leave on an extended trip last Monday. He just wanted the basic car, happy to choose from the colours on the show floor. Wanted no extras - oh except floor mats which now cost $180AUS for 4 rubber floor mats! Mr FD made call after call, repeating his need and his deadline. No one listened. They all heard what they wanted to hear, and then covered up with excuses of "fax didn't arrive" ,  "missed the deadline and head office won't process until tomorrow" and "they are out of the office and I'll leave theme a message" . Where do you leave the message? On the toilet wall of the business next door?

Anyway, we finally got the call to collect the car. We made an appointment for 2.30pm. When we arrived our saleswoman was nowhere to be seen. She was out on a test drive with another customer, even though we had an appointment and knew Mr FD had to leave that afternoon on an extended trip. A number of salesmen walked by us without even acknowledging that we were human and breathed. Eventually we made enough noise to be noticed and demanded to be served. A very junior member of the team took us through signing the papers and then she found a poor salesman who had a leg in a cast and couldn't make an exit to go through the car with Mr. FD. I made little effort to make small talk with Junior Girl as she kept up this charade of our Saleswoman returning at any moment, weeping over her unintended absence. Oh yeah.

An hour later we are driving out of the show room and Saleswoman appears. She throws herself in fron of our car and reefs open Mr. FD's door and screams "Congratulations " as though we had just given birth and not gone into spasms more of heart breaking debt. Then she plants a big lipsticky kiss on his cheek, something that normally would have his heart go into overdrive. THEN she runs to the otherside of the car and reefs open MY door, and rubs her cheek against mine. I take particular note of her name badge and facial features to add her to my stick list. I had never met this woman before, Mr FD had only ever spoken to her over the phone. Not a word of "sorry" even though "I knew that you were driving an hour to get here, and had an appointment with me, and were short of time". Nope, She had our money and she was onto the next sale. Customer service? I think not. Next company car, and there will be one or two or three, won't be bought from her.

On the other side, earlier that morning, a real estate salesman left his comatose mother to drive over an hour to bring some papers to us for signing as he knew Mr. FD needed to sign them before he left yesterday. [We are renting warehouse space]. While we were signing, the LOVELY [HANDSOME] Salesman received a phone call to inform him that his mother had just woken from the coma. She had been involved in a car accident a day or so previously. So this man spends 3 hours away from his possibly dying mother as he knew how important his role was in the next step of Mr FD's business. [If we had known before the meeting we would have gone to his office]

Wait there is a 3rd tale of service. Mr FD is in the seed business, pasture seed mainly. He had bought some seed and organized for it to be sent to a depot for delivery. Yesterday morning there is a knock at our front door, Mr FD goes outside and there is a delivery truck driver outside. The delivery man says "Got a pallet of seed, here for you, mate." They sent the damn seed to our residential address despite Mr FD making it obvious the residential address was for billing purposes only! The poor delivery driver had in fact alerted his office that they were sending him to a residential address with a pallet of seed, but they wouldn't listen or double check the details, so the poor delivery driver drove across town only to be told that "yes, that is right, this is the wrong address", and to have to drive back across town to the depot.

So not only are they giving bad customer service to their customers but they are giving bad customer service to each other. Your co-workers deserve as much as your customers, if not more.

To me, it is easier to do the right thing, and to do the right thing first time around than to do to the pretence dance. And if MR FD asks you to help him make a deadline - just remember there is a Flamingo Dancer with a stick list standing behind him.

[Stick list : list of names of all the people I am going to hit with a stick one day soon]

Daughter1 just sent me the following quote of the day. Needless to say I agree with it!

'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of sh-t.'  

After looking through old photos of myself and my sibs when we were kids, I have come to the conclusion that we must have worn the most ridiculous, daggy swimmers you could ever hope (not) to see.

Now I myself only saw my mother sew once, when she sewed my bridesmaid doll a dress and cape. But these definitely have a home sewn look to them. And we seemed to wear them for years.

Take me here for instance. Determined to get to the beach. And nothin', not even those baggy daggy swimmers is going to stop me. I mean mother, you could've taken in the legs a little. I bet if I keep looking I'll see one of my sisters wearing these before I got them. Probably both of them.

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And one of my favourite photos. Emjay, the oldest, with our brother and sister. Sporting a very unfashionable blue suit with a matching home done fringe trim.

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And here she is again, what maybe a couple of years later, still wearing it.

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Move forward another couple of years and my other sister is now wearing it and Emjay has a much nicer, yet still loose fitting pair of swimmers on. As you can see I'm still wearing the same pair I had on in the beginning. Because I had penty of room to grow into.

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OMFG. And I was right. Even though I was only half joking. Here is Min, wearing my baggy pink swimmers. I wonder if I ever owned a new pair.

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I have this vision of my mother, searching through her wardrobe every year the day before we went on our summer holidays, pulling out a bag full of atrocious old faded swimmers and handing us each a pair. Mind you it wouldn't have been a very full bag. We seemed to last through our childhoods with three of four pairs between us.

spoil sport : 1930s

A curious sign on a gate in the countryside, reading: Please do not spit, or throw stones, etc. in field. No trespassers allowed'. Grange- over-Sands, Lancashire.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. But it is no one's fault.

When we were building our house a few years ago, everytime we questioned a mistake or poor workmanship we were told that "the apprentice did that". They always blamed the youngest and newest member of the team. The last few days we have been trying to sort out financing and purchase of a company car. The excuse this time is that "we didn't get the fax". This is also an excuse I was given frequently from publishers when I worked in the Basement of Discontent. No one ever says "I made a mistake", "I didn't  notice" or "I can't locate it". The blame is always put back onto someone else, or back on you. The fax didn't arrive it must mean you made a mistake/didn't send it/whatever guilt they can apply to you.

Then you have to make a series of phone calls just to get someone to refax the damn thing. When you do, they tell you that you missed the cut of by 46 seconds and they can't do anything about it until next day. Sorry, even if it is heart transplant surgery and you are lying with your chest ripped open and your dying heart exposed waiting for the replacement, if you can't get off that table and refax your form then there is nothing they can do.

I hate being cynical, but it is all getting to much. The same people think that customer service is speaking poilitely to you, and being friendly and smiling, not actually doing their job in a speedy and efficient manner. Actually complete a simple task in the time available - they say no, no, no!

I have spent a long time in various service positions and I have always found that the easiest way to do my job was to do it efficently and as soon as possible. It actually decreased the stress in my life, and made other people happy. Win/win situation for all. Problems got attended to immediately and flexibility a given. From little things big things don't always have to grow.

So, I can't help but wonder when these same people all arrive to speak with the Big Whatever just what excuses they will give. Who will they blame? When they lie dying on their hospital bed, who will they blame for all the wrongs they did? Will the messes in their lives be thrown upon the shoulders of someone else? I suspect they will revert to habit and look for a scapegoat, but they will really know, won't they? They will know that they could have done better. And if there is any justice in the world, if the Big Whatever turns them away from the doorstep, I hope the Big Whatever just gives one shrug of the mighty shoulders and says "Not my fault, it was all up to you.".

Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?

lol, what a strange question! Are we expecting one then?

I'm obsessive compulsive enough thanks. If I start worrying about potential natural disasters I'll be a nervous wreck.

Although, we are going to Thailand at christmas time, and I must admit that the thought has crossed my mind as I run on the treadmill each morning, that'll I'll be right to run a long way up into the mountains if a tsunami hits. Maybe even carrying one small child on my back. Which rules out my kids because they're all much bigger than me. Which is good because I won't have to do the Sophies Choice thing.

Remember when everyone was freaking out about the Y2K thing? I said to Daz, maybe we should stock up on food. And when the year 2000 clicked over with no problems I looked in the laundry and we had stocked one bottle of water and a 4 pack of baked beans. It was a pretty piss poor effort really. We'd have lasted a morning.

I think to be prepared for a natural disaster the best thing you can do is forget about supplies and just stock up on weapons. Lots of guns and ammo. Thats your best bet, because you're going to have to kill a lot of crazy desperate people to get to the supermarket and the bottle shop. Maybe even zombies. I'm not sure what sort of disaster we're talking about. Oh yes,there they are,  I wasn't looking properly. No zombies, so that makes it a bit easier.

And nail polish. Stock up on nail polish. Because new nail polish always makes you feel better.

My new bottles arrived in the mail the other day.

I'm wearing blue at the moment. But I'm wishing I'd picked Calypso.

 

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