The Customer is Always Wrong

For anyone who has worked in a customer service role, this should be a mantra to live by. Forget the sycophantic smile. Forget the extra mile. These people don't deserve it. Without question, the customer is almost always wrong.

The customer will try to tell you that your website isn't working. Don't worry, it is. The customer will tell you that the film times are different to those advertised. Don't listen, they're not. They will tell you that you are wrong, and they are right.

THEY ARE MISTAKEN! Tell them to go away!

They complain because they couldn't find the building.
"It took me 20 minutes to work out how to get to this building! I hope you realise that!"
"I'm sorry madam I didn't, let me have them move it for you. Next time why don't you tell us where you're going to be, and we'll come to you."

They will moan because their son Cosmo is intolerant to corn and you do not supply a popcorn substitute. Advise they take their weakling child away somewhere.

They will approach you expecting some sort of extra-special service tailored specifically to them.
"I've already bought tickets online but I still need to collect them. Do I have to queue up in this queue with everyone else?"
"No of course not sir, let me show you to the VIP enclosure."

They will baffle you with questions which are neither pertinent to the current situation, nor to reality.
"I'm not me, and this isn't the film I bought tickets for, where do I queue then?"
"I don't have any ID, but as you can see from this photo of me a year ago, I'm wearing the same shoe laces as I was then, so why don't you just let me in?"

The worst thing is when you do actually put that extra effort in to help a customer out, it invariably backfires giving you more grief or making you feel stupid. You go so far out of your way to try to accommodate them in their pointless little request, and when you offer them a half-way solution, they change their mind completely.

The problem is that these people force you to contemplate your own situation. What are you doing in this job anyway? Don't they know you're an artist! And I don't think working in a cinema is going to turn out to be the stepping stone into the film industry that you were hoping for.

The best policy to employ in future would be to meet them with an unwavering stare, take your feet off the desk if you can really be bothered, hold your breath and work your way through to the other side of their asinine requests with as much grace and patience as you can spare.

Unless they're nice of course! Then at least smile.

Born to kvetch

Oh we do love a good moan don't we, and nothing gets the British going more than the weather, because let's face it, we deserve better. We complain about it for months on end as we make our way through the drizzle and trudge to work in wind, rain, snow and fog. In winter we complain that it's too cold. In summer we complain that it's too hot. In spring it gets all fresh and clear and we all know that's just not natural so we complain about that too if we know what's good for us.

We devoutly check the weather forecast and eagerly await the new front predicted by the man on the tele. As it approaches we prepare our summer clothes, and at the slightest hint of daylight we don shorts and sandals, and stubbornly wade through the slightly warmer drizzle than before.

And then it hits! The heat wave! There's always a heat WAVE! It comes swimming over us, crashing down over our heads and oppressing us to the ground.

And so is born a feeling of entitlement, because why should we do anything else when the weather is like this? How can people expect us to work when it's this hot? They must be bloody mental.

The fact is we complain because we like to. It's therapeutic and keeps us on our toes. The way I like the weather is just hot enough so that I can complain that it's too hot. Just hot enough that it makes you go "Phroooarr it's bloody hot isn't it". So you can enjoy the warmth, but also feel just on the verge of discomfort. Otherwise you're just not getting your money's worth.

But then, like that, it's suddenly gone again. All we had was a couple of days. From 30 degrees yesterday it's now 18 degrees today. Where's our bloody heat gone? It's typical isn't it. I hadn't finished. I was complaining about that!

Life in the fast lane!

Now I know I'm not the only one among us who's convinced that the self-service machines at supermarkets are deliberately designed to make us look utterly incompetent in front of everyone else waiting. The gruelling test of patience involved is designed to only allow those with an iron will and determination to actually leave the shop with food. But my experience recently probably deserves special mention, because, well, it happened to me. Let me recount, picture the scene...

I stand already irritated in a queue which stretches back half a mile down the frozen food aisle and seems to slow to a crawl each time the shoppers pass by Spam Fritters or Mr. Brain’s Pork Faggots, peering across with the same morbid and perverse curiosity as they would at a grotesque accident on the motorway. There are just two checkouts open despite the queue of 50 people, and while most of the staff stand around talking, they leave Shane, Asda’s self-service conductor and great orchestrator, presiding over the sophisticated network of self-service facilitation terminals, trying to shepherd each one of the trembling luddites and technophobes to one of the few vacant machines.

When I eventually near the front it becomes clear that the queue is being held up because they no longer supply plastic bags (a government initiative to cut waste), and the people at the front of the queue are shouting 'well ow am I sposed to get my shoppin 'ome then?" I actually support this because nothing annoys me more than seeing someone load up 50 plastic bags with one item each. Shane offers to sell them at 5p a go and proceeds to wave a bag in front of the machine in an attempt to add it onto the bill. The machine complains with it's usual "assistance is required" and he starts waving his supervisor card around like a desperate man, entering validation codes and telling the machine to shut up. They're calling it a 'Bag for life', but let's face it, it's not a fucking puppy.

But great, things can move on. WE HAVE BAGS. A minor victory.

Then it's my turn. But as soon as I go to work I get bombarded by a barrage of error messages knocking me back, exhausting me with it’s pained noncompliance and utter lack of cooperation. As I desperately try to scan items across its glass window it seizes up in a twisted spasm, pleading in a pained voice "Urggghhhhhhhhh...... unexpected item in the bagging area". What now? I half expect it to say “HA, is that the best you’ve got you dumb bastard!? You lose! GAME OVER!”

It's a frenetic race to get things bagged as quickly as you can before it seizes up again with yet another error and you have to wait for the poor sod to finish with the other 5 machines he's trying to nurse back to health so he can come and attend to yours.

‘Approval needed!’. We wait as the guy makes his way over for the fourth time by this point to give clearance for a packet of tunes. They do state on the packet that you mustn’t exceed 12 packets in one day, but it does make you wonder how many verdicts of accidental death have been recorded from an excessive amount of throat sweets.

When it comes to putting a reduced price hot sausage through, the item won't scan and the number on the front, which incidently is about a hundred characters long, turns out to be one number too many to actually fit into the box provided on the screen. So as I stand confounded trying to make it fit I'm eventually forced to concede and call for yet more assistance. The thing is by this time the guy's actually getting annoyed AT ME!! Then he repeats the torturous process himself, slowly punching a number code into the computer, before he reaches the same conclusion as I did.

"There are too many numbers"
"I know"
"Yeah that's weird"
"Yeah I know."
"I'll try it again"
 "No why don't you just put it through as a carrot?"
"Nah mate, I cant do that"

and so he feverishly goes about re-checking the number.

IT'S A SAUSAGE!!! FOR 10p!!!!!!!!! JUST GIVE IT TO ME!!!!!

Despite the fact that we only nipped down the shop for a few things and my tour around the store only took about 10 minutes, it seems to take an eternity to work through the remaining items in the basket. An infuriating feat which tests all my faculties of patience, wit and speed, and as I finally manage to wrench myself free from it's grasp, swearing under my breath, the machine bids me a courteous farewell with "Thank you for using the fast lane".

You're having a laugh!! Next time it would be quicker and easier to try and roll the items out the shop past security with my nose.

Election time

So then, did everyone break the restraints of apathy yesterday to fulfil their civic duty? I think most people did. With all that's going on, this is a time when everyone should stand up and take notice. I tried to follow the campaigns from the start, but the longer it went on, with all the bullshit and forced sincerity, the faster I slipped back into indifference.

Still, it's vital to exercise our right to vote. Especially seeing as during the last general election I would have voted if it weren't for the fact that when I turned up at the polling station I was told that I wasn't even registered in that city and so had to walk home having made no democratic difference at all. So this time around I made absolutely sure that I was registered and knew exactly where I was going, even though I was still no closer to making a decision right up to the time of walking into the booth.

But they don't half make it hard do they? I mean I left school years ago now, and to walk back through those school gates and be put back through the rigours of a primary school education, being told to put the right coloured piece of paper through the slot on the right coloured box. I mean the mind reels. I was never too good at that even as a kid. It was fine though, I worked it out in the end. 


But who to vote for? We've all had enough of Brown and Labour and I can't abide that putty-faced fool David Cameron or the idea of a Tory government. So I thought Lib Dem was a fairly sound choice, but as the campaigning went on I began to get more and more irritated with Clegg's fervent sincerity and the way he stared down the camera delivering his rehearsed lines like someone in an audition. Perhaps if he repeated the word 'change' enough and stared straight into our eyes, maybe he could hypnotise us into voting Lib Dem. Sorry, but I don't play that shit. And besides could we really have a prime minister who looks like a manager from PC World?

So, still undecided right up until the last minute, the only thing I knew for sure was that I couldn't stand the BNP getting any votes at all, and so with that in mind I just put a big cross next to them and walked straight out. That ought to do it.

Peak Hours

Bringing People Together

Sitting on the tube is a solemn affair, and that’s the way Londoners like it. But I have seen another way. Normally, anyone not avoiding eye contact or just quietly reading quite frankly has some very serious answering to do. Those are the rules. The rules state that you must ignore the person wedged up against you in the corner like a conjoined twin. The rules state you must ignore the armpit resting obliviously just inches from your face, lest you snap back into reality and realise how ridiculous the whole escapade is.

But I tell you what, it’s weird what can bring people together.

As I sat on the tube this morning and perused the faces of those on-board, nothing was clearer than the passenger's loyal adherence to the rule of disassociation. They looked bored and empty. People kept their eyes down. One Chinese girl sat idly cutting her fingernails and flicking them to the floor in front of her, while the man sitting opposite her openly flouted the rules by acknowledging her existence and peered back with obvious disdain. Forgetting myself I momentarily caught the eye of another passenger, but as we both realised what we were doing, our eyes scurried away like frightened creatures. Such mutual intimidation.

But as the passengers sat there whole-heartedly trying to convince themselves of their solipsistic existence, the formal silence was broken by an erupting roar, and as I looked across, a boy of about 17 vomited a green liquid onto the floor in front of him like a fountain. The fibrous liquid floated about in the middle of the carriage as the boy jumped off the tube, only to carry on throwing up on the platform outside, with everyone onboard watching through the window.

In my opinion this should have been heralded as a momentous moment in the social history of London, but alas it will never be reported by the papers nor announced by politicians. The sole indication of its occurrence lies here, in these words, in this blog. For what had previously existed as a disunited carriage of people, at once became imbued with a warming sense of camaraderie and team spirit. Eyes that had previously only met with challenging contempt, could no longer contain the outbreak of wry smiles. One by one each of the sombre passengers slowly looked up and began to grin. AT EACH OTHER!!!  I mean I felt like saying “wait just one moment, what the hell is going on?”, but even I am not cynical enough not to embrace such a moment of togetherness. People were actually interacting with one another. A feat previously only an injured fox could accomplish.

As the train began to roll away and gather speed, the puddle of liquid began to slide and crawl down the long gangway of the train. Suddenly everyone was lifting their feet, squealing and anticipating the next movement of this free floating liquid on the train floor. They were laughing. And with that the spiritless morning commuters were animated into life. The sick became a shared distraction which brought a slightly perverse and grotesque joy, and the thrill grew as it continued along the gangway to eventually puddle around the shoe of a woman who hadn't spotted it coming. A shimmer of their old deviant selves was revealed as they each watched with satisfaction as the puddle continued to grow.

Sadly one passenger didn't feel the shared excitement and hurriedly tried to jump off the train before the doors could close. Scared of a little sick. I wasn't worried. Let him go. It is those like him, people who are unable to recognise such a profound event as this, that evolution will eventually with time expunge and the city will in time excreate. For that is the natural order. Unable to stand the test of the city; may they kneel relegated amid the ranks of lesser men.

But for us, the willing, we will allow such moments to bring us together and become stronger people. To allow such moments to spread a little joy in the otherwise mundane motions of our daily lives.

I learnt a valuable lesson today. I learnt a little something about human nature and acquired a little trick to hide up my sleeve. I know that the next time I’m in a difficult or awkward social situation, I've got just the thing that will bring everyone together and make things alright.

I’ll throw up in the middle of the room, then just sit back and say “It’s alright my people, there's no longer reason to feel disunited and apart. We can come together as one........ and look how it puddles around that stupid woman's foot".

-         

Passion of the Christ

I recieved an email from Sophie's Steak House informing me of the great events coming up this Easter in the local area. As well as a 'cheeky' little egg hunt along the Southbank, they are expecting a crowd of around 25,000 to attend a free performance of the Passion of the Christ in Trafalgar Square. Playwrite Peter Hutley said "The crucifixion is a gruesome event – it’s an absolutely horrible thing. Let me say that the play pulls no punches". James Burke-Dunsmore who plays Jesus said "Since I started playing Jesus in this adaptation eight years ago, no one performance has been the same....Never have I got on the cross and felt mundane". I wouldn't have thought so. "Oh God... (sorry dad), not again. Up on the cross I go". Imagine that was your full-time job.

Anyway, Sophie's were obviously taking this opportunity to extend this invitation so that I may bare witness to the crucifixtion of our Lord.... followed by a choice of one of their 7 steaks, including their 'outrageous 27oz Porterhouse'.

In their email they say: "On Good Friday you can catch "The Passion of Christ" at Trafalgar Square then stroll up the Strand for Kid's eat free at Sophie's Covent Garden."

Am I the only one who finds this slightly inappropriate?

Masterchef

I enjoy cooking. I'm no masterchef, but I don't find it too hard to throw a few things together in a pan. Cooking is really a matter of confidence. The confidence to get a load of ingredients, put them together and just see how it turns out. But quite frankly I was just intimidated when I saw this book. It sent cold shudders of impotence down my spine. It seemed to sit on the shelf of the bookshop goading me, as if to say that you or I, despite not having a Saturday morning cooking special on TV, could aspire to create such wonders in the kitchen. The amateur world of cooking just raised it's game.

On it's extravagant cover it says rather dramatically, like the tagline to some dissident novel, "Meals from the Grill". It's like the collated diaries of some pariah from the underground world of cooking. It also dubs itself "The best thing since sliced bread". Now call me pedantic, but it IS sliced bread, isn't it? Anyway I thought what the hell, and in an over-ambitious and rather optimistic whimsical turn, threw caution to the wind and bought it. Unfortunately after getting home I floundered pathetically at the first page.

I know when I'm cooking above my station. And sadly now that's my confidence in the kitchen broken. I'll never attempt TOAST again!

Time for an MOT

My ignorance when it comes to cars is so deep that getting an MOT feels more like a test of me than of the car. I arrive and almost immediately have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be talking to. Where I’m supposed to stand. Who to hand the keys over to. Do I hand the keys over? Do they expect me to come back later or hang around? No one really says much to me and I stand there looking awkward. I’m out of my element.

After a time I’m ushered into a viewing area/waiting room, and I stand there surrounded by mechanics and middle-aged cockneys talking about cars, their mothers and their health.

“Yeah well they can do all sorts with your heart nowadays can’t they”. Yes indeed they can.

The point is I’m terrified they’re going to say there’s loads of stuff wrong with the car, fail it, and whack £400 on the bill.

“Yeah so you needed a new injection valve and wheel sprocket. That’s £80 for the parts and £300 for labour. Oh yeah and call it £20 for the washer.”

What can I say to that. I can’t admit that I haven’t got a clue of what’s going on around me. So instead I stand there trying to look like I really know what everything’s all about, giving off an air that says “Just try to rip me off and I’ll know in a second”.

The problem is that after 15 years of life my car looks like it’s going to fall apart at any moment. It looks so knackered that I’m almost reluctant to put it in for its MOT in the first place. At 70mph down the motorway the steering wheel shakes and vibrates like a pneumatic drill. The windscreen washer sprays out at an angle which completely misses the windscreen, going over the top of the car spraying the windscreen of the car behind. The passenger gets a nice draught of air down their side where someone once attempted to crowbar their way in; and failed. And the front of the car is covered in dried cement from the time I came back to find that builders had built scaffolding around my parked car, and carelessly threw their cement around like it was Art Attack.

As I wait, peering out the window of the viewing room and watch the mechanic and his mate stare at various parts of the car in amusement, two of the Men leave the room talking about a recent funeral, leaving me with one hardened-cockney and his meaningless banter. He may as well be talking a different language.

“Sounds like their blowing the cobwebs out d’unt it. Only braught it owt the garage this morning. Found out I needed new O’s for it though.”

I nod and smile in bewilderment as I feign understanding.

“Yeah, needed new O’s. Typical I’nt it. It was fine last week then this mornin it needs new O’s”

“Yeah typical isn’t it” I offer in echoed response, when what I should really say is “I haven’t got a clue what you’re on about mate!”

And then we sit in sustained silence until he leaves to check on his car.

Eventually the mechanic comes in and says “Ok, so my friend” (I’m his friend, everything is going to be alright) “your car actually looks in really good condition. I mean apart from a little minor rusting and that weird windscreen washer” (shit he’d noticed) “it looks fine.”

I’ve got to say I’m pretty smug. Damn right the car is fine. Of course it is. I mean look at this baby. And so I pay the man in cash, get into the car and reverse out of the centre in one swift move, with one arm behind the passenger seat and the other hanging out the driver side window. Slick as shit and road worthy for another year!

Culinary imperialism

China is and has been a hot topic in the sphere of politics and economics for some time, but now alongside their staggering economic growth and shadowy political regime, they also pose concern to the rest of the world for another reason. According to Sky News, "China has pushed aggressively into the Yorkshire pudding market in recent years, seeking business from British expatriates." (http://xrl.us/bgxwow)

We better be careful lest they corner the market on Cumberland sausages and Worcestershire sauce.