Hard of Understanding

Was just reading an article about how supermarkets etc can possibly sell dvd players for £9 and other goods both food, clothing and electronics below cost.

These items are called loss leaders and are used to pull people into shops so that they'll spend more once they are in there.

Items that are commonly used as loss leaders are:
 - Milk
 - Bread
 - Electronics such as Small Domestic Appliances (SDAs) which look heavily discounted.
 - Some entry level food products (Value, SmartPrice etc)
 - £3 jeans
 - Petrol

A few years ago Wal-Mart in Germany (now closed) got themselves into a lot of trouble for selling items below their cost price because there loss leaders are illegal.

Good, I'm glad! They are highly anti-competetive and unethical in a market where the big 3 already weild too much power.

I used to work for one of them so know exactly where to find most of these loss leaders, won't take long for you either, just lok at items where other retailers can't even come close to matching the price.

"But by having the items at this price means that I save a lot of money on my shop." said one person to me a few weeks ago.

No it won't, there are one of two places that they will get this money back, either raising the margin on other popular items to sub it, and/or screw the suppliers even further.

There is a reason that loss leaders are illegal in Germany, why are they staying one step ahead? And, more importantly, why are we allowing our industry and small business be driven into the ground by this most anti-competetive of practices?

So, the US forces have upset many Afghans by giving out a load of footballs with a verse from the Koran printed on them.

I can see the reason for them being upset, they make a good point about kicking a verse of their special book; although I'll never understand religion, the psychological part I get.

And also for the US embarrassed response; they never seem to check anything properly before running headlong into it.

But at least there is a valuable lesson learned, next time distribute footballs with a pic of Bin Laden on!!!!

For anyone who reads the GoldenArches blog of mine, don't try to connect job hunt with me personnally. As for anyone else, well, I'm sure you'll draw your own conclusions no matter what I say.

A friend and colleague of mine is looking for a new job. Just like me they work flexi shifts (some days starting at 5.30 am, other days finishing at 2am) weekends and bank holidays. Their better half works 9-5 Monday to Friday and this is creating friction in the house (which I can understand as funnily enough those of us who don't have company relationships - which is remarkably few!!!! - tend to have spouses etc that work normal hours.)

So, they have finally succumbed and agreed to move towards a normal working pattern for the sake of their relationship (you'd have to hope that it'll last after this!!!) but can't for the life of them find a job to suit. They've had 3 calls of recruitment agencies specialising in retail and when they do a job search on the internet, it always comes back to McDonalds!!!!

Basically, they have (well we all do come to think of it) experience in people managment, training and HR, profitability, meeting of unrealistic targets from sales, individual bugets including ops costs, office costs, petty cash, paper costs and so on, customer service, computer skills (some more than others), flexibility and more.

So what makes us so unemployable in the world outside of retail?

We are trying to build a site, and it has just reminded me why I started blogging here instead of starting out on my own in the first place.

For the life of me I can't figure out the way that the geeks designed their codes in the first place.

You don't need a computer qualification for website design if you are a normal person, you need degrees in behavioural psychology and cryptology!!!!!!!

So, this is what I look like in Second Life (which ironically I'm treating with about as much regard as this one!)

So far my fiance has told me that he is more stylish than me!!!

Charming.

I've just spent the evening watching an Eddie Izzard vid.

It's always weird to watch them because the set changes colour gradually, but you are so taken in by his performance that you never notice the set subtley changing from blue to red.

Brilliant performer.

Like I said last night, I followed the link.

This morning I spent 2 hours editing the look of my character.

Christ I'm vain!!!

As regular readers may have noticed by now I have a thing for BBC News:

Well, they seem the most impartial and I know that if I link to them I won't ever have to check again to see if the link is still active!!!!!

But this time they put a link into Second Life and I followed it: wish me luck, hope to see you all again!!!!!!!

So, my patience has finally run out. Here's what I'm sending to the RyanAir of Telecoms:

I feel that I have to write to you convey my deep dissatisfaction at the service that your company has so far offered me.

I decided in April to come back to BT due to some connectivity issues that I was having with my incumbent broadband provider, and my decision was based partially on the fact that BT both owns and operates the network which meant, in my mind, that I wouldn’t have the same issues as I did with my previous provider.

When I first applied, you wouldn’t let me do it only as my ISP used LLU, so instead I spent 20 minutes in a phone queue being told,

“....alternatively, you can go to bt.com.”

The irony wasn’t wasted on me, I did see the funny side and went on to order Broadband from you, even after you told me that I would need to transfer my phone calls back to you, which I’m sure is not true.

As you will notice from a look at my history of contact with your departments; it took over a month, 3 separate orders for the service, 2 home hubs being delivered, well over 5 hours of phone conversations, an engineer visit to the local exchange, 5 calls to my outgoing ISP to find out why their service was still on the line, and actually having to tell 2 of your reps that the computer that was telling them one thing was wrong – and being right felt no better as you then tried fobbing me off with some story of 5 working days for the service (when I finally lost my temper at UKOnline and surprised them by telling them exactly which port of which board to deactivate at my local exchange, it took 33 minutes for them to cancel my service so that your colleagues could start theirs.)

However, I have accepted the settlement that your broadband team offered me after I told them that an apology wasn’t enough, though still feel short changed.

But I am still going through the process of trying to get my e-mail and username changed as one of your reps set it up incorrectly even after I spelled it out to them; the e-mail that I sent on 4^th July still hasn’t been adequately responded to as you haven’t done anything.

But my main reason for coming back to BT was for BT Vision. That was the selling point: if it hadn’t been for that then there is no way that I would pay above market rate for a broadband service with 50:1 contention ratio.

I decided a few weeks ago, however, to order and put the order in. It went smoothly and you even sent a reminder e-mail a few days before your engineer was due. So I went through the process of shifting 200 kilos of furniture to ensure that your installer would have access to all of the internal phone line from outside to master socket.

An hour before the appointment window closed I contacted your centre (who kept me waiting 28 minutes) to voice my concern that I hadn’t received a call from your engineer to say he was on his way: I was advised that he was due at my property and would be in contact soon.

30 minutes after the appointment window closed I received the call from the engineer who wanted to come round and install the service. I pointed out that he was outside his window, he apologised and asked to come round anyway. I declined as I had already taken a morning off work, and now needed to go back.

To be fair to the engineer, he was sincere in his apology to me, and went on to explain that he’d had a “meeting in the morning” followed by a “tricky installation” so getting to me was “touch and go.” His statement was refreshing and even though what he’d said to me was unacceptable I was grateful for his honesty.

I then had to contact your service centre who kept me on hold for another 40 minutes: again an apology from the rep followed by offers of alternative dates. She offered me one the following week which wasn’t convenient. Then she offered 4^th September; if I had made a similar mistake then I would be moving heaven and earth to rectify it.

I had already waited 3 weeks to have a service installed that your company had promised would be self-install by July, and you wanted me to wait another 3 weeks for another visit which could have been missed. So, order cancelled.

I am now wondering why I came back to BT at all; you have let me down with your services every step of the way.

I am left with:

·         An overpriced ISP, who conned me into taking their phone tariff as well (which I’m considering seeking advice from OFCOM over) and offered the absolute minimum in recompense for your repeated mistakes, only when I made a fuss.

·         2 Home Hubs, but no Vision Box.

·         A company that can’t even spell my name correctly, and when I ask you to sort it, not bother.

And I am sorry to say this, but the only thing that you actually managed to get right the first time was the bank account that you take the direct debit from.

If it wasn’t for the excessive cost in cancellation fees then I would have left BT by now. You are actually the example of how it shouldn’t be done, and I am bitterly disappointed by what you have provided.

I was going through a magazine earlier (should have been working but hey) and those bloody annoying scratch cards that you get in there kept falling out and leaving a trail of evidence back to my skiving.

And it made me think - the BBC and ITV are going through the mill about their phone in scandals (suppose you could say that the Blue Peter one was like taking candy from a baby!) but what about these cowboys that put those cards in mags with "guaranteed prizes" and a premium line phone number.

You know the one, where you could win a ferrari, plasma screen telly, new house, or £100 Thomas Cook holiday vouchers.

You then ring the phone number where the answerphone keeps spouting bollocks at you for 5 minutes at £1.50 a minute only then to tell you that the three cars that you scratched off mean that you win Thomas Cook Vouchers (yes I have done this, but in my defence I was heavily intoxicated and trying to prove a point at the time!!!)

What is it they say about easy targets?

HIPs (Home Information Pack Scheme) is a system of gathering some building surveys and property searches an dputting them into a pack ready for selling your house. It is designed (accoding to its creators) to make selling your house a quicker process.

Currently it is being rolled out with only houses with 4 bedrooms of above being legally oblliged to have one.

I'm not particularly against HIPs (yet) in fact I was looking at getting one for my 2 bedroom house when I put it on the market in a few months. After all, if I saw a house that I liked and some of the searches had been done and the most that I would have to worry about are structural surveys (which aren't in the HIPS pack) then it would be quicker to sort out.

Good for me as I'm an impatient bugger.

But not good at the moment. For the life of me I can't find a single person to do the surveys on the property, certainly not one that can do one in a relatively short period of notice.

So, it has teething problems. Problems in that there aren't enough people to do the surveys on properties, ad those that are available are already offering preference to Estate Agents rather than the likes of me wanting one for my own benefit as they will get repeat business off Estate Agents.

So the Government have now decided to extend Hips to 3 bed properties as well.

Not a good idea at the moment.

I am typing out this one (I say typing, more stamping on the keyboard) whilst kept on hold to BT (again) - but on a more positive note at least it's proof that I can multi-task!!

Following on from my last post, an engineer rang me a few minutes ago,

"Is that Mr X?" well he didn't say Mr X, but for obvious reasons you ain't having my full name!
"Yes."
"I'm frank from BT, I'd like to come and install Vision."
"You were supposed to be here this morning."
"Er, yes, sorry about that. Had a meeting then a tricky installation. To be honest your installation was touch and go from the start."
"Do you not think that you could have mentioned this before now?"
"Sorry. Still, is it ok to come round now?"
"No."
"Oh."
"Well, I've taken the morning off work to sit and wait for you, but I have to go back now!"

Bloke couldn't get off the phone fast enough!

So, time to take out yet another of their inept department's customer don't care departments.

So far I've been passed from BT Sales, to BT Vision Sales and now I'm in a queue for Vision Service.

As one of my managers says, "obviously not run by women"

35 minutes and still no answer. I'm gonna enjoy this!!!!

The jury is still out on BT, but I have a few ideas - any suggestions?

Me and BT, you'll probably have noticed by now don't have a particularly good relationship.

They love me as I hand over quite a large amount of cash each month.

I don't like them as:
 - Their customer service is useless.
 - The service is third rate (when I actually have it!!!)
 - I'm sick of listening to, "due to a high volume of calls you are in a queue, alternatively you can do most things at BT.com." Well, I could if it wasn't for the fact that I'm usually ringing them because I haven't actually got inernet access!!!!

But, in a moment of weakness I ordered BT Vision a few weeks ago. My reasoning was fair:
 - I'm stuck with their Broadband system for a while so might as well get the telly.
 - My freeview box has expired.
 - It's actually cheaper than a new freeview box!

So, this morning I've sat and waited for the engineer to arrive and install it like they promised.

They haven't turned up.

When will I learn?

50 cent has threatened to quit making solo material if his album is outdone by Kanye West in the album charts.

Never thought I'd see myself writing this but here goes:

Graduation, the "fabulous" album by Kanye West is released on 11th September - be sure to buy it or I'll "pop a cap in yo ass!"

I need a lie down

When I was chatting to my fiance the other day, and mentioned that Tony Wilson had died she said,

"who?"

I went off my head for approximately 10 seconds before realising that it wasn't really her music, that and she isn't from M/cr. But she had of course heard of New Order, Happy Mondays etc.

He was Manchester's marmite, and I had a great deal of respect for and envy of him (after all, it takes balls of steel to have that level of self belief, but more importantly to do something for the love of it rather than the money in the record industry is refreshing to say the least!)

His style, committment and vision were unique and we certainly won't see them again.

Tara Tony!

In yet another pearl to hit the BBC News website, a group of pupils from a posh public school in Scotland staged a mock fox hunt in which they chased chavs instead of foxes(see story here.)

The video appeared on YouTube under the name "Class Wars."

It has been widely condemned by wider society with one Scottish MP saying it sends out the wrong signals about class and the underpriviliged, and the school saying that it doesn't represent the ethos of its' students. But I'm still chuckling at it.

The thing about this video is that, although it does show classes pitched off against each other, I haven't seen in the video any sign of snobbery.

I've certainly seen satire and sharp wit which I think is brilliant, to the level that you could almost expect to see it on a BBC3 sketch show, but not a condemnation of a whole class.

However, in the reaction I have seen a bunch of middle and upper class folk completely miss the point and joke, and go on to make even bigger embarrassments of themselves. It is another example of the moral majority showing how small minded they are in the face of what is basically bloody funny grass roots comedy!

And, for the record, Chav does not necessarily denote class, in the same way that observational humour doesn't only come from working class Glaswegians!

Eddie Irvine tells us why McLaren's drivers need to grow ups need to grow up

Out of all opinions that I'll be taking on board, steady Eddie's will be above most!