December 10, 2011

Teleton

I’ve commented on this before. Life for many people in Mexico is too hard. You don’t have to walk the streets for long to see why – the destitute, crippled and abandoned. Life in the UK can be too easy. You don’t have to walk the streets for long to see why – the welfare funded druggies, bums and chavs. We, as a  society, have to find a balance when providing help. Neither UK nor Mexico has it right.

Charity alone is not the answer. Anyone arguing it is, is an idiot. Or evil. One or the other. No middle ground here. Pure and simple. Sorry if you disagree and feel offended. Charity is a good thing, of course. I used to watch parts of the Teleton with Paola. Some of the stories are heartbreaking. I’ve heard a few negative things about what happens to some of the money that is donated at Teleton. It puts me off a bit. But I’m still sure they put a lot of money to people who do a lot of very good work.

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December 9, 2011

The Life And Times Of The Euro

Before I left, a wise and informed friend did question the logic in my leaving Mexico for the UK. He understands economics. He could see the way the wind was blowing. To be fair, the economic winds of ‘no spare’ change were already blowing pretty hard across Europe, and had been for a while. I didn’t disbelieve him. Nor was it simply a matter of ignoring him. I got his point. But we weren’t going to the UK just for financial betterment. Although improving our economic situations was something we hoped to do. Mostly, Mrs P needed to experience England.

My wise friend suggested we wait. The length of time we should wait wasn’t specified, but I did suspect (and may have responded) that the wait would possibly be a very long one. Years. Maybe decades. Now would probably be as good a time as any to go. Things might well get worse the longer we waited. I may have been right. Europe stands on the abyss. The common currency dream has turned into a nightmare.

I confess, I was – once upon a time – pro Euro. Although, like many things, I didn’t stand with both feet in any one camp. Single currencies haven’t historically fared very well in divided economies. The Scandinavians know that from experience. Perhaps it’s not ironic that Scandinavia kept clear of this one. The Euro was done in a half-baked way. That the UK stayed out isn’t is all likelihood going to help us much. I was pro Euro, but more in principle than is support of the coin that was eventually minted.

It’s crunch time though. Will the Euro survive? There seems to be growing doubt that it will, according to ‘experts’. I use apostrophes, which suggests I question their expertise – but there’s no arguing that there’s a large number of them. Those in power, namely Merkel and Sarkosy seem hell bent on proving them wrong however. And if the Euro goes, then what then? I suspect now might be a good time to actually buy Euros. There’d likely be an increase in value in its death throes. And will Mexico fare much better in the global catastrophe than will be caused by the implosion of the Euro? I’m interested in peoples views. Or you can just vote.

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December 8, 2011

The Google Revolution

I’ve been a harsh critic and user of Google products over the last few years. They do ugly. They do half-arsed. They don’t do perseverance. But, thanks to search and ads, they do very well. Very well indeed. Everything else is a side issue for them. Google+ is the latest toy they’ve pushed out. And despite the hype, I couldn’t quite jump on that bandwagon. They had fixed the ugly – Google+ is a slick looking site, with an even slicker Android app. They are still developing it. To be fair they seem to be persevering with it too.

It turns out, that was a portent of things to come. Android Market was updated a while back too. The improvements have turned it into an aesthetic, mature and very capable eco system. A worthy rival of Apples App Store. The ugliest of Google’s ugly brigade, GMail, was recently revamped too, and is looking much cleaner and modern. So much so that I’ve gone back to it. Windows Live is no more for me. I’m a Gmail man again.

Google Reader’s new look has grown on me too. That was never ugly. And I’ve always used it. But I appreciate the make-over. The new navigation system Google employs to switch between mail, maps, feeds and their other toys is a joy to use. Looks good. Works smoothly. I bet it even tastes great too. YouTube was updated just a couple of days ago. Has that been beautified as well? Pft. One can ask for only so much. Nope, they took their one half decent looking product and uglified it. But they did at least focus on Channels when turning it into a hideous eyesore.

I like Channels now. Since I got my Sony Media Player, channels on YouTube make perfect sense. I finally ‘get’ them. I’ve always loved podcasts. Now YouTube just became a video podcast system for my media player. Brilliant. I’m loving my Sony player by the way. It’s a superb little device. Highly recommended.

So anyway, the crux of the market. In the last couple of weeks, Google has (for me) gone from being an ugly behemoth that I used for searching for stuff, to an entire ecosystem that has taken over a sizeable chunk of my internet life and activity. Windows Live Mail, Bing Maps, Vimeo and others have bitten the Mexile dust. My headline wasn’t misleading. It has been a Google Revolution.

The biggest factor behind all this? My Android phone. That’s the real killer app. Fact is, the way Android works obliges you to attach yourself to Google and their products. To a degree, at least. They’re forever trying to pull you in. You can use other services on an Android device, but you somehow always feel you’re in a constant fight. You’re trying to push back. There were two viable solutions to make Android a truly happy device, in my opinion. They needed to up their game and get their services up to scratch. To better, or at least match, the opposition. Or else Google needed to stop trying to suck you in. Give you the freedom to go your own way. They’ve done the former. And I’m just fine with that for now.

As for Google+? Meh. All my old arguments against that being a success remain. Picasa is still in the background as far as the photos go. Still ugly. I’m still getting hundreds of random strangers ‘friending’ me. I’ve no idea who they are. Nor do I care. Google fanboys tell me that this is great. It’s ‘engagement’ apparently. They way I see it, ‘engagement’ is just a new word for spam. Or, if I’m b’eng polite, noise.

But. Google does seem to be going in the right direction. Maybe I should hold out hope for Google+. I wouldn’t mind using that instead of Facebook. The problem , and it was the key problem I identified from the start, is getting people to switch en masse from Facebook. It isn’t happening. The real life friends I have who signed up…all but one have abandoned it. That spells dead as far as being a Facebook rival goes.

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December 8, 2011

The Last Bus To Scroogeville

This is my second contemptuous post on corporate crassness in a week. The victim of my ire today is NationalExpress. The UK intercity coach service, who operate a near monopoly on cross country travel by bus. I bought me and Mrs P a pair of return tickets to London for just before Christmas. The 23rd and 24th to be precise. Unfortunately, I accidentally booked the wrong time for the return leg. I wanted 3pm and not 8pm. Different times have different prices, you see. But the 3pm and 8.30pm buses were the same price, and I got temporarily fixated on getting the tickets at the right price, not the right time.

Surely it’s no big deal. I mean, you just phone up and get it changed, right? There’ll be an exorbitant service fee, that’s to be expected. This is a large company. You expect to be relieved of an unreasonable amount of cash for having the cheek to inconvenience them. I also rather expected to be told that there’d not only be an exorbitant fee, but that they’d charge me the standard rate. I’d purchased what they call Funfares. And the Funfare tickets were still available on the website. But I kinda knew that they’d not simply swap my existing Funfare tickets for an alternate pair of Funfare tickets. That would be too simple.

I wasn’t, of course, disappointed. They wanted a total of £29 to change my tickets for a bus that runs five hours later. I could just go and buy a brand new pair off the website for £17.50. My gripe here isn’t so much that there’s a service fee. They have to employee someone to answer my call and change those tickets, after all. My gripe isn’t really about tickets coming with terms and conditions either. There have to be terms and conditions. My gripe is with the anti-customer mindset of these corporations. The bigger they get, the worse they get. With few exceptions*. Company policies are based not on providing excellent customer service, but on squeezing as much as possible from their customers pockets. That’s the be all and end all of it.

That’s not how it should be done. When I called up, my tickets should have simply been changed to the desired time, a small charge taken by card, and another happy customer left satisfied by their service. Why should it be done that way? Because the damn tickets are still available at the Funfare price, because it’s not a difficult thing to do, because I am a customer, because my business is valued, because they have a genuine desire to be the best at what they do and because they can do all this and still make a fair and reasonable profit.

Sadly, the way capitalism, or at least corporatism, has evolved in the 21st century, business is about getting as much money as possible for as little as possible.  The excessess of capitalism aren’t really much different, in principle to communism – the majority being kept at a subsistence level by an unelected majority, indentured to products, services and employers, and with an acceptance of mediocrity and dissatisfaction. Thus, I accept I must travel with National Express and expect mediocrity and be dissatisfied. I didn’t bother forking out the £29. Nor £17.50 for new tickets. Aational Express have left me dissatisfied, and not for the first time. I’ll do more travel by train. Who’ll be equally mediocre and unsatisfactory.

 * One of the exceptions that springs to mind is Amazon. Brilliant company. They were born with a massive bent on providing great customer service in their battle to overcome potential shoppers distrust of shopping on the web. It’s an ethos that’s stuck with them. It’s what they’re known for. It’s what has helped them be the success they are.

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December 6, 2011

Corporate Dumb

Things I enjoyed about living in Mexico were many. Being self employed was top of the list. No one to blame for failures but myself. Not that there were too many failures. No one to reap the rewards of success but myself. And none of the corporate nonsense that infests large companies up and down the country like a ravenous cancer.

There are advantages to having corporations in our world. The ability to scale being one. Corporations don’t have to be dumb. And yet, to a sadly increasing degree, they seem to be hell bent on being dumb. Dumb and dumber, no Jim Carey required. Political infighting, bureaucracy and waste are rampant.

One of the joys of having a job is that I can poke a thumb in the eye of potential employers who show their corporate hand straight away – if they’ve holding a joker out instead of an ace, then I can choose not to play their game. I’ve applied for a couple of jobs where the HR dept have shown a full hand of jokers from the get go. Normally I ignore them. Sometimes I bother to reply. I’m wasting my time, I know.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your response regards my application for the position of Deputy Manager. However, I live in Ringwood, Hampshire and had applied for a job in Ferndown, which is just a couple of miles away. I have given your invitation due consideration, and have decided to decline the opportunity for an interview.  I did at first mull the possibility of requesting a more local interview, as opposed to the appointment you have suggested which would require taking two days off of work and booking a hotel for the night. I came to the conclusion that any company that thinks a first, rather tentative, group interview should be scheduled such a distance from the prospective candidates host store can only be mired in a tangled web of corporate self-importance, bureaucracy and waste. That’s not an environment I would feel either comfortable or happy working in.
I apologise for my barely concealed frustration, but I am tired of corporate inefficiency and senseless protocol. I’ve been there and done that. If T-Shirts were handed out for each example, I’d have an overflowing wardrobe. I will continue my search, perhaps in vain, for a retail management appointment elsewhere. This is unfortunate, for us both. On the one hand, I would relish the opportunity to work for a national chain with the potential of ****. I visit the Ferndown store regularly, and can see both the shortcomings and potential. On every visit. Nothing changes. The shortcomings remain unresolved, the potential remains unfulfilled. On the other hand (and again I ask forgiveness for what may appear to be arrogance, but after a couple of decades in the retail industry I feel qualified to comment on my own abilities) I am confident that I would be able to walk into any Lidl store and be amongst the top 10% of performers within 12 months, earning **** money.
For the record, a more suitable recruitment process would first involve a telephone interview, followed by an interview at the host store by the manager and/or Area Manager. Three hour candidate assessment mornings held at an HQ should be reserved for the most senior positions, and only for the final selection process. I am sure you will successfully recruit personnel for the vacant positions. Whether or not you recruit the most successful personnel for the positions is debatable, however.
Kind regards,
PS. If it is any consolation, your invitation doesn’t come close to the ludicrous appointment made for me by the **-********* to attend an interview in Edinburgh, earlier this year. Which, needless to say, I also declined. 

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