Been a while - but customer service still crap

I know, I know... I used to blog like every day and now it's once in a while (you should see my facebook posts, though...).

I don't know quite how it happened, but I got into upholstery. I'm doing a fabulous class, and found a really inspirational teacher, although when she saw my great ebay find (multi-position double cushioned thirties oak recliner) she did say "most people start with a stool."

So on top of that project, I'm making some foam seat cushions for stools (I took the advice) and our hall bench. The internet tells me I need some kind of stocking to put the foam in before I put it inside the cushion - don't ask me why - and fortuitiously, last friday, I was in North Finchley, on my way to meet a friend for coffee, and found an old-fashioned haberdashery shop. I was so delighted. I went in, and she showed me a stocking-type thing I could use, and when I asked her the price, she started serving someone else.

I was a little pissed off and impatient (piss-patient?) but hung around as long as I could, until  I was almost-late and had to go. When I turned to leave, she said "where are you going?" and I said I couldn't wait any longer, I was late to meet someone. She raised her eyebrows like I was in the wrong. I should have known then.

This week, I was driving past the shop on my Friday morning chores-run-around when I thought, hey, I'll run in there and get the foam stocking, perfect. All week, I've been meaning to buy it online, but this is even better, a local, indepedent shop.

[For the sake of not being the goto search on the web for her shop, I'm not going to name it. But let's face it, how many haberdashery shops are there in north London?]

I go in, say a cheery good morning (she's on the phone) and stride to the back of the shop to the roll of un-priced stocking. I still don't know how much it is, but I think hey, support a local shop, I'll pay whatever it is.

She finishes her phonecall, and I expect her to come and serve me, but she picks up the phone to make another call. I wait. It's her utility company. I walk up to her and mouth "can you serve me?" and she mouths, "I'm on the phone." I mouth "I'm a customer" and she does a hand wave that I should wait. I turn to leave - I mean, who needs this? Then I hear her rather agressively tells her utility supplier she'll call back.

By now, I'm at the front of the store, and she runs up to me, and grabs my arm, asking me what I want. I tell her that this is the second time I've returned to her shop and she's not served me either time and I'll go home and order it on the internet. She starts shouting at me and saying "I'm eva-, eva-, eva-"

I briefly think she's introducing herself, but then I realise she's "ever so sorry." I tell her it's too late, and this is not the way to treat (potential) customers and it's too much hard work to go to her shop and I'll go home and order online.

I leave the shop with her gesticulating at the door like I've done something wrong.

She seem's to have been in business for a long time, judging by the faded signage and hand-crafted ocassional price tags. I don't know she does it.

And that is why, ultimately, we'll all buy everything on the internet.

Downton, Parade's End and British food between the wars

I am completely loving Downton, and was devestated by Sunday night's turn of events (even if I did watch it on Monday, through the wonder of PVR).

Came across this fascinating piece in the Observer about British food between the wars, and I thought, yes, I am indeed the kind of woman who paints her house white, and breakfasts in bed (althought the latter, rarely).

I'm currently in new cookbook mode, happily awaiting the arrival of the new Ottoleghi, so Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food looks fascinating, although I suspect, hardly vegetarian...

Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders

Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders | Video on TED.com
here's something I'm thinking about today...

Loving the olympics...

I've often struggled with my hyphenated identity, but right now I feel proud and delighted to call myself British. I love the up-beatness, the volunteering ethos, watching athletes acheive their dreams after so much hard work (the antithesis of the overnight-celebrity dream, which makes me feel rather unwell). I love the opening ceremony's celebration of the complexity of modern Britain, how we delivered a great games logistically / operationally, and how the atmosphere has changed into people being positive and smiling. And I'm quite excited about Finchley's gold postbox (thank you Anthony Joshua). Roll on the paralympics.

Tech rant of a kind

I hate the built in obsolescence of modern technology. I teach J not to waste things, and that we like old things (the refrain to most of our conversations is "is it old, mummy"), so I really resent having to buy a new £150 printer (which used to be £300) because the paper feeder is broken and it will cost more to repair than replace. Bad for the planet, bad for me.

We all scream for ice cream

So there's an ice cream van going down the street, and the last few days, when J asks what it is, I say, "I don't know." Just now, in the bath, he heard it again, and D and I did the whole "it's just a van playing music, it's a music van." When I left the bathroom, he said to D "daddy, is it an ice-cream music van?" Oh well, no point hiding...

Small pieces...

My inner (OK, not very hidden) control freak finds it really distressing when small parts of games and toys are spread around the house as part of a different (very imaginative) game, never to be seen again. Who ever gets to fill a whole Connect 4 grid, anyway, right?

Customer service (again)

When someone in a call centre says in their specially trained relaxing voice "do you mind holding the line for me for two seconds?" you know that (a) it won't be two seconds and (b) it won't be good.
Time on hold at Tesco call centre, waiting for info on late delivery: 15 minutes (two calls)