S1 English

Trying to help my daughter with her English homework this evening, I was struck by how difficult the questions are.  Given a text from about sldiers and their suffering, we had:

1. How did the writer freel from this experience?  Quote and explain why the quote shows this
2. The writer uses three questions in the text.  Write down the name of this technique.  Quote each one and analyse the effect each question has on the reader
3. Comment on the writer's use of imagery in this sentence: "Icy rain fell mercilessly on us and we lived day and night drenched to the skin and pierced with cold."  Remember - as well as stating the image used you must pin-point the descriptive words.  Decide what impact it has and explain why it has this impact.

First year?  I'd have said this was O-grade stuff at least!

So... in a total volte-face, next time I hear any politician tell us that the exams have been dumbed down, I'm going to have extreme doubts!

Sky Box Office Offer - shoddy customer service

Email sent today to Sky Customer Service

Sky sent me a letter entitled "Advance Notice Of Changes To Your Sky Subscription Service"

In it, Sky offered me a "Free Sky Box Office Movie"  To claim it, I had to register at a specific web address before 10-August.  When I did so this evening - 09-Aug - the web site said that the offer was unavailable.

So, I phoned the number on the letter - 08448 422450.  The lady to whom I spoke told me that I wasn't eligible for the offer because I had previously had Sky Movies on my tariff.

So, why did Sky send me a letter telling me that I was eligible for an offer then tell me that that was not in fact true? 

Why did the lady to whom I spoke tell me that it was impossible to provide feedback to Sky's marketing department?

Isn't this lying on Sky's part?  Offering me a service then saying that I couldn't have it?

regards,
/alan

Attn: Three Customer Service

To: executive.office@three.co.uk

My name is Alan Potter, I am a long-time three customer.

When my wife’s phone contract recently expired, I suggested she move to Three.  She ordered a nice new Samsung Galaxy S II, on the Text500 contract.  That was on Monday 18^th July (order number xxxxxxxx).  We arranged delivery would be on the Thursday of that week (21-Jul), and waited for the phone to arrive.

It didn’t.

Nor did it arrive on the Friday. 

I phoned Three’s customer service.  They told me that because there was already a Three account using the bank details I had given to Three (i.e. my Three account), then Three would want to see a bank statement to be sure that my wife was allowed to Direct Debit that account.  All that Three would need to see would be the account name.  That doesn’t really seem to stand up to scrutiny as you already knew the account name, and any credit ratings agency would have been able to give you all the information you needed.  But I can let that slide.

I asked why nobody had phoned us and told us this before the date when the phone was due to be delivered.  I asked when we would have been phoned.  The customer service rep told me that the back office would do the calling, they were busy just now and he did not know when or if we would be contacted.

After listening to him give this kind of excuse for a couple of minutes I gave up and told him that I was not happy about this.  At this point someone with a bit of savvy – or leeway – could still have saved the deal by apologising, offering a complimentary month’s line rental or something similar, and promising to get the phone to us next day.  But no, there was nothing like that.  Just a demand to see my bank statement.

So I cancelled the deal.

I understand that you guys want to give a cheap service and so you have lowest common denominator customer service.  I get that.  But you’ve taken it too far here.  If you promise to deliver a phone on a particular day, you should deliver it.  If you’re going to fail to deliver it, and you know you’re going to fail to deliver it, you must phone the (potential) customer beforehand in case that customer is taking a day off work to receive the package.

Yours faithfully,

Alan Potter

What David Cameron can't - and won't - tell you

The country is seeing a lot of belt tightening just now, and some suggestions of even worse to come.  We are, quite correctly, complaining about it and objecting to many of the reductions in our standards of living that it will bring.

Now part of this, undoubtedly, is because of the measures that had to be taken to deal with the last financial crisis.  But I wonder if there is a more fundamental truth that our government dares not admit to us.

Note: I have essentially no knowledge of economics.  That puts me on a par with the average Daily Mail columnist, but means that I may be talking complete nonsense.  Indeed, I would be delighted if someone would tell me why the things I postulate below are wrong.

Over the past twenty years or so, we in the West have had it so good.  Poorly paid people in China have manufactured things for us, and those of us able to retain a job have been able to buy things amazingly cheaply.  Manufactured things - TVs, DVD players, computers, washing machines etc - have fallen in "real terms" price to an extraordinarily low price.  This is joly nice for us.

Meanwhile, the Chinese (and Indians, Brazilians, Russians etc) have become very good at not only manufacturing, but also computer programming, administrative tasks, and many other things that we do in life and get paid for.  The massive advances in telecommunications have made it possible for us to use these people to do work for us, and they get paid a pittance.  Isn't it wonderful?

Well, no.  It really isn't.  I have been to China, and met some damned fine engineers out there.  Is it reasonable that they get paid less in real terms (i.e. how many hours per week they need to work in order to feed their family) than I do?  Given that both of us produce product that gets shipped out over the public internet, and so there is no transportation cost to worry about, I cannot see why that would make sense.

Somewhere there is going to have to be a huge levelling of living standards between East and West.  And by that I mean that if a Chinese engineer has to work for ten hours per week to feed his family, I too will have to work for ten hours to do the same.

It will mean a rise in living standards in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries (and others), but it will also mean a fall in our living standards... and I think that that is what we are starting to see now.

Perhaps some kind economist will tell me why an hour of my work is worth three hours of a Chinese engineer's work... but I don't think that that is going to happen.