The whinge thread

[LAT]

Oh, so not an unmitigated success then clvrlad.

But did you enjoy yourself at the wedding and on New Year's eve? Hope it was all fun and worth it even if you don't have the snaps to prove it.

[clvrlad]

yeah it was good :-p
just fancied having a whinge

[LAT]

You're allowed a whinge - you don't often!

[eirian]

Why do people give you a timescale of 'by the end of the week' and then, when I go to do it *before* their deadline, find that they've already done it.

[Bunnylump]

THAT is absolutely infuriating, Eirian. You have my complete sympathy.

[giraffe]

I am nominating the EE shop for the bad service of the day award.

Despite having paid a deposit on a very expensive phone, and despite going in within 24 hours of receiving an email to say the phone is in stock, they are refusing to hold the phone until Saturday (earliest my husband can get there), and won't let me have it because the contract is in my husband's name. They also want £60 more than the same phone with the same firm if we order it online. No wonder the high street is dying! And to top it all I have never met such a scruffy, rude, obstructive bunch of young men in my life.

[gill216]

I'll match you on the same subject of mobile phones. I'm nominating virgin media customer services.

OH has/had a phone and the contract is in my name so they will only speak to me. He began getting a message to connect a device or remove a cable to continue. This message is widely reported on the net, but no solutions are to be found there. I rang VM, duly returned the handset after a long argument that 5 days without it was not acceptable. Although I had old phones, they were locked into Orange. They eventually agreed to send a very cheap phone to use while the decent one was with them. I got the moron from Mongolia who told me that while the phone was guaranteed it was water damaged and therefore the guarantee was void and I'd need to buy a new one. I assured this person that the phone had not been in a bucket, had not had anything spilled on it and this was not acceptable. She told me that as I live in a strange climate where we have snow then heat, then the water would be condensation but the guarantee was still void. I asked the question as to why they provided phones to UK customers if they were unsuitable for our climate and asked to speak to her manager. I was assured that he/she would call me within 24hrs. I'm still waiting. What I did get was an email to say that the phone has been returned. It is sitting in the sorting office waiting to be collected. Do I leave it there or do I bother to go and collect it in the hope that they have replaced it? I doubt it from the attitude.

[LAT]

I would have thought that you should definitely go and collect it Gill. If you don't, it would probably get sent back to them after a couple of weeks (possibly less). Then, if it is your phone it would probably be much harder to get it back again. And you'll never know if you don't go!

[Bunnylump]

LOCAL COUNCIL

We had a letter about a month ago all about how they were starting an initiative to encourage sustainable travel in Dacorum. This was sent (first class) to every household in the borough - I don't know how many houses there are, but with a population of 144,800, I'm guessing it's A LOT. Then, a couple of weeks later, I had a phone call from them, asking if I was interested in any of the information about buses, trains, cycle routes or walks. I pointed out that I couldn't use the buses as they don't go where I work (3 miles away) without taking four different buses, which would cost a fortune and would take about an hour and a half. I then pointed out that I don't cycle because the roads are so dangerous, and have such bad potholes that I would be taking my life in my hands. I also said that there was little point them telling me the train times, because I could get up to date, reliable information from the Train Times website if I needed it (as could anyone else with a computer.) So I agreed to have their pack of "walks".

A week later, they had someone ringing me to tell me that my pack would be on its way in a week. (Why?)

Today, a young man pulled up outside my house on a bicycle with a basket on wheels attached to the back. He muttered something so incoherently that I had to ask him four times what he wanted. He was delivering my "pack". Well. My "pack" contains four or five leaflets, all printed in colour on glossy paper and contained within an absolutely pointless fancy box. They are all well-known local walks, which most people who had lived here any time would already know about. There was also a list of guided walks, most of which happened in May. They came in an unasked-for, printed cotton shopping bag.

My question is this...would it not have been more sensible to spend the vast amounts of money this pointless exercise has cost to improve the roads so that people COULD cycle, or in maintaining the footpaths so that they could actually be used and weren't blocked by nettles and brambles??? And if they wanted to advertise walks, then surely all they had to do was to have a piece in the local paper with a link to the website???

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.....

And while I'm on my high horse, wouldn't the £350 000 spent on this

Have been better spent on something like keeping our public toilets / police station / accident and emergency department / college open?

[Scurra]

I thought we'd agreed not to get into political arguments on here?

[Bunnylump]

Sorry, but that just incensed me. What a waste of money!!

[Laura]

The secondary school kids at one of the schools where I teach campaigned against the school spending £20,000 on a big rock with the name of the school engraved on it. They then complained again when a year later, the school was changed to an academy and all the official signs had to be redone, the school was absolutely not to be referred to as a school but an academy, yet the rock still said "school."

Most of the staff were sitting around saying things like "I can't give you permission to go and cause a fuss, but..." I do like teenagers sometimes!

[eirian]

I don't think you can blame the Council fully for the 'green' campaign - I suspect it was funding that was earmarked for it, so they couldn't spend it on the roads, even if they wanted to.

and let me tell you, the staff at the Council will be just as annoyed as you are - as I suspect they, like we have been, are under threat of redundancy and having to do more with less funding.
And sorry, yes, that's political, but nowhere near as political as some of the comments that are made about similar schemes in my office...

[Bunnylump]

Miserable, isn't it? We had loads of redundancies at our school last year. Hope the cuts don't affect you, Eirian.

Thing is, I understand the idea behind "green" initiatives, and yes, it is important that sustainable transport is encouraged. It's just they way they are going about it that I am questioning. It would, for example, encourage me to cycle IF they had designated cycle lanes and sorted out the potholes. I would encourage me to use a bus if they laid on some new bus routes. Sending me a load of waffle and a shopping bag, however, will just make me angry.

[giraffe]

Round by us pretty much every roundabout has a sculpture on it. I find it really helpful as you know which one is which, and you can refer to them to give directions. Some of them are really odd and some are quite attractive. There is one with a mini pit winding gear on it, and one with a wrought iron horse and cart, one by the MOD place has some field guns on it, but the one at the entrance to Sainsbury's car park has all sorts of kitchen implements in galvanised metal, giant cheese grater and potato peeler and things like that!
The one closest to us has a strange concrete thing that is very hard to describe unfortunately.

[giraffe]

.

[Bunnylump]

They are quite funky.

One of the few decent sculptures around here is in the water gardens in the town centre, called Rock and Roll. I really like it.

[clvrlad]

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google+st ... .9,,2,-1.6 is near me

[MBH]

Cool The whinge thread has gone 'roundabouts' [Some good stuff there]

the staff at the Council will be just as annoyed as you are - as I suspect they, like we have been, are under threat of redundancy and having to do more with less funding.

Full agreement there In the proposals that went to cabinet this week the libraries are looking to stop funding 9 out of 20 Libraries along with the mobile library bus and my LIAZe Computer Bus project No - I have no idea what that means for me yet...

[Bunnylump]

Oh, no!! Fingers crossed for you MBH...

I'm returning to the whinge...I spent all day today interviewing 9 people, and the idiot who organised the day didn't factor in any tea break or lunch break for us interviewers. Nightmare.