Advertising Standards
Posted: Sat 27 August, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Bad Ads, Customer Services, Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Loyalty Schemes, Marketing, OpenTable, Pedantry, Solo Dining, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »With the whole “Solo Dining” project I’ve been doing this year, one of my bugbears has become OpenTable (who provide a lot of the table-reservation services for restaurants) and – more particularly – their “Dining Points” loyalty plan.
As it says on that page about Dining Points,
OpenTable UK members can earn OpenTable Dining Points when they make and honor reservations made through opentable.com, or our related mobile sites and apps.
They say the same thing on another modal window to explain Dining Points.
“Earn points every time you dine”
Except that’s not true – not true at all. I queried why I’d received zero points for several reservations over the last year, and they then started to say (and this is a direct quote from one of the responses)
points are only given to diners who start their search on our website and not the restaurants website as you know. This is because as you came from the restaurant website, you are considered a customer of the restaurant and they use our services on the back end to take your reservation for them. If we started awarding points to the customers of our clients they would feel that we are trying to steal you as a customer.
So OpenTable are, frankly, liars. They say clearly throughout the site “make a booking through OpenTable, and get points“, with no provisos, asterisks, or get-out clauses. This isn’t even me being pedantic about something – they’ve said something (repeatedly, in black-and-white!) that’s simply not true.
This would’ve been an easy fix for OpenTable, if they’d had any sense at all. If they’d said “Oh, sod, sorry, here, have the points, and we’ll make that text clearer“, we’d be done. But no, they started backtracking, patronising, and explaining why I was so wrong to believe their “Get points every time you book” spiel. No apology, no “thanks for letting us know“, nothing. All the customer-service skills of a concrete monolith.
Having hit that concrete monolith with no joy, I decided to take it further. Having checked their criteria, I raised it with the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) and I’ve now had a confirmation from them that, having done an initial review, they’re going to investigate it further.
So, that’s going to be entertaining. I’m assuming that getting an ASA investigation done isn’t a trivial step, nor one that the ASA do for the fun of it. I’m also assuming that, because they’re investigating, the complaint has at least some merit.
As and when I hear back, I’ll write more here…
Slack Data
Posted: Fri 10 June, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Laziness, People, Privacy, SatNav, Security, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »In the car I hired last weekend, it had a load of built-in tech – Ford’s Sync system – that was quite interesting, not least for the fact that it worked really nicely and easily. Connecting my phone to the car was a doddle, the satnav worked well (and better than my usual stand-alone device in several ways) and it all just seemed pretty easy.
However. It’s obvious that it was designed for a standard “family car” scenario, rather than a vehicle that would be hired to many different users. Which makes sense, but leads to an interesting longer-term problem…
Basically, people are lazy – and don’t think about their data. So the convenience of connecting one’s phone to the car system for hands-free calls etc is great, as is the simple download of the phone’s address book to the system. But if you then don’t delete it when you take the car back to the hire place, it’s all available to the next user. The same applies to the satnav system – ‘recent destinations’ is a goldmine of activity, right down to house number and location. (And I suspect, with a bit of work, one could connect the destination to a phone number in that downloaded phonebook)
It just interests me, how little people care (or understand) about their information. I cleared down the whole car system before I returned it, which took less than five minutes all told. So it’s not much work, but it’s still work, which most people don’t seem willing to undertake.
I’ve suggested to the hire company that it should perhaps be part of the car sanitising process when it’s returned (or before it’s hired back out, whichever) although I realise that makes it more hassle for them, and there’s a lot of different setups in the various cars.
Of course, it’d be better if people cleaned up after themselves – or the car tech had a “forget everything” button/process (although that would still be too much effort for most people) that did the job. But that won’t happen until people realise how important this shit can be, and sadly that tends to only happen by negative paths/occurrences/events, and will always be learned too late.
Wipers
Posted: Sat 4 June, 2016 Filed under: BMW Drivers, Cynicism, Driving, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »As regular readers know, I have a few guidelines when it comes to spotting drivers who are likely to be idiots – I know it’s a lot of horrible generalising and stereotyping, but at the same time, stereotypes exist for a reason.
The current list is
- BMW drivers
- Citroen Picasso drivers (I’m sure that if BMW made a people-carrier, Xsara/Picasso sales would drop to zero immediately)
- Drivers wearing hats in the car
- Cars with a Christian Fish emblem/badge/sticker
With the rotten weather of the last couple of months, I’ve added a new one
- Drivers who, at the first sign of rain, whack their windscreen wipers straight to double-speed
I don’t know what goes through people’s minds in these situations – surely when it’s just spray/drizzle and they’re at double speed, the whining/scraping noise must drive them crackers.
Still, none of it is my problem – as long as I notice these things, and pay more attention to these people on the roads, then it’s OK and handled.
Second Thoughts
Posted: Thu 21 April, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Charity, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), London, Stupidity 1 Comment »As I wrote a while back, I’ve signed up to the NSPCC’s “Climb the Gherkin” challenge in about eight weeks’ time. It involves walking (or, if you’re a lunatic, running) up the 38 flights of stairs inside the Gherkin in London to get to the top.
It’s fair to say, I’m having some doubts and second thoughts about the wisdom of it. It’s a lot of steps…
I’ve looked it up – because I’m an idiot – and now know that it’s over 1,000 steps to the top, and that’s making it all a bit real. There’s a lot of me to lift up that many steps, and really not many places where you can get to train or prepare for something like that.
I’ll still go, and I’m sure I’ll complete the challenge. It’s just that it might destroy me along the way…
Negative Company
Posted: Tue 5 April, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Day Trips, Domestic, People, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »On Sunday, I travelled down to Reading, lending immoral support to a friend who was running the Reading Half Marathon. (and did bloody well!) It was her first time running it, and I was at the end of the last hill of the run, on one of the main junctions. As it was, I got to stand next to a couple who were the most unremittingly negative people I’ve listened to since my grandparents were around. *Everything* was bad. (I bet they read the Daily Mail. And agree with it)
Highlights were :…
“Well, I won’t be pleased for her if she’s running it this slowly” and “These people in fancy dress are just detracting from the seriousness of the race” Yes, they seriously said that – and with no sense of humour whatsoever.
However, my absolute favourite was her saying to him “What’s the next time marker?” and he responded “The last one was 1hr 55, so the next will be 1hr 60” (or two hours, as it’s known to most sane people) and said in all seriousness, not a stupid comment like I’d do. Pompous bellend.
The finale was when other people appeared and stood in their oh-so-precious sightline, to which he tutted loudly, and complained (loudly) about how some people were so selfish, it was outrageous, just turning up and standing in front of others. (Bear in mind that they could’ve moved forwards too, due to there being loads of room. But no, that would’ve been far too understanding)
I think my “muttered” comment of “Well, you could always fuck off” may* (*bloody well was) have been heard, as they tutted and sodded off quite soon afterwards.
Heavy Mileage
Posted: Sun 3 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend’s been a busy one, what with one thing and another.
Saturday was supposed to be quiet – because Sunday was already planned with a day-trip to Reading and had other stuff going on – but I wanted to do something. So, being an idiot, I opted for a day-trip to London, primarily to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year photos at the Natural History Museum, which I hadn’t been to in at least twenty years.
The idiot part is primarily that I decided to walk there – from Euston to Natural History Museum. And back. That’s 7km each way, plus whatever else I wanted to do. I just thought “well, I can do 5km easily, so the other 2km will be easy” – forgetting that 2km is another mile-and-a-bit.
Of course, I managed it, and I enjoyed the exhibition – but I’d miscalculated a few other things along the way. I’d not realised that it was in the school holidays, and I didn’t think there’d be so many people and children going to a museum on the first really decent warm/sunny day of the year.
So, having walked there, it was then a case of moving slowly through a 40-minute queue to get in to the place, which did an excellent job of reminding me why I’ve never wanted children. The exhibition itself was good – but by then I didn’t want to spend too much more time in the area, there were just too many people and spawn around.
That decision made – and having acknowledged that I was rather more knackered than I’d expected – I opted for walking back to Euston (see, I said I was an idiot) rather than the extra bit of walking I’d planned, to go back to the South Bank as well. That’ll wait ’til I’m next in London, which is only a couple of weeks away anyway.
Another 7km did pretty much stuff me, though – I can’t deny it.
All told, Saturday involved walking no less than 21km (slightly over 13 miles) – and I knew I was planning to walk a fair bit more on Sunday (of which more in another post) which made it all even sillier.
It was a good day, and I’m glad I did it, but yeah, Saturday night was pretty painful. I just won’t learn…
2016 Q1
Posted: Fri 1 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Business, Car Repairs, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Weight Loss, Write More Leave a comment »So here we are, in April already. A quarter of the year gone.
The first three months have been fairly awkward and problematic in some ways, but all told it’s still been a success – although in some ways it’s been a case of looking at grey clouds and finding a silver lining. Work and so on have stayed stable, it’s just other non-work stuff that hasn’t gone as well.
The worst (or at least most frustrating) part has been the car – thankfully that now appears to be sorted, but it’s been an expensive quarter, with repeated re-visits to the garage, along with replacement parts and so on.
I did have plans for writing more and so on, but they haven’t materialised. I’ve done a couple of things and started with some ideas and the like, but the intended plan hasn’t happened. Hopefully the next three months will let me write more, if I’ve got the time and inspiration.
Health-wise, I’ve slacked off a lot on going to the gym and so on. I’ve had a bundle of colds and coughs throughout the last few months, and every time I’ve thought “Ok, that’s finally gone”, I’ve picked up another one. That’s not been fun, but there we go. Admittedly, a lack of gymmage hasn’t resulted in any weight gains – everything has stayed in exactly the same place it was while I was going to the gym regularly. That’s been another thing that’s not helped on the motivational front – if it’s not making any difference one way or t’other, it becomes less important to go.
I do need to get back to it, and doing other stuff as well – because I’m a loon, and have just signed up to the NSPCC’s challenge to walk/run (OK, walk) up the 38 floors of the Gherkin on Sunday 19th June. I must be fucking barmy. This is the kind of thing that happens when Marie Curie aren’t doing their 10km walks. I blame them. 🙂 That’s in ten weeks time, so I need to do some stuff pretty quickly…
Anyway, it’s been an interesting first three months of the year. There’s some interesting challenges coming up – not least that bloody Gherkin challenge – in the next three months, and I just hope it’s a bit more positively motivated than the first three have been.
Time will tell…