Just did something really good...!

Lunch was a pretty dull round of bread and cheese just now. Looked for the cookies and jaffa cakes and realised that the chicken and I ate the last ones yesterday.  Rooting around in a cupboard in found chocolate cornflake cakes which were damn close to their sell-by date of 226 July so I took one for the team and started to eat them. :-)

Customer service training need...

Yesterday, being a largely un-kept bank holiday Monday here in Scotland, found me on the phone to APC, a courier company, trying to arrange for the delivery of a package. (APC said they had tried to deliver it on Friday - if they did they must have gone to the wrong address).

The conversation I had with them went like this...

Me "Hi I'd like to arrange the redelivery of a package."

Spanish sounding man "Hood morning, aff you got dee consignment number?"

I read out what I supposed to be the correct number which was on the email they sent in the subjct line.

"No, no. Dat's not eet. Is a seven digit number."

I looked in an earlier email and found one.

"Five zeros five two."

Spanish sounding man, "No, is must be seven digits."

Me (losing the plot and regaining it), "That was seven....never mind. How about 0,0,0,0,0,5,2."

"Ah yes, dats eet. When would you like delivery?"

"This afternoon between 4 and 6 please."

Spanish chap, "I weel ask the manager."

"Thanks"

Piped music and three minutes later,

"We can't deliver it then."

"Why?"

"We're closed."

Sat Nav 2

Hot on the heels of Bossy Miss Google Maps in the last post....

I thought I had cracked how to use the Sat Nav function on my tablet. I was wrong.

Last Sunday I had to get to Anstruther, a small fishing town, for a sea-kayaking trip. Having never been there I thought I would use the tablet to help. The bossy voice began pretty well, telling me when and where to turn.

With fifteen minutes to go before I expected to be in Anstruther she told me to turn right into Kirk Brae and that I had arrived at my destination. I hadn't. I was in a small village called Ceres 15 miles from the sea.

I checked and found that the bossy voice had added an "interim destination"! Having carefully checked I tried again to get to Anstruther. This is what followed...

• I was taken to St Andrews (the wrong direction)
• I was told to turn left on to a road which was called Lamont Drive but was actually called Bridge Street
• It told me to turn right three times on to roads that were clearly in totally the wrong direction (by now I could see the sea)
• It told me that Anstruther, my destination, was a caravan park two miles south of St Andrews
• I argued with the voice
• The voice didn't listen
• I lost my temper with the voice
• I swore repeatedly at the voice which it ignored
• I made it to Anstruther 

Sat Nav 1

 A couple of weeks ago Mrs Blog and I were trying to get to Dalkeith. Knowing the name of  the street I needed to get to but not knowing the town that well I asked Mrs Blog to open up my tablet and check Google Maps. (A reasonable request in my view).

Mrs Blog decided to experiment with different colours, views and scales of the maps without actually intending to. After some unheated and blame-free exchanges between us, Mrs Blog finally got the map up and typed in the destination.

"I'll get the voice thing up as well," she said.

The voice thing turns Google Maps into a superior but tinny sounding woman who bosses you about when you drive.

"At the next roundabout take the last exit and go back the way you have come," she said.

Being in sight of a sign that said "Dalkeith" straight ahead I decided to challenge Mrs Blog on which destination she had typed in. After another calm exchange we decided that sense of smell was probably better than Google Maps.

We managed to find the place we were going to with little bother ten minutes later. Parked up, I checked Google Maps and found that Mrs Blog had tried to take us to Larkhall - a mere three hour drive in the wrong direction.