Treasure Island

This week's blog effort is a semi-serious one brought on by the arrival of this beautiful little traffic island at the end of Albert Street in Harrogate.  When I asked North Yorkshire County Council what the hell it was via Twitter they laughingly replied " Crossing put in to improve pedestrian crossing manoeuvres at location; funded thru area-specific highway improvement funds"!  Presumably this means it helps elderly and handicapped people by providing a refuge.  Why say something in 3 words when you can use 17?

The island is lovely don't you think? But look at where they built it - right in the middle of a traffic lane and they've not been arsed to sort out the road markings yet. The question is - will it be two narrower lanes or just one, thus causing traffic to back up Albert Street as is already evident?  They really are muppets.

Anyway, when the island was under construction (it took almost 5 weeks by the way!), I rang Harrogate Borough Council about it as I thought it had all the hallmarks of their logic and tomfoolery about it.  They referred me to North Yorkshire County Council with whom I've had several spats recently about wasting money and providing shit service to those who fund it.  I've had this a few times recently - being passed from pillar to post to find things out about councils so I have done a bit of research and in our lovely county there are no fewer than 8 district councils, and the mightily ineffective North Yorkshire County Council.  The District Councils are

• Craven District Council
• Hambleton District Council
• Harrogate Borough Council
• Richmondshire District Council
• Ryedale District Council
• Scarborough Borough Council
• Selby District Council
• York City Council

Now, all of these have expensive to run offices, often multi-sited and of course NYCC have a huge office in Northallerton and other premises in most NY towns.

I really fail to see why we need 2 tiers of local government and all the massive costs they bring - surely it is now time to have one council per county and ditch this huge cost - much of which is funded by us!

And while we're at it, there are something like 53 different police forces in the UK, again all with expensive head offices, all with 53 HR, Finance. Training and Admin functions, all doing the same thing but in splendid isolation and at great cost to the tax payer.  Why not have ONE national police force with a north and south regional office set-up and let's bank the savings for something useful.

No private sector business that I know of has such a ridiculous structure as local councils and the police.  The ambulance service went some way towards this a few years ago and consolidated the individual county services into regional ones.  Judging by the number of ambulances flying around Harrogate it all seems to work so why can't councils and the police now take this lead?

I hate to see waste on this scale - every business I know is driving so hard to take cost out of their operations yet local government simply sails on using the same old fat structure that it has used for hundreds of years - time for a change I think?

Anyway, why did the chicken perform a pedestrian crossing manoeuvre?  Answers on a postcard to North Yorkshire County Council please

God Botherers

Well, we had some last Sunday and now we have another strain on our street - judging by their regularity here they must think the residents of Knox House Farm are easy-pickings.  Of course they never knock at my door - the sign I placed there years ago is simple but effective. It simply says "No Sales People or God Botherers".  They make it up the drive but see the sign and beat a hasty retreat.  In some ways it is a bit disappointing as I enjoy the banter with them but overall they are very dull people who probably had the wrong sort of toys when they were younger.

The Jehovah's Witness versions are the worst - they are almost always accompanied by children who would no doubt rather be at home with their PS2's or Barbie Hospital (blood donor ward).  When we lived back in Cumbria, we had JW's at our door on Christmas morning - they don't celebrate Christmas apparently. I took this as a massive affront to my privacy - the fact that anyone should disturb me on Christmas morning was bad enough but they came with the intention of preaching to me which is unforgivable.  Anyway, they didn't hang around long after I told them to fuck off.

What I don't understand is why they think they have to share their religion with people. I happen to like Rugby League but I don't go door-to-door to try and convert other people to it.  I like pork pies but I don't shove them down everyone throats. Just my own. Do they think they are doing society some sort of favour by pissing people off on a Sunday?  I wonder if they measure their conversion rate - how many converts do they get per hundred doors knocked? 

Anyway, I think it's cranky and weird and very old-fashioned.  I've nothing against religion or those who choose to go to church but I won't have varying versions of their religions rammed down my throat. Now, if it were pork pies.......

Alan

The Opticians

OK here we go for rant number one.  Last Thursday I was booked in to Boot's Opticians in Harrogate for my annual contact lens check.  They check my eyesight and keep showing me pictures of lovely Labradors in their guide dog catalogue which I will inevitably need at some point.

So, the appointment was for 9am and I turned up at 0855 hours and was told to sit and wait which I duly did.  There were about 5 staff milling around the reception desk and 0900hrs came and went.  Then, out pops an optician. Does she call my name for my appointment? No, she gathers the staff up and proceeds to deliver a sales review of the previous day and spell out what their targets are for that day.  As if that wasn't bad enough, the "team-talk" included this little gem - "yea, we had loads of kids in yesterday but we still managed a 73% conversion rate". Well, at that moment the penny dropped - I wasn't a "patient" or a client of 20 years with Boots, I was merely a factor in their conversion rate equation.  I assume from this that their "conversion rate" is the number of mugs who actually buy stuff divided by the number of unwitting members of the public who visit Boot's under the misapprehension that they give a shit about anyone's eyesight.

There then followed a review of the sales and the targets. If I was a Specsavers employee who had popped in to collect my prescription at the Pharmacy counter I'm sure I'd have loved to know what Boot's revenue targets were!

Anyway, at 0907hrs, after being in the store for a whole 12 minutes, I was finally ushered into the consulation room and seen by the optician who was delivering the motivational sales talk. Except that it wasn't motivational, it was delivered with all the feeling of someone who wanted to be an optician but had morphed into a sales person.

Needless to say I was not impressed by this and have now taken my business elsewhere - M Proctor is a fantastic local business which is who I've gone to now.  As well as me feeling like I'm not just someone in the "conversion rate" equation, they are considerably cheaper than Boot's so I think Boot's have unwittingly done me a favour.  I've written to Boot's head office and had a reply saying they will get the practice manager in Harrogate to investigate and get back to me; but isn't that like marking your own homework?  Surely he or she will have a vested interest in defending their staff?  Anyhow, we will see what develops.

This is why I've started the blog really - I just cannot see why in this economic climate, why this sort of thing happens and I feel compelled to share this sort of stuff.  To keep a customer of 20 years standing (or a customer of any kind) hanging around while they talk sales figures is deplorable and to me should have been done in private.  I've encountered this sort of thing before in hotels and restaurants where you can see their sales targets when the kitchen door opens.  I'm not naive enough to think most businesses don't have sales targets for they are an essential part of life for any organisation but I don't ever want to feel I'm part of them!

So, there we are, rant over - I will keep you posted on developments

Feel free to comment and add your own grumps. We're all in this together folks

Alan