Queue Rage

Last week I was moved to a higher state of annoyance by people in queues.  It happens regularly but this incident took the biscuit. It took place at the Tesco on Knaresborough Road where I’d been to fill up with fuel and was in a bit of a hurry to get to a 6pm appointment.  As I went inside to pay there were only 3 people in front of me including a lady who had a huge basket of shopping so to speed things up I joined the other queue which contained a woman who only had some chocolate, a loaf of bread, and some milk – easy I thought, this will be quick!  Bollocks, the other woman who had the well-stacked basket was probably home and had her tea cooked and watched News at Ten before the pathetic arse of a woman at my till had found her Tesco Clubcard.

Picture the scene, the cashier becomes available, arse woman steps forward and places her 3 items in the basket, cashier scans them, cashier says “£3.58 please”.  All good so far.  She has her purse, opens it and gets her bank card out (now this in itself is bad enough and could be the subject of a whole separate rant but I’ll let it go today) and just as she is about to pop it into the card machine the cashier then starts of the chain of events which tipped things over the edge.  “Do you have a Tesco Clubcard”?  Now, I don’t know about you, but all my cards are in my wallet so that I can get them out when I need them but oh no, arse woman had hers somewhere else. At first I thought that somewhere else was behind the clock on the mantelpiece at home but she seemed convinced she had it in her bag somewhere.  She started to search the bag, out came a bottle of water, car keys, mobile phone, a book, several pens, 2 cereal bars and another purse.  Now, bear in mind that the purchase was £3.58, how desperate for Tesco Clubcard points must this woman have been?  I’ve no idea what one Clubcard point is worth but this woman clearly thought that the points from her £3.58 transaction was going to be life-changing and she was determined to hold up a queue of people to find her card.  She took out the other purse and searched through that, no Clubcard.  She then went back into the bag and it wasn’t there.  There then begun a search of the side-pockets of the bag at which point she turned to me and said “I know it’s here somewhere”.  Now this action alone made her fair game for a slap but the fact that she laughed made me want to reach for her bag and tip the contents on the floor and pour the milk she was trying to buy all over them.  Eventually she found the Tesco Clubcard and all was well.  Apart from my blood pressure

Why can’t people have their method of payment ready while they’re in the queue?  Is it a surprise to them that once they’ve got to the check out they’re going to have to pay for the goods?  For god’s sake, it’s not rocket science is it?

Taurus, the Bullshit

During a pit stop at Northampton Motorway Services this morning, I was sat having a coffee minding my own business when a woman came and sat at the table next to me. Nothing odd so far. She was soon joined by another woman who she clearly hadn’t met before, but had arranged to meet there.

The woman who joined her (who was very gobby) said, “Hi, you must be Jane, I’m Sarah”. She then dropped the bombshell, “it’s so cold today – I’m a Pisces which is one of the sun signs so I don’t do cold”.  The woman she was meeting clearly noticed me look up and shake my head in bewilderment and obviously joined me in the same thought. Nutter.  She then proceeded to ask the other woman what star sign she was.

I didn’t hang around long enough to discover if it was a job interview or some sort of meeting but what a way to endear yourself to a stranger – by assuming they give a shit what astrological star sign you are.  If it had have been me interviewing her and she’d come out with that I’d probably have legged it.

This got me thinking, so I looked up my horoscope for today from one of the hundreds of sites on the internet.  I quote “The world seems to be placing obstacles in your way to test your dedication to a cause. Although you could be hitting brick wall after brick wall, you should take encouragement from scaling each one. Someone close may be facing similar challenges; perhaps joining forces could be the answer. Not only could you support one another but perhaps form a lasting partnership. Love may blossom in this period too, and it might come in an unexpected way. It’ll pay to keep an open mind. “

Basically, every word is complete horse-shit and totally irrelevant.  None of it applies to me and I suspect if I checked my horoscope every day for a week it would be the same steaming pile of poo.  Why the hell do people take all this stuff so seriously? 

The number of people making a living from being “astrologers” is alarming – talk about money for nothing! But what of the people who rely on this shit to get them through the day and who actually let it control their lives? The word “crank” springs to mind.

I don’t know much about astrology but the fact that Venus has entered Aries doesn’t make me want to take more care over decisions which is what yesterday’s horoscope suggested. I take care over decisions every time, not because there may be strange activity in Uranus. Or anyone else’s anus. I just don’t get it. And I suspect Pisces woman didn’t get the job if the other woman’s face was anything to go by.

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