We are living in fear of the M&S mystery customer after failing a
question on both our first two visits. Had the customers asked the
actual questions they were supposed to, we may have had a chance! The
first one fell to me, an elderly lady asking for guacamole, which I
showed her.....NOT according to the form where I'd apparently NOT
explained which ham was in the deli deal!
Liam had the pleasure of the second one when, too his shame, he failed
to explain or upsell a promo deal that hadn't started yet! His psychic
powers once again letting him down.
Since this we have all been on tenterhooks every time a customer asks
for help to the point of getting annoying with our OTT customer service,
being as both the first 2 customers were elderly ladies we are targeting
geriatric customers, if they look confused all the better .... Liams
even offered to do their ironing.......but the thing is, now when a
customer interaction where I've been expressly helpful DOESN'T turn out
to be the M&S mystery shopper I feel cheated and cheap!
We had 3x 5 litre screenwashes out back so with 2 in one hand one in the
other I carried them out to the bunker, at the door I had to side step a
gentleman who upon seeing my hand full remarked in a very camp way,
“mmmm strong fingers” ! I believe myself to have gone beetroot red at
this stage and could think of absolutely nothing to say in response. I
only hope he wasn't the m&s mystery customer.
In the weird and wonderful world of bp S&V actions reveals that the
corkscrews allocated to M&S stores are in fact classed as, 'potential
offensive weapons'. I see this completely and imagine there are many
many admissions to A&E daily whereby the patient has had the top of his
head screwed off in an act of street brutality. “stand still you *******
I'm gonna unscrew your ********** head”
On opening up my most recent breakfast sausage muffin for purposes of
saucing, I discovered instead of the usual 4 halves spread sadly across
the muffin I in fact had 5! An extra for which I was not charged and,
fearing disciplinary action I promptly discarded the extra half. T'would
have been far too sausagey anyway.
I now worry however that some muffin customer somewhere will receive a
muffin with half a sausage short and unless they use at least 4 packets
of sauce the extra dryness of the muffin will seal their mouths shut for
several agonising minutes. At least they wont be in a position to
complain....
Imagine the casualty depts surprise if they get an unscrewed head
followed by a muffin glued mouth?
I Dream Again
There are many many people who believe there is hidden meaning in our dreams. A whole industry of books and magazines has built up around this supposed
phenomena. The strangest of your dreams can be explained by dream
experts to mean something completely different than the apparent theme.
Even the falling dream has an explanation although for the life of me i
can't remember what that might be.
Well anyway, after a dream I had, one I actually remembered when awake, I want to buy into all this tosh and have it explained because it sure as hell confused me.
Now this is 100% an actual dream and I can only wonder at its meaning...
Basically I get a job in a big house as an older woman's odd job guy, strange in itself as I have the odd job capabilities of your average mollusc. Now the lady in question is clearly an older woman but an attractive one and a feel of the dream is that this could be one of those dreams ....which, ahem, I have no difficulty understanding at all.... that make perfect sense, but as it transpires, it isn't and certainly doesn't.make any sense that is, what does transpire with an undercurrent of sexual chemistry, is that our lusty heroine asks me to mow the lawn, which of course as odd job man I am happy to do, she takes me to a shed, points out the sit on mower and leaves me to it. 5 minutes later I'm mowing the lawn sat on said mower which is, in fact, a like a small but perfectly formed..... boat! I kid you not, I spend a seeming eternity mowing the lawn in a bloody boat! Like Popeye the odd job man toot toot. So, dream readers, what does that mean then please? Am I perhaps suppressing a deep desire to sail the ocean waves or is that too literal?
Well anyway, after a dream I had, one I actually remembered when awake, I want to buy into all this tosh and have it explained because it sure as hell confused me.
Now this is 100% an actual dream and I can only wonder at its meaning...
Basically I get a job in a big house as an older woman's odd job guy, strange in itself as I have the odd job capabilities of your average mollusc. Now the lady in question is clearly an older woman but an attractive one and a feel of the dream is that this could be one of those dreams ....which, ahem, I have no difficulty understanding at all.... that make perfect sense, but as it transpires, it isn't and certainly doesn't.make any sense that is, what does transpire with an undercurrent of sexual chemistry, is that our lusty heroine asks me to mow the lawn, which of course as odd job man I am happy to do, she takes me to a shed, points out the sit on mower and leaves me to it. 5 minutes later I'm mowing the lawn sat on said mower which is, in fact, a like a small but perfectly formed..... boat! I kid you not, I spend a seeming eternity mowing the lawn in a bloody boat! Like Popeye the odd job man toot toot. So, dream readers, what does that mean then please? Am I perhaps suppressing a deep desire to sail the ocean waves or is that too literal?
The Candidate
With the hole now plugged I, and my fellow territory hsse champions, may
withdraw our offer of a safety huddle.....'spillages safety alert
no33'.... I am still willing however to fly to the gulf coast for bird
sponging duties. I'm good with birds and have my own drum of citra clean
ready, I could get through a fair few seagulls and....ummm... sea
pigeons in no time at all.(Someone might have to point out the ones that
are supposed to be black to prevent unfortunate over scrubbing)
I'm also very friendly with many Americans....in spite of my bp connections, they still talk to me.... and would be able to spread the bp message, "whats wrong little people, whats your problem,? Its a big bloody ocean isn't it?, lets get this nonsense sorted pronto I need a day off to go sailing.....not in this ocean i might add!"
Obviously my services would cost money and, with compensation costs rising daily, I have a second, cheaper,solution. Boy scouts, girl guides, brownies and cubs! Schools out for 6 weeks and they must have had their fill of jumble sales and helping old ladies, how about an American adventure instead?! Seaside camping, wildlife and free oil for their lamps! Brilliant. Convince them there's a badge in it as well and we wouldn't have to fork out a penny.
After all this becomes old news and things settle down I'd imagine bp will be in need of a new leader. A statesman like figure, gifted orator and all round good egg would steady the ship and I have to say I have been preparing my CV. I appreciate store manager to executive director would be a giant leap but why not? I'm a skilled SOC conversationalist and long term bp apologist...."look I'm sorry about your pay rise, the uniform, cost of petrol etc etc"
I'm also very friendly with many Americans....in spite of my bp connections, they still talk to me.... and would be able to spread the bp message, "whats wrong little people, whats your problem,? Its a big bloody ocean isn't it?, lets get this nonsense sorted pronto I need a day off to go sailing.....not in this ocean i might add!"
Obviously my services would cost money and, with compensation costs rising daily, I have a second, cheaper,solution. Boy scouts, girl guides, brownies and cubs! Schools out for 6 weeks and they must have had their fill of jumble sales and helping old ladies, how about an American adventure instead?! Seaside camping, wildlife and free oil for their lamps! Brilliant. Convince them there's a badge in it as well and we wouldn't have to fork out a penny.
After all this becomes old news and things settle down I'd imagine bp will be in need of a new leader. A statesman like figure, gifted orator and all round good egg would steady the ship and I have to say I have been preparing my CV. I appreciate store manager to executive director would be a giant leap but why not? I'm a skilled SOC conversationalist and long term bp apologist...."look I'm sorry about your pay rise, the uniform, cost of petrol etc etc"
Bibbie And Mr's Warsop
Without explanation the planned turn of 2010 change to our new training
supplier didn't happen. I can reveal now that the delay occurred due to
Bibbie and Jake! The powers that be could not decide on names for our
new training characters and so shelved the changeover while urgent
naming committees were initiated and long hours of discussion and debate
ensued.
Anyway, now at last the names have been chosen and we are green for go! Hurrah for Jake n' Bibbie. It is believed 'Jake' took the longest to choose as, obviously, Bibbie is so universal.
As you will see from your postcards, and boy haven't we had a lot? Bibbie and Jake are animated avatar type characters....Those of you not in store have missed out on this treat, virtually every morning we get a wish you were here postcard from Bibbie and Jake, I don't know where here is exactly but they love it! The postcards are a series of scenarios played out by Bibbie and Jake whereby one or the other needs help with the new system.
What worries me about all this is, a) they both seem equally confused, one day Bibbie asks Jake a dopey question the next Jake has (apparently) forgotten everything and consults Bibbie! and b) I fear with some considerable dread that when our people go online to train, Bibbie and Jake will be animated characters there to assist them! These could get a little tiresome and I for one don't want to be explaining to new starters why one is called Bibbie!
If they were going for an animated/avatar kind of thing why didn't they get one of those suits that capture live movement by a real person who then gets 'animated' on screen, they could then have used Mr's Warsop and Mike Read as our new training characters. I'd have dialled in to see that alone!
I fully support the idea of an animated Mr's Warsop guiding us to a training utopia and will be utilising a suggestion box should the new web site have one. Just think, if it worked out we could roll with it and have animated store managers on conference calls! Brendan from Bedworth for example is a very physical communicator and this is lost on a conference call, mike o has to keep checking he is awake, with an animated Brendan this would be unnecessary as he would be able to jabber away complete with his usual array of hand movements! (For those of you who don't know Brendan imagine Buzz Lightyear doing Oragami without any actual paper)
Of course animation doesn't come cheap but computer animation is cheaper AND we could do it ourselves, as with anything computer related we'd just pass it to Calum! I'm willing to bet he already has an animated Dawn with which to navigate the Fourways back office system.
( those of you on other territories or departments will have your very own Calum from Fourways)
Anyway, now at last the names have been chosen and we are green for go! Hurrah for Jake n' Bibbie. It is believed 'Jake' took the longest to choose as, obviously, Bibbie is so universal.
As you will see from your postcards, and boy haven't we had a lot? Bibbie and Jake are animated avatar type characters....Those of you not in store have missed out on this treat, virtually every morning we get a wish you were here postcard from Bibbie and Jake, I don't know where here is exactly but they love it! The postcards are a series of scenarios played out by Bibbie and Jake whereby one or the other needs help with the new system.
What worries me about all this is, a) they both seem equally confused, one day Bibbie asks Jake a dopey question the next Jake has (apparently) forgotten everything and consults Bibbie! and b) I fear with some considerable dread that when our people go online to train, Bibbie and Jake will be animated characters there to assist them! These could get a little tiresome and I for one don't want to be explaining to new starters why one is called Bibbie!
If they were going for an animated/avatar kind of thing why didn't they get one of those suits that capture live movement by a real person who then gets 'animated' on screen, they could then have used Mr's Warsop and Mike Read as our new training characters. I'd have dialled in to see that alone!
I fully support the idea of an animated Mr's Warsop guiding us to a training utopia and will be utilising a suggestion box should the new web site have one. Just think, if it worked out we could roll with it and have animated store managers on conference calls! Brendan from Bedworth for example is a very physical communicator and this is lost on a conference call, mike o has to keep checking he is awake, with an animated Brendan this would be unnecessary as he would be able to jabber away complete with his usual array of hand movements! (For those of you who don't know Brendan imagine Buzz Lightyear doing Oragami without any actual paper)
Of course animation doesn't come cheap but computer animation is cheaper AND we could do it ourselves, as with anything computer related we'd just pass it to Calum! I'm willing to bet he already has an animated Dawn with which to navigate the Fourways back office system.
( those of you on other territories or departments will have your very own Calum from Fourways)
The World 'Online'
I'm worried about the online security of our Bunzl accounts....it
doesn't keep me awake at night but its a niggle none the less....My
worry is that our accounts could be compromised based on our, far from
secure, account details.
The account name being more or less the site number with the password being those reversed hardly seems fail proof to me.
Hackers abound on the internet many of them able to crack complex codes, I fear that Bunzls would be child's play and therefore our consumable supply network would be at the mercy of malicious miscreants. Fair enough they're usually interested in bigger game than jumbo toilet rolls and hot food bags but nonetheless we should be wary.
I envisage turning up to work to find a Bunzl delivery spilling back on to the forecourt with oodles of consumable stock over ordered to excess and barriers aplenty forming trip hazards to one and all.
What if said hackers go mad with my account and order several of everything that I don't need and wont run out of until 2014?...... Hang on a minute that's exactly what my management team order NOW.....o.k. panic over, the hackers couldn't possibly order worse!
Anybody need any suspension files? no? Forecourt towels? no? years supply of Jumbo, yet see through, toilet roll?
The account name being more or less the site number with the password being those reversed hardly seems fail proof to me.
Hackers abound on the internet many of them able to crack complex codes, I fear that Bunzls would be child's play and therefore our consumable supply network would be at the mercy of malicious miscreants. Fair enough they're usually interested in bigger game than jumbo toilet rolls and hot food bags but nonetheless we should be wary.
I envisage turning up to work to find a Bunzl delivery spilling back on to the forecourt with oodles of consumable stock over ordered to excess and barriers aplenty forming trip hazards to one and all.
What if said hackers go mad with my account and order several of everything that I don't need and wont run out of until 2014?...... Hang on a minute that's exactly what my management team order NOW.....o.k. panic over, the hackers couldn't possibly order worse!
Anybody need any suspension files? no? Forecourt towels? no? years supply of Jumbo, yet see through, toilet roll?
Roadkill
Slumped in front of the telly in that zombie like state familiar to any
4am riser, I happened to find myself watching River Cottage. For those
unfamiliar with the show, a chef called Hugh Fittingly Wittering (or
something like that ) takes on a cottage in the country where he lives
off the land raising his own animals and growing stuff, which he then
shows us how to cook in weird and wonderful ways.
I don't know why I was watching it exactly as I'm highly unlikely to raise my own pigs here in central Birmingham, I'm sure the neighbour would take issue with the noise for one thing, mind you bearing in mind she is known as the foghorn, perhaps she'd not even notice? Anyway those recipes are unlikely to get tried round our house but I could, I suppose, have a go at today's, which involved fresh roadkill.....
Roadkill he drove around until he FOUND, I should point out. I very much doubt channel 4 allow their presenters to be filmed hunting down a nice juicy pheasant in their 4x4s, although it would make for gripping tv! I hasten to add for those of you thinking the worst, when I say used, he didn't stir fry the roadkill or anything like that, marinading it fiorst in m&s sweet chilli, he actually used the carcass to bait an eel trap in the river, it was the eels he then cooked......mmmm eels fed on nice fresh roadkill, tasty!.....
As I watched him driving round the country lanes in search of the roadkill , I thought how much easier it would have been round Warwick,where not a mile goes by without some (usually large) wild beasty being pasted to the tarmac. Removing them
would be no problem long as you've a nice flat spade in yer boot. Soon have it scraped free of the tarmac.Not sure how the eels'd respond to pancaked pheasant but what the hey........
Surprisingly however, the road kill around Warwick never includes rabbits of which there is an abundance, I'd have to assume the little blighters are too busy engaging in sexual intercourse to cross roads ergo getting pancaked........ Btw, if we are at it like rabbits what are rabbits at it like I wonder?.........
An animal (bird) in ample quantities of deadness is the pheasant which, must surely, be the dumbest of all creatures? How they manage to stay alive long enough to create baby pheasants is beyond me?..... "hey baby how's about you and I get to makin some new pheasants huh?”.....screeechhhhhhh THUD .........
I spotted a plump badger on the way here this morning I might do a nice eel pie for Mr's Me from Guyscliffe later. I hope the bugger fits in the boot and really is dead! I'd hate to be half way to Birmingham and an angry badger suddenly wakes up to wreak havoc in my motor vehicle, its bad enough keeping the car on the road when your trying to swot a wasp or something so I'd rather not wrestle resurrected roadkill. Its probably even against some obscure bp health and safety rule.
I don't know why I was watching it exactly as I'm highly unlikely to raise my own pigs here in central Birmingham, I'm sure the neighbour would take issue with the noise for one thing, mind you bearing in mind she is known as the foghorn, perhaps she'd not even notice? Anyway those recipes are unlikely to get tried round our house but I could, I suppose, have a go at today's, which involved fresh roadkill.....
Roadkill he drove around until he FOUND, I should point out. I very much doubt channel 4 allow their presenters to be filmed hunting down a nice juicy pheasant in their 4x4s, although it would make for gripping tv! I hasten to add for those of you thinking the worst, when I say used, he didn't stir fry the roadkill or anything like that, marinading it fiorst in m&s sweet chilli, he actually used the carcass to bait an eel trap in the river, it was the eels he then cooked......mmmm eels fed on nice fresh roadkill, tasty!.....
As I watched him driving round the country lanes in search of the roadkill , I thought how much easier it would have been round Warwick,where not a mile goes by without some (usually large) wild beasty being pasted to the tarmac. Removing them
would be no problem long as you've a nice flat spade in yer boot. Soon have it scraped free of the tarmac.Not sure how the eels'd respond to pancaked pheasant but what the hey........
Surprisingly however, the road kill around Warwick never includes rabbits of which there is an abundance, I'd have to assume the little blighters are too busy engaging in sexual intercourse to cross roads ergo getting pancaked........ Btw, if we are at it like rabbits what are rabbits at it like I wonder?.........
An animal (bird) in ample quantities of deadness is the pheasant which, must surely, be the dumbest of all creatures? How they manage to stay alive long enough to create baby pheasants is beyond me?..... "hey baby how's about you and I get to makin some new pheasants huh?”.....screeechhhhhhh THUD .........
I spotted a plump badger on the way here this morning I might do a nice eel pie for Mr's Me from Guyscliffe later. I hope the bugger fits in the boot and really is dead! I'd hate to be half way to Birmingham and an angry badger suddenly wakes up to wreak havoc in my motor vehicle, its bad enough keeping the car on the road when your trying to swot a wasp or something so I'd rather not wrestle resurrected roadkill. Its probably even against some obscure bp health and safety rule.
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