Tesco’s woes

Tesco is having a tough time.  Of course, it’s difficult to have any sympathy for this once almighty company, for all sorts of reasons.  But the new boss, Dave Lewis, faces a barrage of bad news.  Falling profits are put down to the competition from the discounters, and affect all the biggest supermarkets.  But then came news that the company’s accounts were decidedly dodgy.  It’s not clear whether this was deliberate fiddling of the books, or a huge mistake by the finance people at Tesco and by their auditors.  Most recently, they had to take delivery of another private jet, after Lewis had decided to sell all the company’s planes.  Does the problem extend beyond head office?

I used to go to my local Tesco every Friday with a friend.  It had to be Tesco, she wouldn’t go anywhere else, and she was the one with the car.  Then my increasing disability made the trips impossible, so I order online.  Most of the time that works well.  I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, that the order is filled at my local store.  Now it seems that they can’t get my cigarette order right.  A couple of weeks ago I got none at all, on the excuse that they had no suitable alternative to the brand I’d ordered.  I spoke on the phone to the lady who is the local dot com manager (the delivery driver gave me her number).  She was very helpful, it was sorted and I got them delivered the next day.  This Friday it happened again – only half my order for fags delivered.  I couldn’t get hold of the lady I’d spoken to before, so I rang the call centre.  A very polite young man left me hanging on the phone for ten minutes, until I gave up in disgust.  I rang again, and eventually was called by the store.  All sorted – but again it involved me putting in another order on the promise that the £6 delivery fee would be refunded.  And I was phoned again on Saturday morning by the friendly manager to tell me that my fags would be delivered by her colleague personally on his way home from work – because there were to be no normal deliveries that day as the van had broken down.  Yes, “the van”, the only one they’ve got.  The reason for this problem with the cigarettes, I’m told, is that the staff do the picking early in the morning before the cigarette delivery has been made.  Sorry, I don’t buy that.

Have I just been unlucky?  Or do I look at another supermarket?  Not Asda, they don’t carry stuff upstairs, and I live in a first-floor flat.  Sainsburys?  Morrisons?  I don’t know.

The taxis that you can’t use

I’m disabled.  Not obviously so.  I have severe back problems and leg problems.  I can stand, but not for long.  I can walk, but not very far.  I don’t use a wheelchair or electric buggy, and I don’t have a car, so if I go out it has to be in a friend’s car or a taxi.  So, today I had a hospital appointment, and I did what I usually do – booked a taxi to get me there.  No problems with that; the firm uses ordinary cars, and I always sit in the front seat.  Appointment over (don’t have to go again for 3 months) I walked to the nearby bus-stop and got the bus to the interchange (the bus station, as it used to be called).  There I walked down to the taxi rank.  But something had changed.  The firm which has the monopoly there uses taxi cabs, and they had brand new ones.  They look like vans, can take quite a few people, and if you’re a wheelchair user they are no doubt excellent, just push the chair up a ramp through the rear door.  But for me they’re impossible.  You have to crouch and step up at the same time; I can’t.  The last time I tried it I fell.  And the stool they offer you is no help at all.  So I asked if I could sit in the front next to the driver.  Okay.  But that was no good either.  I could climb into the seat, just, but there was no room for my legs (which are long as well as painful).  The seat didn’t go back, said the driver.  So I had to get out and look at the next taxi in the queue – same problem.  I had to walk away, while the drivers chuckled to each other at this peculiar person.  I had to walk painfully down the road a hundred yards or so to where there was a bench and a car could stop, and phone my regular taxi firm.

The useless taxi cabs no doubt comply with disability regulations.  But those regulations don’t take into account the non-obvious disabilities which afflict many people, particularly the elderly.

Internet people

It’s more than a decade since I first got a computer and an internet connection.  I was just beginning to get interested in my family history, and I found a user group on the subject.  I don’t know if they still exist; in joining it you were making your email address available to everyone on the site.  I asked a question.  Up popped a chap who clearly thought of himself as the expert on the subject and I got a little lecture.  A few posts into the conversation I got a rude response from him and replied with mild sarcasm.  I was stunned to get a personal email which was so abusive I could only conclude that the guy had a screw loose.  The man wasn’t hiding his name – couldn’t on that site – and anyway he wasn’t interested in anonymity.  He wanted it to be known that he was the expert.  I learned from others that he turned up at the various family history and genealogy events, pontificating.  And yet he felt able to email things to strangers which, if said in person, would get him a punch in the mouth or a law suit.  I didn’t respond to that one.  But a few days later I got another such email from a different inhabitant of the site, even more vicious and vitriolic than the first chap’s.  I have to reiterate that I had done nothing to provoke all this.  This second message was from a retired academic who, others on the site said, was “losing his way”.

At the time I didn’t put this abuse down to the fact that I am female.  That didn’t occur to me.  I decided that these were men for whom the internet provided a platform, a place where they could safely air their egos.  Only now do I think my sex may have had something to do with it.  I was answering back not just experts (self-styled) but male experts.

Forward to 2007 / 08.  Our local paper set up a website, separate from it’s newspaper site, which was meant to build into a kind of community forum, with different boards for different parts of the city and so on.  That never quite happened, but the main board was well used, and moderated.  A prize of £100 per month was offered for the best contributions – I won it once.  But from the outset there were problems.  A few people quickly came to dominate the site.  Whatever subject someone raised, they had the definitive answer.  Disagreement wasn’t countenanced; they were always right.  These poseurs drove away people who came onto the site for the first time.  And it got worse when the moderation died away, and was non-existent out of office hours.  You could come to it in the morning and find it clogged with abuse and foul-mouthed mischief.  I stopped using the site altogether, and not long after it was closed down.  The lesson of that was clear; moderation, preferably pro-active, is vital if the trolls are not to take over.

On Facebook a year or so ago I stopped following the posts of a political programme because one man had decided to target every comment I made.  He affected ultra-right wing views and was subtly abusive (no bad language) to people who were not, especially me.  I complained but was told, more or less, that they couldn’t do anything because he was entitled to his views.  Another case of a sick individual destroying the freedom of speech of others.  And, more than likely, of a man who couldn’t stand a woman disagreeing with him.

On this blog (and on another which I run on an arcane subject) I moderate all comments.  I reject not only anything abusive or foul-mouthed, but also anything illiterate or which adds nothing to the discussion.  It’s easy enough to do that with a blog, but wearing when it becomes the target for some twisted person who knows you’ll have to read it before you can reject.

There’s a great deal of discussion at the moment about internet trolls, and especially about prominent women who have been subjected to horrifying campaigns of abuse.  There’s no need to air it again here.  My point is that it began early on the internet, and has got worse.  And there seems to be no viable way of dealing with it unless websites have impossibly large numbers of moderators.

The BBC – now the political bias is obvious

Many thousands gathered in London today to join those who have marched all the way from Jarrow to, as they put it, “save the NHS”.  It’s a cause which you may or may not agree with.  But you won’t know about it at all if you rely on the BBC (or, I gather, Sky) for your news.  They have quite deliberately chosen to ignore it.  I only know about it because of Twitter.  The BBC has form on this, of course.  And there are those who say that it’s not political; that protests and demos are only newsworthy if they become violent.

That would be bad enough, if true.  But it isn’t.  When public sector workers went on strike for a day recently, that was covered.  So there is no escaping the conclusion that someone at the BBC has taken a deliberate decision, and issued orders to the effect, that no protests or demonstrations against government measures or intentions are to be covered.  This, remember, is a public service broadcaster paid for by a household tax known as the licence fee.

You don’t care?  Or you’re a right-winger who thinks that they’re correct not to cover these dreadful lefties?  Then you are very foolish.  Democracy demands unbiased reporting of news.

Those WW1 commemorations

I’m on strike tonight.  I’m not watching all that commemoration coverage.  It’s certainly not out of disrespect.  I know a great deal about the Great War.  I just finished reading a book about POWs in that war.  I’ve preached Remembrance Sunday sermons.  But today I feel bullied by the BBC.

I’ve heard snippets, of course, that’s unavoidable.  And the thought of royals reading speeches (badly) and politicians slithering around looking for personal advantage turns my stomach.  Cameron apparently said that the war was fought for “British values”.  It seems they don’t teach history at Eton.  His trying to make himself look good and put Ed Miliband in the wrong with the trick with the wreath cards was despicable.  And what is making it all far worse for me is that the BBC’s coverage is fronted by Huw Edwards, who is apparently this generation’s Richard Dimbleby.  If only!  I don’t mind his Welsh accent; although anyone with the equivalent English regional accent (think Liverpool or Brum or Hull) wouldn’t get even a sniff at the job.  But is inability to read the autocue without saying, “er” every other sentence makes him a very poor newsreader.  To make him the voice of our great state occasions is symptomatic of what’s wrong with the BBC.

So I’m keeping away from it all.  I will continue to listen to that excellent 1914: Day by Day by Margaret Macmillan on Radio 4.  But I will not change my Facebook status, turn my lights out (and then take a photo of the candle to brag about it on Facebook): and I will not be bullied into compliance.

Get that website right

We were told recently that part of Marks & Spencer’s poor performance in the past year was problems with its website.  I went on it a couple of months ago looking for cheap t-shirts or similar tops.  I found what I wanted – but when I tried to buy them I was told they were out of stock.  That doesn’t encourage you to return.  Bon Marche, on the other hand, was a quick and straightforward way of shopping.

It’s obvious that if you’re shopping online you want as easy an experience as possible.  Whatever else I think of Tesco, their Tesco.com website is quick and simple to use.  I would have said the same about Holland & Barrett until today.  I use H&B because they’re the only source of something I depend on.  Until today I could order quite easily without having to register.  Now I have to register; and the website, although whizzy and colourful, has major flaws, which someone should have spotted.  I managed to put my order in, but it was a bit of a struggle.

I shop online because I have to.  Many more people are doing the same because it’s easier than trudging round the shops.  The companies which get their websites right will make the profits.

 

Dodgy recipes

I’ve collected dozens of recipe books over the years, but I still look on the web for fresh ideas.  The other day I saw a recipe for soda bread in the Telegraph; a recipe by Stevie Parle, who contributes to the paper a lot.  I decided to make it.  But that meant spending money on the ingredients, including buttermilk.  Not to worry, it sounded good, and it should be trustworthy, right?  After all, there was a photograph of the finished article.  But as I was making it I knew it wasn’t going to work.  There was far too much liquid.  I checked.  Yes, I was following the recipe correctly.  Perhaps if I just piled the very wet mixture onto the baking tray it would be all right.  But no, it’s inedible and went in the bin.

It’s not the first time this has happened.  You print out a recipe, buy the ingredients and then start to worry.  It doesn’t sound right.  And it isn’t.  A beetroot chocolate cake which could never have worked; a risotto which was impossible.  So how does this happen?  When photos are included you have to assume that someone has tested the recipe, so the error has to be in the copying of the ingredients list.  Or did the cook write the recipe down incorrectly?  Who knows, but it’s annoying, expensive and a waste of time.

Scammers

Another day, another few scam phone calls.  This one, however, marked a new low.

01269 849064 was the number which came up (caller display is essential these days).  After some confusion an Asian voice replied, something about my broadband.  Now in the past, if I told the caller that I knew it was a scam, the call would immediately be cut.  Don’t waste your time was the instruction.  But the chap on the other end, instead of admitting defeat, was incredibly rude, and it was me who put the phone down.

I googled the number.  I thoroughly recommend doing that.  There are sites where you can report a scam number; but you’ll probably find that it’s already there, on a forum, where you can add your own comment.  This one is apparently a racket where they try to con you into downloading software.  Very often the line is silent when you answer – too many automatic random calls for the operators to answer – which accounts for the momentary confusion when I answered.  And as people become more aware of the scam and the calls are less successful, it seems that the operators are more frustrated.  Knowing they’re untraceable they feel free to be abusive.

Are people really so inattentive?

Ages ago I wrote a post about the weird experience I’d had with Tesco’s customer service department.  It was clear from the very first sentence (and, I would have thought, from the context of this blog itself) that I was not that department.  There was no possible resemblance.  Yet I got comments which assumed I was.  Dozens of them, complaining about over-charging or some such at “your store” and demanding that I rectify it.  I wrote another post pointing out the mistake, but it had no effect.  I had yet another comment today telling me to put something right.  I’ve given up and deleted the post.

I suppose what was happening was that people were googling on the phrase “Te… customer service” (I hesitate to write it in full), coming up with my post and not reading any further.  Yet to get as far as leaving a comment they had to have gone down to the bottom of the post.  I don’t get it.

PS:  The word “inattentive” in the title is a substitute for another word I originally wrote

Those scam deafness phone calls

I know, I’ve posted about this before.  But after reaching the end of my tether this morning, I’ve discovered something.

It started with an “international” call which I decided, unusually, to answer.  A woman with an Asian accent told me it was about Microsoft Windows.  I laughed, said, “Oh good, another scam”, and cut the call.  Then I got yet another call from an outfit which calls me almost every day, despite my telling them each time not to.  They call from a local number and give a slightly different variant of who they are each time.  That means I can’t report them through TPS because you need the company name.  It’s always to do with deafness, though.  And they always protest when I say it’s a scam.  I tell them I’m TPSed, but it makes no difference.  This morning the male caller was extremely rude when I challenged him.

So I rang my phone provider, KC.  The woman I spoke to had had one of these calls herself!  The number, beginning with 29, is a leased line, she said.  Companies can lease the number and make calls from anywhere in the country which will show up as local.  They go through the phone book and don’t worry about TPS, because they know they can’t be recorded.  She didn’t hold out much hope that KC could do anything about it.

These outfits make a profit or they wouldn’t be in business.  And that means that they manage to dupe lots of people; and in this case it will be mainly elderly people.  I know the government can’t do much about the scammers abroad, but there is surely a way of stopping the thieves here.