Category: just-plain-life

The boiler room battle of the highstreet retailers

Boiler room

This is a aledged memo to Best Buy staff. Best buy is like PC World in the UK but much cheaper. Even if its not quite real (I certainly think it is) its not uncommon in retail. I remember working at Starbucks, Showcase Cinemas and a few other retailers and having very simular type advice from managers and head office memos. A little while ago Best Buy also got into trouble recently for this and this last year.
Enjoy the “secret to screw you” memo, the boiler room style. Don't forget to check out the comments too.

1) Introduce the PSP (product service plan) in your presentation. Do not wait till the end.

Ex.
Sales Associate: I understand your daughter is going off to college, and while she'll be away we offer a protection plan that will cover anything that goes wrong with her computer/laptop.
Customer: No, I'm not interested

SA: Well it's something that you really should look into. Because if anything were ever to go wrong with your daughters computer she would have to take it in to be repaired. To give you an estimate, we charged $60/hr to decide what is wrong with it and $80/hr to fix it not including additional parts that may be needed.

C: I really don't need that, doesn't the computer come with a warranty.

S: Well that's a good question. This computer comes with a 6 month warranty but does not cover parts. Know here is a side by side comparison of what we cover and what the manufacturer covers.( hand customer comparison sheet and fill it out in front of him/her).

C: Ok, but I'm really not interested I just want the computer.

S: Are you sure, because you are really passing up a great deal here, if something ever happens while your daughter is away she could have no computer for up to a month.

C:No, I'm sure.

*1*At this time make sure to sell at least 3 accessories and if it is a laptop make sure to offer a bundle deal and a Platinum PSP**

*2*Once you have successfully added at least 3 accessories to the sale take the customer to a mobile register away from the floor traffic.**

*3*Since you Have been unsuccessful selling the Service Plan, Have another associate go with you to “help you” ring up the sale.**

*4*The other associate will help you tag team the customer. The other associates job at this point is to point out how amazing the computer is and what a great deal it is. Once you scan the computer/laptop the Kiosk will ask you if the customer wants the Service Plan. The accompanying sales associate will say, “hey did 'Joe' tell you about the Service Plan that covers anything that may go wrong with your computer…?**

*5* If your accompanying associate is unable to get the Service Plan then you must say, “I'm sorry I'm new here and there seems to be something wrong with my kiosk, I'll be right back with my supervisor and he will be able to fix it.”**

*6* You return with your Supervisor, and now You, the accompanying associate and your supervisor Tag Team the Customer Once again until the Service Plan is accepted by the Customer.**

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Dont panic, london on alert once again…

Police on the streets
3 blasts on the tube and 1 on a bus, yes its certainly sounds like a copy cat of two thursdays ago (7/7). This time no one is hurt and someone has been arrested. Londoners react with the usual groan and not again. But then again, maybe its a chance to go home early? The war of terror is still a thought in the back of peoples minds. Lets hope tomorrow brings a better day…

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Harry Potter madness starts today?

Tesco struggle to keep up with the demand
I went down to my local Tesco for some quick midnight shopping and ended up snapping some pictures of the chaos which was named Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I believe about 100 people turned up and queue just to get there hands on the either of the two versions (well different jacket designs) which were published and released today. I have no problem with this kinda of crazyness, I have queued to be first on a few things in my past but why any parent would drag there kids along at midnight is beyond me.

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As the police request for media of the blasts…

No to terrorism

…bloggers, grassroot journalist and the cameraphone carrying public can be proud of the great work they have done. Not only some of the best pictures and videos of the tragedy could also be used for evidence in capturing the actual people who took part. Like Dan Gillmor, I turned to the BBC then the guardian then to the blogosphere, wikinews and google news.

Some of the highlights of the terriable tragedy,

Flickr: Photos on day of bombing in London – Flickr becomes a great resource for the latest pictures.

Wikinews: Coordinated terrorist attack in London – Collaborative news finally starting to work

LA Times on cameraphone coverage of London bombings, indeed the watershed moment in the history of media journalism.

Forbes interviewing Adam Stacey about his natrual reaction to film and take pictures from the choas underground.

Some signs, large media is starting to get the future picture of breaking news and the longevity of such terriable stories.Public provides new dimension to media coverage by the guardian.Mobiles capture blast aftermath and lots more by Jo Twist of the BBC.

Missing persons groups, although the BBC one will get more views flickr really allows for the interaction which could in the end be that life changing result.

The infinite space of the internet allows for voices which are sometimes hard to swallow and sometimes unvalued voices which the mainstream media wouldnt be interested in. For another example of this, I recieved a Spanish Trackback on my blog entry (sarah tried to translate, but found her spanish tougue a little missing). Its really intereting to hear from other countries besides america what they thought of the attacks. And it would be great to hear what the people of madrid (or even spain) thought of the attacks in light of there own attacks last year.

Everyone can take the opportunity read and write no matter how small there involvement but not only that do it on there own terms. My wife gave an telephone interview to her local paper back in Racine (near chicago) where her parents still live. However the Journal times misquoted and screwed my wife over for the story they wanted to write. Nothing new, I hear you say but in this new world Sarah can have her say and call them on the crap there writing it in a way publicly which was never heard of. And even if things do kinda of work out but not quite Sarah can keep them on there toes.

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In Case of Emergency, call ICE

A Cambridge-based paramedic has launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones. Titled the “In Case of Emergency (ICE)” campaign.

The idea is that you store the word “ICE” in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted “In Case of Emergency”. In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It’s so simple that everyone can do it. For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc.

Simple and effective… but I decided to added 3 ice's with a combination of home and mobile telephone numbers (defaults set to mobile). Then add how there related to me in the last name section of the contact. So for example ICE1:wife, ICE2:parents, etc…

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London in choas after early morning blasts

London underground sign

Just one day after London winning the Olympic bid for 2012, London is in choas from power surges and explosives on buses and its still only 1030. The underground has been shutdown and there are reports of more explosions on other buses.

The aftermath of a bus bomb

Its now 1112 and another bus bomb has been confirmed. Almost everyone is saying this is a terriost attack of some kind. Blair is going to make a live announcement at noon from the gleneagle, Scotland. No one quite knows whats happening but its certain people are quite calm and walking around trying to call friends and family on a well congested mobile network. Theres also talk that some mobile phone operators shuting down normal calls. The police reckon there have been in total 6 blasts and there may be more to come. Theres also now talk about Train stations in Swindon, Bristol, Brighton being closed and cleared just in case. All bus in central London have been stopped and doubled checked.

map of blasts in London

Ok at 1129, a BBC security journalist (Frank Gardner?) is claiming they have evidance to say Al Qaida are to blame for these attacks on London. I believe just around this time Cobra came into effect.
Its 1202, and a shocked Tony Blair is on. Blair will be making his way to London within 2 hours. Talks about it being a terroist attack to go with the G8 summit, and how we will be defeating terroism. Back in London, all major buildings are in lock down.
1241 and its lots of talk and nothing much else – thank goodness! Flickr is doing a good job of displaying images of the media coverage. Tag bomb and Bigdaddymerk. Google news is also doing quite well when the BBC news site was over flooded with traffic.

Technorati Screenshot

Its now late in the night and the nightmare day is almost over for now. For a complete review its best to look at the BBC's great coverage of all the attacks. I had a look around the web and the screen shot of technorati says it all. 9 out of 10 searches have been on the same terriable event. Interestingly enough BBC tried to cover a bit of what was going on online here.
I really hope someone is saving the screenshots of the indexes on some of the major news websites. MSNBC and CNN have gone so far over the top till I saw Fox news. Compare these indexes to the guardian, nytimes, washingtonpost and of the bbc. I'm glad to see Wikinews is actually creating a very good page about the London blasts.

Well all I personally can say is, tomorrow I will be returning to work and will happily ride the train, tube or a bus. This terriable event points to the fact we helped America in the unjust war were still involved in, although a majority of people here were against it. I do worry that there maybe more attacks like this, but I wont let the fear take over my life in this wonderful multicultural city. The people who planed and excuted the bombs are nut jobs and can claim to be of what ever religious background they want. But the fact remains that people who were killed and injured were of all faiths, religions, colour and background. Tomorrow we shall see both sides using the London blasts for there own means but also tomorrow we shall also see a city going back to work with its head up high. Yes I do sometimes love London.

Tomorrow has come and its already started. From a Fox news reporter, talking about yesterdays blasts.

…these people are, If necessary, prepared to spill Arab blood in addition to the blood of regular — of nonarab people living in London

This is not creepy, its truly wrong, twisted and sick! via Boingboing

Boing Boing pal Danny O Brien says, “Fox News doesn't think some Londoners are real Londoners. Here, an overexcited Fox News reporter catches himself dividing beleaguered Londoners into 'Arab' and 'regular' people. Creepy.” Link to video.

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Lloyd Hotel’s room upgrade

Lloyd Hotel's Type B roomLloyd Hotel's Type D room

Me and Sarah were upgraded to the best rooms in the whole hotel due to a leaky shower on Friday. The upgrade from a Type B room to a Type D room really was a great move, as you can see in the pictures above. The lloyd hotel has some stunning views from 6 floors up. I'll post the rest of the views from the oversized attic room soon as I make it home from Amsterdam.

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Stop playing silly twat with your newspaper, before I shove it where the sun does not shine…

My wonderful wife wrote a nice long piece about the twats on public transports. The other day I was on the way to Bromley South station and got on at Elephant and Castle, nice fast train going only to Herne Hill on the way. However the last train has no seats left except a couple dotted around. So I picked one of the six seaters (really its 3 seats facing the other 3) which was sandwiched between two people. Big mistake, I was then subjected to number 2 on Sarah's list. Well this woman had her bag there, so I stood at the middle point between all the seats and took my laptop out placed it next to her bag. That would be a clear sign that I'm going to sit there surely? Well no, by the time I had placed my bag on the rack and went back to open my laptop and sit down. Her bag was still there! And she did give me the whole dumbass look of 'oh I didn't realize you wanted to sit down'. In the end I stood there and managed to say the words excuse me without shouting or sounding too aggresive.

I have to add a point 4 to Sarahs list.
4. Public space hogging-twat. This person reads a broadsheet newspaper and chooses not to fold the paper. So even when your sitting there with a small book or pocketpc the newspaper pages obscure your view of the book or screen. This is seriously wrong! The other day, I was going home via Clockhouse and this man decided that blocking my laptop screen was an amusing game worth playing with me. Rather than play his stupid game, I switch the laptop into tablet mode which took him by suprise and wiped that stupid twatty smile off his sad little face. Yes man, get a life, and dont mess with me. Ha!

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Cloned card

I found out a couple of days ago that my current account has been used by some theifing bastard(s)! Seems they wasted no time and took out 3 days of my maximum amount of cash you can take out in one day (grand total of 600 pounds) . I hardly use my card and am very careful of keeping a eye on it at resturants and cashpoints. Some people have commented that I maybe too paranoid about it in the past, well rightly so I would add now. It would seem I made the mistake of using a Natwest cashpoint in Leicester Square on ST Patricks day, which was used to collect sensitive banking information. How am I sure its the that cashpoint and no where else? Put it this way I'm 98 percent certain and the only other places I used my card that month was at my local train station to buy my travel card and a resturant where I had the card pretty much most of the time plus my friends cards are ok. Oh also add to the fact that the cash was taken out in Piccadilly which is a stone throw away from Leicester Square and I can be certain the machine was tampered with in a form which I never noticed. The werid thing is, Its not like I never got my card or cash back from the machine and I remember holding my hands over the pin code as I usually do so there was no way someone could see what I typed. Hey maybe I could be wrong about the cash machine but I'll tell you what – this has come just before the easter bank holidays and at a time when I'm feeling very ill. I would do unspeakable things to the person who did this to my account if I found them!

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Shared ownership house buying

As a lot of people know, I'm renting my 1 bedroom appartment with my beautiful wife sarah. Its been over 2 years since we moved into Beckenham which is great but I dont think renting is a good choice for living in London. My friend Lisa just bought a appartment in East London for less money per month as were paying in rent. How is this possible? Well this is where shared ownership and keyworking schemes come in. The main reason why I mention this is because few people seem to know about them. Its the perfect step between owning your place and renting. So how does it all work?

The scheme allows you to purchase a share of a property from a social landlord, usually a housing association. The share you purchase is funded by a mortgage which you will need to arrange with a bank or building society. The remaining share you do not own is rented from the social landlord.

The size of the share to be purchased will depend on your income and savings. Normally applicants buy a 50% share but you may purchase a smaller or larger share (to start with, you can buy as little as 25% or as much as 75%). The higher the share you purchase the less rent you will have to pay. You will also have to pay a service charge when you buy a flat. Later on, if you wish and can afford to do so, you can buy a further share.

Makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that London is 2nd or 3rd most expensive place to live and buy in the world still? So I've done my bit promoting them, I'm sure you will hear more about them as I take my steps deeper into the shared ownership world.

I wish like Estate agents and lots of other public sector websites that there was a RSS feeds for the latest property. I'm really considering ways to do this myself then exposing the work to the rest of the net for others in the same position to do. I dont believe some new sites dont have RSS still in 2005, for example Scopetech. Advertises its self as a copy of digg but its simply not without the complete RSS digg setup. But I digress…

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No, you can not have it all…

I was listening to Barry Schwartz's Less is more presentation at poptech today on the train in to work. Oh my goodness this is great listening. And honestly sums up alot of what I've been thinking recently.

The [clip] idea of closing some doors to walk through others is a nightmare that I have alot. And dont even go there about working [clip]. Theres so much to do and I keep getting new ideas and projects to consider working on. And all while trying to balance equally or more important parts of my life. I would hate to be a mono person because theres so much to learn and be engergised by. But if the massive amount of choice is doing more damage than good, maybe I need to strike even more balance.

But lets not get too far ahead of ourselves here, some choice is good. Just not 500 ice cream's worth of choices. I learned recently that everything made in nature is made of 92 different types of atoms only. Yep from Whales to Humans to a single ant, all the same 92 atoms. And it gets better than that, the same 92 atoms are used across the whole universe. Whats this got to do with choice and having it all? well in constraints comes creativity and innovation. Stewart Butterfield did a great presentation along time ago explaining the almost endless possiblies there are in 5k. If that is mindboggling alone, over choice is a pain in the ass and does make for a difficult life.

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Tis the season for drinking… let it be over please!

This is a difficult thing to put across. I dont know what it is about myself but I really dislike drunk people, please dont take offense everyone! Let me at least try and explain.

From a early age I've always been a clubbing/raving person. I actually disliked pubs, and when I mean pubs I mean the real old english style pubs with brown wall paper, smoking stains and no music except a dodgy old jukebox attached to a wall. I'm sorry but I would rather spend a night in Easyeverything. However a good bar isn't as bad but its the people which I still dont like. Dont get any funny ideas about me being scared of drunk people. I just get into this mood of feeling sorry for people who are drunk, like there lives are so sorry that they need to drink to the point of forgetting what actually happened that night. I know its not like that, but my from my view – I wouldn't go out and get so pissed that I forget bits of what happened that night. Once again i'm only analysing my own thoughts not passing judgement on anyone.

I remember when I was young (like 13-15) buying drinks for friends and friends of friends. Yes its against the law but I was young and looked like 18 or even 21. (Some would even say acted like it a bit) anyhow we would spend time in the field drinking cheap booze and laughing about silly stuff while trying to get it going with girls from other schools (we honestly thought all girls from speedwell were so umm, similar in nature). Anyway, all i'm saying is things have not changed much from those days… Maybe I had not thought this out enough, but I was thinking the older you get the less, getting legless and would be appealing. Actually come to think about it, what is it about getting off your face which is fun or worth doing over and over again?

Ok backpedling or digging myself a even more deeper hole. I actually do drink but I dont drink any kind of Beer, Stout, Ale, etc. I do however like a nice red wine while eating and anything with vodka when out for the night. Which would include all those alcopops, yumm yumm. But seriously, I drink very slowly and take it easy. It also helps that Vodka doesnt have much of an effect on me, so I will never have a hangover or throw up because of it alone – specially when mixed with something soft. Anyway where was I going with all this? Oh yes – you can hardly tell when i'm drunk because I dont become this nasty staggering not making sense temporary burden to other people which other people can be.

Anyhow, I hope this has all made some sense, and i'm not pointing at anyone or any groups, just generally saying I hate the anti-social mentality of drunks and honestly if push came to shove. Like the anti-smoking debate I wouldnt never ban drinking it wouldnt make any sense to do so. But the idea of seperate places is appealing to me at least. I would rather go to a cafe or a juice bar where it wont be filled with drunks falling over each other. Ok enough, i'm sure people will either hate me, be worried to talk to me or think i'm really nasty for saying what I said. But seriously if you've read this and have a comment please write it on the blog, email me or even stop and talk to me about it. Dont feel like i'm talking about you… because trust me i'm actually not.

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