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Re: I can hear an echo?
Assume Phil is Phil Kendal, Mark is Mr Scogs, and of course Jason.
The 1st 2 we never hear from, sometimes we get the odd blinder from Phil Kendal, never a peep out of Scogs. Jason is tied up with D.A.S.A. as well as being busy otherwise.
I’ve been busy of late, with bugger all to show for it, so has Phil Dill, we seem to keep bumping into each other. He is on holiday at present I think, as I thought Martin was.
That is the reason it is quiet in here, we are awaiting Martin’s departure to the antipodes. Then we can put in a posting, Where’s Martin?
The point is, there is nowt we can stir up. Too bloody quiet, I suppose. Frightening isn’t it! Calm before the storm maybe.
See you all Friday.
Alex
Re: Missing?
Martin wrote:
kwatt wrote:
Well I’m in (not so) sunny CologneThere’s a great pub on the riverbank (just a short walk from the Cathedral) ….
Probably find the pub has been rebuilt. If you go to the “Old Town” and look closely you can see most of it hase been rebuilt, good Irish bar there though.
I actually think the place is like Worcester on a wet afternoon, no soul. Suppose need to blame an earlier generation for altering the architecture from above. Last time I went there it was raining, spent the afternoon in Cafe Piano.
Alex
Re: Scam Directories – Internet Listing
Tell them you are registered with the telephone preference service, and they are commiting a criminal offence just by phoning you.
Scares the hell out of them.
Alex
Re: Zanussi Water softener problem?
Biggest effect can be the result of silica etching. This is a reaction caused by the water supply, and manifests itself to the glass, and will only affect certain glassware. No matter what you do, you will have a cloudy/milky effect.
Take an effected glass, run under a cold tap and hold up to daylight, you will probably find as long as the glass is wet, it looks crystal clear, and then the cloudiness appears as it dries. Chances are this will happen on expensive glasses, and one you had for free from a garage is perfectly o.k.
Alex
Re: The Mind Reader
What you get is; when you decide on your number, after the subtraction, it will be an answer from the 9 times table. i.e. 9, 18, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90 etc.
That is all there is to it, therefore by subtracting the sum of the digits this will leave you with a number divisible by 9 as above.
All the numbers that are divisible on the table by 9 share the same symbol. Just look over the grid & you will see what I mean.
Illusion shattered.
Alex
Re: The Mind Reader
I’ll give you all a clue………..
It relates to the 9 times table. A number cruncher should work it out.
Alex
Re: So what are the fundamental problems in this industry?
I can sum it up another way.
1: Buy a £25,000 German car, then go for a service or repair. The garage will charge you £60+ per hour and you take the car to them.
2: If the thing breaks down on the roadside, chances are you have to arrange your own means of gettting it to the above repairers, be it RAC or AA etc. If you haven’t got that cover, then god knows how much.
3: When you require service on the car, a thing which cost you as much today as a 3 bed semi would have done 25 years ago, you have a minimum of a 2 week delay.
4: You may get a loan car. Chances are it is a 1 litre Fiat. But more than likely that car is out somewhere else, if not they give you the keys and you have to go look for it, and it is short of fuel.
5: Something else goes wrong 2 weeks later, you are not to know if related because you didn’t see what was done before, and you have to pay again.
NOW LET’S TURN THIS ON ITS HEAD
1: Buy a £250 Washing Machine, breaks down, we get a one off sum from the makers or insurers of less than £40, no matter how many visits etc. and we go to the customer.
2: No luxury of the product being brought to a spacious workshop. Instead we have a narrow kitchen, delicate cushionfloor and poor access. Then there is liaising with the customer between school runs, bowls, golf etc. If we are attending a chargeable call, as soon as you present the bill you are told you were only in the house 12 minutes. Apart from a poor perception of time, no allowance was made by the consumer for getting there, van stocks depreciation etc.
3: There is no such thing as a delay, we are expected to turn out like the emergency services, on an appliance that was less to buy than the average weekly wage. 25 years ago the same spec machine would have been 3 weeks wages, not the price of a 3 bed semi.
4: Sometimes we are expected to provide a loan machine, (oh yeah!). Imagine the logistics in that, especially if you have no intention of uplifting the product whilst you await spares.
5: Something goes wrong again, totally unrelated and we are expected to take the hit and gurantee the product for up to 3 months in some cases.
There’s no justice in this world.
Alex
Who drives a German car and has no axe to grind with the local VW repairers.
Re: not in, won’t let you in
We leave an invoice in the door an ALL abort calls, unless a chargeable customer in the 1st place, then with a bit of luck they will come back. The office will not re-book without a credit card.
Called at one address lunch time in the middle of nowhere, customer told engineer to came back in an hour. So engineer told her time was money, and he would sit outside at however much it was per hour, and the guarantee did not cover this. She soon let him in.
On abortive, £24 + vat in all cases, unless If a Brandt then £32 + vat. They can bloody afford it!! We have had all the excuses, the favourite being “I had to rush my kid to hospital” I’ve had them crying, I’ve had threats, we are going to the papers, we will rubbish your company. I’ve had Trading standards tell me that we should make plain in our terms & conditions regards this, and I remind them that a contract was made, and was broken by the customer.
We tell CDSL what we have done & why I will not climb down under any circumstances. They have even paid the odd one.
If you miss a dentist appointment, you get charged and the dentist never even got out of his chair. Another one I tell them, book a hotel room, and fail to show, they will charge your card as the room was not used, and someone else could have had the facility. Same goes with us, and we sent a qualified technician to attend.
Alex
Re: Getting old
Twoten wrote:and Alex: Gene Vincent……. Wasn’t that ‘Wallow Wallow wop, wip wip wip’.
🙂No try:-
BE-BOP-A-LULA
(Vincent – Davis)
GENE VINCENT & HIS BLUE CAPS (Capitol CL 15264, 1962)It is what you grow up with. My kids were into A-ha, Greenday, Blur, Oasis, Nirvana etc.
Alex
Re: Getting old
Radio 1 was always 3rd rate Rubbish. Apart from John Peel & DLT with small doses of Everett, the rest was a waste of time. Best thing that happened to R1 was “Smashie & Nicie” from Harry Enfield show, telling us what it really sounded like.
DLT can now be found on BBC 3 Counties Radio, (Martin’s area), and some Sunday mornings I listen on the net whilst doing P/Work. Not the same though.
Radio Luxembourg I remember well, they only used to play half the song, had a God Slot for the 1st hour of transmission, and could only get it in the dark due to signal issues. Used to listen to American Forces Network whenever I could. All the rest at school would rave about the Searchers etc. In my case, Buddy Holly Gene Vincent, Muddy Waters, B.B. King etc. Did like the Stones early stuff though, as well as the Animals. Floyd kicked in in 1972 with Meddle.
Radio Caroline North & South, Radios London, Essex etc. fantastic for me. Remember Mike Raven playing blues music at 7.30 am on a Sunday. Only the Pirates could get away with playing stuff that was over and above the “Fab 40” John peel after midnight on Radio London, and Tommy Vance early evenings.
I remember where I was on the day that Radio London, (17 Curzon Street, London) closed down. Aug 14th 1967 3 p.m. Sad or what. Kept up with Caroline for a few years, got married had a family and gradually slipped into the clutches of the Beeb.
Now, must have my daily dose of Wogan, and often listen on the net of an evening whilst managing the accounts. Always catch Paul Jones on Thurs 8 pm and True Blues on Radio Wales, which again I get off the net.
I’m a real radio freak, Video’s etc. do nothing for me, prefer live music, and always like to hear something new.
O.K. you can all wake up now.
Alex
Re: British Gas To Drop Appliance Servicing?
Interesting stuff
Along they come like a tornado, poach engineers from good family businesses; then what, realise it isn’t all sweetness and light then put these engineers jobs in jeopardy. In a sense I feel for the guys who were seduced by money and above all job security, but after all we have survived and tailored our businesses around the staff losses; therefore they may not be able to come creeping back.
I cannot confirm or deny this “Rumour” as being fact regards Brit Gas, but there is no smoke without fire shall I say.
Here’s an interesting thought, who did B/Gas use to attend all their refrigeration work?
Strange thing is they were having a heavy recruitment drive back in October: adverts in papers.. “Come along to …. Hotel and we will give a presentation and interview on the spot, meet some of the repair team etc”.
The one in my area was very well done & they exuded such confidence that there was something big approaching work wise in early 2006. As a businessman I tend to research my market thoroughly before investing heavily in staff.
Alex
Re: ServiceNet UK
I have been paid up to date, the last call on my books was November 05 and I was paid within a month.
It wasn’t mega bucks, but the work was simple and we used them to fill vacant slots.
Alex
Re: Make mine a double, and leave the bottle on the bar.
Funny really with these kids, you think they grow up leave home and that is it! I’m sure when I first set up home I done it all without any help. (Family were miles away, and I was the only one who had a car, or held a driving licence).
My offspring went to university.
In both cases they decided to live in accommodation on the 3rd floor. One done 2 years in Halls of residence, then 1 year out based, and the other in various dodgy areas of a Nottingham. So every year they moved out in the early Summer, then moved into another student flat in October.
This would mean:- T.V. Fridge, pots pans, kettle toaster, M/Wave Oven, Game-boy, all the clothes in the Next catalogue, 82 pairs of shoes, (Yes they were Girls), Bedding, Food, Cleaning Materials, Vacuum Cleaner, Computer, including setting the damn thing up, plus so many silly things it was unbearable, even light shades (Don’t ask).
All this lot to be shoe-horned into my service van, and the overflow into the car with Student & Mum. Then the 200 mile journey, sort that lot out, and the trip home again. Worked on the Saturday, back to work Monday, so all had to be done on the Sunday.
So you can imagine all this lot up 6 flights of stairs, meeting other families doing the same and causing traffic jams in the stair wells. Then 9 months later, take it all away again.
The telly always needed re-tuning when you put it into a new location, and the instructions would be lost. The cooker would invairiably be filthy when you got there.
Good old days.
Alex
Re: Disposal of old parts
Now you know why I started this thread. Absolute minefield.
I did not think of the point that Kevin raised though regards the customer Fly-Tipping the items. Fortunately in our case all parcels are part of a consignment, and we take off the delivery notes when accepting the parcels. So if some unscrupulous body decides to litter the countryside with old tubs & drums, it should not come back to haunt us.
At present we leave parts behind on all calls except E/Lux under guarantee. In those cases the parts need to go back for quality control. This begs the question are these parts deemed as waste or recycled or what? Gawd knows.
Now taking this further, and the point I was trying to make: if we are expected to return parts by any work provider, and we are breaking some law or code, will they cover our costs in applying and maintaining the carriers licence?
I only wish I had the time to research this.
Alex
