Category: Observation

Thanks Paul

I’ve been away for a while. Actually I used the failure of my 2 year and 2 week old Sony Vaio laptop as an excuse to take a break. I guess I should be thankful to Sony for the time off, but really, the customer experience I endured with them was like taking time off to visit the dentist for a week or two (sorry to all you dentists out there).

My laptop started playing up. Fortunately I had a good deal of my stuff backed up, not all though. I called Paul. I found out about Paul thanks to a local business directory. Paul came round, took away my Vaio and recovered my data from what turned out to be a knackered hard drive. Quick service. Friendly service. Did what he said he would. Thanks Paul.

Meantime enquiries to Sony about a replacement hard drive had started. It took me over a week to discover that Sony would be only too happy to replace the busted hard drive, in exchange for £355! An equivalent new drive costs less than £40 off the shelf so they clearly weren’t too bothered about taking me for every penny they could get. Except that they won’t be getting a penny. I’ve ordered a replacement from Amazon and I’ll have a go at fitting it myself. I have the back up dvd so I reckon it’s worth a try.

I bought Sony because I believed it would be reliable kit. I don’t think a laptop (never left the house, never dropped, carefully looked after) should fail @ 24 months but this one did. Hey ho, these things happen. I forgive you Sony, for the failure of your kit.

I did not buy Sony to get shocking delays to my enquiries and then an attempt to rip me off. If Sony don’t want to offer a service, I’d rather they didn’t bother if the alternative is such long delays plus ridiculous overpricing. Surely it would be simpler to have an approved partner to cover stuff they don’t want to do?

I wonder what you think? Should service be offered at completely daft, uncompetitive prices? Or would you have more repsect for a company that just said no, we’re not there for you, at least not like that.

The Way We Were

I listened to a very interesting short interview on Radio 5 Live breakfast yesterday. Nicky Campbell was speaking with Linda Yueh from the London School of Economics about the results of a recent economic survey. The survey showed a third of respondents think the economic climate will get worse (so two thirds don’t – yippee!), 12% already think things are getting better, and the biggest fear is unemployment. Four out of ten fear for losing their job.

Linda came across brightly and spoke with enthusiasm. Nicky Campbell tends towards flowery language a bit too much for my liking and this interview was no exception. I nearly choked on my toast when he hit us with “…merely bits of flotsam tossed on the oceans of economic trends…” Linda laughed and said she couldn’t match that and Campbell expressed a wish to withdraw the statement, but the flowers had been flung.

Apologies, I digress. What really drew me in was Linda’s response to Nicky Campbell’s double barrelled question, “Will we ever be the way we were? Will we ever get back to how it was?” She said that previous levels of consumption based on credit are not sustainable. My ears pricked up. There will likely be a push not to return to the way we were. The financial sectors excess will need regulation to ensure it doesn’t stray off course again. That will mean we need a new sector to sustain growth and our standard of living. Linda suggested green industry as a replacement.

This age of change could potentially be a very good one as we seek to rely less on financial services and more on sustainability. We can change the way we live and the things we do. Very good…but something was missing. I was urging Linda to get stuck into what kind of behaviour she felt was needed from politicians, business leaders, everyone, to make this change. It didn’t come, the harsh reality of radio deadlines cut things cruelly short.

I’m interested in what you think about Linda’s opinions. More importantly, I’d love to hear what you think about the behaviour required to make the shift from consume to sustain?

You can listen to the radio interview here. It’s at 1:12.58 into the programme and 4 min 30 sec in duration.

Three Strikes and You're Out!

Ouch!

14.5 miles home to office. 3.5 hours, 2640 calories burned, 4mph average speed, two sore feet. Strike One.

3 miles office to Victoria station. 35 minutes, just ignore the pain. Strike Two.

1 mile train station to home. Uphill all the way, agonisingly slow. Strike Three.

Click here for a 1 minute condensed video version of my Walk to Work

Snoop Walked to work