| lesley153
|
You don't pay £40 a month to employ idiots!
I hate to think how much Debenhams are wasting on their staff. There are never enough of them, and the few there are are useless.
It used to be a shop for average grown-ups, but the new management are chasing the teen pound - without much success.
They tried playing loud music. The official line was that customers like it. "Customers come over to us and say I really like that music. Where can I buy it?" I can't see the point, because I'm not aware that they even have a music department, but I don't believe it anyway. People only ever approach staff to ask for help, or to grumble.
My line is, I want to shop without distraction, and music, doesn't matter if I like the music or not, is a distraction: if I want to listen to music I'll go to a concert or put a record on or have a wander round YouTube or Spotify. I don't think I'll go to Debenhams and see what's playing. I stopped going in there for 18 months till the manager got the boot and now they only play music when the sales are on.
Were they making sure they could get away early? Probably! Or they could have been playing the ancient salesgirl game of Bugger the Customer. I don't suppose I shall ever know and it'll be a long time before I go in again to find out. |
Reply #5021. Aug 25 12, 11:39 AM
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satguru 
|
I actually like music in shops and find it's the exception rather than the rule, I remember they played The Shadows in Brent Cross once which I would have done myself had I been offered a juke box, and heard a record once in a clothes shop I'd never heard before (and possibly since) and spent £7 to get the single as it was so rare, and learnt all about Louis Prima as a result as it was Buena Sera. I think he was scared of flying as besides working nearly every day in Las Vegas he didn't come here so had a very low profile in the 50s, besides singing in th Jungle Book although most people wouldn't realise it was him as it was sung by a bear...
Reply #5022. Aug 25 12, 7:33 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
|
:) David! I know it's probably silly, but I do not try on clothing in the shop. If I like the item, and it's 'close' to my size, I buy it and return, if not. I just can't use a changing room. They're creepy, and I'll size it at home.
Reply #5023. Aug 25 12, 9:41 PM
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| lesley153
|
David, you're clearly the sort of customer they love!
For you:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2yigM_P_1U Buona Sera
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFcoC1FJOhA Baloo,
VM, there is at least one chain here that I know of where the fitting room is communal, and that's definitely not for me. I'm not sure I'd even want to look at clothes in these shops, because I'm clearly not their target audience.
The sad thing about the Debenhams fiasco is that I used to buy so much in there I could just pick my size off the hanger, buy it and and take it home, and might not even try it on till I was ready to wear it. If I do go in the local Debenhams again, it won't be for clothes - unless they have a change of policy and decide to employ only people who are competent. That would be interesting. Holding my breath? Nah. |
Reply #5024. Aug 26 12, 5:04 AM
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| lesley153
|
Hospital visit went well. Niece said she knows she's going to be a wreck after her surgery, so she's making the most of precious time now when she can just sit and chat. After we'd solved most of the world's problems, her husband and sons turned up, and I left them to it.
Journeys both ways were unbelievably fast and efficient.
Delayed response to Gary's post2011: I think a lot of this is down to my SIL, and I didn't pick her. |
Reply #5025. Aug 26 12, 6:38 PM
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tezza1551
|
Lesley, your enthusiasm for shopping and mine seem somewhat similar.
I'd actually rather remove my own toenails with a chainsaw than clothes shop, so the onset of the internet made life much easier for me...
grocery shopping is ok, as long as I can be in and out of the shop within 15 minutes !
Reply #5026. Aug 26 12, 7:09 PM
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Professer
|
Glad the visit went well and the train journey even went well too thats good.
I have to say coming home from my trip recently was amazed how good the train service was we were 10 mins late so they held the connection for us about 25 people needed it, arrived at my final destination on time made the time up.
Think the governemnt has blundered giving the west coast to another company whose promises are not deliverable or achievable, love him or hate him Richard Branson has done a incredible job on the west coast and his offer to run it for free whilst the bids are re accessed, 100,000 signed a government petition in a week to force a parliamentry debate. They should not issue the licence to anyone toill properly looked into, point of order is the east coast is run by the governement.
Reply #5027. Aug 27 12, 5:43 AM
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| lesley153
|
Being able to look at their range online was very useful, and would have saved me a lot of time if I hadn't made the mistake of asking for help from a "saleswoman" who didn't have the first clue what she was supposed to be selling, and blew my time-saving out of the window. Not sure about the chainsaw!
I hardly spend any time in grocery shops now. I'm still using the online shopping company I started with, and it's a lot calmer now I've got used to their system. Half an hour on their website, and three minutes for the driver to carry my shopping in and put it on the hall floor. Effortless!
Gary, British Rail can be impressive when it wants to. When my cousin went home last year, he arranged to get help at Bedford station. A member of staff would carry his suitcase over the footbridge. There is a lift but there's still a bit of walking.
Change of plan. They diverted the train to come in on Platform 1 so he could just walk onto it. As the train pulled out, another staff member looked at me and said "It's all right, he's gone now."
Just had a little thought. It must be at least a month since I've seen a certain gentleman caller. It's six weeks since his "Everything would go at your speed" text. I don't wish to tempt providence, but could the last "no" have been the one that went in? |
Reply #5028. Aug 27 12, 6:26 AM
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| C30
|
Most of this probably is somewhat digressing from current topics(s, however...................
Once upon a time when I was still a twinkle in my father's eye, this fair country had privatised railway companies, each of whom vied with the others to attract customers.........L.M.S., L.N.E.R., G.R., etc. Virtually every little hamlet had a railway station and the country was dotted with branch railway lines servicing them. The wealthy drove cars, the poorer used railways - all was well in the land.
Then came Nationalisation, and we had the era of "British Rail".......the railways were subsidised and run (mostly at a loss) by the Government. Along came a politician named "Dr. Beeching" who decreed that to save money most of the little stations and little railways lines would get axed...no more trains there, no more cheap and plentiful transport...........the great God "profit" reined supreme and the masses discovered things like Moggie Minors!
So all was not well in the world of trains.
Along came another politician, one Maggie Thatcher, who decreed that nationalisation must end, and back came privatised rail companies...........except somehow along the way the requirements of the country had changed from pre-war days and it wasn't quite the same.
Now, to appease shareholders, only the wealthy could afford to travel by rail, and the poorer masses were forced to undertake travel by road and air, in half the time, at less expenditure and double the convenience.
Well mostly half the time......the well known British Motorway emerged, and with it such terms as "Biggest Car Park in London area", "Watford Gap" (The UK's answer to American Mason-Dixon Line) came into use.
...............and the answer is? Don't ask me I am not a politician!
On a differing subject, but close to the hearts of us all, comes shops and shopping! I don't know if this is a male thing, but personally I don't think I have ever in my life used a fitting room. If I am forced to buy clothes (and this is an undertaking only to be experienced in dire emergency when wife drags me kicking and screaming into clothes shops), then I KNOW what size clothes I take......I don't need to try on, say jeans with 42"waist/29" leg, as I know they will fit!
Then of course the bigger the store, the less relevance the customer, as we all know!
A well known store, that I once swore not to use again, but weakened due to ease of parking my convenience, has recently trumpeted, "New exciting changes to the store".......which basically involved changing completely the interior layout, so that customers who once knew where to find items they wished to buy, now wandered about in every decreasing circles, looking totally baffled and not the least impressed, whilst they tried to discover where everything had been moved to. In one foul swoop, a weekly shop taking 30 minutes, one taking over an hour.
Then came the checkouts..........
Axe 10 checkouts that people want to use, instal 10 more self-service checkouts that most people do NOT want to use...thus also making several staff redundant at same time, increasing time spent by customers at checkout, and decreasing any satisfaction customers may have. As I said earlier.......the bigger the store, the less relevance the customer.
Final rant........it never ceases to amaze me the gall of supermarkets, who have roughly the same opinion of the intelligence of customers, as the average NHS Hospital has of patients (around the level of a retarded 7 year old).
In the cafe of said Supermarket, are several signs on the wall proclaiming, "For the comfort and convenience of customers, this is a non-smoking area".
"ROLLOCKS", I mutter! Venturing to suggest that whilst it may well be of "comfort and convenience" to non-smoking customers, the reason it is thus is down to legislation making it illegal to be otherwise, and nothing what-so-ever to do with consideration for customers.
Ok you may have your Blog back now Lesley!
Reply #5029. Aug 27 12, 7:47 AM
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| lesley153
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The railways were nationalised just before I was born, and therefore well past the twinkle stage. The train network was indeed a network, and you could often get from A to B without going to London and out again.
(If you search for LMS, you will get a page of results headed Learning Mgt System, presumably because it’s too much trouble to write Management. If you search for LMS train, you’ll be offered a page of Learning Mgt System Training. Thought you’d like to know that.)
Then came the vile Dr Beeching may he rot in hell, who started the slippery rolling English road to mass car ownership in roads that couldn’t take the increase in traffic, but were all liable for car tax - laughingly called Road Fund - that makes little or no contribution to the maintenance of roads.
Later, thanks to the Blessed ideologically hide-bound Margaret, we no longer have milk trains and mail trains. I’m not sure if we even have freight trains any more. Freight-carrying canal boats are a footnote in the history books. Roads are crammed and groaning and sinking under the strain, most of it from haulage lorries, not only home-grown but also from all over Europe, and motorists are becoming more impatient by the year. There was a time when we could afford to wind our windows down and make hand signals. Now indicating is for wimps... and can you imagine anyone “running in” a new car - and living long enough for the engine to be run in?
Thank you for holding: your call is important to us: so important, that we have sacked our staff and replaced them with an answering machine. Thank you for shopping in Tescobury, for being pleased that you can occasionally save time by going through a self-service till, where one member of staff can monitor eight or ten tills, and for being too stupid to twig that we are saving a fortune on cashiers but you aren’t getting charged any less for doing their jobs. Or what would have been their jobs.
Oh and the NHS doesn’t think everyone is a retarded seven-year-old. Some of us are at the far end of the spectrum. Two years ago, I spent three weeks in the local hospital, in a geriatric ward. I hasten to add, it was the only place they could find a bed for me. The ward sisters assumed that we were all dopey ninety-year-olds, and addressed us accordingly. Wouldn’t that make a nice change from being treated like a dopey child?
Come again, Ray. I love a good rant!
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Reply #5030. Aug 27 12, 10:11 AM
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| lesley153
|
Niece's surgery seems to have gone well. She was in recovery a few hours ago, and on her way back to the ward.
My gardener finished his A levels and has been job-hunting, without much success. A week or so he did an aptitude test for an engineering company, and seemed to have found it easier than the other applicants there. He had an interview booked for the day after tomorrow. They rang him last week - could he come for an interview the next day? - Oh yes! - and they offered him a place on the spot.
It's an apprenticeship, and won't pay enough for him to buy anything silly like a house, but it'll be a very good wage while he's living with his parents, and they're getting him a car. It might just be his mum's car with him on the insurance, but it's wheels.
I asked him if he was going to stop gardening, and he said no, because he loves doing it. He'll just be doing it at weekends. That's a relief. |
Reply #5031. Aug 28 12, 3:16 PM
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Professer
|
Good to read surgery went well Lesley, and that gardner going to stay hope all ok with you, dreading tmw as i feel will be same as before nothing i can do for you.
Fibromyalgia and arthritis are a pain :(
Reply #5032. Sep 02 12, 7:26 AM
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| lesley153
|
Thanks, Gary. Concerned for her mental well-being now as much as her physical - latest is that she will have to stay in, and continue to be fed intravenously, for at least a fortnight. They want to give her a chance to heal before they try her out on food.
Before the op, all she could take was liquid, and she asked for just apple juice and soup at each meal. There's a good choice of flavours - chicken, tomato, mushroom, cream of vegetable... Every time she ordered, whatever she asked for, she got cream of vegetable. When I was there, she said anything *but* cream of vegetable. No prizes for guessing what she got.
When she does start eating again, whoever brings her cream of vegetable soup will probably get it over their head.
Don't know where Ray's got to - that last rant must have exhausted him! |
Reply #5033. Sep 02 12, 9:57 AM
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| C30
|
Reporting in! The past few days have been taken up with "Operation Car".
As I may have mentioned, since my last medical "performance", I have been declared "medically unfit" to drive. Ironically, for years I always said that I wouldn't carry on driving after I reached 70........so as there is no likelyhood of the medical authorities declaring me fit in the foreseeable (if and when they ever decide to diagnose what happened they might say I can drive again - but that is an infinite "if, maybe and perhaps" thing), I have decided to knock it on the head.
This means there is no point in paying out to keep my 12 year old Reliant Robin on the road, as my wife holds a full licence, we can revert to an ordinary car!
So, we have been looking at used cars that fit our needs......strong possibility of a 4 year old Fiat Panda we have seen, being "the one".
I think I can solve the mystery of the "Cream of Vegetable Soup" thing Lesley in the light of my recent hospitalisation experience:-
Soup on the menu is usually "Soup of the Day", which as you rightly say, can be Chicken, Oxtail, tomato......whatever.
However, my theory is that the cooks have this big "Witches Cauldron" type thing, into which they mix the contents of whatever soup comes to hand...........Vegetable, Oxtail, Pea, tomato........stir the lot up, and the result, is "Soup of the Day". Thus, irrespective of what it was called on the menu, it always looked and tasted exactly the same. With the soup in question, obviously "Cream of Vegetable" was the predominant mix..........so it matters not what soup is requested, the result is the same.
Actually I suspect, all hospital cooks served their time in HM Forces, as (in the navy at least) we experienced exactly the same thing.
We had two types of soup...........light born soup (which covered Chicken, Oxtail, Beef Broth, whatever) and light green soup, which was reputed to be Pea Soup. There was another explanation as to why it was green and not brown during rough weather, but we need not examine that.
So, if the mix was light brown - it was soup. Dark brown it was gravy, no difference in taste or texture, merely the colour.
So, mystery solved?
Reply #5034. Sep 02 12, 2:43 PM
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| lesley153
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Present and correct!
I think I know why the soup thing happens. The Middle Earth drones charged with providing soup see all the different flavours stacked up, and they work through them, one flavour at a time. Once the C**** of V** is used up, they will move on to the mushroom...
But your version is more fun, and a much more accurate representation of the flavour of most hospital soups.
If you have mentioned being unfit to drive, I've blinked and missed it, sorry. Do you see it as horrible news or a relief? Good luck with getting a new car. Keep us posted please. I need to do something soon. I've saved so much money not having a car, I may soon be able to afford a new one! |
Reply #5035. Sep 02 12, 2:57 PM
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| C30
|
As you will recall.........well actually you may not recall as it is not compulsory to do so........I was admitted to hospital after I had blacked out. Thus, as an accurate diagnosis was as far away as the other side of the Galaxy (in other words they hadn't a clue WHY I blacked out or what caused it), I was advised not to drive until they "got to the bottom of it and told me that they wanted me to attend as Out Patient for more tests. I was discharged on 10th August.
Fast forward to current..............narry a sign of any hospital appointment, and knowing NHS quite likely to be "no sign" for some considerable time.
So........."plastic pig" is 13 years old in October, is getting increasingly difficult (and expensive) to get parts for it, the MOT & Road Tax run out start of October.
So, question was, do I pay out on that, in the vague hope NHS might come up with a diagnosis and cure in some infinite time in the future, or do I do what I always said that I would do and give up driving at 70.
Decision came down on the give up driving bit, thus making the retention of a "specialist car" unnecessary. Whilst I feel perfectly well in myself, I do see that the possibility of blacking out at the wheel, somewhat undesirable, and as there is no guarantee that I won't..............!!
Hopefully we get our new car Wednesday.....a 4yr old Fiat Panda that SHOULD do all we want a car for. The loss of independence is a right pain in the lower regions, but probably the price to pay when one ages. Look out public transport, another pus pass wielding OAP is on the way!
As to the "soup saga", it is of course, noted by the Cooks/Chefs/Soup Stirrers...whatever......that to provide sufficient soup for all at hospital (or all onboard ship), it is necessary to use, say, 30 tins/packets of soup. It does not impinge that all packets should be of the same type.
So 30 packets are called for, today is 15xCofV, 8xChicken,6xOxtail and 1xPea.................etc. Bung the lot into pot, stir and heat.......presto "Soup of Day".
Tomorrow a different permutation may be used.....but the result is the same!
Reply #5036. Sep 03 12, 8:07 AM
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Professer
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Know the feeling re Out patients Ray, todays was a waste of my time and the nhs personel i came in contact with, now according to specialist i have Gout, which as i do not drink red wine or any alchol is odd. I also do not eat rich foods.
More blood tests been actioned watch my blog for more
Sorry to hijack yurs Lesley there but as i wanted to answer to Ray was easy this way.
Reply #5037. Sep 03 12, 8:34 AM
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| lesley153
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Ray, where did you write about this? Blacking out is scary and I’d have remembered. Unless my brain is as old and wrinkly as the rest of me.
I’m glad you’re feeling well but I hate the frustration of being kept in the dark.
In 2010 I was told not to drive after three weeks in the local hospital. I asked why and got a lot of gibberish accompanied by blushes and sheepish finger-waggling, but no real explanation. In the end I got a clue from someone with a medical degree (anyone remember Jack_Hawkins?). He said stenosed coronary arteries can cause blackouts. I stopped driving for nearly three months, till my pre-op appointment with the surgeon. He said I could drive as long as I didn’t feel faint or tired, and only short journeys, so I wouldn’t get tired. O joy - the difference between being treated like a thinking adult who is capable of gauging how she feels, and a geriatric retard. And more joy at being able to hop into my own car to do one and two-mile journeys when I felt like it, and not needing lifts or minicabs. Then I was ordered to stop driving for a few months post-op too. Drag.
Could you learn to enjoy being a gentleman of leisure, and enjoy being chauffeured? Buy your wife a little peaked cap?
So you did get the Panda! Hope it’s good.
Gary, there’s more to it than the stereotype of a fat rich old man swigging port. Have you got round to searching fir information yet? There are purines - gout triggers - in innocuous, supposedly healthy foods, like liver and sardines, and even some mushrooms. It can also be triggered by dehydration, diuretics and, rumour has it, stress. Go forth and investigate! |
Reply #5038. Sep 03 12, 12:31 PM
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| lesley153
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| Gary, I've just found an unusually interesting and informative site, and I've posted the link in your blog. Happy reading! |
Reply #5039. Sep 03 12, 12:44 PM
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Professer
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Thanks Lesley will look when i feel less stressed and suicidal
Reply #5040. Sep 03 12, 1:14 PM
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