arbitrary user

There is a lot to be said for working with people who are good at what they do… I’ve been lucky enough over the years to work with a lot of experts. People who excel at their jobs and go out of their way to provide excellent service.

Then I tried to buy a house.

Oh my lordy is this an industry that needs to go on a serious diet and lose some fat.

Property seems to be one of those black box industries where you’re expected to just nod and smile while they withdraw large sums of money from your bank account and imply that you’re really way too dumb to understand where it’s all going and why… much like the Travel Industry… And I’ve worked in the travel industry for about 6 years so my BS radar is quite effective.

I could go on and on about how incredibly bad some of the experiences I’ve had over the past few weeks are… People who never get back to me… Agents who drag me to dodgy locations late at night only to discover the owner of the house isn’t there… Agents who make appointments with me and then cancel 5 minutes before the meeting because they ‘didn’t actually organise it‘… but I won’t because there are very good people out there who need some praise.

Firstly, and I must admit I am surprised by this, Ooba… specifically Colin from Ooba. This is a guy who has repeatedly surprised me by how efficient he is and how willing he is to take time to explain things in detail. He ALWAYS calls back, always replies to my emails, and always seems exceedingly knowledgeable in his area of expertise. I get the impression I’m dealing with a guy who is genuinely passionate about homeloans and passionate about excellent service. All that without ever saying “We’re passionate about…”. The few dealings I’ve had with the banks, INCLUDING MY OWN FRIGGEN BANK, have been painful, tiresome and actually left me more confused than I started.

Secondly, I’ve realised that there is a BIG difference between a good estate agent and a bad estate agent. The good ones take time to consider what you’re looking for, they don’t waste your time with rubbish. They call back when they need to, they don’t try and pressure you into making a purchase by spinning bullshit about the economy and how rare ‘a place like this is’… They use email and embrace the internet. They don’t lie or misrepresent the truth. Good agents won’t badmouth other agents while showing you around a property and they wont moan at you on the phone if you happen to agree to see a place with someone else because they didn’t get back to you in time. Good agents will spend a rainy night in observatory driving you around from location to location and be honest about the condition and “accuracy” of the owners asking price. Good agents will also deal with tricky owners and tenants and get you into properties where others have failed.

So here is a list of agents who get my nod of approval:

• Christian from Rose Eedes in Observatory.
• Leigh and Sharon Ball from Sharon Ball Properties.

Not a very long list is it? Considering I’ve dealt with about 15…

Also I’d like to thank Michael R. for giving me lots of good advice on the bond stuff… it’s nice to have a friend who can point out any pitfalls when you’re about to drop a fortune on a house.

I just called the Cape Town traffic department (400-4900) to make sure that my address was correct on my car registration (I haven’t received my licence renewal form yet).

A very friendly Pumela asked me for my registration and then asked me what I thought my address was… Only then did I realise the huge social engineering opportunity that they’ve obviously been trained to avert. She would not tell me my address, but only confirm that what I told her was correct. This is obviously to make sure that you can’t just phone up the traffers with the licence plate of the guy who cut you off, or the babe in the Audi, and get their addresses.

Nice. My address was correct… I’ll be receiving my reminder shortly.

j.

Catch up: In case you missed it, 10 days ago my car was broken into and a bag containing pretty much all my clothing was stolen… 10 days ago I reported the theft to momentum insurance. 10 days later I have nothing but a bunch of empty promises and a few lies. Read all about it here.

—————-

Yesterday (Tuesday) Tselane (the team leader) told me that she definitely would call by the end of the day (yesterday) with an answer with regards to my claim.

She never called.

It’s now the end of Wednesday and another 24 hours has passed and once again Tselane has gone home without calling me like she said she would.

I called to speak to either Tselane or Carina and neither of them were available so I left a message… but this time I was smart.

After leaving my message and just before Thabiso, the message center person, was due to put down his phone I asked him why he didn’t give me a message number. Remember, Carina said that the message centre staff *ALWAYS* give the person who leaves a message a message reference number… This was her way of squirming out of not calling me back when I left repeated messages for her to call me. Well guess what, the message center people don’t give out numbers unless you specifically know that such a number exists and ask for it.

Thabiso’s exact words were “I didn’t think you wanted one“… well, Thabiso, how would I have known one even existed? Shouldn’t you have asked me?

I asked to speak to Thabiso’s supervisor who, surprise surprise, is not available. Funny that… So once again I’ve left a message for someone else at Momentum to call me and we’ll see what happens… I won’t be holding my breath. The supervisors name is Andy.

Momentum, if you want proof of all this, go listen to the call. The message number is 6264743. I asked.

A list of people at momentum who don’t return their calls.

1. Carina - The Consultant

2. Tselane - The Team Leader

3. Andy - The Call Centre Supervisor (We’ll see in a few hours)

IDIOTS!

I started this whole thing upbeat… remarking how I was lucky to be in a position to be insured and have money to buy new clothes in an emergency. I’m now more angry at Momentum Insurance than I ever was at the idiot who stole my stuff. I don’t pay the guy who stole my stuff a few thousand rand every month only to be ignored and lied to. Thieves and Liars the lot of them.

—–

Update: Thursday:

More and more ridiculous by the day. In the past week I’ve left about 10 messages with the message center people at Momentum. Not once have they given me a number without me asking for it… This morning was the best one. I spoke to Nonte (ref: 6268767) who went completely silent for about 20 seconds every time I asked her why she didn’t give me the number. I’m not exaggerating.

Me: Why didn’t you give me the message number

<silence for 20 seconds>

Me: Hello? Hello? Why didn’t you give me the number?

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: No, I’m asking you why did you give me the message center number?

<silence for 20 seconds>

Me: Hello? I can hear you in the background… Why aren’t you speaking?

<silence>

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: No. I want to know why you didn’t give me the number?

<silence for 20 seconds>

Nonte: Would you like me to give you the number now sir?

Me: okay, yes.

Nonte: 6268767

Me: Okay, so why didn’t you give that to me earlier?

Nonte: Because I thought you were in a hurry.

I.shit.you.not.

It’s like I was dealing with a robot who went into a cpu intensive loop every time I asked her a question that wasn’t in her pre-programmed database of question/answer pairs.

Tselane is apparently busy. Carina called me at 7:30 this morning. (I wake up at 7:30)

I finally got to speak to Carina and she said that Tselane asked her to call me and tell me that they haven’t forgotten about me but that my claim is being escalated to some other person who isn’t available… So it’s now 8 days since I was told that I would definitely have an answer by the end of that day.

I give up.

Love is not something we generally associate with business — we don’t love most of the companies we deal with and more unfortunately, most people don’t even love their own jobs. If you’re in business it is more than likely that your company doesn’t love your customers (beyond what could be considered blatant cupboard/money love) and even if your company doesn’t hate its customers, it probably isn’t partaking in public-displays-of-affection towards them or even letting them know how they feel.You might think I’m joking. But you’d be wrong.

Unless you’re in the business of manufacturing leopard print kitchen appliances that only work in small Eastern European countries, the chances are that someone else is doing what you’re doing, and probably better. The longer I am involved with businesses the more I realise that most consumers seem to pick the companies they deal with in a seemingly random manner. It’s not really random, and there are plenty of books out there detailing why consumers act the way they do and if you care to study them you’ll probably end up with the same conclusion I did; that humans are herd-like animals, apparently no more intelligent at choosing which grassy hill to stand on then a pack of cows on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And this for the most part is reality… Consumers choose one company over another because other people are doing it and aren’t spontaneously self-combusting. Spontaneously Self Combustion seems to be the benchmark for good service these days. If the customers aren’t exploding the company must be doing a good job.

But like young Brook Shields felt in the first part of Blue Lagoon, there must be more to this.

Who is that first cow and why did he walk onto that particular hill? We know why all the other cows followed him — because cows are like humans, a little bit stupid.

That first cow was probably a lover.

He loved the feeling of the dewy grass under his hooves, he loved the way the mist sat peacefully in the lower lying parts of his hill. He loved how he could return to his perfect spot where the grass was perfect and the sun was perfectly aligned so as to warm up his bum and not be in his eyes. And how the tree was nearby for later when it got too hot and he wanted some shade… and the view… he loved the view. It reminded him of Scotland.

All the other cows went up onto that hill because that’s what cows do… that and our lover cow hadn’t yet exploded.

Consumers, as I have already pointed out, are a lot like cows. We do love to have the sun shine on our bums and not in our eyes. And when we find a company that makes us feel that way we generally stay with them for a long time.

Unfortunately companies are not grassy hills. Generally they suck. They take your money and give you just enough of whatever it is that they’re meant to be giving you so that you don’t go mad cow on their scrawny, dried up grass, no shady tree, hill asses.

In my imaginary little world I like to believe that that perfect hill is actually loving that cow back… loving how his hooves feel running down its back, loving how the cow stands in the same spot, chewing on his puke and gazing happily into the distance. The hill loves feeling loved.

There is a problem though. Cows don’t have money.

If cows had money our lover cow would become a perverted cow. He’d look to see which hill he could get for less and could he perhaps swap the tree for a small umbrella and maybe the grass didn’t really need to be real grass so long as when he ate it he didn’t explode.

This is what customers have become. Selfish perverted annoying little brats who make you angry and call you at 6:15 when you’re just about to go home and moan that their widget isn’t working just like you promised it would and if you don’t make it work RIGHT NOW they’re going to leave your company and start using that other company who’s customers also aren’t exploding.

And then we wonder why we don’t love our customers… and why they don’t love us.

There is another way. Love. Imagine if your customer loved you and the widget. Imagine if you loved your customer. You probably would have spent more time on that widget, setting it up just right because you loved the way the customer loved you when their widget was working perfectly… and if your customer loved you and their widget still didn’t work they’d call in the morning because they’d know it would be an inconvenience to call at 6:15pm. Because you loved them and they loved you.

You may think I am mad, but there *are* company-consumer relationships like this.

Ever have one of those weeks when you just can’t stop smiling because the world is just being so damn inspirational?

Ok, so here’s my list of things I am currently happy about:

1. My Moo Cards arrived: You have no idea how friggen happy I am with them. Moo is an inspirational company and yes, I would even consider living in London to be able to work there and learn from the Moo’inistas. Since everyone wanted to know, they cost $19.99 (R145) for 100 cards. Next time you see me ask for a moo card. I’ve even made my first Moo friend.

2. Civil Twilight made my day: So a couple of days ago I got a message on facebook to say that there was a CD waiting for me in Hout Bay… Apparently I was on the “list” of complementary CDs… getting a free CD is much more of a big deal when there are probably only a few in the country at the moment. Thanks boys. Much Appreciated! The album is awesome, my only fear is that I might wear out the CD. Check out their other video.

3. Mix two of my favourite things…: If I was into American football I could have called this one “mix three of my favourite things” because one of Civil Twilight’s songs, ‘Human’ will be featured on this Sunday’s special Superbowl episode of ‘House’ guest starring Academy Award winning actress Mira Sorvino. House is one of my favourites… so is Civil Twilight. Mira is ok. ;)

4. An awesome GeekDinner: The 6th GeekDinner took place in the cosy Sloppy Sams. I was MC for the evening and really enjoyed it. About 70 of us crammed into the tiny little restaurant and had an absolute blast. Thanks to everyone who helped out.

5. Friends: I guess it goes without saying that friends are important, but recently I’ve been finding my friends to be more than just important, they’ve been critical. Sometimes your friends can give you the kick in the bum you need to get your ducks in a row… Other times they just need to be there to make you laugh. Some friends are their to guide you, others to chide you and still others just to make you feel good about yourself. Tonight I’m going to see kitty! My long lost kitty from London!… Super stoked.

6. Synchronicity: A while back I was looking for a maid/domestic worker/housekeeper whatever you want to call them. I asked around the apartment building I live in and someone suggested an awesome woman called Nokulunga who’s been my angel for the past few months. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to come home to a clean apartment every friday. Anyways, the reason I’m mentioning this is because she’s looking for somewhere to work on mondays. She comes highly recommended.

7. Last but not least: As some of you may know, I’ve been seeing someone recently. Anything I say here will be dripping with cheese and I’d rather not put you all through that. Maybe I’ll just say yay!

Oh CNA… Who is the person responsible for this? If I could see your site I would send you an email.

I wonder if they realise that their site is not going to be indexed at all?

3G aint so cool. I’ve been looking at the numbers and basically, if you don’t use up all the MB you paid for in your data bundle, after 31 days they are forfeited… And if you use more than the MB in your data bundle you get molested with stupidly high “out-of-bundle” per MB fees, some (most) as high at R2 per megabyte. (A megabyte should be costing anything from 10 cents to 40 cents)

Why do companies take advantage of their customers like that? It’s just pure greed. It’s like walking into Pick and Pay and buying 100 tins of tuna and instead of them saying “wow, cool, here’s a discount” they say “Oh, 100 tins… you must have money, that’ll be 2000% more per tin, kthx”

Does anyone know what I get charged for 3G use on my vodacom phone? I “enabled data” a few years back and now that my new phone supports 3G I’ve been using that a bit. I never bought a data bundle or anything. I asked in a vodashop and they were amazingly unable to answer the question, but gave me a phone number to call.

I should go to bed, I’m starting to get moody.

j.

I have a friend called Steve who got called something horrible by an older, meaner, guy in school. It was something that had happened time and time again and Steve was reaching the end of his tether.

So one day, milliseconds after being called the horrible name, Steve grabbed Ian, the bad guy, by the neck and shoved him up against the wall and said something like “DON’T EVER CALL ME A FSCKING @#$@! AGAIN!”

When I heard this story I was like “Wow, dude, that’s awesome! What happened?”.

Steve’s reply was priceless “Oh, he totally fscked me up at break time”.

But the message was clear. It didn’t matter how many times he got knocked down… He had stood up for himself and he was going to do it again.

From what I understand, short of a beating at break, Ian never messed with Steve again.

The parallels here are interesting, albeit a bit far fetched, but I love telling that story.

Telkom has been walking around calling everybody names for ages. They rip us off, hurt us, drive us to levels of emotional stress that should really only ever be reserved for ex-girlfriends and they just don’t seem to care. (I broke up with Telkom a while ago and don’t let that bitch into my life anymore)

Well, the industry is starting to stand up in the hallways.

Sure, individuals in the industry are probably going to get beaten up a few times on the field at break, but maybe only once or twice… When a bully realizes that every time they cause a fight they will walk away a little ingured too, that’s when they start thinking twice.

ath.

j.

ps. The adsl line that Joe’s story refers to has actually not been set up yet. Even though they had telkom in the building. I wonder if they just sent some techies there as a delaying tactic in hope that they would call off their toyi toyi.

Never before have I been so floored by the absolute uselessness of an online process as I was 2 weeks ago when I tried to use Nu Metro’s online booking process powered by Computicket.

The Computicket site requires Java to run. I run Linux, so even though I’m able to install Java I chose not to for security reasons. So, I load up my virtual machine and browse the site using Internet Explorer 7 under windows. Off to a bad start.

Lets have a look at the site. First of all, the color scheme is terrible. It looks like something put together by a color blind person in 1994. I love the way they have taken advantage of the Internet Explorer’s customizable scroll bars, because, like, red and yellow are classy.

Next up we have the interface. At first it looks ok. Then you start using your brain. The blue box is the cinema. Check. The white dot is the cursor. You wonder, where are the seats? Are they all available? Am I losing my mind.

You assume simply that maybe the entire cinema is empty. On the right you click the up arrow twice to select that you want 2 tickets. Then you click somewhere. hoping to find an open seat.

(If you’re seeing this in an aggregated form, the rest of this story is on my site)

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Permit me to dive right in

Bad Luck #1: The Warning…

My battery light has been on for a few days… I thought it had to do with the fact that I’d left the interior light on overnight and since the car was starting perfectly I resolved to sorting it out on Tuesday. Bad Idea. Today on the way to class after work my car beeps and suddenly the power steering disappears accompanied by another light on my dash. It’s the power steering light. I pull over hoping that it just needs to be rebooted. Car wont start. Eish. I wait 30 seconds and try again. It *just* manages to start up. Obviously the battery is borked. I decide to get it to a garage still hoping stupidly that this might just need battery water. I drive, without power steering, down the road only to be greeted by another light and some more friendly PINGs. ABS is dead. Ping, break light is on. PING some other not so friendly light. PING… PING… The doors start locking and unlocking themselves (I shit you not). PING, lock, unlock. (Does the car want me to get out before it explodes?)

I get to the Engen Garage on Main Rd in Newlands and carefully pull in and have them look at the battery. Alfred, his name badge read, was wearing a hard-hat but seemed to know more about cars then most pump attendants. “What’s wrong? he asked… “I dunno, the batteries dead and my power steering is dead”. I say vainly hoping that a dab of battery water will fix it. Alfred informs me that I have a No-maintainence battery… ie. They don’t refill the water. “What’s wrong again?” he asks. “ABS, Power Steerings gone, everything” I reply.

“Ah” he says pointing into my engine, “You don’t have a fan belt”. I. feel. like. an. idiot.

Momentum insurance was awesome, flat bed truck, plenty of confirmation SMSs and numerous phone calls from the great consultant, Colin, checking and rechecking that everything was ok. My car is sleeping at Barons in Claremont tonight, where hopefully in the morning it will receive a new fan belt and a charge.

Bad Luck #2: The long way down…

As nice as the flat bed truck people are, their vehicles are a bit beaten up. Climing backwards out of the passenger seat outside my flat (in the dark) I asked the driver how far down it was. This was a retarded question since I had climbed into the vehicle and therefore should know approximately how far down it was to the ground. His reply “A long way down” could not have been more apt. I commited to “stepping” out backwards. It was one of those situations where you can’t see behind you so guess where the ground is. I guessed relatively well, but i didn’t guess I would end up on the edge of the pavement and subsequently collapse like a rag doll onto my ankle. Awe.so.moe. Twisted ankle, looking like a fool. Strike 2.

Bad Luck #3: The dark floor…

I get home to a very sympathetic girlfriend who I recall the story for while making myself a sandwich. Then I notice it. The floor around the sink is dark… We have this “acid stained concrete” in our kitchen. It looks cool, but when it gets wet for a long time it goes dark. Ah crap. SOMETHING is leaking. I open up the cupboard under the sink, which contains a small but very effective geyser.  Yup, the floor is wet. The geyser, or one of it’s affiliated pipes, is leaking. Luckily this is Pam Golding’s problem, but I still need to make sure I’m around to see some plumbers crack.

I thought it came in threes?

Bad Luck #4: What were *you* doing in Jan 2004?

In December 2003 I decided I had had enough of the corporate world and wanted a break. I took 6 months off. I arbed around and generally bummed off my savings. It was a good thing. I learnt a lot of good life lessons in that time; like how to make 2 minute noodles interesting 4 days in a row.  SARS however doesn’t like the idea that I went from being a regular salaried employee to unemployed for 6 months and then back to employed. This isn’t such a big deal since all I have to do is fill in a form and send it to them, but it makes me stress over whether or not they’ll believe me or hassle me for more proof that I did nothing; which as you can imagine, is hard to prove.

There is actually something else, but I’ve decided to leave it out. It has to do with the reason why my fan belt is probably missing and, in the letter that I am writing to a particular company whose fault I believe it is, I have said I will not mention their name anywhere if they take swift action. I don’t even expect them to pay for the fan belt.  If however they decide to not heed my call I will come down upon them with a vengeance that… well, it wont be nice.

lovely.

j.