I'd just like to share a small moan with the world. As those of you that know me will know, and many that read these blogs may know, I currently work in a shop. Now, part of the job is to deal with customer complaint, which isn't so bad when the customer is understanding and reasonable. Sometimes though, you wind up serving an arsehole, and I could swear that more and more of the consuming public is fitting into the arsehole category of customer.
One example, the one that inspired this very blog, occurred on the Friday night just gone. I was working with two of my colleagues, Jason and Tom, and thankfully we weren't very busy (most likely due to Children in Need being on the box). I say thankfully because the credit card machines were down, meaning that we could only take cash as payment for the whole night, and it would have been a complete nightmare if we'd been busy, as for those that ignored the signs and still attempted card payment, we had to send them outside to the cash point before completing their transaction. People were generally fine with this, and went out to make a withdrawal with no fuss whatsoever, I mean, it's not like it was our fault that the card machines were down... right?
Well, according to one customer it was. This, who was being very greedy anyway, had filled a pick-n-mix cup to bursting point. I'd never seen one filled so much, it was ridiculous! He came up to the till, placed it next to one of the many signs that explained that it was cash only for the night, and I scanned it through.
'That's £4.49 please' I said (he was buying a large cup).
The guy just stared at me, looked at the sign and looked back at me, not saying a word.
'Oh, sorry, I'm afraid the card machines are down, but there's a cash machine just outside the door' I say.
Still not uttering a sound, the man walks out, and 30 seconds later, he's back. In that 30 seconds I'd started to help another customer, so Tom takes over just as I'm saying thank you and goodbye to the other customer. The man then suggests to Tom that he should get a discount for going to the cashpoint, and we all chuckle in that awkward way when a customer makes an unfunny joke. Of course, it turns out that he isn't joking and actually believes that he has earned a discount. I politely say that we can't do that, and apologise again for the small inconvenience. The man then decides to continue arguing, and asks why exactly the card machine isn't working, to which I explain that there's a fault with the BT line, meaning that the card machines can't put through any transactions. According to the man, that's a lie, as his BT phoneline 2 miles away is working fine, and therefore out card machines must be working. I assure him that they are not, and he mumbles something about seeing a manager. I ignore the manager part, as it was her night off anyway and argue the basic point of: 'Why would we pretend that our card machine doesn't work? And especially on a Friday night!' He's still not having it, and as he pays, is still having a go at us. He tells us that we have lost his custom (Thank God) and that he'll go to a certain internet rental store, because they always let you pay by card (no sh*t). In complete disbelief I wish him a super weekend on his way out the door (hopefully forever) and then we all burst out laughing once he's gone. What a douche! Someone should tell him that not only are the online rental company in question apparently going under because nobody can ever get the films that they want from them, but that they also don't sell pick-n-mix.
Rant over :-)
Sunday 21 November 2010
Friday 12 November 2010
UK Tour - Part One
I need sleep. I've not had much of the stuff over the last week, but it was all with good reason. I have had one of the greatest weeks of my life so far. This month, November 2010, is the month of my long awaited tour of the United Kingdom. No, I haven't become famous from writing this blog, I simply happened to book tickets to all sorts of different events that are happening all around the country. The term 'UK tour' may be a little deceiving as I'm only seeing events in England, but I personally think it sounds much cooler than 'England tour'.
Anyways, my tour kicked off this week with a bang, as I travelled with a couple of guys up to Manchester to see the television spectacular that is WWE Monday Night Raw be filmed for worldwide transmission. Sam had hired a rental car for the trip, a brand new 60 reg VW Golf. It only had seven miles on the clock when we picked it up, I think it had over six hundred by the time we gave it back. The drive was long, but not nearly as bad as we had expected, despite the weather's attempts to deter us. We turned up the CD player and had us a good old sing-along, which got us there in seemingly no time. We didn't get to see much of Manchester, in fact, all we saw was the carpark, the arena, and the train station attached to arena. It didn't matter though, we weren't up there to see the sights, we were there to see some wrestling. We all got to see our favourites, and from some pretty good seats. I won't go into huge detail about the event here, as I did that already during this week's Positively Raw column. If I had to choose one highlight from the show that I could watch over and over again, it would be this comedy skit that was absolutely hilarious live: Santino's Tea Party!
After the show Sam drove us back the 250 miles to Kent. Sam did all the driving for me and Andy (partly because he was the only one allowed to drive the rental car) and for that I'd like to say thanks. We stopped at a service station at about midnight for a snack before travelling the rest of the way back. Unfortunately, once we reached the M25, the home stretch so to speak, we were met with road works and a sign telling us that the east side stretch of the motorway was closed. We had to got the long way round annoyingly, and I fell asleep for about half an hour. I awoke to find that Sam had nearly driven the full stretch of M25, and we were soon home. I got home at about 3:30am and was happy to be able to go straight to bed.
The next day was a WWE Raw house show (non-televised show) at London's O2 Arena. Stacey and Jason joined us for this one, and I travelled up with them, meeting Sam and Andy at the arena. Now, almost every time that I go to the O2, I seem to end up having a drink or two in a bar there called Thai Silk. This was where we all met up on Tuesday evening, and with time pressing on before the start of the show, we wound up eating in there for the first time. The food was good value, and tasted great, even if my chilli-beef did burn my tongue like hell. We then took our seats, which were up in the top tier, but the front row. Sam, who has a bad fear of heights wasn't loving the view when edging his way towards his seat, but admitted it was great when seated. This show was a lot of fun, in that when they don't have to play up to the TV cameras, the wrestlers go out there and put on a really fun show for the audience in attendance. Our main event was a great, hard-fought battle between golden boy John Cena, and my current favourite The Miz. Sadly The Miz lost, but he sure did dominate the match. Jason found it funny to hum Cena's theme music after the show, much to my chagrin.
Probably the highlight of this show though, was a triple threat match for the United States Championship, as reigning champion Daniel Bryan defeated R-Truth and Englishman William Regal. Daniel Bryan won the match, and was booed by the crowd who were in favour of the home-country hero. Regal soon grabbed a microphone and announced that after 27 years of wrestling, that he was probably getting too old for it all, and that this tour may well have been his last. If that remains the case, then it truly was an honour to see Regal's last matches in England. William Regal is a legend of the 'sport', having wrestled in England during British Wrestling's heyday, and wrestling for America's biggest companies. I've already found his speech on Youtube, watch it if you're at all interested:
After two events in two nights, I was feeling tired enough already, but that wasn't the end. On Wednesday night, I decided to make it three in a row, as I had tickets to see one of my most favourite bands of all time, Linkin Park with Stacey, Tam, and Andrew. I had seen Linkin Park once before, nearly three years ago now back in January 2008. They had put on a good show then, and they put on another fantastic show now. Rather than playing mostly new stuff, Linkin Park know how to strike a good balance, so that each of their albums gets a fair representation, resulting in a concert full of all different sounds. From the heavy, to beautiful acoustics.
Linkin Park perform 'One Step Closer' live at the O2 Arena
We were sitting very far back, and up high, but Linkin Park's live performance is so strong (sounding just as they do in their recordings) that everyone in the arena couldn't help but get into it.
All in all, it was a great few days. Thinking back to when I was twelve, the two most important things to me at the time were WWE (then known as WWF, before that Panda organisation sued) and Linkin Park. These three days would have been the most exciting imaginable to me then, and to be honest, I really did have a brilliant time that will be hard to top. The excitement for this month doesn't end here though, as this Sunday I'm going to see Sean Lock's new stand-up tour, and then on the 29th, I'm going to see 30 Seconds to Mars in Brighton. The November UK tour is rolling on baby!
Anyways, my tour kicked off this week with a bang, as I travelled with a couple of guys up to Manchester to see the television spectacular that is WWE Monday Night Raw be filmed for worldwide transmission. Sam had hired a rental car for the trip, a brand new 60 reg VW Golf. It only had seven miles on the clock when we picked it up, I think it had over six hundred by the time we gave it back. The drive was long, but not nearly as bad as we had expected, despite the weather's attempts to deter us. We turned up the CD player and had us a good old sing-along, which got us there in seemingly no time. We didn't get to see much of Manchester, in fact, all we saw was the carpark, the arena, and the train station attached to arena. It didn't matter though, we weren't up there to see the sights, we were there to see some wrestling. We all got to see our favourites, and from some pretty good seats. I won't go into huge detail about the event here, as I did that already during this week's Positively Raw column. If I had to choose one highlight from the show that I could watch over and over again, it would be this comedy skit that was absolutely hilarious live: Santino's Tea Party!
After the show Sam drove us back the 250 miles to Kent. Sam did all the driving for me and Andy (partly because he was the only one allowed to drive the rental car) and for that I'd like to say thanks. We stopped at a service station at about midnight for a snack before travelling the rest of the way back. Unfortunately, once we reached the M25, the home stretch so to speak, we were met with road works and a sign telling us that the east side stretch of the motorway was closed. We had to got the long way round annoyingly, and I fell asleep for about half an hour. I awoke to find that Sam had nearly driven the full stretch of M25, and we were soon home. I got home at about 3:30am and was happy to be able to go straight to bed.
The next day was a WWE Raw house show (non-televised show) at London's O2 Arena. Stacey and Jason joined us for this one, and I travelled up with them, meeting Sam and Andy at the arena. Now, almost every time that I go to the O2, I seem to end up having a drink or two in a bar there called Thai Silk. This was where we all met up on Tuesday evening, and with time pressing on before the start of the show, we wound up eating in there for the first time. The food was good value, and tasted great, even if my chilli-beef did burn my tongue like hell. We then took our seats, which were up in the top tier, but the front row. Sam, who has a bad fear of heights wasn't loving the view when edging his way towards his seat, but admitted it was great when seated. This show was a lot of fun, in that when they don't have to play up to the TV cameras, the wrestlers go out there and put on a really fun show for the audience in attendance. Our main event was a great, hard-fought battle between golden boy John Cena, and my current favourite The Miz. Sadly The Miz lost, but he sure did dominate the match. Jason found it funny to hum Cena's theme music after the show, much to my chagrin.
Probably the highlight of this show though, was a triple threat match for the United States Championship, as reigning champion Daniel Bryan defeated R-Truth and Englishman William Regal. Daniel Bryan won the match, and was booed by the crowd who were in favour of the home-country hero. Regal soon grabbed a microphone and announced that after 27 years of wrestling, that he was probably getting too old for it all, and that this tour may well have been his last. If that remains the case, then it truly was an honour to see Regal's last matches in England. William Regal is a legend of the 'sport', having wrestled in England during British Wrestling's heyday, and wrestling for America's biggest companies. I've already found his speech on Youtube, watch it if you're at all interested:
After two events in two nights, I was feeling tired enough already, but that wasn't the end. On Wednesday night, I decided to make it three in a row, as I had tickets to see one of my most favourite bands of all time, Linkin Park with Stacey, Tam, and Andrew. I had seen Linkin Park once before, nearly three years ago now back in January 2008. They had put on a good show then, and they put on another fantastic show now. Rather than playing mostly new stuff, Linkin Park know how to strike a good balance, so that each of their albums gets a fair representation, resulting in a concert full of all different sounds. From the heavy, to beautiful acoustics.
Linkin Park perform 'One Step Closer' live at the O2 Arena
We were sitting very far back, and up high, but Linkin Park's live performance is so strong (sounding just as they do in their recordings) that everyone in the arena couldn't help but get into it.
All in all, it was a great few days. Thinking back to when I was twelve, the two most important things to me at the time were WWE (then known as WWF, before that Panda organisation sued) and Linkin Park. These three days would have been the most exciting imaginable to me then, and to be honest, I really did have a brilliant time that will be hard to top. The excitement for this month doesn't end here though, as this Sunday I'm going to see Sean Lock's new stand-up tour, and then on the 29th, I'm going to see 30 Seconds to Mars in Brighton. The November UK tour is rolling on baby!
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