Olympic Partners and Pomp

This doesn't refer to athletes shaggin' in the village, although I'm sure that does go on.

The days of the Olypics being an amateur event about sport are obviously long gone.  It seems to now be an odd trend between pointless ritual and money, with some events thrown in the middle somewhere. Let's face it, the games themselves are about 3 weeks? Just over? While the worldwide cash in campaign is months, if not years.

Companies (the partners of the title) will throw any possible amount of money at the organisers just to get their name associated with the event. Some of these just don't make sense. Two obvious one's stick out, McDonalds and Coca Cola, two things criminally bad for health, I enjoy partaking in both, but in no way do I think Big Mac meal with a coke, let's do some triple jump!Is unhealthy food really who the IOC want to be associated with? Of course, as they have the most money to give them.

Others on the list just make you think, why? P&G are on there and it's plastered all over their adverts. But once again... what's the association? Are the risks of Paula Radcliffe shitting on the pavement again so high, they've got the manufacturers of pampers in just in case? Or have they got some discount Ariel out of the deal and the athletes wash their (hopefully not shit stained) clothes in it?

UPS? Well I suppose if I was an athlete I wouldn't want to use bastard Yodel either, who would? Fucking Yodel.

Visa? Naturally the more active or accurate or... ummm, of the payment methods...

Nature Valley? Will those business people falling into the haystack on the advert be being replaced with water polo players?

There are some obvious matches, Airwave a radio supplier, going to need them. Ticketmaster, yep going to need someone to sell tickets, addidas, sportswear... yeah cool, technogym, running to techno music? I not sure but it sounds like something that makes sense.

Basically any company with enough cash and the urge to have their name associated with such a global spectacle of an event can become an Olympic partner, I don't like that.

Then there's all the pointless ceremony. Friday I've taken the day off work, the reason? A good percentage of Cardiff will be closed while people run through the streets holding the Olympic torch, so everyone can get to see it. Wow, a torch. Yeah, I'll hang round for that...

Then the bastard thing is following me and will close bits of Merthyr Saturday, for gods sake I've got things to do!The idea that this torch thing has to go within x distance of everyone's house baffles me. I understand it some attempt to involve the whole country, but I don't give a shit. I don't want to see the torch, I don't want a T-Shirt, I don't want a mouse mat, or a mug. I momentarily thought about getting tickets to the football, but as my beliefs are no Welsh players should be involved (Bale, Ramsey, Williams, Allen, etc this means you) I thought no, plus they were expensive!

There'll be an xbox game, it'll be crap, they're always crap, so I don't want that.

I also don't want to watch drug cheats such as Dwaine Chambers compete, but looks like I'm stuck with that too. I won't celebrate if he gets a medal, luckily he shouldn't.

I'll watch and enjoy the Olympics, don't get me wrong, but all the BS that comes with it, I can do without. I'm now resigned to however many decades of having this shit stuffed down my throat. It should be about the athletes, not cash.

Is it really so hard??

I've done the who customer facing job thing a few times. A few years behind a bar, can't avoid the customer there. A few years delivering pizzas, can't avoid the customer there. A move to a call centre and then a call centre complaint handler, can't see them but can hear them, so can't avoid them there.

Luckily (depending if you enjoy that kind of role I suppose) those days, for now at least, are behind me, but I'm still close by. Right, pointless opening? Maybe, but it does set a scene that I have some experience in service.

My point is, why do I seem to encounter incompetence or downright laziness wherever I turn? I'm not going to comment on the service the company I work for gives, too many people have hung themselves like that, I'm neutral on it, as it should probably be in my kind of job (still complaints but backroom complaints), but I can at least say I always tried my best when I was customer facing.

But of late, everyone seems to conspire against being as helpful as they can. My first rant is against Plusnet, a perfectly adequate company if you never have to communicate with them. I recently moved home (or am in the process of, see earlier blog) and out Internet provider, having never caused us hassle before was going to accompany us. Went to the website to change the address and... nope can't do it online... annoying but oh well to the phone I go, and I wait, and I wait... Now Plusnet's opening hours quite closely match my working ones and they don't do weekends, so my big chance to ring them is my breaks and a chunk out of my lunch, none of these are long enough time periods to get through.

So after trying for a couple of days I go "Screw you Plusnet I'm cancelling, Sky can do my broadband!" I go to their website and... phone or post cancellations only. Now they do have a online help thing and I post on there, want to cancel can't get through on the phone can you please call me, to which they reply, you have to phone. Yes I know this but I can't. There's no email option.. to an ISP...

Their response to this query was OFCOM make us give you two options, and phone and post are the two, the slowest and the one they can charge for. It may be compliant to their regulatory body, but it's doing enough to get by and still being as obstructive as they can, obviously cancellation isn't ideal for them. Stuff them I've logged a complaint with their ombudsman (CI something or another) and notified OFCOM of my thoughts. That'll make them sit up and take note... or not.

Next on the list, and the last one I'll mention today (ooooooh it's a long long list) is KFC. Specifically KFC Merthyr sodding Tydfil. Now I love Merthyr, it's my homeland, but we have a habit of doing things half arsed, the number of times McDonalds staff haven't quite comprehended 'No cheese', shop staff not quite sure of what's going on, that kind of thing. But tonights KFC incident did my swede right in.

I arrive late, I've been painting, I'm hungry, the OH is hungry, we want 2 fillet meals. But they have no bread... oh (partial) burger place has no bread, not a good sign. OK the OH has crispy strips and I decide on a toasted twister meal. But because of the time (As you can see the bread fairy had already been) they couldn't toast it, so it was really just a twister, for the same price. But I was hungry and it was 35 yards to McDonalds and I didn't have the patience for the cheese argument tonight, so I took it. Then it took 10 minutes to arrive (it's late.. blah blah) I mean I understand they want to go home closing time, but if you're not willing to offer the service til closing time, change the closing time. Rather than my boring soggy wrap I'd rather they would have said, sorry we're closed.

On the up side, I picked up Lonely Avenue by Ben Folds/Nick Hornby today. Give or take one stinker it's damn good, in particular From Above, delightful song. I would recommend it to anyone. Oh and for the record the HMV staff who served me was a dream, not that much can go wrong scanning a CD...

I might get perfect service somewhere tomorrow, but as Ben sings and Nick wrote, "You know what hope is? Hope is a bastard"

Night!