When buying a bag of vacuum cleaner bags from Godfrey's or any other vacuum cleaner shop, you are more likely to encounter poor customer service than in just about any other retail environment.
Upon entering the shop, the retail worker would like you to be contemplating the purchase of a new vacuum cleaner as the sale of the non re-useable paper dust containers is mere bagatelle to his sales bottom line and commission. You can see his lip drop as you mention what you want, and when you don't know straight away what type of bag it is you are after, from the myriad range, then it's a chance for him to shake his head at you, saying "Well, we've got lots of different bags for different machines, and if you don't know what type of machine you've got, it's going to be impossible to identify the right bag!", as if the problem posed is going to be harder to solve than coming world food shortage.
I actually sort of half knew the name of the machine I had. I just hadn't bothered to write it down or bring with me an old empty bag of vacuum cleaner bags. I was 100% sure it was a Hoover (an American president past) and vaguely remembered the model name also had something to do with the US of A - "That's right it's a 'Patriot'!", I muttered to myself as my vacuum cleaner bag name seeking mnemonic invoked its powers of magic recollection. All this happened at the same time as my eyes moved along the lines of bags, like a visiting head of state inspecting an honour guard, and there it was a bag of five Hoover Patriot bags.
After the gruff treatment I received from the first salesman I encountered, I tried to complete the transaction with another salesman. However the second salesman, who I suspect was an underling in the Godfrey's salesperson's hierarchy, passed me straight back the curmudgeon I first encountered. Despite achieving the unachievable and managing to spot the correct vacuum cleaner bag, the first salesman merely processed the sale, without so much as a word uttered in my direction. I saw his muteness and raised him no eye contact, as if we were in some giant elevator, where all communication had been banned. Credit card sales can sometimes facilitate silence in the retail exchange, and our interaction was confined to me proffering my card, him passing me the bags and then thrusting a receipt into my hand.
As I exited the shop I realized my working life wasn't so bad, because it seemed to be employed in a vacuum cleaner shop somehow seemed to suck the life out of those behind the counter, and didn't match the autonomy, pushiness and apparent living on the edge their door to door counterparts enjoyed. Maybe next time I could make the purchase of vacuum cleaner bags more pleasant for all concerned by ordering them on the Internet so then a welcome parcel of bags would one day turn up on my door step, where in the past an Electrolux or Dyson salesman had once stood.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Zappa tours
I have just completed my 2nd tour with an adventure tourism company called Zappa tours. They provide guided storm chasing tours of tornado alley and throughout the Darwin area. These tours are led by storm savant Clyve Herbert and thunder lover Jane ONeill. Herbert is Welsh born, Geelong raised and along with ONeill, both are residents of Trentham, Victoria and Hillsboro, Kansas.
Their recent arrival in Darwin on 24 November saw the two veteran chasers not only hungry for storms, but also food, after Jetstar had apparently adopted austere Aeroflot catering practices with not a bite to eat aboard Alan Joyce's model for Australian aviation. As they neared Darwin, almost on cue, a monster approached Darwin from the east and their inbound flight was diverted to a different path to the Top End capital's airport, while boiling sparking clouds covered the sky over the Northern Territory capital.
Day 2 looked as it offered slim pickings, but on dusk a costal storm cell grew rapidly and teased onlookers as it crossed Fannie Bay. It was all vertiginous pomp and gust front presaging its passage to the maritime west and north. In hue it was a mix of pinks, oranges and blues, with smudges of grey and white. A short lived beast, its bluster and presence whetted the appetites of storm entusiasts lucky enough to watch its passage. As it disappeared into the dripping wet night, dragon flies danced in delight, while at low tide, mangroves took a breath. The chasers returned to their 7th floor apartment, cranked up the airconditioning and waited for early morning sparkage in the darkness that they knew was common in the tropical north.
Saturday saw Herbert twiddling the AM car radio dial listening for zaps so we could hunt down an elusive growing storm hidden among the comings and goings of mounds of confusing cumulus. Eventually it emerged, expanding puffing convection, slowly wending its way across the flat savannah towards Mango farm and Fogg dam. It provided ephemeral vistas of blues overhead, deep and vivid with curved striations occasionally punctuated by random filaments of electricity that touched earth like a pole held by a blind man feeling his way through the dark. Arriving, it bought both cool wind and rain as the chasers dashed ahead satisfied with their catch.
Sunday's soup of humidity served up a gruel of weather visiting heat stroke on one of the chasers, who found the skies offered nothing in the form of relief to the low profile of clouds and drippingly high dew points. Meanwhile, the atomsphere stored up and saved heat and latent energy for another rainy day.
As the following evening approached, with the air again a giant sauna, a failing shower threw warm spots of rain, while we peered at a far away storm more shape than substance, that later provided a light show as the day departed to the west.
Finally on our last day we counted four storms, the first an alarm ringer that shook us from our beds leading to a balcony chase in pyjamas. Then before morning tea could be had, the view from the wharf gave us almost 180 degrees of a heavy thundery shower giving back evapouration and condensation to the sea from whence they had come. Two hours later, outback edge country 100 kms to the south held a large thumping collection of wind, rain and lightning that blotted out the sky. After its best work had been done, the third storm of the day became brilliantly lit by the sun, rendering an indigo shade reminding us where it had been and what it had done, As our holiday closed, another storm lurked somehwere behind columns of tropical moisture held aloft. Passing through a veil of rain, we saw it for the first time, rolling along and through the landscape accompanied by low rumbles, another forboding mass shouldering its way westward to an inevitable hydrological destiny.
Another great week in the tropical Top End had unflolded providing us with a stark contrast to our temperate lives in our everyday elsewhere.
Their recent arrival in Darwin on 24 November saw the two veteran chasers not only hungry for storms, but also food, after Jetstar had apparently adopted austere Aeroflot catering practices with not a bite to eat aboard Alan Joyce's model for Australian aviation. As they neared Darwin, almost on cue, a monster approached Darwin from the east and their inbound flight was diverted to a different path to the Top End capital's airport, while boiling sparking clouds covered the sky over the Northern Territory capital.
Day 2 looked as it offered slim pickings, but on dusk a costal storm cell grew rapidly and teased onlookers as it crossed Fannie Bay. It was all vertiginous pomp and gust front presaging its passage to the maritime west and north. In hue it was a mix of pinks, oranges and blues, with smudges of grey and white. A short lived beast, its bluster and presence whetted the appetites of storm entusiasts lucky enough to watch its passage. As it disappeared into the dripping wet night, dragon flies danced in delight, while at low tide, mangroves took a breath. The chasers returned to their 7th floor apartment, cranked up the airconditioning and waited for early morning sparkage in the darkness that they knew was common in the tropical north.
Saturday saw Herbert twiddling the AM car radio dial listening for zaps so we could hunt down an elusive growing storm hidden among the comings and goings of mounds of confusing cumulus. Eventually it emerged, expanding puffing convection, slowly wending its way across the flat savannah towards Mango farm and Fogg dam. It provided ephemeral vistas of blues overhead, deep and vivid with curved striations occasionally punctuated by random filaments of electricity that touched earth like a pole held by a blind man feeling his way through the dark. Arriving, it bought both cool wind and rain as the chasers dashed ahead satisfied with their catch.
Sunday's soup of humidity served up a gruel of weather visiting heat stroke on one of the chasers, who found the skies offered nothing in the form of relief to the low profile of clouds and drippingly high dew points. Meanwhile, the atomsphere stored up and saved heat and latent energy for another rainy day.
As the following evening approached, with the air again a giant sauna, a failing shower threw warm spots of rain, while we peered at a far away storm more shape than substance, that later provided a light show as the day departed to the west.
Finally on our last day we counted four storms, the first an alarm ringer that shook us from our beds leading to a balcony chase in pyjamas. Then before morning tea could be had, the view from the wharf gave us almost 180 degrees of a heavy thundery shower giving back evapouration and condensation to the sea from whence they had come. Two hours later, outback edge country 100 kms to the south held a large thumping collection of wind, rain and lightning that blotted out the sky. After its best work had been done, the third storm of the day became brilliantly lit by the sun, rendering an indigo shade reminding us where it had been and what it had done, As our holiday closed, another storm lurked somehwere behind columns of tropical moisture held aloft. Passing through a veil of rain, we saw it for the first time, rolling along and through the landscape accompanied by low rumbles, another forboding mass shouldering its way westward to an inevitable hydrological destiny.
Another great week in the tropical Top End had unflolded providing us with a stark contrast to our temperate lives in our everyday elsewhere.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Ripped off by the floss?
I want write about the process of working out whether I've been ripped off by those who sell dental floss. Recent purchases of dental floss that I've made seem to have run out quicker than earlier purchases of this item. Currently I am using Oral B tape, which ostensibly extends for 25 metres. I am not using dental floss more frequently so it should be lasting as long.
Time seems to go faster as you get older, so maybe this quickening up of using dental floss is based on distorted perceptions and is just apparent and not real.
I could keep all the used bits of floss and painstakingly concatenate and measure them up. On reflection this would seem as impossible as putting together pieces of paper that have been through a shredder.
There is only one way to resolve this - to unravel the floss and assess it against a standard and see if it measures up. So I plan to ask a friend to accompany me to Bruce, lay out the thin white ribbon and see if the measurement on the packaging lies or whether indeed it really lies from one end to the other of the AIS 25 metre pool.
Time seems to go faster as you get older, so maybe this quickening up of using dental floss is based on distorted perceptions and is just apparent and not real.
I could keep all the used bits of floss and painstakingly concatenate and measure them up. On reflection this would seem as impossible as putting together pieces of paper that have been through a shredder.
There is only one way to resolve this - to unravel the floss and assess it against a standard and see if it measures up. So I plan to ask a friend to accompany me to Bruce, lay out the thin white ribbon and see if the measurement on the packaging lies or whether indeed it really lies from one end to the other of the AIS 25 metre pool.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Nanny stateism
There is an interesting nascent debate going on about whether the government is too involved in people's lives, the nanny state. The main complaint is that the government passes and then enforces too many laws. This happens in the same environment where many in society complain about the government not doing enough to help solve people's problems. A recent example that comes to mind is the disappearance of a guy in the South Australian outback, with family and relatives complaining that the police didn't do enough to locate the missing man - that is this in an example where there is an expectation that the government should solve people's problems. Of course the media are involved here. They clamour for a leaner government, which will then be unable to be as involved in people's lives as it would if it, the government, was more resourced. The media also clamours for government and its resources to solve the myriad of complex problems they catalogue, like this unsual example of the guy disappearing in the South Australian outback.
Today I was listening to a program on guns and gun control in Australia. There was a 'beautiful', if that's the right word, example of how the government should be involved in people's lives. The gun lobby urge for easier access to firearms (that is, a lessening of nanny stateism) while relying on police to be responsible for intervening when guns fall into the right hands. As I say, this 'elegantly' sums up the idea of government taking a preventative stance to minimize of problem (guns), versus some in the community seeing government's role being to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, in this case to enforce the laws about gun use.
Today I was listening to a program on guns and gun control in Australia. There was a 'beautiful', if that's the right word, example of how the government should be involved in people's lives. The gun lobby urge for easier access to firearms (that is, a lessening of nanny stateism) while relying on police to be responsible for intervening when guns fall into the right hands. As I say, this 'elegantly' sums up the idea of government taking a preventative stance to minimize of problem (guns), versus some in the community seeing government's role being to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, in this case to enforce the laws about gun use.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Post holidays challenges at the Men's refuge
Came back from two weeks away on holidays to find a series of small things wrong, domestically. Australian Post who were meant to have held my mail, can't find the mail they held, having no idea where it is, where to start looking for it, or who to ask where it might be. I want to get the $22 back from them that I paid them to hold the mail, but I'm more concerned about the new credit card that is probably among the held mail. I guess all of the letters they held for me and ultimately have lost, could end up at the dead letter office.
Also my set top box, aged VCR and timer for my central heating were not working when I arrived home after a fortnight away. Another power plug was playing up & all this made me think there had been a power surge, which I mused might have been due to all the solar panels feeding in too much power to the grid or just the coal generated power protesting against the carbon tax. After two days of set top box and VCR on the blink, I rushed out and purchased a new set top box, DVD, VCR combo and a surge protector for $380. When I brought it home, the apparently dead set top box and VCR miraculously had come back to life, meaning I'd wasted $300 on the new stuff from the Good Guys. Knowing the Good Guys were probably good guys, I asked if I could bring back the DVD VCR set top box combo and get a credit. "Maybe" was their answer - they need to inspect the pristine new equipment and see if is still sufficiently pristine.
Today, on a nearly completely unrelated topic, I saw a church in the Canberra suburb of O'Connor with solar panels on the roof in the shape of a crucifix. The power of the Lord, I thought to myself. Maybe Julia needs to pray at this place for a lift in the polls,while I could try and enlist support from a higher force to stop the surges and bring back my mail from the dead letter office or whereever held mail gets held up.
Also my set top box, aged VCR and timer for my central heating were not working when I arrived home after a fortnight away. Another power plug was playing up & all this made me think there had been a power surge, which I mused might have been due to all the solar panels feeding in too much power to the grid or just the coal generated power protesting against the carbon tax. After two days of set top box and VCR on the blink, I rushed out and purchased a new set top box, DVD, VCR combo and a surge protector for $380. When I brought it home, the apparently dead set top box and VCR miraculously had come back to life, meaning I'd wasted $300 on the new stuff from the Good Guys. Knowing the Good Guys were probably good guys, I asked if I could bring back the DVD VCR set top box combo and get a credit. "Maybe" was their answer - they need to inspect the pristine new equipment and see if is still sufficiently pristine.
Today, on a nearly completely unrelated topic, I saw a church in the Canberra suburb of O'Connor with solar panels on the roof in the shape of a crucifix. The power of the Lord, I thought to myself. Maybe Julia needs to pray at this place for a lift in the polls,while I could try and enlist support from a higher force to stop the surges and bring back my mail from the dead letter office or whereever held mail gets held up.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Personal Queanbeyan recollections
I once watched a documentary film in which a harridan wistfully recalled being told by her mother never to go out with/marry anyone from the end of a railway line, because apparently only dodgy people settled at the end of a railway line. This woman lived in Cunnamulla, the penultimate stop on a line that terminates in Eulo. Many people from Canberra scoff at Queanbeyan, but it is the second last stop on a railway line that ends in Canberra, so it can’t be all that bad.
It’s a town, 90% of the time, I enter via a side/back route skirting Oakes Estate and then proceed past the Sunrise motel, subsequently diverting left down another street to sidestep the centre of town as I head towards “Little Canberra”, aka Bungendore.
I was once registered on the electoral roll in Queanbeyan to help make my vote count more in a marginal seat – but the AEC were onto me, and removed me from the roll, and so doing, I was cast back into the then self government forsaken ACT.
Once I went to see the premiere of a musical in Queanbeyan. It was also its last performance, but that had nothing to do with its intrinsic worth. The premiere was ‘savaged’ by a Canberra Times critic, who, to this day, I believe, must have been certifiably deaf. I also saw Todd McKinney perform his one man cabaret in Queanbeyan – this was post Boy from Oz and pre Dancing with the Stars. Even back then and even for a show business person, McKinney seemed unusually ‘full of himself’.
Another time, I went on a sort of date (at least I thought it was) to a trivia night (you’re right, what sort of person could think they were going on a date to a trivia night). Anyway, the woman who invited me, also invited another person, also bearing the surname ‘King’. This King wore track suit pants (let’s not eschew stereotypes; this was pure Queanbeyan but he was from there). Apparently they weren’t going out at that stage, but after this night of trivia, they ‘hooked up’ (as they call it in Queanbeyan), and subsequently married. Whether my presence during the evening had any catalytic effect on bringing them together I don’t know. However, being present at the start of a relationship is sometimes a bright counterpoint to a work life dominated by the casting asunder of those previously ‘hooked up’.
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