Sunday, June 17, 2018
A sleeping bag story
Two and a bit years ago, I did a sponsored sleep out for "Moving On Homeless Support", which is now the "Moving On Project" due to the fact public liability for stuff like tea stands is now £3,000 a year. On the Saturday night, we were slightly drunk lying under the shutters of where Poundland is on Ann Street. People were bretty generous and gave us a lot of food and money even when we tried to refuse it. However one guy from somewhere in Eastern Europe comes up to us and is obviously on something. Kind of seems stoned but the likelihood is it's one of the synthetic drugs like Spice etc. He's chatting to us and despite us appearing homeless and him not being homeless, asks us for food. We've been given a lot so sure, why not - we gave him a sandwich and he fucking INHALES the thing like every cell in his body was dependent on getting the energy before the void within consumes him. He's still hungry but we've got to hold off. Sure we're fine now and I gained weight over the weekend sitting there, drinking rum and eating Happy Meals teenagers gave us, but we don't know when the next sandwich is going to come. He danders off and we go about the rest of the sleep out as is. Turns out that dude was one of the "Russians", a Lithuanian crime family the PSNI according to Sunday Life are shitting themselves about and even the UDA are getting out muscled by. He's now doing time for posession of heroin with intent to supply. Now on the one hand I'm annoyed I gave this sociopath cunt a sandwich. Would probably rather he died of hunger than having allowed him to sell poison, intimidate and harass people. On the other hand, it's probably just as well I gave him the sandwich. As much as I train BJJ and Muay Thai, there's fuck all I could do if the guy took a knife and decided he wanted to stab me whilst my legs are caught in the sleeping bag. Man I would have been opened up like the very hungry catipillar going through a gastric bypass. There's no moral to the story other than sleeping bags have their uses, but don't make the best defensive shield.
Thursday, June 07, 2018
Easyjet Feedback Form
EasyJet Feedback Complaint
By now you should realize part of my rants are customer service aimed ones. I'm a big believer in making a point to multi national companies that they usually suck and they should probably give you free shit. Local businesses I tend to go less harsh on, because there's usually some guy who's livelihood is deeply dependent on it and besides that, trying to get free shit out of a small restaurant or bar "just because" is usually a dick move. I'd rant about sue culture, but it's not a tangent I'm going down today. I'm just firing out my EasyJet Feedback Form about an issue I had. Also note, I did try an incognito window and on my phone for the same flights before I booked them, so this is not one of those "cookie" things.
First off, your prices are ridiculous. On the morning of the 5th June I checked the prices for some flights to from Belfast. Roughly they came to around £90 all inclusive, unfortunately I hesitated and went to book it later. The prices jumped up by £50. Then, when I was finalizing the booking, it jumped up another £5. I was hugely irritated, but I booked the flights anyway. I checked my bank account the next day. Strange. There were two withdrawls of the same amount taken by EasyJet from my bank account with different confirmation codes on them. I rang customer service and after ten minutes of explaining the situation and passing the code on was told to use the website to forward a screenshot through and an explanation. TEN MINUTES I WASTED ON A CALL THAT WAS CHARGED TO FIX A PROBLEM CAUSED BY EASYJET'S WEBSITE/SERVER/CONNECTION/LAG I DON'T KNOW. I'm not a tech expert, but this is clearly your fault. Then after going through your website to submit the complaint form with the screenshot receive an e-mail to say that it will take up to 21 days to look into this issue. Does this seem acceptable to you? Maybe to Stelios he can afford to have £144 taken from his accont for no apparent reason. In fact it probably doesn't even pay for a glass of champagne in the Burj Khalifa but why do I have to foot it. You guys get to make interest on it over the 21 day period, I don't. In fact, I am lucky that I have enough in my bank account to not immediately worry about £144, but had I not saved a little bit of cash in my account to cushion me from various emergencies, the double withdrawl could put me deep into an overdraft, or to the point that the bank charges me for being an unauthorized overdraft. Would you guys be prepared to foot that bill? Probably not. So as you can see, despite the fact I have to fly with EasyJet because you guys are one of the few airlines to cover the London/Belfast trip these days, if I could avoid it after this, you're damn sure that I would. So, your move Easy J, do better or have people like me writing snide replies to your feedback form forever more.
By now you should realize part of my rants are customer service aimed ones. I'm a big believer in making a point to multi national companies that they usually suck and they should probably give you free shit. Local businesses I tend to go less harsh on, because there's usually some guy who's livelihood is deeply dependent on it and besides that, trying to get free shit out of a small restaurant or bar "just because" is usually a dick move. I'd rant about sue culture, but it's not a tangent I'm going down today. I'm just firing out my EasyJet Feedback Form about an issue I had. Also note, I did try an incognito window and on my phone for the same flights before I booked them, so this is not one of those "cookie" things.
First off, your prices are ridiculous. On the morning of the 5th June I checked the prices for some flights to from Belfast. Roughly they came to around £90 all inclusive, unfortunately I hesitated and went to book it later. The prices jumped up by £50. Then, when I was finalizing the booking, it jumped up another £5. I was hugely irritated, but I booked the flights anyway. I checked my bank account the next day. Strange. There were two withdrawls of the same amount taken by EasyJet from my bank account with different confirmation codes on them. I rang customer service and after ten minutes of explaining the situation and passing the code on was told to use the website to forward a screenshot through and an explanation. TEN MINUTES I WASTED ON A CALL THAT WAS CHARGED TO FIX A PROBLEM CAUSED BY EASYJET'S WEBSITE/SERVER/CONNECTION/LAG I DON'T KNOW. I'm not a tech expert, but this is clearly your fault. Then after going through your website to submit the complaint form with the screenshot receive an e-mail to say that it will take up to 21 days to look into this issue. Does this seem acceptable to you? Maybe to Stelios he can afford to have £144 taken from his accont for no apparent reason. In fact it probably doesn't even pay for a glass of champagne in the Burj Khalifa but why do I have to foot it. You guys get to make interest on it over the 21 day period, I don't. In fact, I am lucky that I have enough in my bank account to not immediately worry about £144, but had I not saved a little bit of cash in my account to cushion me from various emergencies, the double withdrawl could put me deep into an overdraft, or to the point that the bank charges me for being an unauthorized overdraft. Would you guys be prepared to foot that bill? Probably not. So as you can see, despite the fact I have to fly with EasyJet because you guys are one of the few airlines to cover the London/Belfast trip these days, if I could avoid it after this, you're damn sure that I would. So, your move Easy J, do better or have people like me writing snide replies to your feedback form forever more.