Weekend customer experience

March 21, 2005, 5:35 pm

India was christened over the weekend. With no cooker to cook food we turned to Marks and Spencers to handle the catering. I arrived at the Banstead store to be told that they did not have the salads I had asked for. The store manager was full of apologies – and was eager to right her companies wrong. She substituted the salad (free of charge) and was exceedingly pleasant in the way she went about things. I was impressed. And left feeling positive about M and S.

Sunday morning and I was in ASDA (ugchhh) buying fresh french bread for the afternoon. I’d also bought a large serving bowl. The young geeky guy on the checkout tried to make light conversation.
“A-ha, you like lots of Weetabix.”
“Eh?”

And he kept on, trying to make a pun about the size of the bowl and breakfast cereals. He tried to engage me in humour but failed. He didn’t know his audience. I left ASDA, holding it even lower in my esteem.

April 1, 2005, 12:39 pm
Is this bad news for development
A long time ago, when I was working in the development business I applied for a scholarship with the World Bank. They rejected me (ho hum). If I was working there I’m sure I would have grave concerns for the new president, Paul Wolfowitz .

He is a signatory to the Project for the New American Century, a call for America “to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the the future. Has the leopard really have changed his spots? We shall have to see. how long before the “war on terror” creeps into world Bank project criteria? A gloomy thought.