Category: Uncategorized

Moving…

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do – having done it for the third time in five years, I can wholeheartedly say this was the worst yet.

Hiring a man with a van and getting him and his mate to do the shifting for you isn’t the difficult part. The worst bit is being left with all the unopened boxes stacked in the precisely the wrong part of the rooms you want them in, and then having to find new homes for all the things that used to fit so neatly in a drawer, under the bed, or in the loft.

And then you have to do all this unpacking with a curious toddler who wants to put her fingers and nose into everything. It’s exhausting in so many ways. A week on and we’re still not 100% straight, in spite of going at it hell for leather.

One good thing, though, was the switch of broadband supplier. I now use Sky and can thoroughly recommend them. The wireless router and other gubbins was sent in advance of the activation date and the broadband was turned on when they said it would be.

What’s more the set-up procedure was so easy and slick and, best of all, they’re Mac compatible, which is more than can be said for some of the big ISPs!

After a week of no internet access, it’s definitely good to be back, although I must say, it was  quite refreshing to ignore the rest of the online world for a few days!

Customer service nightmare

little chefI went to a Little Chef at the weekend, which in retrospect probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but when you’re staying at a Travelodge and have a 16-month-old and need breakfast, there aren’t many options.

I’ll give them one thing – their marketing is fantastic. The breakfasts looked genuinely appealing and their prices have come down a lot.

Sadly, from the moment we walked through the door, things went wrong.

1) No member of staff greeted us and took us to a table. So, we took it upon ourselves to find a high chair and find a table.

2) We had to find our own menus – none were forthcoming from the “staff” – I use that word sparingly.

3) After having been at our table for 10 minutes, one of the boys on duty came over to tell us we were blocking the aisle with the high chair and we had to move. He took us to the other side of the “restaurant” and promptly blocked another aisle with the high chair. Good old ‘health and safety’, eh?

4) Once the orders were taken, it took roughly 20 minutes to cook four breakfasts. However, in the meantime, another table sent their food back, because it wasn’t cooked. It’s sausage and bacon, for goodness sake, how can you not cook it properly?

5) Every time someone paid, the staff had to get the ticket from the chef and then decipher what each person had ordered. It took five blokes 10 minutes to pay for breakfast!

6) Their staffing policy is abominable: no-one seemed to be in charge, in fact I’m not sure there was a manager. Those on duty looked as if they’d just left nursery and couldn’t have looked less happy if they were standing in front of a firing squad. I know it can’t be much fun to be working at a Little Chef at 8am on a Sunday morning, but at least try to look as if you’re enthused.

7) Did we consider complaining? We did, but realised it wouldn’t have got us anywhere. The food, which was actually fairly OK, wouldn’t have reached us any quicker. The staff wouldn’t have magically cheered up and the service wouldn’t have been any quicker. We might have got a fiver off our meal, but that’s hardly recompense for a dismal experience.

All in all, very depressing. I know Little Chef have had problems recently and almost shut down for good. Well, on the evidence of this, perhaps they should do just that. I certainly won’t be going back for a long time.