All Points North

Love this

My reasons are very simple, but having read about the two systems I feel that AV makes enough of a change to *my* style of politics to be worthwhile.

I very rarely go into a poling booth with a strong political conviction. I vote based on who I like the most (as, I suppose everyone does), but never do I agree 100% with everything they do or plan to do. The AV system allows me to vote how I want. I don’t care if that doesn’t make a difference to the outcome. It’s my vote.

It’s unlikely that my constituency of Halifax will shift away from Labour, but that’s not important to me. What I want is for my vote to be counted. For me it’s not about winning or voting for the winner it’s about registering my preference. And my preference often falls betwixt and between two parties. I’m a bit socialist on some counts and a bit conservative on the other. As well as that the AV system still enables people who are staunchly one way or another to continue to vote that way. Only want Labour? Just put a tick next to that box. Suits me and you.

I also like the way AV seems more appropriately grown-up. With FPTP my vote is counted once for my chosen candidate and is, essentially, a no for all the others. WIth AV my vote can mean ‘these first, them second, but definitely not those’. This more closely matches my actual feelings for nearly every vote I’ve ever cast.

AV won’t change the world and it’s not inherently ‘better’ than FPtP, I understand that, but as I see it it improves the overall balance of my vote. Your mileage may vary.

When I worked at Jessops we had to do these mundane ballache fire drills every so often. They were a pain – everything had to stop and everyone had to leave.

If you were on a break, tough. Selling a million pounds worth of kit to a customer? Never mind. GET OUT AND LOCK THE DOORS BEHIND YOU. It was never a fire, but on two occasions it was a bomb. Leeds was rarely a target, but like most big towns there were the occasional ‘scares’. It was after these two experiences that I became much less worried about the ballache of the fire drills as they proved their worth.

Retail staff are trained to be subservient to customers. Different companies have different approaches, but number one is normally be polite and represent the company and remember that when they are shouting and swearing at you that it’s the company they are taking it out on not you. This breeds a culture where staff (especially junior ones) find it hard to stand up to customers.

Some staff don’t take any shit some do, nothing is certain, but on rare occasions staff need to be told that they HAVE to do certain things and regardless of ‘the customer service charter’ the customer is very clearly wrong and can be told so. Fire/emergencies are one such occasion.

On my first Leeds bomb scare I was serving a customer when the fire alarm went off. I didn’t stop, I didn’t need to check a manual, I didn’t have to ask the manager what to do. I told the customer he’d have to leave now and escorted him to the door. We left the shop and went to sit outside the art gallery for an hour or so before the suspect package was ‘investigated*’ by one of those robots. *blown to shit in an explosion we could see and hear.

The second Leeds bomb scare was much the same, except my customer refused to leave. Now, in normal circumstances it’s be the other way around and I’d be begging the customer to stay, but this guy REALLY wanted to buy his Billingham Lens Pouch. I knew that serving him wasn’t an option, the alarm was going off and I was leaving. I basically had to tell him to get lost. ‘it’s just a drill’ was his response. ‘I don’t care what it is’ I said ‘please leave NOW’ He walked out the door promising to write a letter of complaint, which he duly did. The health and safety manager replied to him and CCd me in. Basically it said (paraphrasing)’piss off you doddery old twatbag Chris did EXACTLY what he was trained to do’

To you it might not seem like a big thing, but I think it’s massively important. Why can’t people just use their common sense?

BECAUE SOMETIMES THEY DON’T.

In my example, there was a police cordon about 200 police officers and 2 miles of blue ‘do not cross tape’ and the guy who I had to eject asked the policeman nearest our shop what time ‘this nonsense would all be over’

It was a real bomb. Happily, it didn’t go off.

Obviously, my experience is slightly different because they were bombs and not fires, but it illustrates the point that without proper guidance a situation can go wobbly. If I’d let the guy stay and buy his bag we were all in danger for longer.

People at the Woolworths fire in Manchester refused to leave because they had just bought dinner. I’ve seen the same in Costa at the White Rose Centre in Leeds the difference was that the manager and all the staff of Costa knew what to do and that was get everyone out and worry about customer service later. 10 people died in the fire in Manchester and though there were plenty of other reasons why the death toll was so high removing one of the reasons is surely in everyone’s best interests.

‘The boy who cried wolf’ is a good counter argument I suppose. Too many fire drills and people stop believing it’s real. But, how many people don’t leave? How many people don’t know what to do? Very few. Yeah, everyone might bitch like a cowbag on their way to the exit BUT THEY ARE LEAVING. People copy what is going on around them. In Woolworths I’m sure the first person who refused to leave compounded the problem as others followed suit. Another thing, they are leaving calmly and in a coordinated fashion. If you don’t find out until you are well out of harms way that there IS a fire then there’s less panic too.

The best bit of advice I ever got was from the Jessops fire marshall and it applies wherever you might have to do a fire drill:

‘you don’t know 100% why the alarm is going off unless you tripped it. GET. OUT.’

I can work and listen to music, but only if I wear headphones. Take the headphones off and I lose focus and stop working.

Weirrrd.

Someone who signs up to free services and complains bitterly when that free service is changed or restricted in ANY way.

Someone who buys a product and then complains bitterly that company has the audacity to release an chargeable update.

Someone who likes paying nothing and expecting a level of service normally set aside for presidents and heads of state.

Someone who uses the free or ‘lite’ version but complains bitterly that the paid for version has more features.