By Jay Commins March 3rd, 2010, under Ponderings
27 February 1990. A day I will never forget, as it was the day I first asked a girl out.
27 February 2010. A day I will never forget, as it was the day that the first daughter I had with the first girl I ever went out with won a choral scholarship to the Minster School.
I’ll particularly remember this date as we found out about the scholarship as we were celebrating our 20th anniversary of ‘going steady’ and our 13th wedding anniversary; we married on 1 March 1997, the closest Saturday to our dating ‘anniversary’, and slap bang between me asking my wife out, and us going on our first date (3 March 1990 – we went to watch Turner & Hooch at the cinema!).
For me, 27 February is now going to be a date I watch out for with interest. Okay, so I might have to wait another 13 years for something significant to happen, but you never know.
I wonder in what year the next lottery is drawn on 27 February…
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By Jay Commins February 1st, 2010, under Ponderings
It was on the news this morning that around 75,000 extra students will not be able to get into university this year as budgets are cut.
Now, forgive me for perhaps being a bit elitist, but surely universities are for the highest achievers to futher their education. All this will mean is that the minimum grades for entry will have to rise, which, in my humble opinion, is no bad thing.
A university degree is not a guarantee of a job, or in these troubled economic times, a guarantee of a higher income when you get a job. How many people that have graduated from university are now in jobs that require few qualifications?
Is this not a perfect time to get those less suited to academic pursuits into vocational training? There is a certain irony that Britian is now a country full of graduates, but you can’t find someone to fix a leaky pipe promptly. You do have to wonder if, for many people, the way to a prosperous future does not lie in a university education…
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By Jay Commins January 29th, 2010, under Observations
This week, I had to pay the final bill on my old mobile phone contract, but when I phoned the call centre at 6.00pm to make the payment, I was told their systems were down and that I would need to call back an hour later – which I duly did. However, when I called back, the systems were still down, so I requested a call-back.
And so, I did get a call back. At 11.40pm that night! Now, as the parent of an easily disturbed nine-month old baby, sleep is precious, so you can guess that my wife and I were not overly pleased at the whole household being woken up by a delighted call-centre worker from India announcing that their systems were now back on line, so if I wouldn’t mind giving her my card details…
The point here is that, yes, I had requested a call back, but it doesn’t take a huge amount of common sense to realise that phoning someone in the middle of the night is not the best way to extract a final payment of £2.09.
And if you want to know the name of the mobile phone provider that thinks it is okay to phone people in the middle of the night, I’ll give you Three guesses…
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By Jay Commins January 22nd, 2010, under Observations
At 10.00am most Fridays, our building has its fire alarm test. Today, it didn’t. Which is a shame because we had a genuine fire around about this time. Nothing too major – certainly nothing to threaten the piles of paper around Bridget’s desk – but a fire within our trusty old colour printer. ‘Merlin’ as it had been nicknamed (after it replaced ‘Arthur’) has now been consigned to the skip.
Now the drama unfolded not as the printer was in use, but as it was being tested to make sure it was safe. There’s some irony there, don’t you think? Portable Applicance Testing is usually designed to help avoid appliance fires, not cause them.
Has anyone got any recommendations for a decent replacement? Answers on an email to jay@fim.org.uk?
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By Bridge January 18th, 2010, under Ponderings, Uncategorized
Well, haven’t all those 4×4 critics suddenly gone very quiet? Didn’t the gas-guzzling monsters do well over the last four weeks of snow? Land Rovers rescuing people from snowdrifts, 4×4s trudging across fields to take much-needed supplies to cut-off villages; it was great. At last beleaguered 4×4 owners were appreciated, nay even loved again. My personal experience entailed being collected by a sure-footed Navara, as my two-wheel drive was never going to make it up a snowy farm track for a day’s beating – and I was amazed at just how sure-footed the Navara was. All hail the 4×4! Its day returned in the middle of December 2009.
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By Jay Commins January 15th, 2010, under Observations
As anyone who has tried to contact me over the last couple of weeks will know, we’ve had one or two technology issues here at Footprint – the new system that I specified to speed up many aspects of how we work has had more than a few little unexpected glitches.
But now – at the time of typing – it is working properly and in a stable fashion. The latest system meltdown was fixed using the classic IT tool – turn everything off, and start again. It is as simple as that. Sometimes, you’ve got to go back to basics and then start building from there.
I guess that this is much like marketing, really – in a world where you are promised that the latest marketing fad is the answer to all of your problems, it is good to remember that the tried and tested techniques still have a very important role to play. Of course, there will be new ideas coming round all the time, and some may fundamentally change the way you look at things. But, just like the Betamax video, some good ideas will eventually be consigned to the past.
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By Jay Commins December 16th, 2009, under Ponderings
I’m talking about Christmas, of course, and yet this year, I’m really struggling to get into the festive spirit. For the first time in years, I’ve not written my Christmas cards yet, and – shock horror for anyone who knows that I used to be itching to get the tree up at the end of November – I haven’t even put any decorations up yet. Well, apart from a few measly lights outside the house, which went up at the weekend after people started calling me a Grinch.
I don’t know why, but Christmas this year seems to have come around much more quickly. Perhaps that is a symptom of getting older? Or perhaps it is just that we have been ‘doing’ Christmas, in one form or another, since June when our choirs started work on the Christmas carols.
I might just have to treat myself to the latest X-factor single. After all, what is Christmas without an X-factor number one?
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By Lucy December 15th, 2009, under Ponderings
I’m sat here reading the retail training programme and as a previous spa manager and teacher, I’m amazed at what good value it is! It’s a full retail help programme for £35 which means you make your money back in 1 – 2 product sales! And then it is with you for life….new staff, boosters for when the team needs a pick me up, great to listen to when you have a no show or late cancellation. I wonder how many salons and spas are out there with a 15 minute free time slot in their column, and rather than sat twiddling thumbs or folding towels, they could be taking steps to vastly increase their bottom line! I think this training is something every home should have! (or salon anyway!) http://www.salon-docs.com/Retail%20sales%20podcasts.htm
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By Jay Commins December 11th, 2009, under Invitations
This is an open invitation – Friday morning is bacon butty and coffee morning at Footprint (and a bargain at only £2 for a sandwich and the best coffee this side of Italy, from Greggs on Thorpe Park). If ever you fancy dropping in and joining us, just let us know and we’ll get an extra one in!
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By Jay Commins December 10th, 2009, under Observations
We’ve been invited to pitch for a few pieces of new business recently, so have been putting together documentation about the agency and the team.
It is at times like this that I realise just how ‘traditionally British’ we are. We do some amazing work for our clients, and yet whenever it comes to having to blow our own trumpet about it, we always tend to play down the success – it is like a corporate version of someone complimenting your outfit and you replying with “What, this old thing?”
So my resolution for 2010 is that I’m going to try to accept compliments better, and be honest about when I am proud about a bit of work that the team has done.
When I look back over the presentation that we did today, no matter what the outcome and whether we win the business or not, I am proud of what we achieve and proud of the team working here that makes it happen. We may be a small agency, but we still achieve great things.
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