Friday, March 23, 2007

Sleasy Jet


I have just been to pick up some friends from a provincial airport and whilst I was waiting for their flight to arrive I had a butchers round.

What struck me was the ghastly colour orange of the Easy Jet uniform.. it was very cheap looking and where staff had washed those beautiful (sic) orange quilted jackets they had faded and looked very council house'ish which went well with the majority of staff who were the equivalent of Poundstretcher in terms of store heirarchy. Marks and Spencer or House of Fraser they were most certainly not.

Now after travelling a lot from major airports and coming into contact with the likes of British Airways, Lufthansa and Virgin whose ground staff and flight crews always look immaculately turned out, the shabby looking Easy Jet mob were an eye opener. Even the attempt to design a uniform that was more up to date i.e. trousers that looked like jeans and matching shirt looked a disaster with so many fat little backsides walking around fighting to get out of them !!

No wonder the major airlines are fighting to keep low cost airlines out of major airports, it would definitely be a retrograde step in the elegance stakes.

Go to Heathrow and have a look at the staff uniforms of say Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Gulf Air and compare, there is no contest.

Most people say "well yeah, you get what you pay for, after all". Yes and that is I expect an airline that fits in well with the droves of boozed up girls going for a short Hen break abroad and making a fool of themselves. Give me a more expensive flight (well not that much more expensive - check it out sometime) with a major airline any day.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Being Bullied At Work by e-mail

I don't enjoy commenting on this one bit because it irks me considerably but. . . . is it me or are we getting bullied more and more at work.
From a personal point of view, I seem to be getting a considerable number of e-mails now which are threatening and bullying in tone. Obviously, the sender in most cases does not fully research their facts before sending the mail and invariably the receiver ends up being totally outraged.
Most of the senders would not have the guts to talk to you in the same manner face to face because they are mainly small minded people hiding behind their own insecurity. However, it is very unpleasant and demotivating to receive these unwarranted mails and most of all it creates an aggression which should not be in the workplace.
Don't you just want to go and punch these small minded unctuous cretins on the nose !

Ah, the evil of e-mails . . . let's get back to using the telephone more for gods sake !

Armed Forces In Iraq

I have mentioned before that I have a colleague who's son is in the armed forces and he has served terms in Iraq. On that occasion my gripe was about telephone calls home but this time it's about kit and I am just gobsmacked.

I am told that the son is imminently due for another term in Iraq but this time some of their kit has not arrived because an officer forgot to order it. My colleague and his wife have just gone out shopping and spent £500 of their personal money to get these things (obviously not weapons ha ha) for their son to take with him.

He is going out to Iraq to possibly fight for a cause we have no direct interest in and this Government cannot even see that he has all the things he needs ! Disgraceful I call it ! Bloody disgraceful !!

Police Brutality ?


20 year old Toni Comer is taking out a civil action against the police for using unacceptable force when she was being subdued during an incident where it is stated she was under the influence of alcohol.

Any civilised person among us who watched the video footage could not help to be shocked at the scene before us. Shami Chakrabarti director of Liberty, who I have a lot of time for, called it stomach turning. Was she right ? I guess so, for whatever the excuses the police give, every picture tells a story.

In any event, we have to take into account the very fact that some police officers love their job, love the power that goes with it and the very fact that they can bully and verbally abuse the general public almost at will. How many of you watch the programme Road Wars on Sky One ? It's pretty compelling viewing I have to say and some of the public who are the stars of the series are some of societies worst detritus.

However, what is also apparent from the police who operate in the Slough, Windsor, Reading areas is that they just love their jobs. They are so happy when they get into a situation where they can prove their macho image. Their language at times is very provocative, particularly with those under the influence of drink, and you could almost say that they coerse their victims into aggressive behaviour by way of their not so customer friendly language and their swaggering body language. This invariably creates a situation which allows them to maximise their posturing in front of the camera.

There is one officer who just loves to refer to the public they stop in their cars as "fella". OMG, if someone referred to me as fella instead of sir (remember that they are public servants) I would pretty well want to raise my game with him too! It's outrageously patronising and extremely ill mannered !!

Also, whenever the police do use too much force in a situation the commentator in the background invariably makes a comment to excuse this by bringing in an element of possible risk, which normally is not there anyway. I personally think the police in this series come over as very arrogant and love posturing in front of the camera but that's not to say that the people they deal with daily are not the dregs of society.

Getting back to Ms Comer, I don't think that the situation she found herself in was racially motivated but certainly there is a question mark over whether or not the officer who rained blows on her was acting within the bounds of acceptable force. We should all be a bit worried about this, and not hide behind the assertion that "they do a difficult job".