Disappointment
You tell me if the fault is mine. The other night I decide to order pizza from D-, the Pizza people. I call up and order a couple for our dinner. I have a few coupons from a previous order, but the jargon of discount is beyond me (“Buy one large pizza, garlic breaksticks and a coke and get 20% discount on the next medium pizza, but this discount is not valid on Xyz pizza”, and so on to more complicated combinations), so I did not ask the person at the other end about it. (Especially since he efficiently got me to spend a few bucks more than I would have, but that is a story for a different day). After the order is made, I go back through the coupons and I have this feeling that one of the coupons (which said Rs.100/- off) would fit the order I made, but one could never be sure. The delivery man comes along less than half an hour later, and I show him the coupons. He says yes, this one fits this order perfectly well, but you should have spoken about it to the person who took the call – as the payment is already ‘made into the system’. I tell him that’s fine, you go back with this coupon and inform them that I had this wonderful coupon with me and was unaware of it. He refuses. “You could use it in the next order, Ma’m.” I murmur to myself (so that he can hear), “what is the use of coupons, then?”
Talk about “Customer Delight”!
Pleasure
I go out for a walk and unexpectedly meet an ex-colleague. He tells me, “I saw your book, and quickly read the first 2-3 stories. Awesome! It’s admirable that you put your effort into getting your book published!”
You can imagine how pleased that made me feel.
(That reminds me – the Book Giveaway contest is still on!)
Bewilderment
When I land at Kochi in the first week of Sep, my mobile handset is switched off (equipment interfering with the navigation signals and so forth). After landing, I switch it on, (beep indicates the arrival of “Airtel welcomes you to Kerala, wish you a pleasant stay”) and the clock in the mobile automatically sets to 11:15. I am surprised since the scheduled time of arrival was 11:45, have we landed 30 mins before schedule? Does not seem likely, the flying time from B’lore to Kochi is 40 mins, I don’t think we have covered it in 10 mins. So I manually adjust my handset clock to 11:45, against its better judgement. Last week, I land at TVM, I go through the same procedure. Switch off – switch on, and, as Airtel-Kerala welcomes me again, my mobile clock insists that the time is 30 mins behind IST. I force it to IST, and during the while I am in Kerala, it follows the time I insisted on. As a result, my text message recipients claim that my messages arrive with a timestamp of IST+30 minutes. I travel in car and for a couple of minutes, my handset goes out of range and pops back, without my being aware of it. Suddenly, beep-beep. “Airtel welcomes you to Kerala, wish you a pleasant stay” and bingo! Clock goes 30 minutes back. I return to Bangalore, and all is fine. Clock automatically comes back to IST.
Which Timezone (country?) is Kerala (or, Airtel-Kerala) in?
Love
I have this back pain that sometimes troubles me (not too much, but enough to remind me that I have a back). So one day I am bending over some work and when I straighten, my back groans and so do I. My son comes over, kisses me and says, “I have kissed your pain away.”
The pain really feels a lot lesser, honest.
I always find that pizza coupons are confusing…I pull them out of the newspaper and plan on using them, but once you call the order person they tell you all of these different specials (which sound good, but are made up of things that you really didn't intend to buy and things that I am not even sure I like) and it gets so confusing I always end up with a large peperoni, light on the sauce and a coke. Every time.
I have absolutely no wisdom on your time zone situation.
Netchick sent me by!! Happy weekend!
That is really sweet…about kissing the pain away. Netchick sent me.