And another thing…

Yes, in my day, we had to walk ten miles to school, in the snow, barefoot, carrying our books in our hands, while rabid dogs nipped at our cold, snow covered ankles and tried to steal the lunch that we had to work 27 hours a day to pay for. And we were grateful for it! Well, not really, but it seems that any sort of nostalgic discussion must, inevitably, devolve into a sort of odd, one-downmanship where each had it worse than the one before.

As you may have guessed, this is a post about the good old days, and why I think we shouldn’t give them up just yet. Make no mistake, I am a lover of technology. I’m on almost every social networking site, and my iPhone might as well be grafted to my hand with the amount of time that it spends there. I’m a big fan of computing, and the fact that I no longer have to queue in a bank simply to pay a bill has, on occasion, made me giddy. In short, I wholeheartedly embrace our always-on world, and if and when someone discovers a way to simply transmit information directly to one’s head (perhaps through some sort of implanted USB/Firewire port), I’ll be first in line.

With that said, however, I can’t help but lament at the loss of certain skills which are, in my opinion, timeless. Perhaps it’s  a little “Stepford Wife” of me, but I genuinely enjoy cooking – from scratch. When I bake, there are no mixes. When I cook, there are no pre-prepared vegetables. It’s true that it takes a little longer to peel those potatoes, chop those peppers, and dice that meat, but cooking for real has given me so many valuable skills – the ability to follow a recipe, an understanding of different weight and volume measurements (and conversions between them), and, perhaps most importantly of all, the knowledge of what things are made of. It’s this knowledge that helps me to avoid purchasing completely useless and pointlessly expensive products like this:

I promise, this is a real product. And the fact that anyone would buy this makes me despair for the future of hungry people everywhere. (If you are someone who doesn’t know why this is so ridiculous, shame on you!) Pancakes are arguably one of the most simple and versatile things you can make in a kitchen, working with both sweet and savoury fillings, and requiring only the most basic ingredients to make – flour, eggs, and milk. Meaning that this pancake mix is, essentially, flour. Flour in a smaller, and much more expensive bag than any other flour available in the supermarket. This fact isn’t even hidden – the ingredients state pretty clearly that basically the only ingredients are flour, rising agents, and a pinch of salt – i.e. self-raising flour. I honestly cannot fathom why anyone would buy such a product…unless there are an awful lot of people out there who are completely unaware of what pancakes are really made of.

This is not just bothersome because I enjoy cooking – it implies that there are plenty of people without a basic knowledge of cooking, something which I consider an essential skill. Convenience foods exist for those times when it’s simply inconvenient to go through the process of preparation, and while a diet entirely composed of them probably isn’t very healthy, they certainly won’t be too damaging. And I’m sure that, sometimes, it’s lovely to be able to bake some bread without having to activate yeast, wait for dough to proof, etc. This isn’t a convenience food though, this is a “we saw you coming” food, as it’s honestly no more convenient that making pancakes the “hard way”, with your unbranded, non-pancake-mix flour. It’s a package of stupidly expensive flour, designed to be bought by people who don’t look at ingredients. And the fact that they continue to sell it (and that people continue to buy it) makes me honestly worry about the future of baking trays and weighing scales everywhere.

There is a genuine joy in making things yourself, and while it may not always be practical, it is almost always fun. For every kitchen disaster, there will always be a really tasty treat (or at the very least, several too-wonky-to-display cakes to dispose of)

Since today is, apparently, National Punctuation Day, I’m going to roll another “back-in-my-day” complaint into this blog – namely, the slow decline of writing and reading skills. (I will save comment on the fact that virtually every day of the year has now been attributed to some cause or other for another blog). Rather than rehash the same arguments about the fact that children no longer read as much as they used to, I’ll simply touch on a few other points instead.

There is a generation of children and young adults emerging from our schools without a number of basic skills such as penmanship, letter composition, spelling skills, and punctuation usage. We are all working increasingly on computers, and this makes it easy to rely on typing as a means of communication, but penmanship is still important. While it is not necessary for every child to have perfect script, it should at least be legible!

One only has to do a quick Google search to see just how many people have no idea how to lay out a letter (be it a personal letter, or a business letter). Reliance on MS Word (and similar) templates, pre-programmed CV templates, and job-search websites has allowed people to simply forget, or worse, not learn how to put together a basic letter. However prominent the internet and email become in business, it is still important that people can put together a professional looking document if they need to. Personally, I cringe when I receive emails that contain the “Hi” and the following message on the same line; I always insert spaces as if I were writing a traditional letter, not just to be a fuddy-duddy, but because it actually makes the email easier to read and understand.

Finally, we come to spelling and punctuation. It is a particular bug-bear of mine that so little emphasis is placed on correct spelling and punctuation. We arrive to school speaking English, and so, very little time and effort is put into teaching any English grammar. In fact, I recall arriving into my penultimate year in secondary school only to find our entire class being given out some handouts and exercises on basic English grammar, because even then, there were people making the same mistakes. Knowing how to spell and use punctuation isn’t just something boring and archaic, it’s an important skill. Correct spelling and punctuation make it instantly easier to understand whatever it is you’re trying to communicate, and indeed, incorrect spelling, grammar, and punctuation actually impact on the speed at which people read and understand text to a measurable degree.

The thing about grammar is that, just like cooking, it’s all bark and no bite. A grammar book might look like an absolute monster, but the truth is that most grammar rules are quite simple, and even make a lot of sense. Just like following a recipe, following those rules and directions will make your final piece, be it a simple email or a preachy blog post, so much better.

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that, on the whole, I’m not a true believer. I don’t believe in God, Allah, Jesus, Mohammed, or any other higher power that is on offer. I have come to this belief (or lack thereof, as the case may be) after many years of thought and personal exploration. I don’t feel the need to “convert” religious people to atheism, nor do I feel a particular need to constantly argue about belief with them. Simply, they believe, and I don’t.

Recently, however, I’ve started including a caveat whenever religion is discussed – I don’t believe in God, but I’m not an atheist. The reason I’ve started doing so is because I find myself disinclined to be associated with some of the more famous atheist names, and some of the more recent atheist activities. I don’t believe in God, but I don’t believe in Dawkins either.

Richard Dawkins is a very talented and intelligent man. His books are interesting, compelling, and convincing reads. Broadly speaking, I believe the same things he does (i.e. in the existence of evolution, that evolution explains our development, that there is no higher spiritual power, etc). I don’t, however, believe that the best way to go about spreading your message is to be abrasive, combative, and, to a certain degree, as extremist as those you deride.

Due to his status as a prominent atheist and his obvious pro-evolution stance, Dawkins appears in countless interviews and programs. One such example, which I found particularly hard to watch, and which demonstrates my difficulty with Dawkins, is his interview with a creationist woman named Wendy Wright. I’ve embedded the first part here, you can follow on to watch the entire interview (7 parts) on youtube.

I found it genuinely difficult to watch this interview all the way through, and probably not for the reasons you might expect. Granted, the creationist is quite annoying and her laugh/dismiss way of answering each question gets old very quickly indeed. But equally annoying is Dawkins’ interview technique; he doesn’t address any of her questions, merely batting them away. Rather than addressing her points, he simply verbally bludgeons her for the duration of the interview. In short, while it is supposed to be an interview, it is actually two people talking beside each other, with neither listening to, or addressing the queries of, the other party.

The documentary “The Root of All Evil?” aka “The God Delusion” is another program which, in my opinion, misses the mark. In this program, Dawkins had the opportunity to address genuine questions and issues, but instead, he simply paraded the worst examples of extremist faith believers possible, to reinforce his own point that religion is the cause of all wrong. While it is true that there are extremist factions associated with almost every religion, the majority of followers of any religion are not represented by these extremists. Choosing only extremists to demonstrate what is wrong with religion is fundamentally flawed – it doesn’t really represent any of those belief systems accurately, and it only demonstrates the beliefs and practices of a minority of followers. Rather than consulting anyone with more moderate beliefs (i.e. one of the majority), Dawkins specifically selects the most extreme believers, knowing that it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to construct an argument for those extremist beliefs that would harm others, for example (who would really argue that it is correct to want all non-Muslims off the lands of Muhammed, and that it is acceptable to resort to violence to achieve that?).

What’s so annoying about this is that it is poor, lazy argument technique. It is harder to paint those with moderate beliefs, the majority, as crazed, dangerous, or insane, so he doesn’t try. And this is exactly the kind of argument that he will not tolerate from any believer, as seen recently in his reaction to the Pope’s comments with regard to atheism and Nazis. The Pope’s comments appear to be directed at atheist extremists, and while it is not made clear what he sees as an extreme atheist, what is clear is that he is, somewhat ironically, employing the same strategy as Dawkins – highlight the worst possible example, and imply that they are the majority. It’s sloppy, lazy, ignorant, and offensive to imply that simply because extremists exist that everyone who believes anything (even if that belief is no belief) agrees with the extreme views. And Dawkins is often as guilty of that as the various Creationists, Muslims, and religious leaders he interviews and rallies against.

I absolutely don’t support the Pope, or any of his declarations that seem to imply the worst of any who don’t believe in God, but that doesn’t mean that I think it’s acceptable to lower myself to his level by painting all religious people as fundamentalist extremist nutters. To do so will, ultimately, achieve nothing; no one will learn anything, it will only serve to prove to each side of the debate that they were right to assume the worst of the others.

Indeed, one could argue that this has been shown by the Pope’s recent visit. The comments made in his speech about atheism rapidly overtook most of the other issues to do with his visit (e.g. child abuse, monies from fund-raising, etc.) and brought out the worst in all concerned, leading to the word Nazi being used more times in the last week than I have seen it used in several years previous. True believers from both sides (yes, atheist “true believers” too) spent the duration of the visit trading verbal blows, and by the time it was all over, both sides were convinced that their assessment of each other was correct. After all, did the Catholics not call atheists Nazis? And did those Nazi atheists not do all within their power to disrupt the Pope’s visit, up to and including threatening arrests, violence, etc? Well, no, not really. An ill advised comment in the Pope’s speech led to a ridiculous game of chinese whispers, resulting in people maintaining that the Pope had said outright that atheists are modern-day Nazis, and overreaction to internet chatter and personal opinion led to prominent atheists (such as Stephen Fry, Terry Pratchett, etc) being virtually tarred and feathered by newspapers, and even to people being arrested, to protect the Pope.

The demonisation of atheism in the media means that many people will believe that the Pope was right to compare atheists to Nazis, and that being an atheist means that you want to murder the Pope, declare anarchy in the Holy See, and redecorate with a combination swastika and pentagram theme. The demonisation of the Pope in the media (mostly internet based, to be honest) means that many people will believe that the Pope actively molested children himself, and that all young people should be kept at a safe distance, lest they be sucked in, molested, and warped by his papal-magnetic-child-bothering field, provided he’s not too busy spending money senselessly and denying any and all accusations.

Time and time again, both sides of the debate engage in the same ridiculous, over-the-top mud slinging, and afterwards, they go home, safe in the knowledge that they were right after all. Surely it is time for a new tactic? Would it not be more effective to ignore the ridiculous comments, and instead focus on the real issues (e.g. child abuse, money, etc)? Would it not be better to prove disparagers wrong by behaving in a dignified and mature way?

Argue against religious belief if you want, but please do so logically, rationally, and well. Using twisted, exaggerated, contorted examples of faith does no one any good, and merely serves to show that fundamentalists exist in every walk of life, even if they choose to call themselves atheists.

A few nights ago, I arrived home after a wonderful weekend in London. It was dark, and rainy, and both myself and my brother rushed to get into my car and out of the miserable weather which had welcomed us home to Ireland. Unfortunately, in all the rush and excitement (and tiredness too), my brother put down his hand luggage bag in the car park, and forgot to pick it back up before we drove off. We discovered this later that night, and it put a bit of a damper on our otherwise brilliant weekend.

While I didn’t hold out much hope for a return, I filed a report with the airport lost and found, and kept checking their “Found Items” page on the website to see if it had been reported. Imagine my surprise when, 2-3 days later, I got a call to say that the bag had been found. I was pretty happy, and went out to the airport to pick it up. It was when we were confirming that the bag was really mine that I realised that I shouldn’t have been quite so happy – while the books and some other bits and pieces were still in the bag, my brother’s Nintendo DS and charger were gone. That’s right – whoever found the bag first didn’t turn it in. Instead, they went through its contents, and stole from it. How disappointing.

Over the years, I’ve come across many lost wallets, bags, money, etc. And with each lost thing that I’ve found, my first reaction is to wonder where I can turn it in. I’ve looked in wallets and bags to find some identification, I’ve called numbers in phones to try to find the owner, but I’ve never, ever, even considered rifling through the contents and taking what I liked from them. And who would? Who was brought up to believe that it’s acceptable to take someone else’s belongings, simply because they’ve had the bad luck to misplace them?

Once, I found €20 on the floor of my office lobby. I picked it up, and went straight to reception to hand it in. I remember the receptionist looking at me as if I was a bit mad, and saying that if no one claimed it, I could have it. That was the last thing on my mind. I was remembering my time as a college student, when €20 in your pocket made you feel pretty flush, and thinking that if I lost my €20, I’d want someone to return it.

I would always try to return something lost, because I know how frustrating it is to arrive home and discover that something is missing. The hassle of cancelling and replacing cards, the stress of trying to find the missing item, the sadness when you realise that it’s really gone. Apparently, this is not the way everyone thinks. Where have all the cowboys gone?

Even though it is difficult to do so, it is important to stand your ground. It is even more so when people try to pull that ground from underneath you by discrediting you with facts that really have nothing to do with the ground upon which you stand.

My day job is as a web developer. I work for a company which distributes pharmaceutical and other products (such as cosmetics). Until today, my company did not know about my protest, and are most certainly not in support of it or behind organising it. They know now, as I have had to avoid their good name being drawn into disrepute when it is really me that the homoeopaths seek to target.

Today, in an effort to make me look bad and to heap discredit on my protest, people began to throw the name of this company around like mud. This displeases me greatly, as they don’t deserve it.

I will say it, and I will continue to say it. Homoeopathy doesn’t work. I have always believed that it didn’t work. Bogus science is what drove me to get my degree and do my own investigations.

If homoeopathy worked, you wouldn’t have to personally discredit me to prove it, you would just be able to prove it. The fact that you have attacked my credibility, rather than providing evidence, simply shows that the only response you have is to attack me personally. And that puts you firmly on the lower moral ground.

For shame, homoeopaths. Today, you have sunk to a new low.

So, this week my 1023 campaign has seen a fair bit of media interest, and has had at least one article published so far, in the Sunday Times. The Times, being very fair, opted to let the Irish Society of Homoeopaths and a practising homoeopath, have their say. Both responded with what are fairly typical comments, which I will now attempt to redress.

The Irish Society of Homoeopaths is reported as saying that I, and other campaigners, have no idea how it works:

The Irish Society of Homeopaths has criticised the planned mass overdose, claiming campaigners have “no understanding of how homeopathy works”.

Having done a large amount of research, I would rather argue that I do have an understanding of how homoeopathy works, and it’s probably a better understanding than many practising homoeopaths. I understand that there is no mystical or spiritual properties to the medicine. I understand that the medicine cannot contain any active ingredients as a result of its factor of dilution. I understand that there is no way water can have a “memory”. And, finally, I understand that the comment above is a standard comment, rattled off in response to anyone criticising homoeopathy.

As I’ve said, time and time again, there is nothing in these homoeopathic remedies. There can’t physically be anything in these remedies unless the process of succussion allows homoeopaths to break the laws of physics and chemistry. I also know that water can do many things, and exist in several interesting and unique forms, but it doesn’t have a memory. The water cycle tells us that water exists in a continuum, moving between states, but never being created or destroyed. With that in mind, would you want water that had, for example, travelled through a sewage processing plant, to have a memory of where it had been? There is nothing about homoeopathy that would make water selectively “remember” the minuscule amounts of anything put in it. In short, water does not have a memory, and to suggest that it does, and indeed base a treatment plan on it, is nothing short of ridiculous.

The second quote, from a practising homoeopath (Sheelagh Behan), states:

A highly diluted homeopathic remedy will never act unless the symptoms of the patient fit the specific symptoms that the remedy will treat.

To my mind, this seems to go against certain principles of homoeopathic treatment. For a start, if we are to believe the original “like treats like” principles of homoeopathy, then the medicines should not have no effect. In fact, they should induce the very conditions that they claim to treat. Sleeping tablets should induce insomnia, malaria treatments should induce malarial symptoms, etc. To say that they will have no effect or that they will not act is to ignore one of the founding principles of homoeopathy.

Another principle of homoeopathy is to treat the patient, not the symptoms. Consultations with homoeopaths are frequently long and involve many questions to establish a patient history, so that their symptoms and feelings can be looked up in the big book of homoeopathy to discern a treatment program. This often results in custom remedies being made for the person. With this in mind, and their heavy “patient-first” emphasis, one has to wonder if they support generic over the counter homoeopathic “medicines” being sold in places like boots, where a practising homoeopath isn’t on hand to question. What if the consumer gets their symptoms wrong, and purchases the wrong remedy? Will there be no effect, or will they be stricken with another illness that they are, inadvertently, taking the homoeopathic cure for?

If homoeopathy is truly the highly personal and efficient replacement for modern medicine, then how do mass produced, over the counter sugar pills fit into it?

I call on any homoeopath who is offended by my demonstration to answer the questions above without resorting to bashing conventional medicine.

Unless the skin you’re in is skinny, of course…

As I was reading the various news sites that I frequent (some for news, some for laughs), I came across another “big is beautiful” type article, and remembered that I had been meaning to post about the subject for a long time. Now seems as good a time as any.

This article in, yes that’s right, the Daily Mail, is what reminded me that I wanted to blog. The article is a self serving puff piece, even more so than usual, since the author is writing about herself.

The title sets the stage for an all to familiar argument – “Alice is beautiful, confident, and the average size of a woman in Britain today…so why does she still feel fat?” I could dash off a quick comment that said she still feels fat because she actually is fat, but that wouldn’t do the article justice when there’s really so much more to it.

The article is a glowing review of life as a “bigger” person, complete will all the usual adverbs – curvy, big and beautiful, etc. However, while most articles merely imply that skinny girls must be starving or dysfunctional, this one comes right out and says it, with choice phrases such as “I look at skinny women and wonder how they can live in such denial. It is not possible to be thin and enjoy food.”

I despise articles like this because of exactly that kind of rhetoric. I suppose that I would be considered one of those skinny girls living in denial. After all, I do slip into size 6-8 clothes with little trouble. I also train hard every day to make sure that I still can. I watch what I eat, but I never starve (as anyone who knows me can attest to, I don’t do well when hungry!). I love to cook, to bake, and I experiment in the kitchen quite often – whipping up some sort of dessert or some new dinner based on what’s in the fridge, and I manage to do so without putting on so much weight (unlike the author).

The “average” woman may be getting bigger, but being a “wobbly size 18″ isn’t a step forward in women’s liberation, it’s a health risk. The simple fact of the matter is that it’s not healthy to be overweight. It places increased strain on all of your organs. It puts you at risk for a number of conditions, such as diabetes, heart attack, high cholesterol, etc.

If you really want to be a role model, if you really want to make a difference to women, then why not try doing something that includes all women, not just those that have to shop at plus-size shops. How about campaigning for a consistent size scale across all clothes shops, so that I can go and shop for jeans that are W 28″ L 28″, instead of picking up a 4, 6, and 8 because there’s no telling what any size will be in most shops? Or how about campaigning for some consistency in the existing size numbers, so that a size 6 would be a 6, no matter what shop you’re in?

I understand that you want to be proud of your body, but if you respect yourself and your body, you should look after it. It’s like any other piece of equipment you own – it needs maintenance, and the right fuel to get along. If you don’t fill it with the right stuff, and don’t keep it in tip-top condition, it will break down. And, unfortunately, it’s not as easy to find a new heart as it is to find a new wing mirror.

It seems to me that this average woman is as elusive a beast as the mythical unicorn. I have heard women of all shapes and sizes complain that they can’t find clothes to fit. There may be shops that cater exclusively to plus size women, but I find that I’m often reduced to shopping in the children’s department of big clothing stores such as M&S simply to find clothes that will fit without alteration. The “average woman” must truly have the pick of the litter when it comes to clothes shopping though, since apparently all shops cater to her. I can only hope that, in time, someone with enough influence will manage to change the way clothes are sized so that I can find clothes that look mature and fit well.

The point is this – it’s great that you feel happy about your body, but why does feeling good about being big and curvy have to be inextricably linked with being better than someone who is skinny? It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you want to be a role model, then show people how to be healthy and curvy – it’s possible to be both. Show people that skinny girls can be curvy too. And for goodness sake, lay off of the skinny-bashing!

As 2009 draws to a close, many people will be asking the usual question – “What is your new year’s resolution?”. As per usual, however, I’ll be telling them that I don’t have one. As it so happens, I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions.

It’s not because I don’t think that there’s a value in resolving to improve yourself or your life, but rather that I believe that you shouldn’t wait for a new year to roll around before you do so. If at some point, you feel like you need a change because you’re unhappy in your job, in your relationship, etc. then the time to act is at that point, not at an arbitrary future date. You don’t need a new year to come in order to spruce up your CV and/or portfolio, to reconnect with long lost friends, or to decide to spend more time with family. Putting these things off until the new year just means you’re more likely to keep putting them off or leaving them “on the long finger” for a very long time.

Deciding to make life changes around the new year, and then telling people that you’re doing so, can help to motivate you, but in practice, I’ve found that all it does is motivate people to tell others about the changes they’re planning, rather than to actually do them. It’s easy to get caught up in the fuss and noise of it all, and make promises to yourself that are impossible to keep. There is nothing wrong with resolving to exercise more, for example, but if you also resolve to eat better and change your career and sort out your relationship and organise your house and…quickly, one resolution spirals into a glut of resolutions, and the simple fact of the matter is that not even Wonder Woman herself could make all of those changes instantly on January 1st and keep to them without a stumble.

Then there’s all that additional pressure to keep your resolution because it’s a “new year’s resolution”, even if it turns out that the decision wasn’t for the best. You’ve made all of those important promises, and each one is equally important, and what’s more, you’ve made your intentions public too. Looking at it in the stark light of day (or the stark light of January 31st), it should be clear that you’re not setting yourself up for success, you’re setting yourself up for a fall, a fall which will probably be made worse because others around you will know that you haven’t kept your promise (or perhaps, luckily, they’ll be too busy drowning in their own resolutions to notice).

The thing is, spread out over a year, all of those things above are perfectly manageable. With a little hard work and time, you can change your career, or your family life, or your house. It’s just that, unless you’re some sort of Ultra Woman (or Man, because this is an equal opportunities blog), it’s going to be really tough to make all of those changes at once. So, why try? Instead, sit down with a calendar and plan a bit. Maybe February is the month to focus on the house, and March or April a good time to work on your career. Or maybe a little bit toward the career each week, along with a little bit toward the house, can get you moving forward with both by April or May.  Rather than make a glut of impossible promises, just think about what you want to change, and the best way to change it. Not just in December and January, but all the time.

Coming into 2010, why not make a resolution to make sensible resolutions, and then never make another “new year’s” resolution again.

In October of last year, I embarked upon a battle with my bank (Bank of Ireland). I experienced some truly awful customer service from them, and was left so unhappy with them that I had no recourse to complain. I’ll save the nitty-gritty details of that débâcle for another day and another post however, because what I really want to talk about is something that not only relates to my Bank of Ireland experience, but to how we all deal with companies when they provide sub par service.

You may well say that no one needs to be told how to complain, least not the people of Ireland, but I would contend, as I have done for a very long time, that people don’t know how to complain properly. In fact, I would content that we generally don’t complain. Yes, that’s right, we don’t complain. We may vent briefly at friends and family about what has happened, or maybe even put together a brief post on a site like boards.ie, but for the most part, we stop there. Aside from the occasional grumble whenever the issue comes up in the future, no real affirmative action is ever taken. Worse still, if you actually do complain (really complain), in many cases you are not lauded, but actually derided for daring to complain about the poor service you received (as has happened to me – again, a story for another post).

I think that there are a number of reasons why people don’t really complain, some of which I’ll try to deal with below.

1. Effort: There’s no denying that it takes some effort to complain properly. You have to investigate the company to figure out who you should be complaining to, and how they accept complaints. If you call them over the phone, you have to have documentation in front of you and likely quote endless reference numbers and dates. If you need to write to them, you’ll first have to put together a letter outlining your difficulties. All in all, it takes time and effort.
2. Low Return: Sadly, it has been my experience that many companies handle complaints poorly. If you have to keep fighting and fighting to get an apology or some sort of compensation, it may well become more of a fight than you feel it’s worth.
3. Stigma: This is a bit of an odd one – there is an odd stigma that you’ll occasionally encounter as a “complainer”, where people seem to think you really have no right to expect decent service and to complain when you don’t get it. These are the people who will take it personally that you have complained, and they can derail you very easily.

So, with those points in mind, why bother complaining? Well, for a start, I think it’s one of the most valuable rights that we have as consumers. When you buy something, be it a good or a service, you enter into a contract. That contract assumes that the good or service will do what it purports to do, and it is on this basis that you sign up, purchase, etc. If a good or service falls short of expectations, you have the right to complain, and expect that the situation will be resolved. You should exercise your right to complain, because if you don’t, then the company will continue to produce inferior products, or provide inferior services. When you do complain, you should expect to receive good customer service. The company should respond to your complaint, and try to resolve it in a satisfactory way. And, at the end of the day, you should receive some sort of compensation (an apology, a refund or replaced product, etc.).

Sadly, there is a notable discrepancy between the way things should be, and the way things are. I haven’t always received adequate responses to complaints. I have sometimes had to fight my corner for much longer than I have cared to, and I have sometimes been attacked for doing so. Will that stop me? Heck no, and nor should it stop you.

Here’s how I usually deal with any sort of complaint -

1. Be Polite: This is so important, I cannot stress this enough. The simple fact of the matter is that if you call an organisation, the first person you’re likely to get through to is either a receptionist, or someone in a call centre. Unless your beef is actually with the receptionist or the call centre  in question, it’s likely that the person on the end of the phone isn’t directly at fault. Shouting at them, being aggressive or abusive, or generally being rude over the phone won’t help your case. The person on the other end of the phone won’t be sympathetic to your problem, and will just make a note of you as being a problem caller. You can expect any dealings with that centre to be more difficult from then on (depending on how badly the call goes). Simply explain to the person what is going on and ask to be redirected to someone who can deal with the complaint directly. If they refuse, or do not know where to send you, request that you be put on to a supervisor or more senior member of staff, and take it from there.
2. Be Firm: You can be polite without being a pushover. While you shouldn’t get aggressive or angry over the phone or in person, when it is the umpteenth phonecall about the same issue, you should be prepared to be firm. This means not accepting the “we’ll call you back” shortly excuse, but politely insisting that you speak to someone now (perhaps citing previous “call backs” that never happened). This means stating your case calmly and clearly, and refusing to be brushed off until you have a definite answer for your problem.
3. Be Prepared: In general, get into the habit of keeping receipts for large or expensive purchases up somewhere safe. This doesn’t have to be a huge chore – just assign a specific place (e.g. a “Receipts” folder in a document divider) and pop them in when you get home. File digital receipts in a particular folder in your email so that they can be found quickly. If you’re making a complaint over the phone, have any relevant documentation to hand so that you can’t be put off by requests for dates, prices, reference numbers, etc. If you’re complaining via snail mail or email, be prepared to photocopy or scan your documentation and attach as proof.
4. Be Knowledgeable: Do a quick online search about the company – do they have a history of being difficult to deal with? Are there horror stories littering the web? Do some research about your rights as a consumer, and make sure you know what you’re entitled to (you wouldn’t believe how many people regularly misquote the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act). All of this information can shape the way you deal with a company, and having a good grasp of this information can really help.
5. Be Forearmed: Chances are, unless you’re extremely lucky, that you may have to make contact more than once. Particularly when dealing with phone complaints, keep a notepad handy (real or virtual). Make a note of who you spoke to, when you spoke to them, and what they said. Keep this somewhere safe (with your receipts, for example) as you never know how long a complaint can drag on. If emailing or writing, save a copy of your letter along with the date you sent it. Keep any replies received in the same place so that you have  a record of the conversation as a whole.
6. Be Persistent: In the first instance, your complaint will probably be directly to the company concerned. If you’re not satisfied with their response, take the complaint elsewhere. Complain to the general customer services (rather than individual branch). Complain to the corporate headquarters. Complain to a regulatory body that deals with the industry (e.g. the financial ombudsman). If you are in the right, you deserve to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. If that’s not happening, take the complaint to the next level.
7. Be Public: If you’re very unhappy with a company, tell people. Tell your friends and family. Tell people who read your blog, your twitter feed, your facebook page, etc. Make sure that people you know don’t end up having the same problems. Equally, if the response you receive after a complaint is excellent, tell people. Companies with good customer service policies deserve credit, because they are few and far between.
8. Be Mobile: If you really are very unhappy with a company, and complaining doesn’t get you anywhere, then be prepared to leave. As the saying goes, “vote with your feet”. Stop shopping there, close your account, switch your provider. When you do so, make sure that whoever is dealing with your account closure knows exactly why it’s being closed. If you feel that you have been particularly badly treated, make sure to let the company know (not just the branch directly, if possible, but at a corporate level) that you are leaving, and make sure they know why (e.g. When closing a bank account, also write to the general corporate customer services, not just the individual branch customer services).

Next time, I’ll blog a bit about some of my own customer service experiences (best and worst), and how I dealt with them. In the meantime, if you’re not happy with something, do something about it!

B is for…bapple…

Today I’m going to deal with a particular bugbear of mine, namely, poor spelling and grammar. I’ve been inspired to do so by a blog I read yesterday, entitled “Learn To/Too F*&king Spell“. It’s short, sharp, and to the point – it’s important to spell things correctly, or you look like an amateur. While his blog is mainly dealing with the importance of correct spelling when putting together a website, I’m going to take his lead, and extend it to all areas of life. Rather than repeat the simple (but oft confused) rules, I’ll refer you again to that blog I’ve linked above, as it contains a rather nice graphical presentation near the end of the page explaining the differences between them. Once read, there should be no excuse for confusing your “to/two/too” or your “there/their/they’re”.

You could accuse me of being a pedant, and insist that, these days, the English language is changing so rapidly that to cleave to these old and “antiquated” grammar rules is ridiculous. And it is true to say that the meanings of many words have changed drastically over the years, occasionally even coming to mean the exact opposite of their original meaning. However, I’m not proposing that we all speak “olde English” again, but that we simply follow the most common rules of our time, the ones which are still in place, the ones which help with our understanding of the written word and enable us to effectively communicate across so many different text-based platforms.

Personally, I find it incredibly jarring to read a sentence that contains a word that is either spelled, or used, incorrectly. Take, for example, the often misused “there/their/they’re” set of words. Their going to that house over they’re is a sentence that is difficult to read, and when I began to study language (not a particular language, but language as a method of communication, grammar as a construct, etc) I realised that it’s not just me. Everyone should find the above sentence (or any like it) slightly jarring, because it causes us to change the way we read.

Most people skim through sentences and paragraphs when they read (and in the same way, most people skim around webpages, rather than reading every word in the order the designer may have imagined). Most people will be able to understand what you mean if you have a letter or two out of place in a word (e.g. peolpe, understnad). The correction will be an almost unnoticeable bump in the flow of general reading. But combine poor spelling with poor grammar, or too much of either, in one paragraph or piece of text, and you’re asking for trouble.

The speed at which people read a paragraph that is littered with grammatical errors, incorrectly punctuated, or badly spelled is dramatically slower than the speed at which they would normally read. That is because when we read, we store little bits of the sentences that have come before in our short term memory. That is why, for example, we can mention the name Mary in the first paragraph of a story, and for the rest of the page, refer to her as “she” or “her”, and people will still be able to understand what the story is about, and how it relates to Mary.

When you start a sentence with “Their”, for example, we scan this memory to try to figure out what you are referring to, and to remember what group of people and what belonging is being referred to by “their”. When we find something we think matches, we hold that in mind as we read the rest of the sentence. If you’ve used “their” when you meant “there”, this causes an unnecessary stutter in that process. We search for a group or belonging and if there aren’t any, we have to read on and hope that we can come to understand the sentence by the end. If there is a group, and/or a belonging, then we hold that in mind, and are confused when it transpires that the sentence doesn’t concern them at all.

Instead of being able to read through the sentence once, with any relevant additional data at the fore of our minds, we are forced to reread the sentence. We may even be forced to reread the sentence several times, as we struggle to understand what it means in the context of the paragraph and this additional data we’ve stored. All told, it slows down the process of reading, and turns something that is very enjoyable into an absolute chore.

When someone tries to tell you that spelling is important, please give it a second thought before dismissing it. It takes only seconds to review your spelling and grammar with a spellchecker, and it can completely change the experience for the reader.

So, repeat after me – They’re going over there to get their dinner. I brought two pies to the bake sale, but they had too many to sell already. Could you let me know where your house is, and at what time you’re likely to be there? We’re so happy that we were able to be there. It’s a shame that the dog didn’t like its new bowl…

As I write this, there are a large number of people out of work in Ireland, and all over the world. Many people are applying for jobs, and feeling more and more discouraged when they don’t get them. Some people are using their time to learn, so that they can spice up their cv.

Like everyone, I can only hypothesise about what will make someone stand out from the crowd, and help them get a job in what is, ostensibly, a very difficult market. I only know from my own experience of getting, and then changing jobs, what worked for me. I’m going to share it, in the hopes that it will help someone out there to find a new direction.

Being completely honest (as I generally try to be!), I never really thought I would be a professional web designer. I always expected that it would be something I would do “on the side”, as a hobby, while I worked either in a biology lab, or as a programmer for a company like IBM. Having a career in web design seemed hopelessly out of reach, particularly when I looked at the professional companies I saw all around me. I recall that, during my final year of college, I sat with a group of friends as we discussed our prospects after college. Most of them were applying for further education (post graduate programmes, Masters programmes, etc.). I had toyed with the idea of doing so, but had decided that I wanted to work (at least for a while) in order to fund some things. While talking to them, I was suddenly gripped with some pretty big anxiety – they all seemed to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going, and here I was, without a job, or a clue. I decided I’d better get myself in gear, or else I’d be swimming in a see of graduates, without even a notion of where to start.

The first thing I did was sit down and update my cv, to include my work (part time) to date, along with some personal projects I’d worked on (web and graphic design projects for friends, family, and eventually a greater extended network). I included my academic experience to date, made sure that it was concise and comprehensive, and then, just to see what was out there, I put it up on Monster.ie. I think that day, my view of my prospects changed completely. Over the next week or two, I received many calls and emails – so many that I made my cv private again on Monster. It didn’t give me a clear cut path after college, nor did it get me an immediate job (as I was unwilling to leave college before completion of my degree, regardless of the interviews offered), but what it did do was show me that I had options, many more than I had imagined.

Fast-forward approximately 12 months. I was working for a small start up web design company. I had finished my degree, with my computer science thesis and project focusing on a website (an externally funded project to catalogue material online). Through my supervisor for this project, I had gotten my first job – he recommended me to a friend, who looked at my cv and, after a meeting, decided I’d be a good fit. Against all my expectations, I was working for a web design company.

I won’t pretend it was all easy – like all “first jobs”, the wage wasn’t great. I sometimes worked long hours to finish up projects, and because it was a really really small company (just two of us, when I started), there was no one else to shoulder my project load if I failed to live up to expectations. It was a baptism of fire into the world of web design, where clients sometimes have crazy expectations, weird ideas, and always much less time than is actually needed for completion of a given task. I had it lucky, in some ways. I walked straight out of college, and into a job. In retrospect, I probably should have looked around more and seen if other jobs were available, but it seemed foolhardy to look this gift-horse in the mouth and not jump at the opportunity to have a job that would give me a steady wage, bonus options, my own laptop, etc.

After 11 months of working for this company, I decided to move on. For many reasons, which I won’t go into here, I was no longer happy working there, and I wondered idly if I could do better. I decided it was time to put myself back on the market, to see if anyone would bite. As before, I spent a long weekend (over Easter) updating my cv, and putting together a portfolio that showed the design and technical aspects of the major projects I’d worked on, as well as how they fit into the overall marketing strategy of the companies we were designing for (Unilever, Vodafone, etc.). Thankfully, I was lucky enough again to get many many hits on my cv, and to have a number of interested recruiters. I interviewed for several jobs, and went right through the interview process for 4 in total. I was in the extremely lucky position then of being offered 4 jobs, and having to make the difficult choice between them. I chose my current position, and I haven’t looked back. I love my work, and I love the company I work for.

I’ve told this story more than once, and I have occasionally thought, “surely it can’t have all been luck that has landed me here”. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, while luck must have played a part, nothing that I have done can’t be replicated by others in the same position. I started to think about my cv, to try to figure out what it was that had made my cv stand out when the recruiters were searching, and employers were reading. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

I’ve always had a very full and active life, kept myself involved in sports and academic pursuits outside of the bare minimum. For me, this meant being involved in musical activities and graduation activities in my secondary school, and various clubs and societies in my college years. My involvement won me a few awards at various level (awards for excelling as a committee member, awards for winning competitions put on by other clubs/societies, etc). I put these things near the end of my cv, under the interests section. As such, rather than simply saying my interests were “reading, eating, watching tv”, I mentioned that I was interested in Biology, for example, and backed it up with independent study and awards in the area. When I said that I was interested in computers and web technology, I backed it up with memberships of IT societies, awards for websites designed in college, etc.

While in college, I didn’t have a full time job, and the part time job that I had had nothing to do with my degree, or my current career. However, as a result of my involvement with clubs and socs, I got involved in web design. What started as a quick project to create a society website spawned into creating several websites, then restoring graphics, and then having a network of people coming to me with projects to keep me on the go.

You may well be wondering if there’s a point to all of the above, or if I’m just bragging. Well, I did promise you a point, and here it is. When I sat back and thought about all of the above, about my fledgling career, my terror on entering final year of college, etc., I realised that my career didn’t start after I left college. I was, unconsciously, building a career right from the start. By developing upon my casual interest in web design as a teenager, I ensured that, by the time I left college, I already had several years of experience of designing websites and graphics. When I went to interviews, I could speak, not only about the websites that I had designed in the work place, but also about the projects I maintained on the side, purely out of interest.

Really, the “take home” message (as I’m fond of saying) is this – show me the love! There are many people out there with the same qualifications, and a stack of varied interests to rival my own. But if your dedication, or your interest in your profession, stops as soon as the clock hits 5pm, it will show. It will show in your cv, and it will show when you interview. Web design is a creative and fast moving profession. There are, at any given time, a multitude of popular “new” languages and technologies, being used alongside the old standards. There are design trends that come and go like flashes in the pan, and following them can mean your website is bang up to date one week, and hilariously retro the next. I firmly believe that it’s not a job that you can just “phone in”.You have to be into it, not just to get paid, but because you’re really into it. When a new technology comes out, you don’t sigh with exasperation, but wonder if it’ll be worth learning and if it’ll fit in somewhere or let you do something cool. And even if you clock out at 5, your interest doesn’t stop there.

I honestly believe that this kind of enthusiasm is what sets people apart in a very populated pool of designers. Many many people can put together a website, but not everyone loves doing it.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, and get yourself noticed, show me the love!