How to: Be A Bossy Bridesmaid and Keep Smiling.

Posted on May 28, 2013 by borysSNORC

The Bride was so stunning she made Grace Kelly look like an old crone. The setting in the park amidst the autumn leaves was perfect. The ceremony was solemn yet intimate and personal and the gorgeous couple were eventually and happily joined in blessed matrimony…. But Oy vey! was there some mad management going on behind the scenes leading up to the moment of wedded bliss!

Picture if you will, one overworked, overtired, overstressed, overwrought, overextended Bride getting ready for THE event of her young life. Now lets give her a pervasive and persistent head cold of several weeks, a house full of soon to be in-laws and a bunch of absent staff at her pizza shops all experiencing attacks of Life(TM)… suddenly you have a very stressed and fragile young lady who feels like she’s going to cry because she can’t find a car park, and hasn’t had breakfast yet! 🙁 No one wants that.

I’ve been involved in plenty of weddings before, but this one looked like it could turn pear shaped pretty quickly under these extenuating and emotionally heightened circumstances. Anxious and stressed Bride is a recipe for disaster, so the natural thing for any quick witted Bridesmaid in this position is to run interference, keep any potential wrinkles in the perfect planned silk satin schedule out of the Bride’s immaculately manicured hands, and swiftly fix anything and everything BEFORE it becomes a problem. Now if only we could have gotten the rest of the team onside with the ‘Keep The Icky Problems Away From The Bride Plan’…

Rental company doesn’t have the required number of ordered chairs? The Bride doesn’t need to know – sort it yourself. Finally picked the chairs up and some are of them are dirty? The Bride doesn’t need to know – sort it yourself. Unable to set the chairs up by yourself? The Bride doesn’t need to know – sort it yourself. Got no where to park the trailer? The Bride does not need to know – sort it yourself or find someone to sort this stuff out for you. Keep the knuckle head stuff off the Bride’s perfectly planned plate… because her only job now is to look gorgeous and to make it down the aisle with as minimal stress as possible. :S

But here’s one I could never have predicted. On the night before the wedding, we were staying at a friend’s house expecting a quiet night in before the big day… one of the other houseguests casually mentions that he received a call asking him to bring his sword with him to the wedding, but it was too late, he was already en route to the airport. With radar already on high alert, all I heard was ‘Arooga, arooga! Potentially unplanned/unknown things afoot that the Bride is unaware of?! Arooga!’ and as such queried the need for medieval swords at a completely mundane wedding.

Some furious text messaging between 22:30hrs and 00:15hrs confirmed the worst. Not only was the Bride’s Father planning a surprise quasi-military ‘honour guard’ with raised steel swords at the wedding in a public park, without consulting his extremely organized Daughter With A Vision, he thought it’d be great fun to have that sword bearing ‘honour guard’ accompanied by some people holding up PIZZA BOXES for the Bride and Groom to walk under. Hmmm… Yes, she owns some pizza shops and, yes, they are a huge part of her day to day life. But I was at the rehearsal, I had seen the dresses, I had heard the music choices for the ceremony and had a rough idea what the ceremony text was like, and the whole thing screamed of fine lace, timeless elegance and classy silks… not pizza boxes in the park at twelve paces!

Did I think that the Bride would see this ‘surprise’ of her father’s and think, ‘Oh, Daddy, how very sweet!’, or did I think it more likely she would smile through gritted teeth thinking ‘WTF?’. Strangely enough, with Our Bride as stressed and sick as she was, I was leaning towards the latter. By the time I heard mention of light sabres as well as swords and pizza boxes, I was pretty sure my fellow BrideWrangler… err, I mean Bridesmaid, would agree with me, that this was potentially a tacky disaster in the making and that we were at risk of being the Bogan Wedding in the park that afternoon after all! As it turns out after a quick consultation consisting of about ten words which included the terms ‘pizza boxes’ ‘ honour guard’ and ‘light sabres’…. yes, yes she most certainly agreed with me! Messages flew furiously back and forth to stop the so-called ‘honour guard’ from being part of the ceremony. More messages to ask Father of the Bride to consider moving it to the reception (after the stressful part of the day was completed and also fortuitously avoiding the illegality of having steel swords in public for no legal reason). Even more insistent and urgent messages were flying around to STOP THE PIZZA BOXES AT ALL COSTS!!! They were completely incongruous with the elegant affair we knew the Bride had spent months planning!

The Near Pizza Box Honour Guard Disaster saw myself and fellow Bridesmaid keeping up a constant flow of smiles, light and fluffy conversations about hair and make up, over champagne bubbles at the hairdressers on the morning of the wedding… while madly SMSing each other (sitting barely 1m apart), the Bride’s brother, the Bride’s father, some of the Groomsmen, various others in the know and the designated organizer of the ‘honour guard’ – all the while desperately trying to make sure that the Bride didn’t notice anything amiss!

The whole thing felt like a bad joke to me… Who on earth wants to surprise the Bride with what feels like a prank? On. Her. Wedding. Day!? I didn’t understand how the concept was even remotely appropriate, but by the time the Bride’s elegant french twist was all pinned and sprayed solidly into place, the dastardly pizza box plan was well and truly quashed and the honour guard was moved to the reception venue where steel swords indoors were less likely to run us afoul of the local constabulary, and definitely less likely to mess with the carefully coiffed elegance planned by the Bride.

But in the end we made it! The weather was spectacular, the Bride looked absolutely stunning, the exchanging of vows and rings brought tears to the eyes of soft hearted onlookers, wonderful romantic memories were made, and the all round the day could not have turned out better!

So, the moral of the story for any Brides To Be? It doesn’t matter whether your Bridesmaids have ill fitting frocks, are covered in tattoos or have two left feet… just make sure they are accomplished at Disaster Management and Conflict Resolution!!!

How to: Make a Pretentious Product Complaint.

Posted on April 4, 2013 by borysSNORC

Yesterday, a heinous tragedy did befall our heroine! The long and arduous road trip from Rowany Festival to BrisVegas is the one time each year when gobbling down on sugary confectionary, not only seems appropriate but becomes absolutely compulsory! As an integral part of the long distance travel experience, one inevitably finds oneself getting tired and lacking in energy; and whether driver or passenger, it’s important to well, you know… stay awake! For a non-caffeine consumer, this often involves copious quantities of sugar, which does indeed aid considerably in this endeavour. After years of trial and error, it has played out that Allen’s Snakes Alive provide the sugar high of choice, and have become one of our favourite road trip necessities.

Unfortunately, this year there have been mysterious and malignant forces at work at the Nestle plant where the Allen’s Snakes Alive are manufactured resulting in the following Incident that will long be etched in the memory …

Unto the manufacturers, distributors and purveyors of the most excellent Allen’s Snakes Alive does Ms Borys of Azerbaijan, send greetings and salutations. I pray you excuse the lamentous tone of this communication but I am compelled to write to inform you of our recent Great and Frightful Yellow Snake Incident.

I was excessively disappointed this long weekend when, upon delving into my favourite road trip confection, I discovered to my dismay a complete absence of yellow snakes! The yellow snake of course, being the preferred snake of Allen’s Snakes Alive connoisseurs the country over.

I duly checked the packaging to ensure that I hadn’t inadvertently chosen a product that was deliberately sans yellow snakes and found the requisite colour and flavour ingredients listed on the packaging, which further escalated confusion and increased my discombobulation and emotional disquiet.

As I watched my travel companion joyfully devour their favourite red and orange varieties (such plebeian palettes you’ve never encountered!), it required all the restraint and composure I could muster not to weep tears of sadness! As such, I immediately resolved to inform your good selves of this gross oversight which I feel must be the result of an egregious failure of what I am certain are usually very high quality control processes and expectations.

I look forward to hearing from your Snake Colour Control Subject Matter Experts regarding what might be done to prohibit such truly horrifying occurrences from scarring future snake lovers across this fine nation.

Yours in Service and Yellow Snake Adoration.
Borys

Yes, I may have spent most of the week at a Medieval festival and… Yes, I had time on my hands due to being stuck in a car. I have to say that the behemoth conglomerate that is Nestle Australia is on top of their customer service game though. Making everything from coffee and milo, to noodles and instant oats, to baby formula and dog food… they’ve got a finger in every pie and I admit I was surprised at how quickly they replied to my overly wordy errr… complaint? In fact it took them barely four hours to send the following response:

Hi Borys,

We are concerned to learn of your experience with your recent purchase of one of our products, ALLENS Snakes Alive.

Prior to packing, the lollies are sorted and blended so that the balance of varieties is fairly even. However, it would appear that the balance of assortments in the packet which was purchased was not to your liking. Although the assortment in the package was not to your particular liking, as we state on the package “Quantity of each lolly may vary.”

Thank you for reporting this matter as it allows us to investigate our consumers concerns. We apologise for this product not meeting your expectations and have arranged to post you a gift card as reimbursement through the mail.

Sincerely,

A. Grunt.
CONSUMER SERVICES ADVISER
Nutrition, Health and Wellness is at the heart of everything we do.

Naturally, we shall find out what a Nestle ‘gift card’ is in due course… but anything is better than getting a cheque in the mail for a mere $2.49 as reimbursement for the disappointing item which then has to be taken to a bank! Urgh. Well done Nestle.
UPDATE – 10th April 2013:
Seeing that I don’t really associate Allen’s Snakes Alive with the Nestlé Corporate Mothership… today I received in the mail a letter from Nestlé having completely forgotten (goldfish!) about the complaint (above) that I wrote last week. Was it really only last week? Their letter pretty much mirrored the email that they sent out last week, ‘here at Nestlé we take customer feedback very seriously; we appreciate you taking the time to let us know you were dissatisfied with your Neslté product; we hope you will continue to enjoy your favourite Nestlé products in the future; and here is a $10 Nestlé giftcard to use on any Nestle products of your choosing!’ I don’t think they could have used their company name in the letter more if they had tried, but they sent out the giftcard as promised, so yay! Go Nestlé, Babykillers and Purveyors of Many Coloured Snakes, Just Not Yellow!

The only remaining mystery in relation to the Great Yellow Snake Incident that is yet outstanding is… how on earth did anyone in their Customer Service Department take my ridiculously wordy complaint seriously at all? Not sure I would have!

The Mystère is solved… and we have tickets!

Posted on March 12, 2013 by borysSNORC

Last week I rang Las Vegas, at some ungodly hour of the morning local time, to try and buy tickets to Mystère for when we get there in July. I’ve been watching the website like a hawk since I booked tickets for the other Cirque du Soleil shows we are planning on going to, back in early February, because Treasure Island only had dates up to and including June showing up on their website booking system.

I wouldn’t have bothered to call except that the June dates were showing limited seat availability (literally only 8 seats in the back rows of the best section of the house!) on a random Tuesday at the end of June? I assumed they probably sell them in bulk to tour operators or to other hotels etc… that or it has something to do with the fact that we are going to be in Vegas for the week of the World Series of Poker finals, which I understand is something that means something to gambling type people, and Vegas is going to be packed. Either way I wanted to get onto it well in advance. So I called the Treasure Island Hotel Box Office and was told that the July dates were showing up in their system but that the lovely lady on the phone was unable to book them which was ‘a bit strange’. She informed me that the dates would most likely be released by the end of March/early April, and she recommended that I should call back then, and that hopefully July dates would be accessible at that time.

Naturally I ignored her advice, and decided to tweet the Cirque du Soleil promotions team to find out when July tickets for Mystère would be available. ‘Lo and behold, I got a response and two days later I checked the website and the July dates were now showing up! Woot! However, much to my consternation, only dodgy seats were showing up as available?!?

Looks like another call to Las Vegas for me! Wouldn’t be so bad except their phone system automatically picked up my call both times put me immediately on hold irrespective of whether you’re calling from across town or across the world! After a few minutes listening to advertising on how the ‘fabulous Treasure Island Hotel can enhance your Las Vegas experience’, a lovely lady helped me out with ordering a pair of tickets for the show… and gave us great seats (third row, front and centre!) even though the website showed these exact seats were unavailable! Also, she informed me about discounts available for students (yay!), pensioners and military personnel that aren’t on the website. That little pink star below… that’s going to be us!

So… a hint for new players – don’t believe everything you see on the website!

How to: Complain about a bad dining experience.

Posted on March 6, 2013 by borysSNORC

Last Friday night we went out to dinner to our favourite Mexican restaurant, which is 40 mins across town. On arrival everything looked the same… with a minor exception of a ‘Staff Wanted’ sign at the front door. Mr K was positively salivating at the idea of his favourite chorizo Coyote Balls entree after a week travelling around FNQ and being offered seafood everywhere! And for a change, the place wasn’t too packed for a Friday night. However, our dining experience turned out to be less than stellar and way below our expectations which are largely based on our previous experiences.

Now I was going to come home and post a big ‘Favourite Mexican Restaurant Gone to Shite’ rant. But instead of slandering them all over the interwebs, I decided to email them with what I hoped would be taken as constructive criticism…

Fave Mexican Restaurant Web Site Enquiry
—————————
I am just writing to give you some feedback. We come from Back O’ Bourke (just out past the Black Stump) to your restaurant every couple of months. We have arranged several large dinner parties with you in the past, including my Biggeth birthday dinner party there in January last year for some 28 people. We love your food and your service so much we drive past five other Mexican restaurants to get to your establishment!

However, we went for dinner there tonight and found everything to be less than the high standard we normally expect from our favourite family restaurant. We were seated by a young man who said he’d ‘be right back’, but who then promptly forgot about us. We waited for over 15 mins without anyone coming to take even a drink order. I tried twice to flag down one waitress, who twice walked right past me; and a second waitress who said ‘Just a sec’ and came back 5 minutes later. When we did finally get to order, my husband attempted to order a number 8/9 combination dinner – 2 chicken tacos and 1 beef tacos and we were told that substitutions were not possible. To which my husband found himself laughing in incredulity… both meals are available as 3 chicken or beef tacos – it’s not a stretch to switch one chicken taco for a beef one.

When our meals did come, my enchiladas were dry and overcooked, to nearly burnt… and even the rice appeared burnt and tasteless. I have to say we were quite disappointed with our dinner, which at roughly $100 isn’t the cheapest meal in town. We have always enjoyed our FaveMexican experiences over the years and have never been let down in the past. Driving 40 mins across town for a bad dining experience is not ideal in our book. We just thought you should know and I hope next time we come, things are back to normal.
Regards
Borys

And then, I got this response…

Hi Borys,
Thanks for taking the time to email me.
I wish to sencerely appologise for your dinning experience with us last night. I have had talks with all staff mentioned to ensure this never happens again as I take these matters very seriously.
In regards to the combo meals, I understand the frustration in something that seems so easy but our no subs policy is to ensure all combo meals are the same every time. If we allowed one change then we have to allow all changes and this would make the meals all but impossible to cook with any real efficency.
I once again would like to say ” I’m sorry” and very much would like to see you all again.
Please send me a postal address as I would like to send you a $100 dollar gift certificate
Cheers,
Owner/Manager
Fave Mexican Restaurant.

A positive response from a restaurant keen to keep regular customers happy. Make sure to follow up:

Dear Owner/Manager,
Thank you very much for your reply. I don’t wish to denigrate the staff, who by all accounts mostly seem very young, but we have always had such wonderful dining experiences with you guys that last night was quite the disappointment. Here are the details your requested:
(Insert address)
Again, thank you for listening to our concerns and we look forward to when we can make it across town again.
Borys

And today in the snail mail I received the promised $100 dinner voucher. Proving once again that we shouldn’t just walk out of a place unhappy with the service or the products that we have spent our hard earned cash on and moan about it to our friends But that we really should take the time to express our concerns in an appropriate forum and in an appropriate manner in the hope of being taken seriously. I am glad that (for once) my desire to rant about an unfortunate experience was curbed into something that had a more positive outcome!

I’ve had a great day….. but this wasn’t it.

Posted on July 11, 2007 by borysSNORC

How to… write a complaint about a bad interview. Yes, you’re actually allowed to do that you know!

11^th July 2007

Manager
NastyArse Recruitment Agency
Eagle Street BrisVegas

To Whom It May Concern:

Hello my name is borysSNORC and I attended your Brisbane office of the NastyArse Recruitment Agency today for an interview with one of your representatives, Snotty Brigit, with a view to signing up as a candidate with your agency. I was specifically interested in some vacancies you are currently handling for the Equally Despised Goliath Co and had a prearranged 9.30am interview with Brigit to discuss whether these roles might be a suitable match for my skills.

As is my habit, I arrived 15 minutes early for my interview, whereupon I was handed a privacy statement to read and directed to wait in the reception area. I waited until 9.45am at which time the receptionist apologized for the delay and went to see what happened to Brigit. Brigit at this point did come out to greet me, and informed me that she had double booked herself and lead me to a room to complete some testing on Microsoft Word, Excel and a typing test. When making the appointment I had let Brigit know that I was required at work by 11am – she did not at this time indicate that I would need to allow time for this testing. I completed the testing in as short a time space as possible, and as such did not manage to give the tests my full attention or perhaps to score as well as I might have were I not now starting to feel pressed for time.

On completion of the tests, I returned to the reception and informed the receptionist, Jessica (who by the way, spent most of the time I was waiting in the foyer earlier complaining about how overworked she was, and then continuously wasted time on informal personal chat with her workmate on the front counter) that I had completed the testing, and enquired as to whether Brigit would have time to discuss the available roles with me today or would I have to come back.

I have no knowledge of what the receptionist, Jessica, told Brigit on the phone about my enquiry or my demeanor, but when Brigit came back out to the reception area to see me, and I let her know that I was expected at work shortly, she was short and curt with me. She seemed to be under the impression that I was annoyed, which I certainly was not, at this point. Brigit took me to an interview room and proceeded to lecture me about allowing for some flexibility in the workplace, stating that things like double booked appointments will happen, and that I needed to allow for this sort of thing. She also told me that she felt I had trouble taking directions, when I mentioned that I perhaps hadn’t done so well on the tests, as perhaps I could have, given that I had rushed through them. I was really confused as to why she being so aggressive and at this point, I interrupted her to ask why she was under the impression that I was annoyed. She ignored my question, berated me for interrupting her, and again mentioned that I should be more flexible with my time. I told her I wasn’t concerned about the time being kept waiting and that I wasn’t even trying to solicit an apology, just that I had been trying to inform her that I had a commitment to my current employer not to arrive late, and was therefore now on a truncated timetable due to the time spent testing. Brigit now indicated that my lack of flexibility would inhibit her ability to find me an appropriate position! To which I responded that were I to be employed by your agency, this situation would never arise as I would be at the company’s disposal and surely she wouldn’t expect me to disregard my commitments to my current employer…

As you can see the situation was escalating, and I have to admit to being confused over what had started this. Brigit continued to be combative and aggressive with me, stating that I was now wasting even more time, and she wanted to proceed with signing up the paperwork. At this point, I indicated that it seemed a waste of time continuing, as it was obvious that she had somehow gained such a negative impression of me that I didn’t feel she would adequately recommend me to any prospective employer. Brigit’s disposition seemed to alter a bit at this, and she remarked that she was impressed by my resume and still wanted to sign me up. But by point, I was so bemused by her conduct throughout this entire episode that I did not wish to continue the process to sign with your agency.

And all this, came from a person who I had met for less than 30 seconds while being led to a computer to do some tests. I could not believe the absolute total lack of professionalism from this representative of your company. I have signed up with several agencies in the past, and have never encountered such discourteous, disrespectful and downright rude behavior as I experienced at your firm today. Brigit treated with me as if from a position of perceived superiority which is not only bad mannered, but entirely inappropriate. At no time did Brigit adequately apologize for having double booked the appointment time. I was so disgusted at her unexpected and unwarranted, pugilistic behavior that I left feeling quite upset and wondering how someone like this could possibly be responsible for matching people to customer service oriented roles, when her own customer service skills were so appalling.

I come from a wide and varied employment background and in the current employment climate, would likely to be an easy placement for an agency such as yours. I bring this matter, of my rather distressing treatment, to your attention in the hope that something might be done to avoid this sort of interaction happening with your prospective candidates in the future.

Regards
borySNORC

**************************************

A job hunting we will go huh? Don’t you just love a day that ends in a written complaint of some sort? It just warms the cockles doesn’t it? Now just to scam the personal email address from Brigit’s manager out of the dopey receptionist tomorrow…. hmmm and maybe a regional or state manager or two…

UPDATE: Heard from a friend who works for the same firm in a different office… the snooty Ms Brigit was sacked after receipt of this complaint. Apparently, it wasn’t her first less than stellar performance with prospective clients. Suck pus, bitch!