Author Archives: greggannicott

230 jobs ‘at risk’ at Debenhams’ Taunton call centre

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Staff in the contact centre at Bedford House were called in to a meeting this afternoon where they were told the centre is scheduled to close.

The 230 staff who work in the centre have been told their jobs are at risk.

Via http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/9629320.230_jobs__at_risk__at_Debenhams__Taunton_call_centre/

The Customer Contact Centre was where I started a Debenhams.

Almost certainly the worse job I’ve had, and my 3 months there felt so much longer. That said, the people there were genuinely great. It was only a few months old at the time, and so there was barely a person working there who was stuck in their ways or bitter. It was quite refreshing.

I also have my line-manager at the time to thank for getting me into an IT job – something I wanted for many years. I’ll always be grateful to her for that. It turned what I considered to be a bad move at the time (leaving Wickes for Debenhams) into one of the better moves I’ve made.

I get the impression from reading comments from members of staff on the above link, management could have handled it better.

I’m sorry for all the folk who work in the CCC.

Confessions of a Car Salesman

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We all ran up the stairs, high-fiving the sales managers as we went like we were taking the field in an all-star game. As we gathered in the room, we were all clapping to the music that was booming from a stereo set up in the corner. It was as loud as a rock concert and was playing that music they use at ball parks: “We will, we will, ROCK YOU!”

Via Confessions of a Car Salesman

There are far too many choice quotes in this lengthy article.

Admittedly I’m only halfway through it, but like a good book, I’m reading it at every opportunity (using Instapaper to track my progress).

I’ve long disliked certain kinds of salesman. This has just reenforced that for me.

Update: I’ve just finished it. I’ll admit, although I disagree with what the salesman do, I do kind of see why they do it.

Phones on the Train Platform

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I just arrived on my train platform and practically everyone were on their smartphones. If they weren’t they were with someone.

It was only 3 years ago I use to feel odd for doing it (that’s when I owned a Blackberry – that wasn’t why I felt odd though).

It’s shocking how quickly things have changed. The mobile internet had many false starts, but I think the iPhone changed that.

When Parents Talk

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When mums get together, they discuss when the best time is to get the baby off milk, when to start on finger foods and when they should start looking for a school.

When dads get together they discuss what the best age would be to introduce them to Star Wars, and just as importantly in what order (start with A New Hope btw).

No Write API for Google+: Booooo! And Woot!

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“Today at his SXSW fireside chat, head of Google+ Vic Gundotra said “I am 100% to blame” for the social network lacking an API seven months after launch. The reason? “Your stream could easily be overwhelmed” if Google allowed third-party apps to post content on users’ behalf.”

Via http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/03/09/vic-gundotra-sxsw/

I find Google+ frustrating in various ways, but one of them is that they have no Write API available making it easy for other apps to post to it. When I’m in Reeder, I quite often want to share a post with my friends on Google+. Unlike Twitter and Facebook though, there is no option for Google+.

As a result, I then need to:

  • Copy the URL in Reeder
  • Open up the (very buggy) Google+ iOS app.
  • Paste in the URL.
  • Go back to Reeder for a page title.
  • Go back to Google+ and paste it.
  • Go back to Reeder for a quote.
  • Go back to Google+ and paste it
  • And then write my own content.
  • Post it.

Unlike other apps on iOS, Google+ has a real knack of forgetting what you were doing when leaving the app, so often you’ll find that what you have written has been lost*.

That said, having been a user of Google Buzz which was very proud of it’s API, I’m quite happy for Google+ to hold back on one. Because of it’s API, Buzz basically became a place where you can read Tweets, Diggs, Delicious links, RSS feed entries and other items not actually generated on the site itself. But no native content. Everything you read on Buzz could be obtained elsewhere, and in a more appropriate format. It soon became a ghost town and a failure (for other reasons too).

I think it’s good that they’re getting people into the habit of posting natively on Google+. Looks like they’re learning from their mistakes.

* Another pain in the arse is when you make the mistake of posting with no signal. If you do this, you lose your post also.

Ambitious

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I’m open to different types of solutions to this problem, but I suspect that tweaking the inbox is not enough, and that email has to be replaced with a new protocol. This new protocol should be a todo list protocol, not a messaging protocol, although there is a degenerate case where what someone wants you to do is: read the following text.

Via http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

It’s been a long time since I last read a good speculative piece about the future that got me thinking (the last one I can remember is Tim O’Reilly’s “What Would Google Do”, which isn’t the same thing as Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do book).

I like the idea of rewriting email but from the angle of it being a todo list.