I am approached almost daily by marketing people/companies who want to put ads in this website. Most — okay, all — of them run and hide when I tell them my conditions… but I have no problem with putting up an ad hoc ad like this one (because I believe in its cause):
If this isn’t worthy of our support, what is?
Mention my name, and nothing will happen — because this isn’t a paid endorsement. See how that works?
As the totalitarians / utilitarians / technology-worshipers in our midst try to push us evermore towards a cashless society, we see situations like this occur, this time in Britishland:
The IT meltdowns suffered by Sainsbury’s and Tesco highlight the dangers of relying on cashless payments which puts our society ‘at risk’, experts have warned.
On Saturday morning, Sainsbury’s experienced a ‘technical issue’ which created chaos for thousands of people on one of the busiest shopping days of the week.
The supermarket chain cancelled online orders and couldn’t accept contactless payments – so shoppers either had to pay in cash, or scramble to try and remember their PIN.
While people desperately queued to use nearby ATMs, the dramatic uptick in cash withdrawal meant many of the machines ran out.
Many loyal shoppers turned to rival chain Tesco – it also experienced issues with online orders, with a small proportion being cancelled.
By the way, you don’t have to be an “expert” to see the inherent dangers of over-reliance on technology; you just have to be aware of the old maxim that to err is human, but to really fuck things up you need a computer. And we’ve all been there.
Nor am I a conspiracy theorist, but at the same time the odds of a “technology meltdown” occurring in the UK’s two largest supermarket chains at the same time are, wouldn’t you say, rather alarming.
In another context, if the flight guidance systems malfunctioned simultaneously in both United Airlines and Air France — two unrelated corporations — there’d be all sorts of alarm and governmental enquiry commissions, not to mention screaming panic in the headlines.
Nor would the scenario of malignant agency be simply dismissed as paranoia — but here we are, where people can’t buy food for their families because of a “meltdown”.
You’d think that we’d have learned this little lesson during the previous lockdown, where all sorts of nonsense happened because “everyday life” was dislocated.
But we haven’t.
Just wait till Ford and Mercedes together experience “system failure” in their driverless car fleets…
Technology can be our friend, and often is. But over-reliance on technology means it often isn’t. Remember, the acronym MTBF (mean time between failures) is often used for reassurance, but it also presupposes the existence of failure.
Like what happened at Sainsbury and Tesco — simultaneously.
Update: And now Greggs, too.
Looks as though Britishland has just become closer to Texas.
UK Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch welcomed Texas Governor Greg Abbott in Westminster to sign the Statement of Mutual Cooperation, hailing it a “landmark.”
The pact will address regulatory barriers to trade between Britain and Texas, helping to boost investment and commerce between the two economies and making it easier for companies to do business.
I’ll believe it when I can get Wadworth 6X from my local booze store, there’s a Greggs in the mall up the road, and a chippie in Plano West’s Legacy Hall.
And when I’m Over There visiting the usual crowd of maniacs and drunkards (a.k.a. my dear Brit friends), I expect to find decent salsa and Tex-Mex. (Okay, I won’t actually eat the stuff, I just want to see it there. In the battle for my belly between chimichangas and sausage rolls, there can only be one outcome.)
Go to it, Britishlanders. I will accept no excuses.
In this case, the dead horse would be me — or rather, my plans to fly on that fucking Oz airline to their poxy country. But that’s not what this latest breathless missive is about, oh no:
Hi Kim,
This month, I have some exciting news to share about the investments we’re making to improve your experience with us.
Firstly, our new A220s took to the skies last week. Featuring sleek new comfortable interiors, they offer a more sustainable way to fly across Australia and beyond. We’ve also improved the Qantas App so you can now track your checked baggage on any Qantas operated flight.
This is just the start of the investments and improvements we’re making, and I look forward to keeping you updated.
“Digital Officer”, hey? Then you’ll have no problem interpreting this digital signal, then:
I’m so glad that Qantarse is getting all those shiny new planes which make flying more “sustainable” (do they even realize how full of shit they sound?), as opposed to simply “more economical”.
It’s just too bad that I’m never going to sit in one.
Back when I was in the customer loyalty business, I remember setting targets as to how often we would try to entice a customer to shop with us — as I recall, after four or five fruitless attempts, we’d give it up as a lost cause.
I’m curious to see how long it will take OzAir to come to that conclusion with me.
The last time I was in an office supply retail store (Staples, Office Depot etc.) was shortly before I took down my consultant’s shingle and beat a client to death with it.
A frequent customer of such establishments, therefore, I am not.
So when New Wife asked me to swing by one and buy a half-dozen plastic clipboards while she was doing the laundry, I obliged with pleasure. Here’s the item under discussion:
I know, we could just have bought the things from Satan’s Warehouse Amazon, but they were needed urgently, i.e. the next day, so we would have to buy at full retail. But the price stuck in my mind, because that meant that the clipboards would price out at just over a couple of bucks each.
So I went over to Staples, who had the product not at all, nay even unto other colors. “Maybe next week?” was the helpful response from the stock clerk of whom I made the request.
No big deal: this is America, land of choices sufficient to make you puke. So pausing only to knee the surly peasant in the groin, I went over to Office Depot, literally across the road.
Okay, they didn’t have any blue ones in stock (school uniform color, in case you’re interested). But they did have clear ones which, when I checked with Herself, were judged “satisfactory” albeit grudgingly.
But no price in the shelf, so I grabbed a passing flunky by the ear and told him to scan the UPC code with his little scanner thingy, which he did after only a little moaning.
Then he told me the price of the piece of plastic with tin clip up top:
Thirteen (13) U.S. dollars… EACH
…and then it was my turn to do the moaning.
Fucking hell. If a piece of mass-produced-made-in-China shit can cost in-store what can be purchased online at one-sixth of the price, something is wrong somewhere. It could be the office supply store’s pricing policy, it could be the cost of shipping, it could be that the price was entered into the store’s price file at 10x the intended (that added decimal place matters, you know), it could be any number of things.
Anyway, New Wife was as appalled as I was, the teachers will just have to settle for something other than a blue plastic clipboard, and I’m sure that Office Depot’s fire insurance policy can replace the store… or not, I don’t care.
Because it will be another decade before I bother to set foot inside one of them again.
Everyone’s always talking about concepts like “plant-based” or “knowledge-based” (A.I.) nowadays.
How about “reality-based”? Here’s one company who thought they had it all worked out, until reality stepped up and said, “Nazzo fast, Guido” (actually, “Noch langsamer, Fritz” ):
Mercedes-Benz has backtracked on their plan to transition to selling only electric vehicles after 2030, with company officials saying that “market conditions” have not allowed that to happen.
Ah, those pesky “market conditions”, wherein customers tell their supplier companies to take a hike after said corporations make unbelievably stupid decisions (Bud Lite, coff coff).
The background:
The company said it would commit $47 billion to electrifying its fleet, with CEO and board chair Ola Källenius saying, “We are convinced, we can do it with strong profitability, and we believe that focus on electrical is the right way to build a successful future and to enhance the value of Mercedes Benz.”
In other words: we’ve bought into the whole Green New Deal, hook, line and sinker, and we’ll just force customers to adapt to the New World Order by giving them no option to do otherwise.
And then came Q4 ’23 results. Oh, and a few other things which might have made potential (and existing) customers reevaluate their options:
The business model change comes after multiple highly-publicized instances of Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles catching on fire and causing massive damage.
Yeah. Imagine that.
My question is quite simple: other car companies have also declared their intention to be all-electric by x date (e.g. Jaguar, Volvo). Does anyone think they’re going to have a change of heart too?
Or will they just do the Lemming Thing and plunge off the reality-based cliff, secure in their own virtuousness?