Parisblog

Whingeing Poms

The term is sooooooo unfair. Or, is it?

War of words before BA and unions hold talks - Times Online 

BA work practices

British Airways faces significant hurdles if it wants to change work practices, as it found this year when it wanted to start a hot-towel service in premium economy.

Bassa, the union that represents cabin crew, said that negotiation was required.

It wanted the number of crew on a Boeing 747 increased from 15 to 16 — at a cost of tens of millions of pounds — in return for distributing the hot towels.

BA refused, claiming that hot towel service did not constitute a significant change in working practices.

The service has been introduced, but BA cabin crew told The Times that many staff still refuse to give out the hot towels because it is not a union-sanctioned activity.

Avis following through

I posted a while back about my bad experience with Avis. Last night, I received the following email (my email to them was around 3 weeks ago.) It was good that they replied and apologised and assisted.

Except that the password reset she did for me didn't work: at least, when I went to log back in to update my password from the generic one she had given me, it failed and the service locked me out. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Thank you for contacting Avis Mr. Wayn.

I apologize for the delay in my response to your email and the issues 
you have endured with your wizard number.

Reports such as yours are most appreciated, since they help us target 
and correct areas of service which might be improved.

Any difficulties or problems encountered  are a concern to us, and we 
apologize most sincerely for the inconvenience you were caused.  Please 
be assured the responsible manager has been contacted to prevent any 
recurrence.

When making a profile online there is an additional step required to 
attach the preferred service to the wizard number it is not added 
automatically.

When logging into your profile it is note right on the first page about 
the status with the offer to add preferred service.

I have added it for you so you are now preferred service.  To do this I 
was required to change your password to a XXXXXX you will need to go in 
and reset it.

The first time Preferred Service is used all renters are required to 
stop by the counter to have their information verified by a counter 
agent, there after you would be able to go directly to your vehicle.

Although we realize that we cannot make up for the disappointing 
experience, we do appreciate your contacting us.  

If I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.

Thank you for choosing Avis and we hope to see you at one of our rental 
counters very soon.

Warm regards,

XXXXXXX
Avis Customer Service Representative
custserv@avis.com

Avis - paying attention online

The saga continues. I'll post the reply if I receive one.

From: Brett Wayn

Date: 7 April 2009 1:56:17 PM

To: XXXXX@avisbudget.com

Subject: Re: AVIS Customer Satisfaction Survey

Thanks Kathie,

I'll try and keep this to bullet points.

(1) I used to have an Australian created Wizard profile. It was originally created before I was a Microsoft employee. Once I became a Microsoft employee, no matter how hard I tried (online, at the Preferred counter, on the phone, at the regular counter) noone was able to attach the Microsoft WW discount code to the profile so I was consistently overcharged for rentals. I was also unable to attach my California drivers licence and my corporate Amex so I was never on the board, and always had to go to the booth.

(2) after much discussion with a variety of teams over several months, we eventually resolved this by deleting the Australian Wizard proflle and starting from scratch with a new US profile.

(3) My next reservation after that was screwed up again by AMEX travel who, even though I had advised them of the new profile, managed to book using my old profile and once again I had to go to the booth to sort it out. In this case, no fault of Avis.

(4) My most recent reservation was made on the new profile and when I arrived at the airport, once again I had to go to the booth. By now, as you can imagine, my frustration level is off the charts. Turns out - wait for it, Kathie - that the new Wizard Profile that I created via avis.com with my California Licence, Microsoft corporate discount code and Microsoft corporate Amex - is, for whatever moronic reason, not a Preferred profile. WTF? Someone at the booth put me on a "Hot" list and said that they promised they would amend this. I have yet to book again to see if everything is working. Maybe you can give me hope?

Kathie - for years and years I flew around the world before working for Microsoft, and I used Hertz Number One Club. I never had these issues with Hertz even with multiple changes in credit cards, drivers licence numbers and so on. 

This was obviously a very poor customer experience, which is why I have frequently blogged and Twittered to my social network and other followers recommending that they don't use Avis. I will however also post this email as evidence of the fact that if you complain loudly enough, someone at Avis is listening and I do so hope that once and for all, my problems will abate and I will be able to use your service with ease. I might even start recommending you as a company that listens, responds and makes amends for their past mistakes.

You might also give some thought to managing your Wizard systems differently to respect the need that there are people who are global travelers and for whom being tied to a single geography makes no sense.

With kind regards,

Brett Wayn

Dear Brett Wayn, Thank you for taking the time to complete our online survey regarding the rental specified below:  Renter Name: Brett Wayn  Check-in Date: April 03, 2009  Check-in Location: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport  Reference Number: U619808501  I am sorry to hear we did not meet your expectations.  We would like the opportunity to better understand why you were dissatisfied and resolve any outstanding issues.  If you would like to provide more feedback on why your rental was unsatisfactory, simply click on the "reply" button to email our customer service team directly.  Thank you for your time.  Kathie Sullivan Manager Avis Customer Service

SIN

Where the bloody hell am I? Singapore. SIN is the airport code, and Sin - and its cover up - is what I am escaping by not being around to watch George Pell and the other Catholics have their (in what seems to be the view of many locals) unwanted celebration torpedoed. Thank God?

Had the usual superb flight up here on Singapore Airlines. They are unsurpassed in terms of service, though arguably Cathay's seats are better. Two rather hideous people drank 3 bottles of French champagne between them, which was tacky. The crew mentioned it to me, shaking their heads. I was very pleasantly engaged in a long conversation with an Australian celebrity.

I am staying at the excellent Naumi, only just opened, and would highly recommend it. Right next door to Raffles and huge rooms, with a sitting area and mini-kitchen, great work desk and wonderful contemporary design but warm and inviting not cold and Cruella de Stark.

Had a lovely day wandering around eating delicious Singapore hawker food, getting reflexology and generally sweating. I marvel at how the locals can eat a big bowl of steaming laksa in a tropical climate without breaking a sweat.

I also travelled on the superb local metro. I marvel at how a tiny nation (population of the whole country about the same as Sydney) can have such a great subway and yet large, rich Australian cities like Sydney have got such a dreadful, dreadful system. We should be ashamed of ourselves ... still, if we continue invest our money in white elephants like the Olympics and events like World Youth Day, then what can we expect? Good to see that we have our priorities set right.

Off to Seattle again, reflecting on London

Heading back out to SEA this week. Had a great 10 days or so in London, felt good not to be travelling too much. London and I have this love/not-love (hate is too strong a word) relationship.

There is so much going on here, the public transport whilst undeniably not as shiny as the Japanese and more flaky in terms of reliability is really quite wondrous. I've started to use the bus system more because (a) Oyster makes it really convenient, not to mention cheap and (b) their signage and wayfinding is really world class, as it always was on the Tube. (The London Tube Map is one of those things graphic and information designers love to talk about.)

The Transport For London Website is, the actual system notwithstanding, quite superb. Easy to navigate, underpinned by great databases and systems, and with some terrific output modes. Do a search for any origin/destination pair and then look at the results, and ask for a map. They generate detailed sectional pdf maps on the fly. Very, very useful and cool ... if they'd just do an iPhone version I'd be as happy as a pig in mud. (Sydney, you should be ashamed. Not even a bloody Oyster-like system. And you pretend to be world class.)

Now: what are we going to do about the weather here? That's the Achille's Heel, but I suspect that after a while most people just give up, carry their umbrella with them and go to warmer Continental climes on cheap airlines.

Today's Walk

Today I went and saw something new in the North of Paris ... well new for me anyway. The Canal St Martin which was built under Napoleon's orders by Pierre-Simon Girard. It used to be the main freight route into Paris, 150 years ago and now it is just plain picturesque with a system of locks and bridges. I'll post the photos ASAP but you can also see the route I walked here, including my little diversions to climb up bridges and take photos. On the map you'll see that I started in the south, at République and walked up the canal. The large railway station on the left of the satellite image is Gare de l'Est and to the far left, Gare du Nord.

because I can

Ok I'll admit right up front that this is üBER-geek. But I'm very interested in GPS (maybe it's a result of my learning how to fly this year) and so, for the hell of it, for around USD$150 I bought a bluetooth enabled GPS receiver. It's about the size of a small pack of cigarettes and it lasts for 15 hours of continuous usage on a full charge. You can put it in your backpack, or pocket, or clip it to your belt. Then using this freeware on my gorgeous new WiFi-enabled Palm t/x, I logged my regular walk from home in paris to my gym. Thanks to the excellent freeware mapping site called GPS visualiser, this is what the route looks like on a Google Map.

It's interesting because if you zoom in it appears as though I am walking inside buildings and this was clearly not the case - rather, I think it's a result of the fact that the GPS is very accurate and is capturing data down to 7 decimal places of data and that perhaps if I rounded this up a little, I'd get tracks that were more accurate. Or maybe it's because the Google Maps api is funky.

Anyway, if you know Paris a little you'll see that my track begins on the right side of the map, where I live behing the National Archives building and ends on the left of the map which is just opposite the Bourse which is at the western end of Les Halles.

This is what the raw data file looks like:

Cetus GPS track data
TrackLog (Mac OS X) 1.35 Copyright (c) 2001-2004 Cetus
http://www.CetusGPS.dk

Description:     Home to Gym
Track start:     17:21:49
Track date:      2005-12-01
GPS receiver:    Generic GPS
Save:            Every minute

record    fix    hour    min    sec    msec    latitude    longitude    alt    speed    course    sat    hdop
1    3    17    21    49    0    48.8611083    2.3604833    70.70    0.9    7.2    4    2.0
2    3    17    22    49    0    48.8605883    2.3596283    58.30    7.6    324.5    5    2.4
3    3    17    23    49    0    48.8610867    2.3584000    20.80    4.1    12.6    5    2.5
4    3    17    24    50    0    48.8614967    2.3576700    64.40    2.2    106.6    5    2.5
5    3    17    25    50    0    48.8620267    2.3565283    63.30    1.9    10.8    5    2.5
6    3    17    26    50    0    48.8624800    2.3552967    37.50    3.3    260.3    6    1.4
7    3    17    27    50    0    48.8628317    2.3543067    44.90    3.1    338.4    6    1.4
8    3    17    28    50    0    48.8625900    2.3538033    39.60    1.9    264.3    6    1.4
9    3    17    29    50    0    48.8632900    2.3525567    72.40    3.3    237.5    6    1.4
10    3    17    30    50    0    48.8634433    2.3514317    54.70    1.9    204.5    5    1.5
11    3    17    31    50    0    48.8636850    2.3504283    47.60    1.9    295.0    6    1.4
12    3    17    32    50    0    48.8639317    2.3491383    79.50    4.6    291.0    6    1.4
13    3    17    33    50    0    48.8636750    2.3482533    40.90    4.8    213.2    6    1.4
14    3    17    34    50    0    48.8633467    2.3470967    69.00    0.9    265.9    6    1.4
15    3    17    35    50    0    48.8630717    2.3458433    48.40    3.0    269.7    6    1.4
16    2    17    36    50    0    48.8634483    2.3447817        1.1    266.3    3    4.0
17    3    17    37    50    0    48.8636383    2.3434500    19.20    2.8    1.2    5    1.4
18    3    17    38    50    0    48.8638550    2.3424167    59.90    3.0    226.0    6    1.4
19    3    17    39    50    0    48.8631233    2.3417867    60.10    1.5    279.4    6    1.4
20    3    17    40    50    0    48.8624500    2.3418800    84.20    8.1    129.3    5    1.4

Blogroll

I'm totally into this clever young lady's blog: Chez Pim, and it's all about food. Apart from other cool ideas, she is dining with her camera and as well as the running commentary there are photos of each course. On Flickr, of course.

And from there, I found this site, which offers Segway tours of Paris and other cities.
Strange, Sydney is not on the list.

Add her to your list of people who appear to have given up their day job to create media niches and who are now part of the Googleconomy.

yes I am here

I haven't posted much these past days because I have had visitors. My father and stepmother, then my two dear friends from England (Peter and Sarah) and this weekend coming my stepbrother, his wife and the kidlets. So lots of good walking around Paris and tourist activities which has been fun. It's getting colder, like a proper winter. And today I started back at French classes today, and it was a kick to catch up with everyone again.

On a more serious media-type note, an interesting thread on Joi Ito's log which I posted on today. If any of you wants to act as the audio production outsourcer for the International Herald Tribune, this may interest you.

More on the riots

Good stuff today in the International Herald Tribune and also an excellent short multimedia piece from Thomas Crampton of the NY Times here. The government has announced that it will deport foreigners who were involved in rioting, regardless as to whether or not they are in France legally. Apparently this is possible under French law if a foreigner, holding a visa, is guilty of a crime. Hmmm.

Meanwhile Tony Blair was knocked back by his own party in changing the law to allow police to extend the holding period without charge for terror suspects from 14 to 90 days. Well, at least someone in the UK is awake to how completely and utterly fucked over we have been by the likes of Bush/Blair/Howard and finally are putting the brakes on.

Umm, like, so that's good BUT when are any of these employees of the state (i.e. people for whom we voted to work on our behalf) going to do something to address the root causes of terrorism and civil unrest rather than just inventing intriguing ways of infringing on all sorts of human rights in the hope that locking them up or sending them away will fix the problems? We're all fucked as far as I can see, with nary a leader in sight with the vision to get to the bottom of the inequality, poverty, and resultant lack of self-esteem that fuels hatred. Hatred which in the hands of angry kids or OBL and anyone in between can be channeled into an effective and highly disruptive force.

I think we should ask Jon de Mol (of Endemol fame) to come up with a new (virtual) reality format where the marginalised and impoverished of the world get to blow up fat stupid white people who are holding TV remotes whilst berating the fact that the guy at the deli doesn't speak English properly. In turn, the white people can have their own game where they watch a whole lot of dark skinned people in urban ghettos and foreign cultures who can't get a job, much less TVs with remote controls, become angry and then they can SMS to evict them to Guantanemo for prolonged detention without trial for wanting to blow up the white people.

Oh wait, it's already been done and, yup, it's rating really well.