A few days ago (see previous post) I had a poor experience using a companies Live online chat service. The problem there was caused by a lack of information on the part of the operator and, it would seem, their supervisor.

Today I had another question to a different company called Heatmiser related to a timer clock I’d brought. The manual was very, very thin so I went online searching for more information, found their live chat and thought I’d give it a go. Here’s the result.

As I’m typing this post it’s 10.45 and I still haven’t seen any response from them.

Live chat features on company websites can be great for solving small problems and can may a company look really good, pro-active and helpful. When use like this however they just make you look bad and you’d be much better off not having it online in the first place . . .

I have their free iPhone application installed which allows you to download a 7 day timetable for a specific journey so that you can access it when you’re out of coverage (say underground?). The problem I have is that I can find no way of updating the timetable, despite the app continually reminding me that it was downloaded on November the 19th.

After several minutes of frustrated clicking around their website I hit the ‘Contact Us’ link and filled out the form to send them an email asking them. On the last page of this process I was given a message saying why not try out Live Chat. That sounded like a good idea as I felt it was a simple question that I could get resolved quickly.

It took me another few minutes to actually find the link for their online chat and once I did this happened . . . tell me, was I going mad, talking to someone who’s first language may not have been English or just expecting way too much???

(the names have been removed to protect the innocent

Edit: I’ve just been emailed a survey asking me what I thought of the service . . . this is going to be fun

No, what I’m talking about here is something that makes everyone’s blood boil . . . traffic.

Almost everyone that uses the public highways and byways is clearly an idiot!OK, so that may be a slight over exaggeration but there’s clearly plenty of evidence to back me up. I cycle 2 to 3 miles twice a day to and from Cambridge Station, I walk around town when my bike is locked up. I use cabs to get back home or back to my bike after a night in the pub and I drive when I need to go shopping or visit relatives () about the only thing I don’t really do it use the bus on account of anywhere I’d take the bus to I use my bike)

The problem here is that each of the vehicular groups seem to think they own the road (including the pedestrians). Car drivers think everyone cuts them up (which they do), the busses think that no-one gives them any room so they just ignore everyone else on the road, Cyclists think that they’re immune to injury and therefore don’t actually need things like lights at night and just choose to ignore any actual rules on the road (you know, little things like red traffic lights), and pedestrians just seem to look the wrong way and try and throw themselves in front of any moving vehicle.

So what can we do about it? I have visions of licensed people being allocated pink paintball guns and shooting cars, busses and taxi’s that do stupid or illegal moves. With internet enabled devices like the iPhone or Blackberry a brief report could be logged within a couple of minutes then they could be stopped by the next police car that sees someone with pink paint on.

I still haven’t figured out what to do about pedestrians and cyclists, not because you can’t shoot them but because it’s a) more difficult to identify them (no number plates) and b) paintballs actually kinda hurt when they hit you.

This may not be the best or most fully formed plan but thinking about it is helping me blow off steam after I was nearly killed on the way to the station this morning by a car turning left in front of me . . . . BASTARDS!!!!!

Odd that I mention the commute because I’ve just been reminded of this while out buying my lunch . . . what is it with shops insisting on giving out plastic bags for everything? I’ve brought a sandwich and a drink. Do I really need a plastic bag? If you look outside our office near Tower Bridge at lunchtime you will see apparently thousands of people carrying small green plastic bags from Marks & Spencer. I thought they were supposed to be leading the environmental campaign by charging people for bags? No sign of it here. And how much would it take to make you think twice about taking a bag? 5p? 10p? £1?!? All you’re going to do with it is carry your one sandwich about 200 yards back to your office and then throw the things away, ultimately into a landfill . . . aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Should I really get started on the string of smokers camped outside London Bridge Tube station every morning combining with the queue from the London Dungeon and at least 4 newspaper sellers/give-awayers plus fancy-dressed idiots from the London Bridge Experience (wtf!) giving out flyers, all of whom are stopping me from getting home, and in the case of the smokers, all camped about half an inch away from the no smoking area, ganging up to choke me as well!

Yea, probably not today eh.