Me again

I've just seen the Boundary Commission's proposals for the small town whence I originate. Apparently the town centre should be in one constituency (Rochdale) whilst its suburbs and around 3/4 of the population should be in another (Haslingden & Darwen - which is nearly in bloody Blackburn).

It's completely spastic.

+1

Indeed. We may never what Kodak did

This article was what Alex originally posted:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/04 ... k-20111204

Due to a forum glitch, he'd posted the same thing twice, so I deleted one. The other seems to have gone with it...

Um, I can still see the one that caused the error.

Jon

So, is the consensus here that the "broken" thread should be deleted too?

Except, obviously, I can't.

Stinking cold ruining a romantic break in York.

AV Forums won't let me use their site unless I turn off NoScript and Adblock Plus. Bunch of w*nkers.

Can't you just add some exceptions?

Ocado delivery driver.

I put in an order with Ocado. I set the required delivery time to between 10:30 and 11:30 PM this evening. At 9.30, the delivery driver rings my mobile phone - 'I'm sat out side your house, are you around'? 'No, I"m half an hour's drive away. That's why I said deliver the stuff at 10:30 not 9.30'. 'Oh'.

Luckily my neighbour was in and she took the delivery for me. However, she's now gone to bed apparently, so I won't get my stuff until tomorrow morning. Including the stuff I bought so i could eat it from breakfast tomorrow, as I have no other food in the house.

WHY DO YOU THINK I BOOKED A DELIVERY AT 10.30 AT NIGHT IF I WAS GOING TO BE IN AT 9.30 YOU MORON!

Jon

I've had supermarket delivery drivers call me up early before. They usually say "I'm in the area, is it OK if I deliver early? If not then I can come back at the appointed time, but I was just hoping..."

I usually book late slots to be on the safe side, but I'm usually in earlier so I've never had to tell them "no - you'll have to come back thankyouverymuch". I imagine they'd be slightly miffed, but they'd have no option.

You have to understand the drivers perspective. It's simply not possible to plan an 8 hour route accurately unless you have a crystal ball, and most people will be like me - actually quite happy if you're an hour early. Far better than being 2 hours late for 99% of customers!! To expect anything else is totally unreasonable on your side.

Well, obviously, it's totally unreasonable of me to actually expect them to deliver the order at the time they asked me it should be delivered. Rather than an hour or two earlier when I'm an entirely different city. How bloody awkward of me.
No, I'm sorry. no. They asked me to give them a time I would available to receive the delivery. I told them a time. The fact they turned at an entirely different time than that on the off chance I might be there but I wasn't is not somehow my fault. Had I been in, I probably would have been pleasantly surprised to get it out of the way, but I wasn't. I don't think it's at all reasonable to expect people to be in all the time, as oppose to the time they said they were going to be in when they paid you.

Right, firstly, they can actually work out a route that gets them where they need to be when they need to be there. We have devices to do that. They're called satnavs. Slightly more sophisticated ones than the ones you buy in Halfords maybe, but nevertheless, they exist. That's why they request an hour-long delivery slot, rather than just saying 'well, let us know a night and we'll pop round at some point'. So their system can then plot a route and stops for the van that is the most efficient path, both time and petrol wise. They're very good at keeping their costs down are the supermarkets. If he has to spend half an hour between deliveries sitting in his van, well, OK, that's a bit boring but it's warm, dry and he's being sodding paid to do it at the end of the day. Read a book or something, get some 'learn to speak a foreign language' CDs, start an OU course so you can get a better job than driving a delivery van if you don't like it.

Secondly, you and I both know the real reason why he turned up outside my house an hour early. It was because I was his last delivery of the night and he wanted to get it out of the way so he could go home early (The 10:30-11:30 slot is the last one, so he wouldn't have had anyone else to deliver to after me).

Thirdly, there's a small but significant difference between the scenario you described and what actually happened. Had he phoned me up at say 8.30 and said 'I'm going to be in your area in an hour or so, is there any chance I can drop this delivery off about 9.30?' Then I'd actually have tried to get back by then. Seriously, why not help the guy out? But he didn't. He just turned up at my house an hour early with no prior notice at all then phoned me up and pretty much complained about having to wait for me to get home. The bloke was clueless.

If I'd not been accommodating enough to suggest an alternative, or my neighbour had been out as well, or I'd been getting the train home (which only run once per hour to get me home) then he'd have had to sit outside my house waiting for as long as it took me to get there. And that wouldn't have been my fault either.

Jon

I totally agree. I would expect him to either do other drops, if somebody is available or wait until you are there, if he is early.

I don't think phoning up to ask if you are there / nearly home is a bad thing.

If you said he could dump it at the neighbours, I don't see that you can complain. If you had said you needed another half an hour to get there and he decided to dump it on your neighbour, that is another matter.

My update to iOS 5. I'm not impressed, Apple. Not impressed at all...
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