Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Dear Readers,

Sincerely hope  that 2011 has been a lovely year and 2012 is full of good things for you.

sarahNet Ltd has been busy – if you haven’t already signed up to sarahNet_Ltd twitter account, I hope you will find time to join us.

Facebook friend? Please look us up on Facebook – we look forward to seeing you there.

On a publishing note, sarahNet Ltd has been working on e-books and formats that are compatible with Kindle and other electronic formats.  Please don’t hesitate to contact sarahNet Ltd if you would like more information on how to distribute your work on-line.

If your New Year resolution is to improve your IT, please contact sarahNet Ltd for cost-effective, functional IT solutions.

Thank you for all your custom this year and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

Best wishes

Sarah

Courteous, Competent Computer Care

and a rare thing is customer care

Dear Reader (s)

I am about to charge about on my usual hobby-horse:  a fine beast called CUSTOMER CARE.  Needs looking after, it needs feeding.  Then it will gallop around and spread the good news of fantastic service and quality. Neigh indeed why not?

Well I mean honestly! In my ideal Easter world, I would be hoovering/dysoning  my new 80% wool carpets in a fetching shade of Almond (this is basically beige frankly) and rejoicing that, after SEVEN years, the renovation of my house was now complete. Hosanna and Alleluias. Hurrah. Happy days.

And yet I am not in an ideal home. I am still stubbing my toes on bare bedroom floorboards and wanting to cry into my Miele. (Don’t think I haven’t stocked up on vacuuming devices for the great day)

In the bleak mid winter, to cheer myself up, give me hope etc I went into OutofTown Carpet stores and chose some carpet -yellow – and arranged for someone to come round to measure and quote for carpet and fitting.  They did indeed turn up, they took away the sample of  carpet (£10 and please phone store for refund).  I asked them to put their quote in writing and dear reader I am waiting still. Eventually, I rallied and went back to the store and asked for my £10 deposit back. The store did ask if I wanted to place the order and verbally gave me a price (again). “I don’t deal with illiterate companies,” I said and sailed out clutching my tenner. Actually, I didn’t say that – but very much wish I had. Later reading some customer reviews a constant complaint was that this store didn’t write down quotes which made querying colour, price, quality and fitting very difficult when the wrong item turned up on the day.

Another month and hope springs eternal. I had probably gone about this the wrong way. I had been a bad girl and had approached wicked out-of-town suppliers when what I should have done is approach my local village carpet supplier who may charge more, but would be reliable, honest and sound people.

So I went into local carpet shop and lo, he turned up to quote, bringing with him a veritable pile of carpet samples – none of which he wanted to charge for. He did step through my tiny two up, two down semi and immediately regale me with tales of mansions that he had fitted, but you know, there was no sign of his door saying POSH people only.  He quoted me a very good price and also said he would hold the old VAT rate. He put this fab offer in writing. I was sold. I rushed to the shop and paid HALF up front and arranged installation date. Whilst waiting, I enthused about the deal, the carpet, the supplier. I was a happy potential Easter Bunny.

And then, the phone calls. So sorry – supplier can’t make that delivery date. I got the message late and as I was working from home the next day, I called in rather than phoned. The owner was nattering to his fitter (surely he should have been out somewhere fitting). He barely looked up. “Madge knows about this,” he told me. “She will be back tomorrow.”  I gave him a hard stare. I had booked off the day for carpet delivery and as I am self-employed this was costing me money. The shop had no plans to install carpets over weekends, on the grounds, I presume that their female customers are ladies that lunch and can arrange their  week for the shop’s convenience.

I phoned Madge, we arranged another date. That too was cancelled  and another time arranged. I was on holiday when I had a further phone call to say this time the supplier wasn’t able to manufacture that colour “at the moment.”  I struggled, the colour was beige. What is so difficult about beige?  The shop suggested I choose another carpet but I had begun to smell a rat – if not two.

I called into the shop again. This time they got my name wrong and let slip that they had let down this customer as well.  The rats were reeking. Either, I thought, they misquoted  and it’s not possible to deliver at the quoted price, or they had not paid their suppliers and were not getting deliveries at all. Either way I wanted my substantial deposit back. To fair I got this without any quibble.

But afterwards, I wondered why both outfits had turned a willing, eager purchaser into a lost sale.  Did it all get so easy in the boom times, that customers were utterly taken for granted?  When retailers blame the recession for their fall in profits are we right to believe them. Is careless customer service the real enemy within?

November 12, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Tags: Alan Sugar, Business world, governance, Motherhood and apple pie, sarahnet Ltd, Sunday Times

I am a bit worried about Alan Sugar this week; I know he will be touched by my concern. There was a fairly unpleasant article on the Sunday Times Review last weekend. A female journalist found she disliked him very much; he was very rude and horrid. Well, he is very rude and, dear reader, as you know what an advocate of good manners I am, you may be surprised at my intervening on his behalf.

But honestly! The Sunday Times saw fit to send a non-business journalist to interview a supremely successful entrepreneur and Mr. Sugar kicked off soundly because she relied on press cuttings for her background and questions.

Press cuttings are all very well but they do tend to focus on ‘I’m an apprentice get me out of here’ or something and Sugar’s famous soundbites. ‘Don’t employ women, don’t employ pregnant women. WOMEN!!!! Who’s looking after the babies? ARGGGGH!’

But the nitty gritty of it: as a very small business, I don’t employ women (apart from me ). In fact – I don’t employ anyone on the grounds that it’s all too complicated. I hire my expertise in from the outside when I need it – but don’t want to run a payroll or HR systems that are essentially a drain on my business resources. Neither, thank you, do I want to outsource it all either. I think some credit should be given to Suralan (as he is known) that he chooses to employ anyone at all in these mad days.

Last year, I sat in on an  interview where a large corporation is unable to sign off a compliance procedure that will guard against a high risk governance scenario as one of the team is unable or unwilling to remember to comply with the regulations. Trust me; they are not difficult regulations either. This is now an HR issue and as HR advises it’s a ‘Performance’ issue and not a ‘Disciplinary’ issue it will take a while to resolve – eternity probably or a disaster strikes.

But the story that I think the ST journalist missed was Alan Sugar’s statement that he saw the opposition as ‘Old Tory’ and that worried him. This was not developed by the journalist as she moved onto Women’s Issues that clearly interested her more and irritated Suralan profoundly.

The Old Tory label is one that I can’t help pinning to the Cameron crowd either. They are immensely privileged class of people and the recession is hurting them far less than anyone as they rightly manage their money very well and across generations. What concerns me is that the Old Tory (pre Thatcher) will forget about small businesses (who don’t make a great deal of money in the scheme of things) and that land and property is once again going to be thing to see people through in the new and difficult economic climate.

Whether you agreed with her or not, Mrs. Thatcher made a profound social change by enabling people to buy their houses. Regardless of whether they were council tenants or no, this allowed many more people other than the professional middle and upper classes, to live very well. The State nowadays, laments the lack of social mobility, but this is a reflection, I believe, that many people had enough to live comfortably where they were, even if they didn’t have vast estates or access to private education at their disposal. They no longer needed to leave back-to-back terrace house and their families in order to get on. By giving us access to money Mrs. Thatcher lessened (she hoped) the need of the State to support us.

But the economic health that underpinned that idea has vanished – almost overnight. We were not governed as we thought, by well thought out institutions who paid more than lip service to good governance; but by fantasists, optimists and dreamers who failed to understand the first rule of business and economics:

• Money is extremely valuable and is never that easy to acquire.

In the midst of these financial governors were extremely cynical and or corrupt people who certainly did understand the value of money and ensure it was directed into their accounts (off-shore).

The old Tory guard sneered at Thatcher – not because she was female (to be fair) but because she was TRADE and run the National Budget like a post-war household budget.

Anyone who has seen the late Mr. Heath’s house nestled comfortably next to Salisbury Cathedral will have no need to wonder about the cultural gulf that divided him from Grantham.

Nevertheless it was the female Thatcher that created the economic climate that allowed Alan Sugar to thrive, move from the market street and employ people – as he acknowledged in the interview.

Mr. Brown always struck me as a man from the seventies and bless him, he has created the economy to match. His very talented and able wife stays at home and nobly supports him while wearing very pretty frocks in a non sexy way. She puts brave little twitters on Twitter to say what a good man he is.

Cameron looks more Heath like with each passing day. I don’t know that he understands the complexities of small business and what they need to survive. I am sure he will sort out Inheritance Tax, repeal the anti-hunting laws and concentrate on the countryside and the needs of farmers. None of this is a bad thing. In fact the wilful neglect of our countryside under this government is shocking.

But both Brown and Cameron believe they know what’s best for me. I beg to differ. I know what’s best for me and I want get on and do it (in the way I suspect Alan Sugar does) without being interrupted by intrusive social policies and councils writing to ask how I now use my loft conversion. – and yes, they have. I plead again for governance, law, sound financial institutions and free trade. I fear we are being led astray by phantoms, the wars against ‘terror’, Swine Flu and old class battle lines will raise their heads again as the unions fight – not so much against poor, unlucky Brown, but the looming figures of the old Tory guard.

But what is interesting on both sides of the party is how the figure of the small businessman has rather mysteriously vanished from the political rhetoric and I wonder now in this changed climate if politicians on all sides would like us to be corporate employees where we are easily tracked, monitored and taxed.

I fear that we are moving into an era that believes we are facing BIG problems that governments think will require BIG solutions: rather as the 70s did. When corporate architects designed massive, concrete solutions and large institutions were going to solve the world’s problems. Oh yes, I remember now: nuclear power stations.

I can’t see a Tory government thinking any differently to be honest. The Old Tory view of a set world order with people in their place seems deeply engrained in the Cameron philosophy.

Reading between the lines of that interview last Sunday, I understand why Mr. Sugar might think there are other things to worry about than motherhood and apple pie. I worry too.

It’s been quiet at sarahNet Ltd, in a good way recently. Customers calm, seemingly content and for the first time in ages the projects I am working on don’t seem to involve pushing heavy boulders up large hills, metaphorically speaking.  But it also means I don’t have horror stories to bring home and entertain you with.  I am grateful believe me.

However  this peace has given me some time to think over the entries supplied at Linked In. What a great site that is. Currently, I notice much activities on the bulletin boards regarding interview techniques, how we should dress properly, speak up , look tidy and research the role.  Of course this is all good advice and I don’t advocate anything other than this. But sometimes, quite often, I find life isn’t as advertised.

I have lost count of the interviews I have been to, bright eyed and bushy tailed and yet get nowhere.  Inevitably when I turn up to an interview, two things happen:

1. I lose all ability to connect brain with mouth

2. I get ladders in my tights. (everytime)

Whereas, when I am galloping about on my work horse so to speak, tilting at windmills (sorry, targets)  hot, sticky and inelegent, I am often hailed by potential customers. Generally, I pull up to an inelegant halt; the work horse  starts behaving badly by nuzzling  handbags or pockets for potential carrots. Strangely though at this time it seems possible to negotiate  working hours and conditions.

This has happened twice now in the last month: one with a customer I now very much enjoy working with and another with a University where I rashly applied to do a part time masters. I applied late, had no references and well really didn’t follow their rules.

sarahNet Ltd has been offering office support to a board meeting this month. When it was over I met with one of the committee members and explained I was only a temporary PA support until the proper full time PA person arrived, one that did offered full time conference support

A look of complete glee spread over her face: ‘ does this mean you are an improper PA?’

I thought about this carefully and had to see the funny side. It had been an important meeting and true to form my tights had laddered on a chair splinter.

The committee member roared with laughter and then said could I start working with her, hours to suit?

????

The thing is, to remember if you are taking the imperfect route through work – you have to extend the courtesy to everyone else.

Remember that university application form?  late, no references not following any of their rules.

I didn’t hear anything for a while and so tentatively emailed one Friday to ask if I had been accepted.

‘Oh yes,’ came the reply.’ didn’t we tell you – you start Monday!’

Not the most graceful arrival into the classroom that Monday evening, it has to be said (laddered tights again) but grateful to the University for letting me in at such short notice to  a course that is proving to be so life enhancing.

Of course, we have to be good at what we do, care about our customer and the value we add to their business.  That is the bottom line

But along the way,  remember, however much we prepare for jobs and interviews and the perfect life: if it doesn’t go to plan, be  courteous:  – if something falls across your path, take the time to pick it up and set it back on its feet. There are such things as happy accidents…

Thank you for reading this article.

sarahNet Ltd, Courteous, Competent Computer Care.

www.sarahnet.co.uk

Modern Book of Email Etiquette

Dearly Beloved,

my sermon today is taken from the Modern  Book of Email Etiquette , The First Commandment.

Thou Shalt NOT send flame mail when furious (or indeed at all)

Woe unto thee for those whose transgress: at the best you end up looking a Plonker Rodney, at worst you are up on a charge of bullying in front of HR.

sarahNet Ltd came home on Friday after a surprisingly good day. Happy Customers, happy me and new business arriving my doors. This is always heartening.  So it was with a relaxed heart that I opened my email to check the last stragglers of the week. And there it was – a group email from a new manager of one of my customers.

Clearly, he had had a bad day. An offensive subject line (I will spare his blushes) was followed by a tirade about clerical mistakes on the data base. As he didn’t know who was responsible for this heinous error he had copied everyone who worked in the office, including a senior partner of some years standing.  How Rude.

At this point, dear reader, I have had to delete the following section of my blog that had degenerated into a bit of a rant  myself.  Fortunately, it went to draft  rather than publish.

Second commandment.: Thou Shalt Not Blog when Cross EITHER !!!!!!

In the end I decided that this was a customer sarahNet Ltd could do without and wrote to terminate my contract  forthwith.

By a strange co-incidence this week, I found myself  working with an HR company that specialised in ‘employee issues’.

These issues are otherwise known as disputes upto and including disciplinary hearings between employer and employee.  I sat in on one for a  full day and came out acutely aware of how emails don’t go away. They stay and are used in evidence for ever.

I don’t know if there is anyway of teaching, educating the world, that can prevent us mortals from flying into incoherent rages, gracelessly articulate our rage in an email and then NOT press the send button.

If you know of any method, please let me know. I have been in this business for 100s of years now and it amazes me that anyone can come through our education system and not know about email etiquette;  that everything we write in an email makes us hostage to fortune. Speaking of which, entire company fortunes are lost in hiring HR consultants, Meeting rooms and Solicitors as the evidence (usually in email) is investigated.

Myself, I try to be polite and courteous – but I know I fail, being human. But I am sure that being able to manage ourselves is a key to running good businesses.

If we can govern ourselves, we may (possibly) govern the world one day. If we can’t manage ourselves, we can’t manage anything. If we chose to fuel our insecurity by flame mails, the difficulty is that the World and his wife will know this too.

Here endeth the sermon

Thank you for reading this blog.

sarahNet Ltd

sarahNet Ltd

Courteous (always), Competent Computer Care

www.sarahnet.co.uk & www.sarahnet.com

Screaming across the internet.

If you were hanging around the internet a few weeks ago you may well have heard my anguished screams ringing out across the spread of IP servers and into your room. Indeed, an ex of mine heard the sounds and wasted no time in enquiring the source of my pain. When he found out, he  spent a lot of time pointing, laughing and then, between the chuckles, trying to commiserate, as he could see how truly terrible my internet life had become.

v.bad. v.v.v bad. This is what happens when you take your eye off the ball.

sarahNet Ltd. started life ten years ago as a sole contractor and grew up into a company four years ago. So ten and four years ago I checked and registered my domain names. I had them all. sarahnet.com, sarahnet.co.uk etc, etc. Unfortunately, sarahnet.org was taken by some friendly German Sarah with whom I had no conflict of business interests. Hmmm. And so it rested.

I concentrated on my business and, I have to say, didn’t pay too much attention to my own sites as so much of my customers came through recommendations and word of mouth.  See, I am a good person to have on your team.

However, this summer I took a staycation and – guess what – it rained. So, I decided to brush up my web and networking. I have joined LinkedIn.Com and rewrote and designed my website www.sarahnet.co.uk (please do visit).  Then, after a week or so, I googled sarahNet to see what happened. And this is when I started to scream. For what came up was not friendly German, but ghastly Sarah Palin. OMG. Can I Say NOW – that any resemblance between me and Sarah Palin is purely accidental. The site has even copied my cunning plan of capitalizing the second section of sarahnet. Mine = sarahNet – whilst the Palin camp  have gone for sarahNET, clearly a web they hope you will never get out of.

The friendly German has clearly given up sarahnet.org and the new domain sarahnet.net (that I missed) has been taken by SP and all these sites have gone to Alaska.

I am not going off, sorely tempted as I am, into an anti Sarah Palin blog site. There are clearly better sites on the internet that will do this for me.  The point is, dear reader, she has the same effect on me as nails dragging down a chalk board. She is painful to hear; please stop.

But worse, her reputation is not something I want my business to be associated with. She does not appear, to me, to be successful, accomplished, caring and competent.  Everything, in fact, that I want my business to be. And almost as bad these days, is that she seems to be a standing  joke in the U.S. – again not something I want to have any ties to.

Sadly, she does not appear comfortable in her skin.

Because I did not take good enough care of my domain name(s) I have to live with the fact that this unfortunate Sarah is associated with MY name when you google sarahNet.

My only crumb of consolation is that sarahNet existed long before Sarah Palin was talked of. I intend to remain long after she has got lost on a Moose Hunt – or on  the way out of the Governor’s office.

In the meantime, I feel rather like the Ancient Mariner, stopping ‘one in three’ – urging you to learn from my dreadful mistake.

If you have a company name that you need to protect on the internet, I suggest you visit

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/domain-names/

You can register domain names for very little: current prices start at £5.00 and you can reserve them for up to two years at a time. It may be worth while ensuring your company name is not used by another organisation, however well meaning its intent may be.

Please do take care; reputation is all. It can be lost in the most surprising places and Alaska is clearly one  of them … x

sarahNet Ltd

Courteous, Competent Computer Care

www.sarahnet.co.uk and (!) www.sarahnet.com

This is a true story and IT doesn’t have to be like this…and yet and yet quite often IT  is. WHY?

Well, leaving Mrs Slocombe to one-side there is a long established belief that people who don’t like people, like computers. sarahNet Ltd is not convinced this is true. Should you be brave enough to step into a supposed computer lover’s (CL) lair you often find tortured pieces of kit strewn across the room, pcs strapped to racks and forced to download 24/7 at blistering high speeds, their little lights flashing in distress.

Should you do anything so rash as to ask for a

USB 2.0 TO SVGA Video Adapter

for example, you will cause an uproar as CL will leap about emptying boxes, upending drawers and swearing loudly that s/he can’t understand why manufacturers use that **** connector when really they **** should use ****! /opensource/linux/redhat/old hat adapter system that only requires string. (allegedly).

It will not matter at all that CL earlier volunteered said cable when the department needed one. No…sigh

And yet, a surprising number of businesses accept this kind of behaviour from people that they are paying to support them. It is not an inverse rule that the more nerdy, unhelpful and uncommunicative your IT support is, the greater is their IT knowledge.

It is worth braving the server room once in a while: if your fileservers are constantly downloading software, you need to know what it is and why your business needs it.  Your fileservers should be clearly labelled and named. Any servers called ‘dark avenger’, ‘terminator,’ orklord’ or similar needs watching. Language will always give the speaker away in the end…

Please INSIST on documented backup systems and plan a restore; there is nothing going to test your IT Ork Master like re-instating a company’s year end accounts. Don’t be surprised if Ork turns DORK under stress.

Remember too, that most servers don’t just fail without warning (unless you are very unlucky). These computers are generally packed full of system messages that give advance warning of hard disk failures, licence expiry dates and other hardware horrors. A good IT manager will read these messages and act ahead of a crisis.

Printers, on the other hand, will fail without a by-your-leave. They collapse in a sticky, inky unexplained mess JUST as your PA is trying to get the board papers ready for your international executive meeting. The same meeting that has taken expensive, top level logistical planning to get everyone in the same room at the same time.

sarahNet Ltd has seen secretarial staff reduced to fearful tears because the IT desk at these times don’t consider a ‘printer problem’ a crisis. No indeed  and will be out to look at it in three days as detailed by their Service Level Agreement page three , paragraph seven, line 9. Gotcha! Back to cat.

Finally, I wouldn’t like to comment too much on that stuffed cat [leave that to Freud]- but clearly this is not a female friendly environment. ‘Loving computers’ and ‘not good with people’ is not excuse for any IT person to bully users; his or hers.

Good, successful IT is always about people and people should always have friendly, approachable, effective problem solvers on hand.

sarahNet Ltd.

Courteous, Competent Computer Care

www.sarahnet.co.uk

How intuitive is that? It was a very amusing summary of all that is baffling about our IT world.

I myself, have found the same, that if you post a question on the internet, you rarely receive a straightforward solution. But sometimes, it isn’t really that difficult. I hope you enjoy the following link.

Keeping IT Simple

sarahNet Ltd

Courteous, Competent Computer Care

It’s not just that the banks and the government have managed to tip us into a collective financial disaster , then has tried to distract us with a folksy ‘greed is bad, lets knit our own presents and embrace home grown vegetables’ mentality, but they really don’t appear to understand how quite irresponsible their behaviour is.

May I say now, as a true child of the eighties, that I will be damned before I grow carrots as a response to this financial crisis. Frankly, my dear, I want to grow money. Sound, solid, honest, cash. In my experience, you need sound, solid, ground rules for flourishing money trees.

However people, we can be safe in our financial beds as the prime minister has a most lovely allotment plot in the ample gardens of  No.10 and is happy for us to know all his flowers are bearing fruit. Well actually, he doesn’t let us know about his green figures (SORRY fingers): his lovely wife is twittering on about the joys of of vegetable production in an 18th Century Town House in the heart of  London, provided & gardened for at the tax-payers expense. Apparently, the good fruit and veg is up FOR SALE, no surprises there then. Any chance of charity finding a home and the food  given away to appropriate soup kitchens…just a thought.

I do have to lie down and breathe now – can you tell?

At the core of this financial crisis is the cold, hard fact that something, valuable and precious -i.e money, was made to appear cheap and plentiful. So much so that Prime Minister  Brown, when Chancellor, sold off our gold reserves at a knock down price, in the terrible, mistaken belief that it wasn’t worth the cost of storing.

What do we have for the cost of that gold.

• Sufficient Helicopters for our armies?
• Sufficient Social Workers to work with the abused elderly and young?
• A transparent as possible government that can justify its existence and expenditures?
• Hospitals that don’t have to put up notices to say its ok for patients to check whether staff have washed their hands?
• Government open about commercial interests?

• The absolute right to a trial in front of a jury with all the known evidence in open court?
• Responsible and achievable national computer systems?
• Respect for our private data?
• Secure energy supplies – no need for nuclear power stations?
• Well built, environmentally efficient housing for all?
• World order after the collapse of the iron curtain?
• add as required.

Sadly, no, well no surprise really. But the government and, I believe, the opposition continues to live in a state of denial about the true damage that has occurred to the heart of the community; business, social and familial. There is a real anger in that community that can only bode ill to the people who are trying to lead us. Who is it that we can trust?

Politicians? Religions? The Law? The Media? Welfare State?

The response by politicians has been to consistently deny how bad things are. We all know how it feels to know a subject inside out.  When we have complete possession of the facts, one of the most scary things in life  is to have someone rock up, deny the facts and you your right to truth.

Yet daily, we are subject to people who are in denial about the consequences of their actions, whether Bankers, Politicians or Civil Servants. In their world, facts are pretty irrelevent.

The response of the Government has been to spin: as usual when the going gets tough in the UK, the spirit of the blitz is raised. We are urged to dig for victory (beat the crunch)- hence home grown stuff. Folksy home spun values are not environmentally friendly and they won’t get us out of this mess. We are being sold a nonsensical solution

Remind me, how many houses have been built in the last ten years.(163.8K in 2003 – as a starter according to government’s own figures).

How many gardens and brown or green field sites have been lost to flats and teeny houses? Look how tiny the gardens are in these new properties. Many don’t have any at all and stand in carparks.

This is a labour government is it not? How has it engineered a zietgeist that only those of  us with land can survive?

Please, please don’t succumb;  we can’t survive this recession on salad via window boxes. We need protected farm land, enviromentally friendly EU policies and strong governance, so we can go to the shops and be confident about the food we buy and the bank accounts from which we pay. We need, in short, accountability.

It is  strong governance that is crucial to our future economic success. Good governance should not be cynically ‘ got around, got over or spun out’ for short term gains. If we abandon this principle, we embrace the corrupt and live – as Jesus put it, in whited sepulchres; looks lovely, smells very bad…

We have to have faith in the structures that support our daily lives and believe me Mr. Government, that faith is gone. The trouble is, as someone said about God, when we stop believing in something we believe in anything. My fear is that  our fear, truly alive and well in our society will cause it to clutch at straws. We will learn once more that the root of a garden is the verb ‘to guard’  That because the Government has failed to protect our long term interests we will be seduced into believing that only we can protect ourselves; the stranger must be kept out, might is right and we should protect, at all costs, our individual, little patches of  bare earth.

But Mr. Government, you are spinning, you say things are not that bad, no new taxes (er probably) , its not the economy stupid. No, uhm, it is all someone else’s fault, somewhere else. Look,  Mr Government’s lovely wife is wittering on at twitter. com.

‘Such lovely strawberries, so sorry to hear about your bad foot, I hope you feel better soon. Such a charming garden party, please visit my charity websites, yes I am an ordinary person’

No, she is not an ordinary person, that Mrs Brown. She is a very clever and possibly a  very desperate housewife. For soon her ept husband will be spending a lot more time with his family. (One can only imagine the gloom.) She is doing what any resourceful and thrifty wife will do. She is spinning for her family – such domestic bliss could not possibly be married/associated or hooked up with anything so nasty as complete economic failure and social dis-orientation. Vote for Mr B. keep him out of the domestic sphere for a little longer… please…dear lord, he will most  likely sell the family silver else.

So she sits like the good wife in a fairytale,  but its gold into straw Mrs. Brown and its the rest of us that are spinning in our whitened graves.

In my view, but I am a new-comer, all the above shops have made my shopping experience unpleasant. Being a newbie (of five years) – , they don’t greet me, meet me or make me feel welcome. I should know magically the odd queueing arrangements (Post office!) and have to defend my small order to the fish-monger (No – I don’t have a family and my many friends are not coming to tea tonight!) Large notices are placed preachily in the window – ‘Use us or Lose us’. whilst I pick through the rotten heart of lettuce and prod the potatoes with caution . However, these shop owners are saintly beings who have given up a life of riches and career opportunities to save us, the community, from professional retailers who can lay out a store and arrange their supplies in good order.

But it is not of the supermarket that I wish to speak. I was called in last week by a treasured customer who was deeply upset about two computers she had recently bought from her ‘Local’ IT man. She had bought from him because he was local and she believed it her duty as a Member of the Community (MC) that she should use him.

The original specification had been clear: build a new machine ( I won’t bore you with hardware here) and transfer information across from her old machine.  At this point, I need to say that MC is a successful entrepreneur who has set up her own business and run it successfully for 15 years. She is not a lady to be messed with.

The computer arrives with none of her information transferred successfully and is painfully slow to start up.

The operating system was Windows XP home (?) and there were no power leads supplied with the box. On trying to load a printer driver, the whole box ground to a halt and refused to start at all.

MC took it back to the shop and explained the problem.

Response:  ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT – YOU MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG’

Phone rings: supplier answers ‘I CAN’T TALK TO YOU NOW, I HAVE A SHOP FULL OF CUSTOMERS’

MC is the only customer in the vicinity…

After much to-ing and fro-ing the supplier took the box back and said he would call when he had fixed it.

The next day MC returned home to find a message to say the PC was fine and ready for collection. She asked her husband to pick it up as she didn’t want to go back and he duly went a few days later.

Supplier:  ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE – I LEFT A MESSAGE FOR YOUR WIFE!’

…?!

Supplier: ‘ I EXPECTED HER TO CALL ME TO LET ME KNOW WHEN SHE WOULD COLLECT IT’

…?!

Supplier: ‘THE MACHINE ISN’T READY  – I HAVEN’T STARTED IT YET – YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED ME TO SAY YOU WERE COMING’

In other words,  he had opted to give a good impression of a caring service but had utterly failed to deliver and at each stage, when found out, it was the customer’s fault. This is bullying . This supplier had intimidated my customer to the point where she had had to ask her husband to help her out with a basic business order.  The most frustating thing was she had also paid up front.

Ten days later, the machine was ready for collection.

I am currently transferring information and setting up network connections again: this not difficult, but it is time-consuming and requires a sound understanding of what data is crucial to the customer and what is not.

My advice is: generally our money is hard earned and we have not won on the lottery. Do not hand over your cash to anyone unless you have the goods happily  in hand or via a credit card – where you can claim the money back.

Local business is not your community’s charity case. Give your money away to a good cause by all means ; but please, not to someone delivering a lazy or so-so service and implying that they are doing you a favour at the same time.

As for the supermarket. I am going to vote against it. I can see a huge increase in traffic and pressure to build more houses once it has landed in the vicinity. The pity of the case is -  that if the all the local trades were as good as many of them indeed are are, there wouldn’t be a sizeable section of the community longing to shop elsewhere.

Thank you for reading this: please visit www.sarahnet.co.uk