What Happens On the Flight Deck...

...Stays on the Flight Deck.

No names, no pack drill. But really.

An airline can preach Air Safety, Crew Resource Management and professionalism until the cows come home. But what operation allows two of its operating Pilots to sleep their way across Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia - failing to answer radio calls for almost two hours? *

They apparently got a shock when the Slovakians sent up two fighters to investigate.

Lucky the passengers didn't find out ... and lucky that they eventually woke up.


* on or about 23rd April 2006

Customer Service - Australian Style

You get an unsolicited phone call, It’s Peter Clayton from SMARTYHOST offering to host your website for a third of the current price.

You agree to switch and, in my opinion, get exactly a third of the service.

When you try to email to sort it out, he vanishes. I think he's dead.

Two weeks of desperation follows with mail going astray. For days I couldn’t load web pages from my office (through the proxy server), having instead to go to a café and use their unreliable wireless.

Over $200 later, I am back with Web Central / Commander. Gee whiz, everything works like before.

If they employ Peter Clayton, I am leaving them.



Then there is Hawthorn Football Club.

You try to renew your membership (of more than ten years) and their website (probably designed by Smartyhost) doesn’t believe that Bahrain is a country. There is no option for Other.

Three times I have tried to give them AUD $100 (they obviously need it to spend on footballers who can run for more than half the match) and each time no luck.

I have given up trying, sent them a threatening email and am on the verge of leaving forever.

You spend all your life supporting one team. It’s bad enough that they continue to let you down on the field, but now it’s off the field as well.



What makes business people think that their customers should be treated like idiots?


OK, so I may be an idiot … now watch this one walk away!