The last few days have been rather complicated for me. Working on the phones in my current job, and also dealing with the customer service teams at Apple. Over the past 24 hours I must have spent nearly 12 of them on the phone constantly. Though the question must be asked, How often do you find yourself on the receiving / giving end of bad customer service?

There’s an old saying, “Don’t bring your problems into work”. Easier said than done in most cases, but in my experience I seemed to get someone who was having a very bad day. Mainly my calls to Apple. My newly purchased computer developed a fault on the trackpad. Ok, so It’s new, and I accept that every now and then an (admittedly) minor thing happens.

Of course I call them and ask about a repair or replacement, and was told I could go to the Apple store to arrange this. This is the moment when it all went wrong here. Sure the guy was nice enough but he didn’t really check things through. Suffice to say that because I ordered online, I couldn’t replace it in store. Which meant that I had driven to and fro various places and made hours of phone calls.

Until of course I got through to the guy that actually took responsibility, admitted something had gone wrong and sorted the problem.

Two huge contrasts there for a problem that took almost a week to sort. When all that really had to happen was the first person could have gotten their facts straight.

It got me wondering at just how often I’ve done something similar. I worked for two years in a call center for a major bank and currently work on an IT service desk for an even larger more powerful entity. How often have I or you, been on the phone to a customer as part of our jobs and said something, all very nicely and then put the phone down and thought.. “oh, I should have said that”, which lead the customer on a very long escapade?

Obviously I try to do the very best I can in my job, but thinking hard about it, I’ve definitely done it. It’s amazing how eight words in this case could have saved me a lot of time, effort and worry. (those words being “It can’t be replaced at the Apple store”)

Of course it’s equally true on the flip side. How amazing that one person in twenty minutes could so easily sort everything out by simply being an outright star at his job. Again, how often have you picked up the phone and been on the giving or receiving end of a call where you could simply have taken ownership and gone the extra mile to sort something out for someone once and for all.

Again, I’m ashamed to admit that I might not have done that all the time I’ve been on both ends of the call, and certainly some people I’ve spoken to simply don’t want to know.

How many of us believe that we truly put our all into a job and do the best that we can possibly do, and then on looking back we suddenly realize that we could have done so many things differently.

Amazingly my call was to a multi billion pound company that is renowned for excellent customer service. I had the best, and the worst of it all in one day. Of course, there are millions of other customers, I am truly nothing to them. But my decision to buy was based partly on the customer service aspect, and whilst I’m satisfied with my resolution, I can’t help but be left with a slightly sour taste. I’ve literally seen the best and the worst of a company all in one day. So for me, the reputation has been damaged, but not irreparably, owing to one person alone.

Again, it’s amazing how little we do, or don’t do that can lead to such a drastic change in perceptions. For me, wanting to set up a small business based on what I do on this website, something like that could loose me thousands of pounds a year, but it could also make me thousands.

How often do you really think about what you’re doing? Honestly and truthfully can you say every waking moment of every day be it with friends, family or the customers or colleagues you deal with that you know precisely what you were doing, and gave exactly the right information, and cared?

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Take today for instance, I drove to the shops. An everyday activity, yet it felt completley forregin. I got in the car, and almost felt as if I didn’t know how to drive, which is worrying. More so I had to think for a moment how to start the car, once I got over the invariable mindscrewing that caused, I then couldnt figure out my route, so I resorted to getting out of the car and walking. Either it wasn’t enough sleep, or something else, but it’s really unusual, and downright worrying. Ok it wasnt essential stuff I needed to get, just milk etc, but what if it was?

Weirdly this isn’t the first time something like this has happened, I was eating, picked up the fork, and then thought “This doesen’t feel right” so I swapped hands, and it still didn’t feel right, eventually I clicked and worked out how I ate, but I can even remember doing this as a child, wanting to “run” to the bus stop, and then completley forgetting how to run. Honestly, I couldn’t work out how to run. I tried, flapped and failed. Why is it my brain decides to randomly wipe out things? Ever started a new job and not known how you do things, waiting for help or asking someone for help? thats how I felt. I really don’t know what on earth is going on…

I can’t be the only one surley, but it does concern me. Thoughts?

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True It has given me much time to reflect on things, plus begin work on certain things that I am vastly behind on (like sorting out my website) but other than that, its pretty sucky.

Unfortuantely my blog this week isn’t that insightful. True I have found a new love for hobby and crafts, and am currently awaiting a plaster cast to set for a chess set I’m making, but my other projects have gone a little stale.

Firstly my website. Unfortunatley, I’ve hit a snag. I desperately want to move this blog onto my site, but because I created my own, in rather poor HTML, I can’t seem to get anything integrated into wordpress, and my frustrations about the gallery are starting to manifest.

Do I develop a whole new site? Or Do I sit and suffer with the site I have? Do I change things over? Or Do I use a completley different system. I jus’t dont know. I’d love to be able to do so much more with my site, but It’s getting rediculous…

When people say going retro, they usually means something like flared jeans, bad nightclubs, big hair styles, strange guitar riffs & are highly wasted trousers that quite literally go up to the neck.

When you say the word retro, people tend to think of the seventies or even the 80s. The time when FedEx was King and an apple was a fruit.
To me the word retro wrote means something completely different.

In fact as of late I’ve been thinking about many past memories and experiences, have me yearning for some of the times in my youth.
Don’t ask me why, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about my past. Like the time I lusted after that big bulky cassette player, or the time when I came home to reckless Rick playing on the record player. Yes even I am “Just” old enough to remember LP’s!

In fact I still have a good bunch of them downstairs underneath the old record player that my father owned. In fact I still have that old cassette player that I saw on television. I still have my first MP3 player! I’m pretty sure I even have a few floppy disks still laying about.
But why is it lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about my past. About the old technology I used to have and lust after?

Perhaps it’s because of a new job in IT. Perhaps it’s because every day I’m surrounded by the latest technology with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. Perhaps it’s because every now and then, I still pick up that old cassette player, plonk in a few AA battery’s and listen to an old cassette.

Perhaps it’s because every now and then I wind up the turntable, and played Jeff Wayne’s war of the world’s. In all its musical Glory, bellowing out with that soft muted Dolby tone.
I’m not sure I can completely explain why I feel the way I do about technology these days.

I’m not sure I even want to understand why I feel this way. All I know, is that I am enjoying reliving some old experiences.

Sometimes it’s nice to listen to that old tape I recorded off of the radio, with all of its crackling and hissing, and though soft imperfections that you can only get whilst listening to a tape.

Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to my music in high definition. I love the way that MP3 players have made things easy for us, and that you can listen to even the most audacious song in crystal clarity.
It’s never really been an issue for me until now.

A few years ago, I would have complained if someone gave me the option of listening to a tape rather than listening to my MP 3 player or even my CD player.

I would have wanted that crystal clarity that comes with a CD, the somewhat sterile sound that you can get sometimes. I would have preferred playing the latest game like quake, rather than playing an old retro classic like tetris. I would have preferred to be playing again on the latest technology that I had in my computer, and picking up the archaic game boy that sits in its bag even today.

True, had I been forced to I would have played with it for some time, before getting bored and moving on to the more high tech stuff that I owned.

Even now with my car, I sometimes lust after the simplicity that came with my old car. With its big carburettor, spark plugs and distributor rather than the precise fuel injection I have today along with its glow plugs and coil pack.

Even though the new technology is far more reliable, and far safer, there’s something about old technology that just, feels, like it should. I suppose that’s why over the last few days, the Tetris theme has been running in and out of my mind.

Those four or five simple chords, running around over and over again almost begging some childish instinct in me to play. I even found myself the other day, wanting to write rather than type or speak.
True things like voice recognition have come a long way, I’m even writing this entire blog Post now using voice recognition.

It’s also true that keyboard technology has come a long way. Gone are the days of notchy keys, strange brown or yellow stains and the tendency for the odd key to simply not work.

There is no denying that technology has become far more than simple transistors or valves. Technology has become intelligent, refined and usable for everyone.
But every now and then, it’s still nice to pick up that old cassette player and push the button that physically moves something inside the machine. Sometimes it’s nice to hear that tape whirr into action as the familiar hiss comes crackling through your earphones.

When I think of retro I’d tend to think of all things like this, rather than big hair, boom boxes & very bad hair styles. I’d still prefer kitt from Knight rider, to any of the new technology that comes out in the real world to prove certain things are possible. Retro for me, was all about technology and fantasy, rather than drugs or disco.

The technology for me, was in those old cassette players, or even those old record players. The fantasy for me was feeling like that piece of technology was alive. Even when I first started photography, my first camera was an old Russian machine. It was beautiful. It was a mix of leather and cast metal. It was a piece of technology that I knew if I had thrown it down a gorge, or dropped it on to the pavement, I would still be able to feel the shutter snap open as the spring bounced inside the button.

New technology simply does not have that. True you can make an iPod feel chunky and stylish, you can even make it feel heavy and recapture some of that old machinery with a hard drive sitting inside it that whirrs into life. You can make almost any piece of new technology feel a little bit like the old days. You can give anything chunky buttons to move fake switches to try and recapture some of that old technology feel, you can even make games in the older retro style. Complete with eight bit sound and cheesy graphics.

You can even make movies that had the sense of scale older films like dune or the old stargate film. You can give them that sense of perspective that you just don’t seem to get in the new movies. Everything nowadays seems to be controlled, clean, sterile.
I work in technology, and so I know how important things have become. I know how important it is to have a touch screen technology, or a phone that will do everything for you. I applaud it! I even support it and want to see more of it.

But even now, on this home built computer, I still miss my old Atari and the way the keys would clunk and click. Right now I am sat here with an earpiece and microphone attached to my head, as I dictate this blog Post. But I will never forget the feeling of writing something on paper.
I know it sounds silly, perhaps even a little worrying. But there are many things that I miss. I would never give up some of the technology that I have gained, or the things I have learnt. I would never give up my expensive keyboard or mouse. I would probably never go back to a cassette player or the days when making something to listen to in my car would take an evening’s work at the very least!

But I think it’s all right every now and then to think about the things in the past that inspired us. But for me when I think of retro I think if everything I have just mentioned was what everyone thought of, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing, maybe it is. One thing I do know however, is that the moment I finish writing this post, I will more than likely go on to twitter, put on my expensive headphones and open iTunes whilst selecting new music that inspires me in other ways. I somehow doubt that I will get nostalgic, and pull out at old cassette player and listen to the old tape I have of the Moon landing or that album by the shadows.

Technology has taken us far and it’s a good thing. But it’s nice to remember some of the technology that we used to love and lust after.