This is the tale of my latest customer service saga.

You know the ones…where you have a complaint about a product and you embark on a journey which involves a seemingly endless series of phonecalls & broken promises?

But before I tell my tale, let me be clear on one thing…I am NOT writing this post expecting to get anything, because I actually accept that my product was broken and not covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.

What has me up in arms is the fact that Samsung knew my product was broken and not covered by the manufacturer’s warranty on February 19th, yet on March the 5th I had to go find this out for myself, so who knows when they would have gotten around to telling me.

Now they will tell you that this was not their fault, rather that of the repair company to whom they had outsourced the work. And THIS is why the story qualifies for this blog.

Here in Ireland we don’t complain about poor customer service nearly enough.  We don’t even complain about the fact we don’t complain nearly enough.  This has made the businesses that provide these services extremely complacent over the years, and this experience with Samsung is just one of many for me, so I have to assume it is one many have endured.

We are just talking about a tablet here.  Of course there are far worse things happening in the world, and in many ways I’m going way OTT by calling this a “saga”.  On twitter this story would be worthy of the hashtag #firstworldproblems.

But all I needed was a phone call or email, even if it was a couple of days after that February 19th date.  We regret your tablet’s damage does not fall under warranty, sir, we will return it to you at the earliest available opportunity.  In that case, if I came on here and bitched and moaned about them, it would be nothing but sour grapes.

So again I should point out that this is not what I am doing here, because I’m pretty sure that is the premise that many businesses would try to establish over a case like mine, which in turn is why I would be normally be reluctant to share the story.

This practice of outsourcing is fine to an extent, but if a business is in any way worth its salt it should at least accept ownership of a situation, much as I accept ownership of the fact that I didn’t purchase an extended warranty with the tablet that would have meant it would be replaced whatever happened.

Not only was it two weeks between the repair company posting notice that my tablet wasn’t covered and my discovering it for myself, I was actually in contact with Samsung during that fortnight and they knew nothing about it, so when I alerted them to that fact, I really don’t think I should have gotten this response :

“I am sorry with the issues regarding a repair on your device. As our service centre has deemed your device as Out Of Warranty, then I would advise that you contact them directly.
I have provided you with their details below…”

My issue was with Samsung.  I should only ever have to deal with Samsung.  For them to resort to blaming other companies (or sometimes, though not in this case, they single out individual employees) is nothing short of cowardice in my mind, and certainly doesn’t reflect the prestige they display in their advertising.

I made it clear in my contact with them that all I was looking for was two answers: (1) When am I getting my tablet back? and (2) What was the reason for the delay?  Had they provided answers for this, I would have cried no harm, no foul.

But to be given no explanation, a terse non-apology and instructions to go and contact the repair company myself is tantamount to being shown the finger.  And I’m pretty confident that this isn’t an isolated incident (with businesses in general, not just Samsung), not to mention the fact that there are those out there who actually ARE entitled to something in return who don’t get it.

Several people I dealt with along the line were fine, especially those on the phone.  My conclusion is that at eventually somebody got involved with my case who either (a) was too scared to be the one to tell me that my tablet wasn’t covered, or (b) didn’t consider me to be worth bothering about since I wasn’t going to make them or their company any money.  And I’m not sure which of those two scenarios is worse!

I could rant for much longer but I won’t.  I will tack on the timeline of my experience to the end of this post, but I certainly don’t expect you to read it, though some of it really does represents the customer service version of the Keystone Cops! JLP

Mar 20 – Tablet & charger are returned, with no notification that I am to expect a courier, so I may have missed them.

THANKS FOR NOTHING SAMSUNG IRELAND.

Just so we’re clear I don’t think I have created a new way of thinking with this Clearing The Premises blog.  In fact, if anything, it’s the opposite.

I’m just trying to put my own spin on a mindset that I know is shared by others – if I thought I was the only one who thought that way, sure there would be no point in writing about it because you’d all think I was a candidate for the funny farm.

There was even an example of it in the plot line of the Lego Movie for crying out loud!  But I won’t give you any spoilers…

Anyway…let me try a different way of explaining why this site is called CTP.

We discuss “politics” way too much.  What we should be discussing is “government”.  In other words, less about the “who” and more about the “how”.

But the media is more about the conflict.  And trust me, I’m not one of those who loves to have a bash at the media…by bashing them we in turn bash the public that feeds on what they produce.

So when it comes to “politics” the discussions are almost exclusively run through this prism :

LEFT V RIGHT

I believe everything about that is wrong – the “Left”, the “Right” and even the “V”.  Allow me to challenge them one by one.

1. RIGHT RICH : By observing conservative election strategies over the years, it is clear they are never interested in winning everyone’s votes.  They just want enough votes to get elected.  Anything from the mid-to-high 40s in terms of percentage is considered a decent return for them, so they do what they can to either buy votes or keep people away from the polls altogether.

But by calling them the “right”, we afford them half of the “space”, when in fact if you take away all the people who vote for them out of loyalty, fear or whatever reason, you actually get an extremely small percentage, which the Occupy Wall Street movement estimated as 1% but I actually think is a lot lower.  So the way I see it, the Left/Right model is way, way off base.

For me the ideal name to rebrand them with is “establishment” because it demonstrates how they got their power by establishing themselves.  Thing is though, that word is way too clunky.  So let’s just call em “rich” – much more media-savvy name don’t you think?

2. LEFT  US : So we’ve rebranded the right, what’s left? (see what I did there) What’s left is US.  I had a bit of a struggle with the fact that US could be mistaken for United States, but then I realised that would be a good exercise for my fellow Americans in that they need to realise that there’s more to “us” than what’s within their own borders.  And through proper education, everyone can learn the proper definition of US.

3. V > :  And when I say “everyone can learn the proper definition of US”, I mean EVERYONE.  That INCLUDES the “Rich”.  There’s a lot of animosity towards the establishment and in many cases it is understandable.  But we need to find a way to take the conflict out of it if there is ever to be a meaningful path forward.  The Rich rule by fear but I believe that is partly because they themselves fear the consequences if they let go of their power.  Maybe, just maybe the US can show them those consequences won’t be so bad. 

All we have to do is turn that V on it’s side, so from LEFT V RIGHT we go to this way of looking at the priorities of government…

US > RICH

Simple, ain’t it?  Now I have world peace sorted out, what’s next? Ah yes, how Ireland can win the Six Nations 😉  JLP

Though I want to continue posting on this site every Sunday morning, it’s my rugby sites which are earning me money at the moment and given that we’re smack bang in the middle of the Six Nations, you’ll appreciate I’m in the middle of a busy spell.

I have put aside this time for doing my Leinster writeup (they played on Thursday night) so what I will do here is direct you to a post that was written for HarpinOnRugby by a Kate McEvoy, who seems to be something of a kindred spirit when it comes to such matters and this piece, inspired by some remarks made about LGBT sportsmen and women by a former rugby international, carries many of the themes I set up this blog for.

So without any further ado, here is the link to her post.  I’ll be back next week.  JLP

[no spoilers here I promise!]

It goes without saying that I am delighted at the return of House of Cards. 

The show has filled the gaping hole left by the end of The West Wing and with Netflix dumping an entire season on us all at once, I am now left with the challenge of finding gaps of an hour here and there when I can watch as I am the only fan in my household.

Of course to enjoy shows like this it helps to first have a grasp on how top-level American politics works with its Congress and its committees and what-not.  But even with that knowledge I strongly recommend that you watch with subtitles so that specific references don’t fly over your head.

Behind it all I have a pet peeve that more people don’t watch shows like this.  These are realistic portrayals of how our governments actually operate.  Why WOULDN’T we be more interested?

Some say such shows glorify the “left” and demonise the “right”.  I’m not so sure anyone can say HoC is glorifying its lead character of Frank Underwood, played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey!

In the Season 1 Episode 1’s very first scene (trust me…this is NOT a spoiler) he puts a dog run over by a car out of its misery before anyone arrives that could save it.  He explains to the camera that he was “willing to do what needed to be done”.  Obviously this was meant to symbolise the realities of political life at the very top!

Then the plot departs on its meandering path of intrigue, scheming, conflicting agendas and Machiavellian back-stabbing.  Underwood is anything but a saint, though even in the West Wing, although its central character President Bartlet is held up as a paragon of virtue, in that storyline he couldn’t have possibly gotten where he was without the help of Leo McGarry, who clearly lined his pockets during his rise to the top and felt the need to shred a ton of documents when his time as White House Chief of Staff was over.

What shows like these teach us, the way I see it anyway, is that not only is it important to at least have a grasp of the goings on at the highest political level, but also to appreciate that the people involved are merely human beings with the same weaknesses as you and me.

ironically as I was watching Season 2 eps 1 and 2 yesterday, the doorbell rang and it was someone canvassing for the upcoming local council elections here in Ireland.  I was given the leaflet you see below and on the back the candidate gives a summary of his candidacy including his background plus some bullet-points covering his objectives – all the greatest hits for lefties are covered like fighting austerity, unemployment, the environment & public transport.

Of course given what I had just been watching I was tempted to ask the guy at my door, who happened to be the candidate’s brother, questions like “How is his campaign funded?” or “What would Paul do if he found a dog in the street that had just been run over” or (though this one came to me afterwards) “How about a campaign slogan like ‘Let Me Give You A Hand”’?”

But also, given what I had just been watching, I didn’t want to stand there on my doorstep jabbering so I politely took the leaflet, shut the door and waded back into the pool of the ever-developing plot.

Joking aside, the most telling sign (pun intended) that the general public here in Ireland care very little about politics comes at election times, when candidates appear willing less to compete by open debate on the topics that matter, and more on flooding the main streets with oversized photo-shopped head-shots.

If it were down to me House of Cards and shows like it would be compulsory viewing at secondary schools, even with it’s “realistic” language and occasional nudity, or perhaps because of it as that would no doubt get youngsters’ attention.

People get to reach the top on the back of a “house of cards” because for the most part, we let them.  If we could just let our level of understanding about how government work get to the level of our understanding of things like team sports, X Factor and soap operas, we might just see a bit more accountability from our leaders.     MIGHT. 

Best of luck to Paul Hand with his campaign.  Once I can find out exactly which pies he has his fingers in, I may just vote for him. JLP

I have absolutely nothing against business as a practice or even a profession.  Really I don’t.  Well, at least not in principle.

Basically I can’t see any other way for goods & services to be supplied to the general public other that by people specialising in certain areas and organizing themselves in such a way as to provide them.  So it should follow that I have nothing against those who provide that organisation receiving some kind of reward for their efforts, and I’d even go so far to say that governments can play a role in helping them when they can.

The reason I feel the need to say this is that the second I suggest, for example, that perhaps things like health and education should be priorities for government ahead of the concerns of private enterprise, I would no doubt be branded a “socialist” or even a “communist” by pro-establishment commentators.  And the reason for this, I feel anyway, is because those commentators feel the need to jump to such an extreme for fear of losing the argument.

Because anyone who has studied the realm of Economics will know that it is not just the goal of the business community to make profits, it is to MAXIMISE them.  This means every avenue must be explored to ensure that this year’s bottom line is greater than last year’s.

And why shouldn’t they behave like that?  I don’t feel any less empathy for their concerns than I do towards my 4-year-old when he’s engrossed in some imaginary scenario with his toys.  The only thing is…when it’s time to put the toys away and focus on something else, like going out or bedtime or some other important function of day-to-day life, they can’t be allowed to scream and whinge so they can get their own way and continue what they are doing.

Unfortunately many Western countries are so blinkered when it comes to the concerns of the business community that they don’t even feel the need to hide it.  Take the floods we saw during the week which luckily didn’t affect me personally, but had devastating repercussions in the south of the country.

Turn on the evening news and you see RTE rightly making the floods a headline story…yet when they send their reporters out to assess the damages, where do they go first?  The businesses on the high street.

Now once more I must point out that I do not wish ill on any business owner and no doubt the floods did have adverse effects for them.  But what of people in their homes, particularly the elderly?  What of hospitals?  What of schools?  And most of all…what of the homeless? 

I’m not saying those weren’t covered by the media by the way, they were.  But as the title of this post suggests, it is clear who we are meant to consider first when such unfortunate events happen.

I firmly believe that allowing our government to focus their energies on providing quality education and healthcare to all of its citizens would actually be beneficial to the business community.  If they could choose from a workforce that was healthy and well-educated then surely the increase in production (and iin turn profits) would be great?

Sadly, they seem to be more concerned that a workforce which was educated and healthy would be both smart enough and fit enough to turf them out.   And they disguise this fear by suggesting, again by going to extremes, that such a “socialist” system would produce nothing but scroungers.

Maybe it’s time for US to educate THEM just how much the appreciative contributors to society would out-number the free-loaders. JLP

Here in Ireland the online world has been busy discussing something called “PantiGate”.  You may think it was some sort of scandal about a politician caught in an uncompromising position, but no.

I’ll let you make up your own mind on the rights and wrongs of the case by reading this article, and my views can be pretty much summed up by the tweet below.

If there is a silver lining in the #PantiGate settlement, maybe it’s that at least now we can put a number on just how much the truth hurts.

— JL Pagano (@JL_Pagano) February 2, 2014

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What I wanted to talk about in my latest Sunday ramble was something that happened in southern USA last week.

Basically the city of Atlanta, Georgia and its surrounding areas was brought to a standstill by a snow storm during the week, and the state’s governor Nathan Deal stood accused afterwards for not responding quickly enough to the situation, one which involved everybody leaving their place of employ at the same time and ultimately leaving their cars in icy conditions on gridlocked interstate highways.

He has gone on to apologize to the people of Georgia, as well as to take responsibility, which is a good thing.  But one thing he said at an earlier stage part of his public response was most telling if you ask me.

“We don`t want to be accused of crying wolf.
Because if we had been wrong, you all would be here saying, you know how
many millions of dollars you cost the economy or the city of Atlanta and
the state of Georgia by shutting down businesses all over this city and
this state?”

“There are 85 human beings alive who have as much wealth as another 3,500,000,000 human beings.”

For me, it doesn’t really matter where the above “fact” came from, though for those keeping score it was a study by Oxfam.  It’s more about how we choose to react to it.

Do I think those are completely accurate figures?  Honestly…how could they be? 

But do I believe that it is within touching distance of the truth? Absolutely.

This is precisely why I have had enough of the characterization of political thought as being “left vs right”.  

When we accept this premise, we instantly afford half the ground to those 85 and their minions.

For me, the only true discussion is about how we can share the world’s vast resources more equally among everyone, and by “everyone” I include the 85.

I say let them bandy about their phrases like “Liberal”, “tree hugger”, “socialist” whatever they want.  Just because they have the wealth doesn’t mean they should get to set the premise.

If we want to truly represent those 3.5 billion people we need to spend more time looking at the world as it is and less at how it is being presented to us.

Not giving a damn about the drivel coming out of Davos would be a pretty good start. The fact that they claim to be setting a “Global Agenda” says it all. JLP

Tis the season to get mushy….

Nah, seriously, I’ll use my last Sunday ramble before Christmas to share with you what has become my favourite carol over the years.  It’s theme ties in nicely with that of this blog.

Once you get a grip on all the hithers and thithers of the posh English-speak, these lyrics tell a story which I feel encapsulates what Christmas is meant to be about, in fact never mind Christmas, humanity itself.

In a simple tale we find three characters – a rich man, his page, and a poor man.  Three human beings, equal in flesh, anything but in status.  For this story the rich man appreciates the need to assist the other two…if only more could behave like GKW the world would be a much better place.

As a bonus, though I don’t profess an ability to sing to any kind of standard, I have added a rendition.  Sorry about the British-ness of the accent, I just can’t justify delivering those lyrics any other way.

Have an extremely happy holiday season and a prosperous new year and thanks for stopping by my humble corner of the blogosphere. JLP

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know’st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing