This is what I call a hero;
What more can I say – what a fantastic human being.
A couple of months back when I was at the Great British Beer Festival, I bought myself and Fliss a pair of comedy tee shirts from a small company called Smart T’s who had a stall there. The tee shirts seemed to be of good quality, and they weren’t too pricey either.
When I got back, Fliss was well pleased with her camouflage style tee shirt with Weapons of Mass Distraction printed across the chest area.
With me, you don’t just get a present, you get a touch of class! ;o)
Sadly, after just one wash, some of the letters peeled off, leaving her tee shirt looking a bit on the used side. Disappointed, I had a look for the Smart T’s website and sent a polite mail detailing what had happened and asking if we could have a replacement. Much to my surprise and delight I received a reply from Ade at Smart T’s almost immediately, apologising for the fault and offering to replace it if I sent the old one back to him.
This is where I got a bit crap with postage, carrying the tee shirt in my bag to and from work on a daily basis for the next four weeks, but never quite getting close to packaging and posting it. I started to think I’d missed the opportunity to exchange it, until I received another mail from Ade asking if I had posted it yet. I thanked him for the good customer service and explained that I was the weak link in the chain, promising to post it in the days that followed.
Somehow, although the tee shirt made it into a padded envelope, it still took me until the following week to post it off. I don’t know why, I just always suck at getting round to post stuff.
Smart T’s, on the other hand, were not so tardy, and Fliss had a brand new tee shirt within a matter of days. I’m pleased to say that this one has survived a wash, so it was obviously an isolated incident.
After being on a few flights in the last couple of months (to Dublin and Turkey) a few things struck me about the whole air travel charade.
Firstly, the pre–flight safety briefing is a mostly pointless affair, beyond the bit where they tell you to be aware of your exits. I speak mostly with regard to “In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion may be used as a floatation device.”
When was the last time, outside of the Thunderbirds, that a commercial aircraft not designed to do so, gently skimmed to a stationary position upon a body of water?
Rather than trying to delude us all with the notion that we’ll all survive and suffer only the relatively minor inconvenience of bobbing around in cold water awaiting rescue, why don’t they just lay out the facts?
The chances are, you are well and truly fucked if your plane goes down over water. If you’re lucky you’ll get a park bench named after you. Or maybe a hospital wing if you’re particlarly rich and have previously expressed that your fortune should go towards the creation of said wing in the event of your untimely demise.
Secondly, I’ve endured a few hard landings in some of the flights I’ve been on in the past. From a roller coaster descent before a hard thump arriving at Malta, to an absolute tank slapper at Luton airport, after which the pilot apologised for “the first officer’s landing” over the intercom.
That last one really irked me – the pilot apologising for the first officer’s ham fisted landing. Excuse me, Easyjet, but if there’s a better man for the job sitting in the cockpit then they should be the one landing the plane, not the trainee. Let the first officer practice in an empty plane, not while my life is in the hands of your cabin crew.
Lastly, I feel that the level of customer service provided by check-in staff and the cabin crew varies wildly. From insincere gushing to stone faced bluntness, you never quite know which you’re going to get.