Customer Service...Now More Than Ever

With retail businesses cutting back or dropping like flies, it's easy for customers and bystanders to say guys keep your eye on the ball...but it's true.

I regularly breakfast at a McDonald's between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning Mondays and Tuesdays...if they aren't serving another customer they are pretty good at acknowledging me from 5-9 feet away, putting it together quickly and if I have to wait, bringing my pancakes to me at the table

I'm also a semi-regular at OiBagel! in my nearby shopping centre...praise to the manager or crew leader who after 3-4 dozen bagels recognizes me, more or less remembers it's low fat cream cheese and not too much of it, and more importantly, has trained her team to repeat orders and operate relatively efficiently within a tight space and respect healty & safety requirements. I took the time to fire off a quick email to commend the team and was grateful to get a little voucher back

And before you tell me my life is too good, I must have 5 or 6 Tazo Chai teas - not Chai Tea Lattes - and the odd coffee in Starbucks every week. Understand my frustration when they slip a Calm tea bag in there instead of the Chai...and not discovering it until I've let it cool down for 10 minutes. The upside is the free tea next time but I wish I didn't have to go there

Tesco Club Card the same deal - my vouchers missing in action for two months means i get an extra 150 points for my troubles and for the phone call - but spare me the explanation and the aggravation

Now more than ever businesses have the time, and the motivation to train, retrain, and reinforce what their people are doing

The beauty of the French language I

I'll come back to this topic from time to time...Reading thru Elle a Table and a recipe for a boiled chicken - not just any boiled chicken mind you - but a Poulet Fermier a la Serviette - wrapped in gauze and poached for about 40 minutes, they tell you to put in a faitout...not a marmite, not a casserole but a faitout...literally a "does everything", a "multi-tasker"...it just sounds so tender, so sweet, of another time

The Snowball Warren Buffett and the Business of Life - Yes I Have Read It

All 838 pages...in about 6 days over the holiday break. If I truly had a handle on the Sage of Omaha's investing techniques, well...This bio, done very much it appears with his cooperation and that of several close to him is a warts and all story of a man consumed by making money but making it with values, and for whom a few bad quarters were, once he had made it nothing to blink at.

While theres is a lot about Buffett the investor and Buffett the man in this heavy tome, one page - 625 to be exact resonated with me - wherein Buffett at one of his biennial meetings chose to revue the 10 most valuable companies in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990...Arrogance, complacency, what Buffett calls the "Instituational Imperative" - the tendency of organizations to copy one another rather than stay ahead, their failure to recognize aggressive shifts in consumer behaviour or their industry. They go on to describe Bill Gates' first visit to a Buffett meeting and awakening several traditional CEOs to the fact that their businesses might soon be "toast"

You would just have loved to be a fly on the wall, or a waiter rolling in a coffee break

Firehouse Rotisserie and Grill Bath

Bath has more quirks per block than most smaller English towns...The terraced houses and gas style lamps, the railway station that seems wedged into an alley...a street that's actually called Quiet Street that houses Kitchens probably the country's best independent kitchen equipment store - sorry more fun than London's Divertimenti by being more utilitarian and less posh - just wish it had an adjoining book and magazine store...

After 4-5 visits over the years of not stopping, we finally made it around the corner of Quiet Street onto John Street and the Firehouse Rotisserie and Grill...Clearly inspired by the likes of California Pizza Kitchen, this simply does what is says on the tin...Rotisserie chicken with good chips, stone baked pizzas with genuinely tasty toppings i.e. spicy chicken and avocado, a real bar-b-qued duck quesadilla, in a toasty two story Georgian house. Every town should have one but then it probably wouldn't be what it is

And since you're in John Street, dash across to Mr. B's an award winning independent bookstore with adorable lounges to leaf through books - must stop and buy to keep this kind of business in business!

San Francisco Bars

A cool piece on the San Francisco artisanal bar scene
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/travel/28journeys.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Bocca di Lupo

Hopefully this one will run and run...In an alley behind Picadilly called Archer St, with signage that looks crafted in Spain, this is a long dining bar and 30 seat dining room with great Italianate food served in small and large plates - Cotecchino, lentils and mustard fruit, Red wine risotto and bone marrow, Fritto Misto, a couple of nifty salads, 5 glasses of wine and Cassata all for under £80 including service which was friendly and knowledgeable. From a team of ex Moro chef and restaurant manager, a great new option in Theatreland.

Christmas Music

Without being anti-social or anti-Christmas, can we have a break please? Two weeks before in most Starbucks, McDonalds and such would well be enough.

This said, Starbucks' collection of Elvis, Jack Johnson, Sinatra and such is slightly above the average moving towards tolerable.