Greetings from Denver!
May. 17th, 2006 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI flew in Monday (and I will not drag out that old vaudeville joke here). I'm here for software training. About ten other people from my office are here as well, one for the same training I'm getting; the others are attending a conference. I finished my second day of training today and I'll be flying out tomorrow morning. That's a good thing. I'll be very happy to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snippy again. The hotel is very nice. Gigantic king-size bed, nice room, 31" flatscreen plasma tv. Also, a 31" flatscreen plasma tv in the elevator, which shows random scenes seemingly from surveillance cameras. The scenes are recorded rather than live (I've seen at least one twice): distant shot of traffic on a secondary road, coverage of an intersection, close-up of rushing water in a stream. My conclusion?
Plasma tvs are Not Ready For Prime Time. The image seems to...boil, is the best comparison I can come up with. The image seems to be churning. Motion onscreen tends to be a bit fuzzy, and sharp or fast motion becomes blurry. Maybe an HDTV screen would work at this size, but not ordinary plasma screens. Oh, also whenever you turn the plasma tv on or off it makes a sound like an arcade game.
Only a block from the hotel is 16th Street. A long pedestrian strip (with free shuttle buses and horse-drawn carriages occasionally) chock full of restaurants and shops of all sorts. Every evening the last three days I've wandered up and down the strip, looking for someplace to eat dinner or just seeing what was around. The weather has been sunny and pleasant. I've been warned about altitude sickness and sunburn, what with being a mile above sea level, but I haven't had any problems. I generally try to stay out of the sun for long periods anyhow, and what with drinking lots of water I've felt fine. Also, aside from the instructor and the other students in my software class, I've hardly talked to a soul save to tell the cab driver where to go or order a meal.
Some people would find that unbearable. Of course, those same people would probably also have been chatting with numerous strangers all along. I've got a friend whose ideal life is living all alone in the wilderness, raising and slaughtering his own food and enjoying the solitude. I don't share his taste for living like that--I like living in the city and I would hate living in a rural area, much less the wilderness. But going about your business without needing or wanting to talk to other people much, if at all? Yeah, I can understand that.
--
I was in a fast food place tonight to get something to eat. I was standing at the counter to order when someone behind me, holding a carryout box from the place, asked one of the employees if this came with meat. No, says the employee, it has cheese, lettuce, salsa--but no meat. Meat would be extra. So the customer asks for one with meat. Asked if she wants them to add meat to the one she's got, she says that no, she doesn't want it. She wants a new one. To which the employee responds that if they make her a new order they'll have to charge her for it because it doesn't come with meat. So the customer says in that case, just put the meat on her existing whatsit.
And the employees are willing to do that. But, determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the customers then mutters loudly, "You ought to tell people this bullshit ahead of time..." in that sullen, angry tone we've all heard from people who go through life knowing they're getting screwed by everyone through no fault of their own.
At which point, the smiling employee loses her smile and says, "You know what? You can leave now. I'm not giving it to you." Pissy Customer leaves in a huff. I make my order. When the employee hands it to me I told her, "Good for you for not putting up with that attitude!" She says, "Yeah, I'm tired of it!" It occurred to me that that was some real customer service--service to the other customers--like me--who would rather not be in the presence of whinging jerks. They were perfectly polite right up to the moment Pissy Customer went a step too far. I'd like to see more of that from service folk (and I suspect they'd be happy to do it, given the freedom).
snippy again. The hotel is very nice. Gigantic king-size bed, nice room, 31" flatscreen plasma tv. Also, a 31" flatscreen plasma tv in the elevator, which shows random scenes seemingly from surveillance cameras. The scenes are recorded rather than live (I've seen at least one twice): distant shot of traffic on a secondary road, coverage of an intersection, close-up of rushing water in a stream. My conclusion?Plasma tvs are Not Ready For Prime Time. The image seems to...boil, is the best comparison I can come up with. The image seems to be churning. Motion onscreen tends to be a bit fuzzy, and sharp or fast motion becomes blurry. Maybe an HDTV screen would work at this size, but not ordinary plasma screens. Oh, also whenever you turn the plasma tv on or off it makes a sound like an arcade game.
Only a block from the hotel is 16th Street. A long pedestrian strip (with free shuttle buses and horse-drawn carriages occasionally) chock full of restaurants and shops of all sorts. Every evening the last three days I've wandered up and down the strip, looking for someplace to eat dinner or just seeing what was around. The weather has been sunny and pleasant. I've been warned about altitude sickness and sunburn, what with being a mile above sea level, but I haven't had any problems. I generally try to stay out of the sun for long periods anyhow, and what with drinking lots of water I've felt fine. Also, aside from the instructor and the other students in my software class, I've hardly talked to a soul save to tell the cab driver where to go or order a meal.
Some people would find that unbearable. Of course, those same people would probably also have been chatting with numerous strangers all along. I've got a friend whose ideal life is living all alone in the wilderness, raising and slaughtering his own food and enjoying the solitude. I don't share his taste for living like that--I like living in the city and I would hate living in a rural area, much less the wilderness. But going about your business without needing or wanting to talk to other people much, if at all? Yeah, I can understand that.
--
I was in a fast food place tonight to get something to eat. I was standing at the counter to order when someone behind me, holding a carryout box from the place, asked one of the employees if this came with meat. No, says the employee, it has cheese, lettuce, salsa--but no meat. Meat would be extra. So the customer asks for one with meat. Asked if she wants them to add meat to the one she's got, she says that no, she doesn't want it. She wants a new one. To which the employee responds that if they make her a new order they'll have to charge her for it because it doesn't come with meat. So the customer says in that case, just put the meat on her existing whatsit.
And the employees are willing to do that. But, determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the customers then mutters loudly, "You ought to tell people this bullshit ahead of time..." in that sullen, angry tone we've all heard from people who go through life knowing they're getting screwed by everyone through no fault of their own.
At which point, the smiling employee loses her smile and says, "You know what? You can leave now. I'm not giving it to you." Pissy Customer leaves in a huff. I make my order. When the employee hands it to me I told her, "Good for you for not putting up with that attitude!" She says, "Yeah, I'm tired of it!" It occurred to me that that was some real customer service--service to the other customers--like me--who would rather not be in the presence of whinging jerks. They were perfectly polite right up to the moment Pissy Customer went a step too far. I'd like to see more of that from service folk (and I suspect they'd be happy to do it, given the freedom).
