We took off the morning to sort out some personal things again.  It sometimes feels we need to do this in order just to get everything done!

Never have I experienced so much bad service from so many different companies than I did yesterday.

The Bad

Postnet – Greenacres

We were greeted with the most uninterested person after having stood around a bit.  To have a few A3 prints done, he told us to get into the queue to use the computers to do it ourselves.  There are 2 computers that were already busy with 2 people standing in the queue already.  I looked at the counter and saw 2 staff members standing around doing nothing.  How stupid is this I thought, as I’m sure they could do the printing for us instead of having us wait in a queue for people busy using the Internet!  Not wanting to spoil our mood we just decided to leave and go make use of another shop.

Fennel’s Appliance and Leisure – Newton Park

I wanted to find out more information on running a complete household, or at least as many appliances as possible, from gas sources.  We went into Fennel’s in Newton Park to check what they’ve got and get some advice.  They’ve got a nice show room and we saw that everything we would need would be available here.  After waiting about 10 minutes we got a lady to help us and explain various things to us.  All the while the phone kept on ringing and ringing.  I initially thought she must be the only person in the building but I did see other people there.  No one answered the phone though.  Getting annoyed I told her just to answer it.  This kept on happening the whole time we were in the shop talking to her.  Up to a point where I couldn’t handle it any more and decided to rather leave and find someone else to help.  I just don’t understand why you could have a sales person on the floor that needs to walk around and answer phone calls every 2 minutes.  I don’t blame her obviously, because it’s not her fault.

Traumerei Restaurant and Coffee Bar – Moffet on Main

While waiting for some printing we went to a coffee shop in Moffet on Main.  I was amazed to be met by a grumpy looking lady.  We felt very unwelcome and decided that after our cup of coffee, even though we were hungry as well, we’d rather leave.  This is the second time we’ve been at Traumerei and left with a bad experience behind us.  The first time we were there the waitress and the chef weren’t getting along.  The result was we waited about 20 minutes to get our breakfast and were told countless times how stupid the chef is being.  All the time with, what seemed like, the manager sitting there not doing anything about it.

Voltex – Albany Road

7 customers standing at the counter, 1 sales rep busy helping while other employees are just walking around not offering any help.  The counter has place for 5-6 people to sit there, so where are all the people that are supposed to help us?  The one person actually helping someone was sitting there talking about personal matters to the client.  They were obviously friends, and this carried on all the time while we were all standing waiting to be help.  The employees seemed more interested in their year end party arrangement and to vote for people within their company that “kiss the best”, “dressed the worse during the year” and things like that.  Yes, these were all discussed quite loudly and excitedly by several staff members standing and walking around ignoring the customers.  I finally got helped, and when I went to wait at the collections counter, which also had about 5 people waiting there the clients were clearly not happy having waited there for so long as well.  At least my stuff came quickly.  Next time I’ll pay 40% more to rather buy the stuff from a place like Builders Warehouse.

Nelson Mandela Metropole Traffic Department Security Services

After visiting a friend last night to greet her before leaving for Cape Town, we stopped off at our beach’s parking lot.  It was just getting dark and I noticed that there was a vehicle stuck on the beach.  Driving on the beach is illegal of course, and I didn’t even offer to help the person.  Even though we were there with our 4×4, tow ropes and everything that was needed.  Instead I opted to phone the police who instructed me to phone the traffic department security services.  I did this because I feel that people like that are going to prevent us from getting beach driving legalised again.  This was around 19:30.  The traffic department assured me they were going to dispatch a vehicle to the scene.  At 21:30 I got a call from a friend who told me they had just helped someone on the beach that was stuck.  I asked about where it was and it turned out to be the same person we saw earlier.  So 2 hours later the traffic department had not showed up.  What’s the use in telling the public to report any wrong doings if nothing gets done about this?  What makes it worse is that I know there are at least 2 traffic officers that live in Bluewater Bay, no more than 1km away from the beach parking lot.

The Good

The whole day was not bad though! We did also receive excellent value for money service from a few other companies.

4×4 Megaworld Port Elizabeth

I’ve been going to Kurt from 4×4 Megaworld in Port Elizabeth since I got my vehicle about 3 years ago.  At that point he was the only 4×4 store that I really knew about, so that’s why I initially used him to fit all our equipment.  Since then I haven’t purchased any major stuff again, but every time we go Kurt he is more than willing to help us out with things, as small as they might be.  I needed to fit a new bash plate, have my winch repaired and my canopy sealed so I took my vehicle in during the morning and got it back, as promised, a bit later in the day.  Everything done and checked.  He even checked my spot lights while I was standing there because I forgot to ask him about it.  I know the other 4×4 shop owners on a personal level, but have never really done business with them, so I cannot say anything about how they are in business terms.  Kurt on a business level is a pleasure to deal with though.

Postnet – Moffet on Main

I’m not biased because we know the owners of the store, but whenever we go in there the staff are so friendly and we get helped with what we need.  Even when we don’t know exactly what we need they help us by providing us with choices.  After our bad experience with the Greenacres branch, we went there and within minutes we were helped and our stuff sorted out.

Pet Christmas Shop – Kings Court

This is a cute little store in Kings Court that provides Christmas presents for your pets.  I don’t recall the exact name now though!  It’s a nice little store, and the toys for the dogs are at least 30-40% of what you’d pay in other stores.  We actually checked this later in the day and were amazed how much cheaper they are.  The lady helping us was very friendly and more than helpful.  Giving advice about what people have said about the various toys, leashes, etc.  She also went up to each person that came into the store and greeted them.  It was a bit odd at first, but I realised that we’re just not used to getting such good service perhaps.

What is service about then?

It’s easy to give someone bad service, I know we’ve slipped up in the past.  Probably more than we should’ve.  We however pro actively try and guard against it now to ensure that if something does happen we try and rectify it. My thinking on it is if you do provide bad service, at least apologise and try and make up for it.  We’re all human, we make misakes, no one is perfect.  The three most important words are, “I am sorry”.

I also don’t always expect wonderful service, but when you have a day like yesterday and it just keeps on slapping you in the face the whole time you wonder what is going wrong?

I have a theory though.  Perhaps because it’s so close to the end of the year, people can already taste holiday, but yet they’ve got to work for another month.  It’s stressful with not a lot of people having had a chance to take off this year, and perhaps it’s overwhelming that another year has passed.

Afrihost is one of the cheapest ADSL bandwidth suppliers at the moment.  I signed up for it as soon as I heard about it, and was surely not disappointed.  At the time it was a lot cheaper than any other offerings and the speed was good as well.  This has sparked a price war in the ADSL arena with various ISP now starting to offer a lot cheaper packages.

It occured to me today that Afrihost is perhaps encouraging piracy indirectly in two ways:

1.  People that might already have been partaking in pirating by downloading from places like Mininova and ThePirateBay could get encouraged to download even more now due to cheaper bandwidth prices

2.  People that never downloaded pirated software or movies will start doing it because it has now become cheaper to download (R41.30) a 700MB movie than going to watch the movie (R25.00 excl. VAT popcorn + cooldrink + petrol)

Either way, more people will be pirating.  This is not Afrihost’s fault obviously, but it did make me think why piracy can be such a big problem in other countries.  Sure, our country downloads it’s fare share of pirated movies, tv shows and software, but at the end of the day we’re very limited because of high bandwidth costs.  Other countries with virtually limitless bandwidth obviously download pirated wares a LOT more than we do.  Cheaper bandwidth = more piracy.

Good or bad, thank you to Afrihost for getting us one step closer to affordable bandwidth in South Africa.

Last night Bernadette and I didn’t feel like going home after we visited the Algoa Toyota 4×4 Club. On the way down to Summerstrand to go stop for a few drinks at one of the cocktail bars there, I decided to drive through Parliament Street in Central. It has recently been revamped, and I was wondering what it looks like at night.

I was amazed that a place that used to be so dark and dingy when we used to go to the clubs there has been transformed into a beautiful well-lit place. (Damn, that really sounds like I’m an old man )

We drove past a bar called Zanzibar, and it looked so chilled inside that we decided to stop there and have a drink. I can just imagine that a little bar somewhere on an exotic island beach must be very similar to how this place is laid out and decorated. And the vibe there is cool, very relaxed.

Our one drink turned into a couple because at around 21:00 a live band started playing and although we couldn’t make out any of the words we enjoyed it. At one stage the lead singer got people from the bar to come and sing with the band. There were a couple of people that went and sang that looked like they were pros. It was like a rap / reggae type thing they had going on there. Was awesome. Perhaps next time we’ll also sing

It’s an awesome place with a restaurant linked to it as well.  I can really recommend going there for a few drinks to relax.

Being there got me thinking….

I’m not a racist, so please don’t take anything I type further on as being trying to be racist. I’m not blind to race and culture either. You get some people that say they don’t see color, but I do. We have black, white and coloured people. Each of us have got our own unique cultures and I think that is awesome. One of the reasons I want to travel through Africa is to learn and witness more of the different type of cultures.

The reason I’m bringing that up is because we all have preconceived ideas about each other’s cultures and sometimes that is completely wrong. We live in a rainbow nation and a lot is being done to right all the wrongs apartheid caused. I believe though that there will always be a divide between races and cultures, because that is part of human nature. You prefer to be with your own people and your own culture. That shouldn’t stop you from experiencing other cultures and mixing with other races though.

Last night we went into the bar without really thinking twice about the place and the people. Later on in the evening we realised we were the only 2 white people there. Besides for the guy behind the bar.  Some of the older generations might think “OMG, did you run?”, but we felt as comfortable there as we would in any other predominantly white bar.

I know of quite a few people that won’t dare go down to Central because of the bad elements there.  I say screw it and just go, don’t be a wussy.  There were almost more security guards walking in the streets than there were people in the streets.

There are lots of reason I love this country of ours. Sure, there are hundreds of bad things about it, but I always tell people that tell me how bad it is hear and how much better it is in other countries that all countries have their own shit. Crime, for example, is a world thing, not a country thing. You hear about all the fairy tales of their being so little crime every where else, but although it might be less than here, it is still there.

I’ve never thought of myself as patriotic, and to be honest, I’ve never even voted. And I fully believe for that reason I have no right to moan about the happenings in our country, I haven’t used my voice. I also don’t think I will ever vote. It’s difficult to try and explain why, so I won’t even try.

I have been privileged enough to be able to explore a number of places here in South Africa. I’d like to one day say that I’ve been everywhere here. I love traveling between the different provinces and observe the different cultures we have. Where else in the world do you have so many different cultures and races living together?

If I have to sit and think about it, being in this country and traveling through it makes me feel alive. I get excited when we travel because we have so many different landscapes and terrains that we can admire. The terrain also changes so quickly moving along a road that you just simply cannot travel through this country and get bored.

We also get to experiences places and landscapes that not a lot of people would be able to experience through our EC Offroad Adventures adventures.  A passion for nature is what you need in this country, because you can really just get lost in it’s beauty.

Then we get to the ample wild life we have here, and all the game parks and nature reserves.  We often drive back and dirt roads which takes us on public roads that lead through game reserves.  The most memorable moment was traveling along the road and all of a sudden we had 4 giraffes right in front of us in the road.  Where else but in Africa do you get to see such wild life while driving along a public road?  A quick visit to one of the game parks will quickly let you understand why tourists from all over the world flock to South Africa to experience what we’ve come to take for granted.  15 minutes away from my house, I can go and drive though an elephant park and see elephants roaming around.  10 minutes in another direction we can go view lions and cheetahs.

I also believe we have the most awesome beaches in the world.  Yes we have had problems at the beaches like drunk civilians causing havoc, unruly 4×4 drivers causing problems with the wildlife and finally getting banned from the beach and abalone poaching.  But go take a stroll on the beach early in the morning when the sun is rising or in the evening when the sun is setting with your dogs and tell me that isn’t one of the relaxing experiences you can have.

Our country has the best weather.  Where else in the world would it be cold in the morning, sunny in the mid morning, raining and windy by the afternoon, only to have perfectly calm and warm evening?  Perhaps some people would blame that on global warming?

Even the poorest of the poor in our country are still proud to be South African and 99% of the times you can see them happy and smiling.  Ah yes, I hear you saying what about all the protest action that happens in the townships.  I can understand why these people are upset, I would be too.  But ask those protesters if they would leave this country for anywhere else, and I’m sure the answer would be a flat NO.

Here in South Africa, we were spared from the rest of the world’s financial problems for quite a while because of the right systems being in place.  We are currently in a recession, but it happened months after the rest of the world had their downfall.

I even love the politics sometimes, where you hear the various party leaders slander each other’s decisions and views, but still they can sit down and have civilized discussions.  Although they do not agree with each other, most of them do still respect each other as people.

I love South Africa’s banks and it’s telecommunications provider….. haha ok well, not really.

Talking about things we hate, we need special words to use for those people.  Where else would you find such meaningful words as “Kak” and “Jou ma se ….”?

All in all, I think the people from South Africa are very positive human beings, and if you’re one of those people I salute you.  Positiveness alone might not get you very far, but with it you will get further.

A while back 5fm had a competition running on twitter, @5fm, where you could win a hamper from Cadbury chocolate. Surprisingly I won, and was pretty chuffed when they contacted me.

They got my details and said they’ll let me know when it’s on my way. I think Bernadette was a lot happier about the hamper being en route than I was

So a few weeks went by, and I actually forgot about it, when they phoned me to apologise that it’s been so long, but they were waiting to try and send everything in one batch to all the other winners as well. I didn’t mind this at all.

This morning they delivered it, and it’s probably the most chocolate I’ve ever seen in one hamper! The photo doesn’t do it justice…. perhaps I must lay out all the chocolates and then take a photo. In short, it’s a LOT.

Perhaps now I’ll all of a sudden have more friends

THANK YOU 5FM AND CADBURY