Rachel

Looking for wedding venues is a bloody nightmare. Especially if you want a cheaper place.

We saw the Jersey Farm website the other day when searching for a nice place. Phil's parents used to go regularly, although apparently the food has gone downhill since the original owners retired. Nevertheless, they have a fairly decent wedding package so yesterday (Fri 2nd Jan) I thought I'd give them a call...

-ring ring-

"Hello?"

"Hello... is this the Jersey Farm?"

"Yer."

"Ah good, well we are looking for wedding venues at the moment as we're newly engaged, and we were wondering if we could possibly arrange to come and have a look round your facilities?"

(flippantly) "Well you can't today, we're CLOSED." (Note: it said nothing about this on the website and I'm afraid the batteries in my Psychic Senses have run out... plus we only wanted to make an appointment for later in the month, not to come round that very second!)

"Oh - right - I had no idea. Err.. well.. could we perhaps phone tomorrow to arrange coming to look round?"

"Yeah."

"Right, thanks.."

*no reply*

*puts phone down*.


Nice one Jersey Farm, that's a good few grand you've just lost. From the sound of the voice and the fact that it diverted to a mobile when I called, it sounds like it was the OWNER who answered! Nice one mate, good to see you obviously aren't desperate for business at all - no credit crunch for you eh?

Arrgg, anyone suggest any nice places in Darlington or nearby that won't royally shaft you for a nice wedding and reception?

My Mum is currently having some trouble with BT - she signed up for ADSL and hadn't received her equipment for weeks on end.

After spending hours on the phone trying to get the Indian guy in the call centre to understand her situation, she gave up and called back the next day. (I also tried to call, was transferred to SIX different departments, none of whom helped me - it was shocking).

An English woman answered, understood the situation and sorted her out, apologising profusely.

That's not the bad bit though.

The bad bit was what she said to the woman who helped her. "Yes, those people don't understand, do they? It's ridiculous! Are there a lot of Pakistanis in India? There must be!"

HEAD. DESK.

This is why I quit my part time job working in retail.


Me: Uni student *waves*
J: Area Manager (runs 5 different stores in the area, visits each one for a couple of days at a time)
Customer: Lady I was serving at the time.
M: Coworker, has been working at the store for 7 years, knows a LOT about it, more than the managers in fact

( I'm getting angry just typing this out. )

The very first thing I did when I got home was phone Head Office. The high up guy I spoke to said I had to lodge all grievances with my Area Manager - which was J!! He expected me to make an appointment with her, with no backup with me at all, and basically tell her that she wasn't doing her job correctly. All I wanted was for her immediate supervisor, or whatever, to have a word with her. An Area Manager shouldn't be acting like that anyway.

FWIW, I did make that appointment with her, and she denied it ever happened. The most I got from her was "Well if I *did* say that, then I'm sorry".

This woman has created so much low morale within the store (it's a small store), I can think of at least 3 people who quit solely because of her - and I only worked there for 5 months.

I have many more stories but they're probably not interesting to anyone else :/