Frowning Street

I was visiting Paris, and was searched at Waterloo. Presumably a random check, designed to catch out bomb-smuggling or money-running criminals. Who knows, it was a plain-clothes agent, pulled me over, asked a few quick questions, and whisked me into a little office to search my bags.

Nothing untoward, but I tried to strike up a conversation with the man.

He was remarkably uncommunicative at first, obviously taking the official line of taking it all jolly seriously. When he found my personlised post-it notes, I tried to joke that it was an essential accesory in today's paperless office. It wasn't funny, and the little leather pouch was subjected to additional scrutiny.

Nothing found, and I was a free-man again (!) I wished him well, and said that I hoped they searched effectively, but hoped they found no terrorists (ie there aren't any).

He replied that he hoped he found lots of them.

I objected suggested that this meant that he was hoping terrorists existed, and the more the merrier.

He actually agreed, and said that if there were no terrorists, then he would lose his job.

Something is seriously wrong here. Either the man is poorly educated and doesn't know what he is saying , or , he is a proponent of terrorism. If it was a funny comment on his part, then I didn't find it funny, given he had set the tone of the encounter for the two of us.

If he is poorly educated, then he really shouldn't be doing this job, as any half bright bomber will have no trouble in fooling him.

If he is a proponent of terrorism then he will shortly be convicted under the new laws.

Frankly, I think education is the answer. And the government should focus on making sure that its employees are able and qualified to do their jobs.

I was queueing to buy some paper in Rymans today.

The queue was quite substantial (over 15 people), and to my surprise, there were two people, working a single till , one packing, one taking money. There were three tills.

I asked as to why they didn't run two tills, as most of the time, one or the other was totally idle (sometimes both!).

The answer was that it was 1730, and the store closed at 1830, and the other two tills had been already cashed up, in readiness to close!

So customers are made to wait, so that the store can close on time.

Simple really, once you figure out who are the clients, and who are the servers. Silly me.

Maybe someone should tell IBM to add another one of their glib posters at Airports and Waterloo, that by correctly telling clients from servers, increases in revenue can be obtained.

Adam Smith would have been delighted.

Of further amusement (possibly more seriously) was that the shop assistants behind the till didn't seem to understand what the problem was. Maybe Rymans' senior management should take a closer look at who is minding the store.

Two quotes to amuse yourself with :

Rymans’ owner Theo Paphitis says the profile of the business will change: “Partners will not be a toy shop under Rymans. It will take its place as a first class social/home office stationer.”

“We want to take some of the good things from Rymans and some of the good things from Partners and grow both businesses faster than we are at the moment.”

14-Feb-2001 (ChannelInfo.net)