We had a pointless trip to Plymouth today to collect something from a shop and when we got there it turned out not to have arrived at all. That’s despite being telephoned shortly after 9am by a girl who told me that my order had arrived. I was a bit nonplussed by that because I’d only placed my order last night and was led to believe when I did that it wouldn’t be there until mid-week. I checked – are both items there? Yes, came the reply. I checked again – are you sure both of the items are there? Yes, absolutely, they are here and waiting for you to collect.

After we’d delivered the sunshine bus to its new owner, we drove to Plymouth – it’s a round trip of 40 miles so no small journey. We presented ourselves at the customer desk and got told that only one of the two items was there. But I was phoned this morning I was told both items were there. I double checked the assertion because I’d been expecting one to take longer but was assured I could collect the two. I explained that the phone call had caused us to make a pointless 40 mile round trip and the assistant, who was the same person who’d phoned me, simply shrugged and said it wasn’t there. It was a good example of bad service.

We decided to pop into the city to sort out some things that we’d planned to do next weekend a bit early. While there, I was shopping for a bag big enough to house a Hudl, a compact camera and a purse, that could be securely closed (see photo) and carried over my head if you see what I mean. After a couple of “failures”, I found what I was looking for in Marks and Sparks. I got chatting to the guy behind the counter as I paid and he told me that he was about to put the bag I’d bought into another bag and then into a third bag before he’d let me take it away. I quipped that the company was Jekyll and Hyde because I’d been charged 5p for a carrier bag in another department a couple of minutes earlier. It was only a minor quibble and really only passing the time of day but the response of the assistant couldn’t have been different from the other shop. He listened to my quibble then went out of his way to offer me redress, even though I’d not actually sought it. His service was exemplary and a credit to the company for which he worked, whereas when we walked out of the other shop, DM's first words were “I’m NEVER setting foot in there again!”