Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The cost of nagging.
Women tend to nag at men and do not worry about the cost of their nagging. Women also do not tend to dress sensibly for the weather and moan about feeling cold. But what can we men do when women nag at us. We cannot tell them to go away but we must respond to their complaints.
Earlier today one woman nagged at me about a lack of heating on the coach. I responded to her complaint by informing her that the heating was switched on. She countered this by claiming that there was no heating on at all. I checked the side trunking of the coach and sure enough there was no heat coming out of the channels into the coach. So I telephoned my depot and Matthew instructed me to check that the butterfly valve in the engine bay below the header tank was in the open position. I checked this valve and it was open. Matthew then instructed me to drive to the next motorway services where somebody would meet me to address the problem.
This nagging women then said to forget about the heating because the coach was already late when it started from the station and she did not want everyone to hate her for delaying the coach any further as nobody else had complained. I advised her that I was duty bound to follow the instructions given to me by the engineer.
At the next motorway services Mike had a look at the heating system and found that the water filter had become blocked with sludge. He removed this sludge from the filter and sure enough hot water made heat inside the coach come out the the saloon channels. Of course all this takes time and the clock was ticking away. From pulling into the motorway services, waiting for Mike to arrive and then to fix the heating, 23 minutes had elapsed. But still the woman's complaint had been responded to and what is 23 minutes compared to a journey of 3 hours and 35 minutes.
The cost of nagging: 23 minutes - the cost of responding to a complaint: priceless!
Women tend to nag at men and do not worry about the cost of their nagging. Women also do not tend to dress sensibly for the weather and moan about feeling cold. But what can we men do when women nag at us. We cannot tell them to go away but we must respond to their complaints.
Earlier today one woman nagged at me about a lack of heating on the coach. I responded to her complaint by informing her that the heating was switched on. She countered this by claiming that there was no heating on at all. I checked the side trunking of the coach and sure enough there was no heat coming out of the channels into the coach. So I telephoned my depot and Matthew instructed me to check that the butterfly valve in the engine bay below the header tank was in the open position. I checked this valve and it was open. Matthew then instructed me to drive to the next motorway services where somebody would meet me to address the problem.
This nagging women then said to forget about the heating because the coach was already late when it started from the station and she did not want everyone to hate her for delaying the coach any further as nobody else had complained. I advised her that I was duty bound to follow the instructions given to me by the engineer.
At the next motorway services Mike had a look at the heating system and found that the water filter had become blocked with sludge. He removed this sludge from the filter and sure enough hot water made heat inside the coach come out the the saloon channels. Of course all this takes time and the clock was ticking away. From pulling into the motorway services, waiting for Mike to arrive and then to fix the heating, 23 minutes had elapsed. But still the woman's complaint had been responded to and what is 23 minutes compared to a journey of 3 hours and 35 minutes.
The cost of nagging: 23 minutes - the cost of responding to a complaint: priceless!
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When I worked for a third-party operator that the Nationwide Company used, it was nothing for the coaches I drove to have no heat at all. There's no way anyone from my former depot would have shown such concern to ask me to pull into the next available motorway services for the problem to be looked at.
Much of the problem was as a result of the design of the coaches' heating systems. So often in the summer the heaters would turn themselves on. Then it was a 'screwdriver job' to get to the engine to turn the taps off. They'd then - in many cases - remain off until the autumn or until a driver went to put some warm air on the windscreen when it rained, only to have to stop as none came out and he couldn't see where he was going.
There is neither the will nor conscientiousness in today's scheduled coach industry to ensure these types of defects never occur. Add to that the complaints from passengers (I'm shocked she didn't then complain that the coach became too hot) and it's not the halcyon industry it once was.
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Much of the problem was as a result of the design of the coaches' heating systems. So often in the summer the heaters would turn themselves on. Then it was a 'screwdriver job' to get to the engine to turn the taps off. They'd then - in many cases - remain off until the autumn or until a driver went to put some warm air on the windscreen when it rained, only to have to stop as none came out and he couldn't see where he was going.
There is neither the will nor conscientiousness in today's scheduled coach industry to ensure these types of defects never occur. Add to that the complaints from passengers (I'm shocked she didn't then complain that the coach became too hot) and it's not the halcyon industry it once was.
# posted by 
: 25 March 2009 at 22:55
: 25 March 2009 at 22:55Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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