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Are people competent where you live?

Are people competent where you live?

Old Sep 12th 2015, 4:49 pm
  #16  
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Default Re: Are people competent where you live?

Originally Posted by WhyteBoar
Agree about the bureaucracy too... so much form filling and people with a 'computer says no' attitude.
At work when we want to take some leave we have to enter the dates into the company's ERP system, which gets electronically sent to our line manager and logged. He logs into the secure system, and approves or denies the request.

Simple, right?

Nope. We also need to fill out two separate pieces of paper and have them autographed by the same manager, and the department payroll clerk who files them away. The paper copies contain the exact same information as the electronic system. The two processes are in no way connected.

A couple of weeks ago I offhandedly suggested doing away with the paper copies, and deploying the resources to an area of need.
This suggestion was roundly rebuffed, and I received an enthusiastic rebuke from my colleague. 'Everybody has a job to do!' she scoured, as if I had suggested we spend an hour trampling orphaned kittens in the break room.

FFS.
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Old Sep 12th 2015, 7:04 pm
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Default Re: Are people competent where you live?

Originally Posted by Boiler
Not exactly complicated to install a tap.
The annoying thing is that is it little bits really. Replacing the counter tops with granite is the biggy. Then it's new faucets, lights and fixtures. Everything works fine, we just wanted to upgrade. Thankfully we have since found out that our regular odd job guy does these things both well and cheaply, but the whole thing was so frustrating. Mr Weeze is handy, but he doesn't get the time to get it all done. Then you find out that the only company willing to quote wanted to charge something stupid like $400 to replace a Light fixture, which the Mr could do in 20 mins.
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Old Sep 12th 2015, 10:10 pm
  #18  
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Default Re: Are people competent where you live?

Originally Posted by Weeze
Mr Weeze is handy, but he doesn't get the time to get it all done. Then you find out that the only company willing to quote wanted to charge something stupid like $400 to replace a Light fixture, which the Mr could do in 20 mins.
So at least you're saying the person is competent where you live. Phew.
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Old Sep 14th 2015, 12:13 am
  #19  
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Default Re: Are people competent where you live?

Originally Posted by Bob
Have you not shopped in Walmart or a host of clothing shops in any mall?
Yeah but Wal-Mart is a good example, it depends on where the Wal-Mart is.

I go into the one in Great Falls quite often and the staff there are excellent, I assume because it's a smaller town so they've worked there awhile. Go into Wal-Mart in bigger US cities and it varies a bit, some are good, but some are pretty hopeless. But here they're not just hopeless, the store itself is rubbish, I never go in there because I know they haven't got what I want.

Just generally speaking though I find people here to be less competent than they are in the US. I think the comment about lack of competition is a really good point, I think that is part of the problem.

Car dealerships are a good example, in the US they put all kinds of nonsense in the franchise agreements to make it really hard to sell new cars to Canadians, so that limits your choice to a handful of Canadian dealers. So dealerships here (at least imx) are significantly worse than in the US. I have my car serviced in the US once in awhile and they're always much better at it, better service, faster, etc. And most importantly - they actually know what they're talking about, like X car has X feature for X reason.

Once I tried to buy a tire and they didn't have it, so I said I'd get it in the US and they made up some BS story about US tires not being to Canadian spec, the only difference I could see was a US DOT sticker on the tire I bought in the US.

And here is something that happened once - I damaged my car going through roadworks in the US and I went to the local dealership and they fixed my car for free and apologized on behalf of the town and thanked me for visiting!!! I nearly died of shock.
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Old Sep 14th 2015, 12:33 am
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Default Re: Are people competent where you live?

Originally Posted by Steve_
Yeah but Wal-Mart is a good example, it depends on where the Wal-Mart is.

I go into the one in Great Falls quite often and the staff there are excellent, I assume because it's a smaller town so they've worked there awhile. Go into Wal-Mart in bigger US cities and it varies a bit, some are good, but some are pretty hopeless. But here they're not just hopeless, the store itself is rubbish, I never go in there because I know they haven't got what I want.

Just generally speaking though I find people here to be less competent than they are in the US. I think the comment about lack of competition is a really good point, I think that is part of the problem.

Car dealerships are a good example, in the US they put all kinds of nonsense in the franchise agreements to make it really hard to sell new cars to Canadians, so that limits your choice to a handful of Canadian dealers. So dealerships here (at least imx) are significantly worse than in the US. I have my car serviced in the US once in awhile and they're always much better at it, better service, faster, etc. And most importantly - they actually know what they're talking about, like X car has X feature for X reason.

Once I tried to buy a tire and they didn't have it, so I said I'd get it in the US and they made up some BS story about US tires not being to Canadian spec, the only difference I could see was a US DOT sticker on the tire I bought in the US.

And here is something that happened once - I damaged my car going through roadworks in the US and I went to the local dealership and they fixed my car for free and apologized on behalf of the town and thanked me for visiting!!! I nearly died of shock.
Location of the store is a good example, the Wal-Mart in Bellingham, WA generally sucks, dirty, poorly staffed, general poor service, but 30-40 mins down the road in some city before you get to Seattle, there is another Wal-Mart and it's better, cleaner, and more or less the opposite of Bellingham.

You can tell a lot about a local area sometimes based on how customers treat a store, after all it's not the store employees trashing the place they only clean it up....


I find when I complain to a company in Canada, I won't get a response 9 times out of 10, and the one time I will, it's a generic form letter with no direct information.

I do find Save On foods does well with customer issues generally. The local store management is always out and about in the store and visible, if you walk past one or any employee they always smile and say hi, if you look lost or look like you can't find something, they will ask if you need any help.

I had noticed a few months ago the meat department was always low and empty, so I sent an email not expecting much, not only did I get an email from the corporate office, I got one from the store manager and meat department manager at the local store who went into great detail about the issue and that it was being worked on and corrected, and a week or so later, back to normal.

I sent Loblaws a complaint about the local store and never heard a peep from them.
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