trainophile
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Haha, I do have other trains to catch!
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Companies Using "Because of COVID" As An Excuse For Poor Service
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For somewhere known as ‘spoons’ not to have one is even more ridiculous! I have also been in a Premier Inn recently and it had them.
trainophile
Established Member
I never thought of that. Well spotted!
Wethersticks
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Wethersticks
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Strangely other hotels still manage to provide teaspoons and the world has not ended. I wonder how this hotel thinks that spoons spread Covid.
HST274
Member
Does this mean they didn't use to clean their teaspoons?
Mcr Warrior
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Similarly, doubt that most drinking glasses / coffee cups used in hotel bathrooms ever get a proper wash.
Went to Harvester last week and they still don't allow you to pick your own salad, making us wait 10 minutes while someone could serve us.
All while we just hanged out by the salad bar waiting and most likely breathed all over the salad and had all the staff/ customers walk past us......
All while we just hanged out by the salad bar waiting and most likely breathed all over the salad and had all the staff/ customers walk past us......
Particularly as Mr Martin was one of the most vocal opponents of extended lockdowns.
Freightmaster
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I don't understand why they are persisting with that nonsense - Toby Carvery went back to self service ages ago!
What do these companies believe they stand to gain from a commercial point of view by keeping restrictions going now?
MARK
VauxhallandI
Established Member
They are under the impression it attracts people, what they need to learn is that it discourages just as many
Customers need to tell them this and vote with their feet if necessary.
Tom B
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A few months ago I stopped in a Pizza Hut near a main road on a long journey, this being preferable to a motorway services. The whole ordering process was done online on your phone, and payments had to be by credit card, which was unfortunate, but to top it off they asked for you to add a tip - before you'd even ordered or received any service, and with the service being provided substantially less involved than prior to covid. No thanks!
It's the same for the breakfast service, despite both being "All You Can Eat."
What's unusual is that both chains are run by the same company, Mitchells & Butlers.
As a minister of religion - Catholic priest for those who may be interested, this happened to me at Carlisle Crematorium on Friday.
I had a funeral service at 12.20. I like to arrive in good time - get vested, make sure I have the right books, time to recollect myself before the service begins. I arrived at 12noon to find the door of the crematorium locked, a notice saying face masks for places of worship were mandatory ( not true ). There was no service taking place and no one around. The doors were opened 2 MINUTES before the service began, by which time the hearse and funeral party had been waiting for at least 5 minutes. The funeral director told me " this is Carlisle for you" and was the normal covid restrictions still being the practice. He informed me that the city council don't like crowds gathering outside ( see above for what actually happened.)
i have sent an email to the city council - I am not holding my breath about their reply!
I had a funeral service at 12.20. I like to arrive in good time - get vested, make sure I have the right books, time to recollect myself before the service begins. I arrived at 12noon to find the door of the crematorium locked, a notice saying face masks for places of worship were mandatory ( not true ). There was no service taking place and no one around. The doors were opened 2 MINUTES before the service began, by which time the hearse and funeral party had been waiting for at least 5 minutes. The funeral director told me " this is Carlisle for you" and was the normal covid restrictions still being the practice. He informed me that the city council don't like crowds gathering outside ( see above for what actually happened.)
i have sent an email to the city council - I am not holding my breath about their reply!
trainophile
Established Member
That's awful. Apart from anything else, people may have travelled some distance and wish to use the toilets before the service commenced. I would certainly put in a complaint, it might get more notice from you than a member of the general public.
Totally off topic but if you are ever in London look up the PP of Blackheath who is train-mad and a volunteer on the Bluebell railway
In the early days of the pandemic, Birmingham City Council closed Quinton Cemetery to visitors, except for an hour between 3pm and 4pm.
This was allegedly to "..keep staff safe.." in order to reduce the risk of them being infected by plague ridden mourners.
A cemetery is an outdoor place, so there is very little risk of transmission is the first place.
But it is also a very large outdoor space, so it should have been possible for people to keep two metres or more from each other.
Over the border in the neighbouring borough of Sandwell, there were no such petty restrictions.
trainophile
Established Member
During lockdown the crematorium grounds with large cemetery was one of the two places I could walk to for my daily permitted exercise. I grew to love the peace and tranquility, reading the headstones and unwinding from the ongoing stress. There were no other parks in walking distance except a small muddy one with a couple of swings for the kids and a skateboard area, so I'm very thankful the crem was never locked. Seems ridiculous to disallow people to visit their loved ones graves, or just to stroll around the gardens.
Surely that would encourage it to have large crowds at that time rather than spread over all the day?
We can't let things like scientific rationale get in the way of people making a sacrifice to feel like they're helping.
Busaholic
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I'm feeling fortunate that my wife's funeral at the crematorium in Camborne, Cornwall, earlier this month had no such restrictions imposed. Not only were the WCs open, but a waiting room for immediate family was also available, and a member of the crematorium staff who was in there made himself scarce when we arrived. In our case it was the sudden unavailability of diesel fuel for most of the western part of Cornwall earlier in the week and still pertaining that limited the number of localish people who'd intended to attend, but the important people got there. I can tell you that if any of what you say had happened to me, it would have had a deleterious effect. As an MS sufferer who refuses to consider using a wheelchair (yet) I need to be able to sit down and, in fact, a chair was provided for me so I could greet and thank people as they left the crematorium, as it had been to deliver my oration earlier. The attitude of Carlisle City Council (if they are the guilty party) stinks.
bramling
Veteran Member
It’s still the case that the cemetery in my town has one of the gates kept closed “to help stop the spread”.
Utter rubbish of course, the real reason is there’s a house there which accommodates the cemetery caretaker, and they don’t want people walking past.
The toilets have also been closed since March 2020.
Oh come on, that's common sense, which is naturally too much for Birmingham City Council.
pdeaves
Established Member
I had an interesting one last week. I called a telephone helpline and the recorded message said that, because all staff were working from home, it would take longer to connect the call to an 'agent'. Why? The claim wasn't that the agent may take longer to assist, but that the phone system would take longer to connect. The same system estimated that, because of the queue, my wait time would be a very precise 'approximately 1 minute and 34 seconds'! (It was actually about 3 minutes, but that was no problem, especially as it was a free number).
The real question is: why are all staff still working from home?
trainophile
Established Member
My condolences. Very sorry to hear about your loss. Glad you were looked after on the sad occasion.
There's been a surprising number of call centres which have found it convenient to dump their offices, and a reasonable number of employees who find it possible to work since they can log on around things like school pickups. I've rung round a lot of companies in the last couple of weeks and I'd say it's 50/50 whether people seemed to be in the office or at home.
What I would say is that the home workers took _a lot_ longer to resolve anything they had to escalate, often had a worse connection to company systems, and almost invariably cut me off or put me back to the switchboard when they attempted to redirect me. Irrespective of whether the employees prefer it, as a customer I absolutely don't.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Returning home north in a couple of weeks time, I considered stopping off at York to visit the National Railway Museum. However they still insist on pre-booking, for a specific time, and as I will be travelling by train, with the possibility of delay, and do not want to be tied down anyway, I won't be bothering. It is surely time such restrictive and visitor-unfriendly practices were scrapped ?
In my experience the NRM do not enforce this.
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