Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Going home

After a great couple of hours with the grandchildren yesterday and a failed attempt to get into Jamie's Italian in Brighton last night it's back to France today.
Look, I know we are not in any way comparing like with like, but having to wait for an hour to get a table at Jamie's (we didn't wait) then walking next door to try Vietnamese street food, on a Monday night, I could only compare with my fairly recent futile, hopeless attempts to get a table, any table, anywhere, within a reasonable distance of where we are living in France on a Tuesday night.
Don't get me wrong, I know we live out in the sticks but service, real customer service, is nothing but a distant notion in France and frankly I can't really see it changing much.
Take my recent attempt to cancel our French mobile phones with SFR. I established what I had to do, how much notice I had to give and wrote them a nice letter explaining that we were leaving for England and would they be kind enough to cease the service on 1st March. I gave lots of notice. I enclosed separate signed letters from both of us.
Fairly shortly after, I received a confirmation email that they were sorry to see me leave, offering further service, and that they would cancel my contract on, wait for it, 22nd February. So far Jan has heard nothing.
They don't deserve me as a customer and sure as hell I don't deserve them.

4 comments:

Craig said...

I almost went into a Jamies Italian in Liverpool when I was there before Xmas but decided against it. Perhaps I should try it next time I come across one.

Alex said...

Generally speaking it's been difficult to find good Italian food but because we've been away so long that may have changed. Jan likes Jamie O and uses quite a few of his recipes. We think it's about as close as you can get to real Italian food. The other Italian restaurant I really like is Carluccios.

Carolina said...

My favourite Italian restaurant is "La Casa de Jan"... ;o)

Alex said...

That's so kind. Thank you.