I would like to thank everyone that has been supportive during the last month.

Instead I ended up returning with everything, and more like you do when everwhere has sales on, but the one thing I wanted.

Looking at google shopping when I got home didn’t show up anything so I reverted back to the normal google searh.

Turns out that was quite lucky as it returned a news item about the launch at Nokia’s flagship store in Regent’s Street in London.

As they are open to 8pm I was able to ring them and ask to reserve one to collect on Monday.

Apparently they have a lot of stock so I can just go and get one in my lunch break on Monday as Oxford circus is only a few stops on the Bakerloo line from where I work.

It’s just a shame that none of the mobile phone shops at Lakeside had them in stock as I could have got it cheaper on an O2 contract.

The ones at the Nokia flagship store are SIM unlocked so at least I can swap in my business SIM card during the week.

If Nokia’s flagship store also had allowed me to take out an O2 contract then I could have avoided having to goto the O2 store up on Oxford street.

They probably have to be operator neutral though which is why they only sell unlocked phones.

It was whilst discussing Spotify with a friend at work and how it was the modern equivalent of a mix tape (yes for you youngster’s I’m old enough to remember them at the height of their popularity in the late 80s) that I got the idea. Well that and a discussion on explore.co.uk’s Facebook wall.

At the time I hadn’t purchased an iPod Touch or signed up to use Spotify Mobile so I created them in iTunes.

So I thought I’d do a bit of an experiment and try and recreate them in Spotify. Well it almost worked. Here are the links

• Cuba Pop/Indie
• Cuba Relax
• Cuba Rock/Pop

There are actually more than thirty songs – about three hours worth split pretty evenly between the three that represent some of my favourite songs and artists.

You probably haven’t spotted it, but in Spotify there are two missing tracks – both should be in the Cuba Relax playlist.

These are

• This is London by Don MacGlashan from the album Warm Hand
• The Other Side of the Reservoir by Graham Parker from the album Don’t Tell Columbus

So a pretty good strike rate for Spotify but not perfect yet.

His article How To Want Very Little (via zenhabits.net) struck a chord with me because I’ve actually being doing a lot of what he suggests over the last few years ( in fact it was only a combination of actually doing this and realising that other people are writing about exactly the same issues that gave me the confidence to start writing this blog earlier this month).

However I think the title is completely wrong. It should be reversed.

If you do the things that David suggest in his article then you will actually find that you want more out of life and can have it.

You don’t need to take my word for it though – if you need more convincing then you should go and read Martin Seligman’s bestselling book Learned Optimism.

So when Spotify  announced an offline mode back at the start of October that made me think twice. I’d been using Spotify since January this year (yes I was lucky to get an invite then ) so when they announced this I was tempted to upgrade. But I waited a while to see what play lists I had added to Spotify over the last six weeks. It turns out that there are quite a few albums being released that I would have been tempted to buy anyway (anyone would think it was nearly christmas or something!) Spotify offline allows you to store upto 3333 tracks on three different devices. Now your average album is around 12 tracks long. So that makes 277 albums I can store offline on my iPod touch.

 

Of course you only have to reconnect online every 30 days to revalidate your account. But  you can change which tracks you store in offline mode at ANY time you are connected to the internet.

Anyway lets look at the costs involved.I probably buy around 30 albums a year. Even if you account for them costing around £8 each if I didn’t buy an album again and just relied on Spotify I would save £240 per year.
Of course it isn’t as simple as that as you have to factor in the cost of the subscription and the initial outlay for the iPod Touch.

If you look at the cumulative costs and savings over 1,2 and 3 years it turns out to be

Year 1

Year 3

• Costs: Year 1 + 2 £540 and + Spotify subscription £120 = £660
• Savings: £720

So after 2 years it’s almost at break even point. After 3 years I would have saved £60! If I were to replace it with a newer model after 3 years I would actually be starting from a better position that I am now!

So if you are putting off what might be an expensive purchase it’s always worth weighing up how you are going to use it. You could surprise yourself. With interest rates at such a low amount and returns on savings accounts so slow it maybe worth thinking outside of the box …

I have to say that the wordpress iPhone app is really easy to use so this is unlikely to be the last

(Ok so the picture was taken on my N96 and then uploaded via my macBook later, but one thing at a time)

Well it turned out to be frustrating sorting out the issue with Scottish Power but that was the only thing that upset me.

I actually ended up feeling pretty good because I’d taken action about everything else that had happened – which if you read on is not inconsiderable considering that I also did a full days work which  involved four hours of conference calls, 150+ emails, two sets of powerpoint slides to prepare and a document to review (even just that sounds exhausting now looking back on it!).

To put my problems with Scottish Power problems into some perspective my day started with me knowing that my Marks and Spencer order for a sofa and two chairs had been blocked by my credit card company because it would have taken me over my card limit (made slightly worse because M&S had told me they would only charge me two weeks before the estimated delivery which was always going to be at the earliest the 14th of December. It really is amazing how one small thing going wrong can turn into a cascade of problems).

You would think that the logical step here would be to have pay some of my credit card bill off so that I could authorise the transaction. Bad Move!  I tried that and found out that it would four to five days for the payment to reach Egg. (So much for the new European system of instant transfers between banks!).

I’d also changed my direct debit arrangement so that I wouldn’t pay the full amount each month anymore. For the next few months I know that I will need to take a more active role in managing my credit card.

When I did that the the t Egg’s website told me that it could not change it until next months payment as it was too close to the next payment date – the 30th. Now it said 5 days when I paid the full amount off as a one-off payment. Of course it meant five working days (Lesson: Never do personal financial in the evening after two days of meetings when you are absolutely exhausted).

It was only then that the horror of what I’d done dawned on me.

I’d just paid off nearly £5000 on my credit card and they were going to take the same amount as an automated direct debit on Monday the 30th! At this point it was nearly 10pm and there was no point in worrying about it. Well that and I wanted to get to watch True Blood on Channel 4. (No spoilers please, we Brits are still only partway through Series 1!)

Thankfully yesterday I had to work at home as I’ve had a carpenter  installing some  doors and a frame on my bedroom wardrobe. Anyway enough waffling and on with the the story of what occurred yesterday.

So I get up early and start work at 8am so I can spend a bit of time trying to sort out this mess. Apart from actual work I end up doing the following today (in about this order):

• Checking that my credit card situation is as bad as I think (yes it is )
• Logging into M&S website to pay for my order on my Barclaycard (not the first time I’ve had to revert to my backup because of problems with Egg)
  
  • Just at this point I get a phone call from M&S asking about my order. I explain and they are very understanding and ask if I want to wait – but I instead organise to pay on my Barclaycard (after checking with them the details of my order). First Customer Service plus point to M&S.
• Almost immediately afterwards I get an automated fraud prevention telephone call from Barclaycard because the M&S order is over £1000. Second Customer Service plus point goes to Barclaycard.
• I then get around to ringing Egg. They are very understanding but the only option I have is to contact my bank and cancel the direct debit. Not sure that deserves a plus point but it was at least helpful. Now I needed to go into town to get a few bits of shopping so popping into my bank isn’t going to be that bad.
• Back to work then an early lunch.
• Straight down town and into Natwest where I only wait a few minutes before being seen by someone at the Information and Queries desk. Well actually the person behind there was busy but someone that was free came out from here office and asked if they could help. So I go in and sit down and explain the situation. She says its not a problem, the direct debit is cancelled and I will need to set up a new one with Egg the following month. She also spots some old Egg direct debits from a few years ago and gets rid of them from the system for me as well. As I’ve explained the situation and how it all occurred because M&S had charged me a week early and we get to basically chatting about my furniture and new house move. A big plus Customer Service point to Natwest there as I leave my local branch pleased that the situation has been sorted and after having a nice chat.
• Next stop is Nationwide – I’d needed to change my buildings and contents insurance because I’d basically been missold my policy when buying my house. I’d asked for £50,000 worth of contents and insurance and only been given £15,000. When I found out I spent a few hours last weekend and got a few quotes for a similar price to what I was paying. When I found out a few days ago I’d immediately phoned them and asked for it to be increased. Imagine my horror when they raised the monthly payment from around £19 to £66 just for the contents insurance. That was just insane because I’d already got a quote that used the same insurance underwriter for only £10 more a YEAR that offered me cover I wanted. The people in Nationwide couldn’t actually help me but suggested I phone their customer services department.
• Back home and almost immediately I get a call from M&S. My order has been blocked again because of the Barclaycard fraud prevention – now the fact that they had called me back and knew that this was likely to have been the case actually is yet another plus point to them. After going through my card details again I’ve now sucessfully paid for my new sofa and armchairs.
• Then into a teleconference call that lasts until 4pm. After sorting that out and catching up on email it was after 5pm.
• I call Nationwide and get through immediately and then get transferred straight-away to someone that can help me. After explaining my situation he explains that actually although my mortgage policy states this they don’t need to be involved. As long as I’m happy with the cover it’s my responsibility. Next Customer Service plus point to Nationwide
• So I then apply online to MoreThan which offered a fantastic deal on combined Builds and Contents insurance and pay for a new policy straight-away to start next Monday.
• Of course I can’t get through to my current Insurance company after 5pm – so I get the joy of calling them tomorrow morning to let them know the good news

That plus my carpenter has almost finished fitting my wardrobe doors, working even when he has a terrible cold, which look absolutely fantastic. So all in all a busy but good day.

So there is good customer service out there, even in Britian, at least for the following companies from my experience:

• Marks and Spencers
• Barclaycard
• Natwest
• Nationwide
• MoreThan

The real star of the show was Teresa at the Grays Branch of Natwest. She could see that I was stressed out and took the time to chat to me and put me at ease as well as sorting out probably my biggest problem of the day.

Today I finally sorted out the remaining issues, cancelling my current Buildings and Contents Insurance, cancelling my Direct Debits with Scottish Power (again credit to Natwest again as it took less than two minutes doing this over the phone!). Then whilst in the middle of lunch with some people from work I get a call from Marks and Spencers to arrange a delivery date for my Sofa and Chairs

UPDATE: Turns out this was neither my fault of Scottish Power – the previous owners had a new meter installed in May. When they moved they gave the meter reading from the sticker that had the Old Meter readings on it… It was still bad customer service though and I’m still expecting an apology.

A few days ago I got a letter from Scottish Power, the energy suppliers that the previous occupiers of my new home used and I chosen not to.
I’d switched to EDF Energy and was expecting a final invoice from Scottish Power so  I was expected a letter around this time.

So I was a bit surprised to see that they had worked out there was an excessive charge of over £300 pounds on it. So I tried to call them but their customer services line only operates from 9am-4pm – which is decidedly customer friendly if you are out at work and don’t get in till after 6.30pm!

So the very next day I phone them from work  with a new set of meter readings. It turned out that there had been a mistake with the Gas Meter reading and I was promised it had been corrected. (Given that I’ve only just moved in and had a new boiler put in two weeks ago using over £300 of gas in two weeks would have been insane – it’s just not possible to use that much Gas without having gassed the entire street!). It was all very nice and the lady on the phone was very helpful – but it was about to turn very nasty.

So another letter arrived this morning, great I though – the final revised bill. I knew I had a very busy day ahead of me so I put it to the bottom of my todo list for today. (in hindsight this was probably a really good thing as it would have really ruined my day otherwise!)

When I finally got around to looking at it around 2pm (I had a LOT of stuff to deal with today) I was just a bit flabbergasted that two days after I’d called them they had sent out a final demand letter (and yes it was dated AFTER I had spoken to them on the phone).

It even said the same thing as the first that they had tried to contact me again and had not heard from me – a day after I phoned them! It also stated that they had assumed I was happy with the final balance and would be collecting it soon and basically threatening me with a collection agency if I didn’t pay up. Now if there had been the possibility that they had sent this out before I had phoned them I would have just shrugged it off. They are of course just doing there job. However it was dated a day later.

As I have an important business teleconference at 2.30-4pm I try ringing them before it. However 25 minutes later I have to ring off and of course I don’t get another chance to call them today because of their insanely non-customer friendly service line times.

Now a LOT had already happened today and a few days ago so at this point. (All that could have turned out badly but had been sorted thanks to good customer service). To say I was a bit angry was a huge understatement. So I took that anger and focused it into writing what my father would call a ‘snotty’ letter.

In my letter I’ve now asked for all of their attempts to contact me, an apology and a revised bill by the end of next week. Oh and threatened to set my lawyers on them and write to their head office if I don’t hear from them. Tomorrow I’ll contact my bank and cancel the direct debits with them.

Lets see what next week holds – but I’m not going to go out of my way now to sort their mess out.

I’ve NEVER ever seen customer service which was so appalling bad . I can safely say that Scottish Power will NEVER have any of my business in the future.

If this all sounds a bit depressing then the story continues on a lighter and more positive note at How to do customer service properly

(I really must get around to buying and reading his later book Making it All Work at some point soon!)

I had a good old sort out which took nearly two weeks – scary how easy it is for bad habits to re-establish themselves!

For example I stopped using email folders in Outlook and instead switched to using tags to organise them. I also had a clear out of the 8000 odd emails that were clogging up my various reference and project folders.

(Doing that made me realise just how much junk or unimportant email I get and can delete, if not immediately then after a week. So that helped dealing with 150+ emails a day and meant I could actually get some real work done!)

So everything was running smoothly until early last month. I then started to get that nagging feeling that something just wasn’t right. I was capturing tasks at home and at work but not elsewhere when they occurred to me.

I knew I had to fix this as I was coming up with tasks and ideas when I was out an about inspired by what I was seeing around me. Some people I know use their mobiles to take notes on but for me this was just too slow.

It turns out a lot of people think the same thing as Pen and Paper was voted the winner in a Lifehacker Poll in May this year.
(I just wish I’d read that article when it was first published rather than in early October!)

So I decided to do something about it a few weeks ago when my A4 sized log book I used at work was almost full.

1. The first thing I did was to replace it with a smaller A5 notebook. I now keep this in my backpack when commuting and use it to take notes at meetings. In most meetings I now don’t even bother to take my laptop. Results are more productive meetings – I can still keep an eye on email during long meetings by synchronising it to my N96 using the Mail for Exchange client.
2. It was a bit too big to carry around all the time though so I now use a Moleskine style notebook – the purple one in the image below.
3. As for a Pen? Well I have to have at least a blue biro with me at all times. If I’m using my larger A5 notebook then I make sure I have a pencil and red biro at hand as well.

With an addition of some sticky notes that seems to have me covered for now – well almost. I must find get some slim sticky notes. I saw a woman opposite me on the train last week reading a book on Creative Writing and she was using these as markers with small reminders on the part that poked out of the top of the book.

So my old fashioned pen and paper set of tools is the following:

In particularly I’ve got one really nice Ben Sherman shirt that I like to wear on business trips – only it’s a bit too large now!

I’d also found an online store, MandMDirect.com which had some nice Ben Sherman shirts, end of line stuff so heavily discounted,  but I really needed to know if a Medium size shirt would fit me.

So finally last weekend I forced myself to go to the nearby shopping complex, Lakeside. Now this is one of the largest shopping complexes (malls if your american) in the UK and nearer christmas it gets really busy.

I’m not a shopping complex person (Is any man?). Normally I like to get there when it opens and get out in an hour or so. Only I had a lot to look at and in every major store I ended up queuing to pay for 5-10 minutes.

Sometimes I really wish that the British would learn what really good customer service is about because queuing for 10 minutes to just pay for something really isn’t it!

So I ended up looking in about four of the major stores for jeans and was about to give up when walking along I spotted a shop called Madhouse. These are another re-seller of brand name clothing so I thought – what the hell, I’m here.

Fifteen minutes later I’d bought a new pair of Wrangler Jeans, reduced from £40 to £25. I ended up getting everything else I wanted as well.

Of course I did end up buying the shirt at full price – but there was just something about it that I just had to have. Still I ended up buying 3 more Ben Sherman shirts online the following day, and including P&P it came to the same price as the one I bought in Debenhams so I think it balanced out in the end