An urban N.Z. baby-boomer and a Jack Russell terrier
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CREATING MAGIC ON THE CITY'S STREETS

21/5/2013

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Something had already changed at the dark end of Bridge Street. A couple of retailers chalked some  hopscotch squares on the pavement and dawdled outside their shops to watch what might happen. People on the street responded almost immediately. An elderly woman with a Zimmer-frame was making slow progress up the street. She wasn't able to hop but she steered her frame towards the hopscotch markings so that she could at least walk over the numbered squares on the footpath. 
PictureDavid Engwicht
I went to a public workshop last Monday and it had me in tears. It was held, as these things often are, in a fairly utilitarian space with grey chairs and grey tables. Before a representative of the workshop’s sponsor - Nelson City Council - could give the usual welcome and introduce the speaker, there was the typical last-minute tussle with an uncooperative computer projection system. 

We’ve all been to workshops with this kind of set-up: a worthy topic, presented by a dull but knowledgeable speaker, in a dull but functional room, aided and abetted by an over-head projector. If tears are shed at such workshops, they are usually tears of frustration. While work piles up back at the office, you squirm through the plodding torture of a PowerPoint presentation yearning for the impossibly distant El Dorado of morning tea. 

But the tears that came to my eyes at this workshop were not those kind of tears. They were the kind of tears that come when something touches you deeply. The tears were also completely unexpected: when did you last feel moved by an interaction organised by a local authority?


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HELLO? HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE?

7/5/2013

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Call centre staff shouldn't have to deal with angry and frustrated customers armed only with headphones and empathy when what they need are cattle prods to get the company to actually do something. 
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While on a clutter-busting trawl of my computer this week I came across a furious complaint letter I sent to a electricity company several years ago: an interesting piece of synchronicity given that power companies have been headline news of late. 

The letter was my final last-ditch attempt to pierce the armour of the “customer service” system set up by the company. It was a last resort after eight-months worth of phone calls without a resolution to what I thought was a pretty simple problem. 

Call centres have earned the reputation of being the sweatshops of the electronic age. Theoretically they are meant to “co-create value for the customer and the organisation”. What they actually do, is pit the two least powerful groups in the equation - call centre staff and customers – against each other. At the end of this company’s 0800 number there was always a polite, helpful and even sympathetic person who could only refer the problem, not fix it. 
Here's the letter ...


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    THE GREY URBANIST
    Ro Cambridge, is a freelance writer, 
    arts worker & columnist Here she reports on the oddities & serendipities of  urban life.  She roams Nelson city , NZ 
    with a tan & white Jack Russell. (Her original canine side-kick, Pete, who features in many of these posts died in 2015.

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