Unhappy with Tele2. Here's why:
I officially declare September 25th the Latvian Mobile Operator Day.
My phone is being switched from LMT to Tele2, and that doesn't seem to be an easy thing to do. In fact, we're switching two phones over. The switch happened in the night to yesterday, with the effect that yesterday, I could receive calls but not call anyone; and the other number we switched was unavailable all day. Today, my phone is entirely switched off, even though I am apparently able to receive SMS. For everything else, the message I get is "your card has expired" - and it's the brand-new card they gave me. The other phone is seemingly not working either. Great achievement, Tele2, and a very reassuring way of welcoming us to your company!
Then Bite, the third operator. Sends me SMS advertising today in the morning, even though I had never given them my number, nor agreed to them sending me any kind of information whatsoever. Great, folks, you've just dropped a few steps on my respect level for spamming me.
Then there's a CDMA operator called Triatel (that is, I'm not even sure if they still exist) - their main drawback is that they're a CDMA operator.
And LMT, the company we actually left? Is currently the only one who hasn't done anything clearly wrong, except for being more expensive for us. However, they have an old-fashioned and terribly ugly logo, and that being a mobile operator, so - screw them, too.
My phone is being switched from LMT to Tele2, and that doesn't seem to be an easy thing to do. In fact, we're switching two phones over. The switch happened in the night to yesterday, with the effect that yesterday, I could receive calls but not call anyone; and the other number we switched was unavailable all day. Today, my phone is entirely switched off, even though I am apparently able to receive SMS. For everything else, the message I get is "your card has expired" - and it's the brand-new card they gave me. The other phone is seemingly not working either. Great achievement, Tele2, and a very reassuring way of welcoming us to your company!
Then Bite, the third operator. Sends me SMS advertising today in the morning, even though I had never given them my number, nor agreed to them sending me any kind of information whatsoever. Great, folks, you've just dropped a few steps on my respect level for spamming me.
Then there's a CDMA operator called Triatel (that is, I'm not even sure if they still exist) - their main drawback is that they're a CDMA operator.
And LMT, the company we actually left? Is currently the only one who hasn't done anything clearly wrong, except for being more expensive for us. However, they have an old-fashioned and terribly ugly logo, and that being a mobile operator, so - screw them, too.
My sincere thanks and regards to all those who do not send me funny e-cards or funny websites with funny Santas doing funny things (perhaps with their reindeer), or links to creative animated cards made in otherwise boring advertising agencies for whom their season's greetings often are the only imaginative piece of communication they get to produce in a whole calendar year.
My even more heart-felt thanks to all those who don't even send me e-mails wishing me a merry Christmas and a nice celebration and all that.
I deeply the interest many people take in the subject of these holidays, but I do not share it, nor care about it. I will happily take the time to visit old friends and my parents, since these are some days off, and I do that every year, and yes, this is very nice, but no, it has nothing to do with any old marketing farts in red suits having innocent animals drag a sledge, it's just a holiday, so thanks for the nice wishes, send them to me via Skype message for example, I'll read them later, but don't send any pictures or cards or, worst of all, cute animated animals with snow and stuff.
What's really evil about all you Christmas fanatics out there is that they're too many. If you were just a handful, and if I just received a dozen or so cards and messages, I would be perfectly able to ignore them. But the constant stream of funny things into my mailbox makes me feel very unfunny myself, as it stops me from seeing the more important mail, and forces me to waste my time deleting all this, and, I admit, sometimes even watching it, because I am curious about what weird fantasies that bored ad agency art director came up with this year, after all, we might want to hire the guy and give him a chance to actually use his skills some day.
I might sound like an evil bastard who's just out to ruin all the fun and joy, and to take away that season's shine in children's eyes.
Far from it: I enjoy my free days as much as everyone else who has a life, it's a good opportunity to hang out in Switzerland with good old mates and my lovely parents, to eat interesting food and to drink dull beer, to meet new people in smoke-filled skiing resort bars or in wild clubs (and I rarely get a chance to taste this feeling of a smoke-filled bar these days, due to the smoking ban over in much of the East).
I'm not out to ruin your joy: Go and have it!
But please, go now and enjoy, instead of sending silly e-mails to all kinds of people that are in your database or Excel chart, merely in order to remind them of your existence, maybe to sell them something next year, for which you could just as well call them next year when you actually want to sell something, rather than making them the one in a thousand on your fully automated season greetings distribution list.
Go and enjoy your free days, damn it, and stop wasting everybody's days off, including your own, with the untargeted distribution of your merciless and unimaginative self-marketing.
My even more heart-felt thanks to all those who don't even send me e-mails wishing me a merry Christmas and a nice celebration and all that.
I deeply the interest many people take in the subject of these holidays, but I do not share it, nor care about it. I will happily take the time to visit old friends and my parents, since these are some days off, and I do that every year, and yes, this is very nice, but no, it has nothing to do with any old marketing farts in red suits having innocent animals drag a sledge, it's just a holiday, so thanks for the nice wishes, send them to me via Skype message for example, I'll read them later, but don't send any pictures or cards or, worst of all, cute animated animals with snow and stuff.
What's really evil about all you Christmas fanatics out there is that they're too many. If you were just a handful, and if I just received a dozen or so cards and messages, I would be perfectly able to ignore them. But the constant stream of funny things into my mailbox makes me feel very unfunny myself, as it stops me from seeing the more important mail, and forces me to waste my time deleting all this, and, I admit, sometimes even watching it, because I am curious about what weird fantasies that bored ad agency art director came up with this year, after all, we might want to hire the guy and give him a chance to actually use his skills some day.
I might sound like an evil bastard who's just out to ruin all the fun and joy, and to take away that season's shine in children's eyes.
Far from it: I enjoy my free days as much as everyone else who has a life, it's a good opportunity to hang out in Switzerland with good old mates and my lovely parents, to eat interesting food and to drink dull beer, to meet new people in smoke-filled skiing resort bars or in wild clubs (and I rarely get a chance to taste this feeling of a smoke-filled bar these days, due to the smoking ban over in much of the East).
I'm not out to ruin your joy: Go and have it!
But please, go now and enjoy, instead of sending silly e-mails to all kinds of people that are in your database or Excel chart, merely in order to remind them of your existence, maybe to sell them something next year, for which you could just as well call them next year when you actually want to sell something, rather than making them the one in a thousand on your fully automated season greetings distribution list.
Go and enjoy your free days, damn it, and stop wasting everybody's days off, including your own, with the untargeted distribution of your merciless and unimaginative self-marketing.
I enjoy the funny English that's all around me here in Kazakhstan (where I still am; and not only here), particularly if it comes from people or businesses that are indeed supposed to look professional and international. Which they, using such language, of course don't.
As a non-native speaker, I am not judging (nor able to judge) the precision and perfection in details or the full beauty and elegance - but I'm able to judge if I understand something or I wouldn't even get what someone is talking about. In the past, advertising agencies have been notorious abusing language. While trying to look as international and thus professional as possible, they at the same time reveal that this is exactly what they are not - since if they were, they had probably at least one person who can write a full phrase in English without too obvious mistakes. Such a visible and obvious display of a lack of professionalism and, very scary from an ad agency, lack of attention to detail or correctness of what one is doing, is usually found on websites. Lovely, lovely websites. I forgot most of them, but I've just found two that I need to share.
And I keep finding more - so I might add more later on, and will then update the time stamp of this entry.
As a non-native speaker, I am not judging (nor able to judge) the precision and perfection in details or the full beauty and elegance - but I'm able to judge if I understand something or I wouldn't even get what someone is talking about. In the past, advertising agencies have been notorious abusing language. While trying to look as international and thus professional as possible, they at the same time reveal that this is exactly what they are not - since if they were, they had probably at least one person who can write a full phrase in English without too obvious mistakes. Such a visible and obvious display of a lack of professionalism and, very scary from an ad agency, lack of attention to detail or correctness of what one is doing, is usually found on websites. Lovely, lovely websites. I forgot most of them, but I've just found two that I need to share.
And I keep finding more - so I might add more later on, and will then update the time stamp of this entry.
Is it just me, or is it true that more and more companies use exclamation marks at the end of their poster headlines and sometimes slogans?
That's pretty common all over the former Soviet Union, not only in Russia and the like, but even in the Baltic States (particularly in Latvia, where I sometimes felt that exclamation marks must be some sort of a necessary item in every sentence that's meant to go public). And now I'm walking through Germany and Switzerland, and I spot loads of slogans with exclamation marks.
I don't believe that it's just me who finds that offensive and stupid. You can't bloody write a slogan with exclamation marks! Even if you're just planning to sell a few pieces of some mobile handset! Because it's just not the way you talk to people! And that has nothing to do with the language you're writing in! I'm absolutely sure it feels the same in English, as in German, as in Latvian, as in Russian! Is that the way you want to be talked to! Shouted at! From posters! From companies! Stop bloody using these exclamation marks, you fools!
That's pretty common all over the former Soviet Union, not only in Russia and the like, but even in the Baltic States (particularly in Latvia, where I sometimes felt that exclamation marks must be some sort of a necessary item in every sentence that's meant to go public). And now I'm walking through Germany and Switzerland, and I spot loads of slogans with exclamation marks.
I don't believe that it's just me who finds that offensive and stupid. You can't bloody write a slogan with exclamation marks! Even if you're just planning to sell a few pieces of some mobile handset! Because it's just not the way you talk to people! And that has nothing to do with the language you're writing in! I'm absolutely sure it feels the same in English, as in German, as in Latvian, as in Russian! Is that the way you want to be talked to! Shouted at! From posters! From companies! Stop bloody using these exclamation marks, you fools!
A bunch of mostly Latvian friends of mine launched the first Latvian portal that's designated to comment those really bad ads that the world is full of. For the time being, unfortunately it covers only Latvian ads - but some of the comments are in English, and I'm one of the people commenting: www.badad.lv.
Since it's near my temporary home and my office in Kazakhstan, I've visited the Assorti restaurant in the City Center shopping mall quite often in the recent weeks. The place is nothing special, a typical sort of shopping mall cafe or restaurant, with some okay food and a very poor Sushi menu.
But really there is only one thing that disturbs me about them, and it disturbs me very much, and it reveals an attitude that I wouldn't want to see revealed so clearly if I was them; since after all, also this is branding.
The problem is: The service is quite slow there, it easily takes 10 or 15 minutes until you get the menu, even if some of the staff is just standing around near the bar (usually they're working). Also after ordering, it can take pretty long until you get anything. Getting the bill happens in an average normal speed. But then, once the bill is on your table, you suddenly witness a surprising service speed increase - because different service staff will stop at your table literally every 30 or 60 seconds to take the money. So if you're still finishing your coffee or reading a little and you don't deal with the bill immediately, you'll have them almost lining up to get that cash.
And indeed that communicates a message that I strongly hope they don't intend to communicate. So or so, it doesn't speak of much professionalism.
But really there is only one thing that disturbs me about them, and it disturbs me very much, and it reveals an attitude that I wouldn't want to see revealed so clearly if I was them; since after all, also this is branding.
The problem is: The service is quite slow there, it easily takes 10 or 15 minutes until you get the menu, even if some of the staff is just standing around near the bar (usually they're working). Also after ordering, it can take pretty long until you get anything. Getting the bill happens in an average normal speed. But then, once the bill is on your table, you suddenly witness a surprising service speed increase - because different service staff will stop at your table literally every 30 or 60 seconds to take the money. So if you're still finishing your coffee or reading a little and you don't deal with the bill immediately, you'll have them almost lining up to get that cash.
And indeed that communicates a message that I strongly hope they don't intend to communicate. So or so, it doesn't speak of much professionalism.
Just a detail, have a look. I bought one of these "5 Dollars for one hour of Wireless Internet" scratch cards by MTS at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and faced an interface of dubious character:
.jpg "interface")
The thing is: At the start, you get to a regular "enter your card number and password" mask. Then, when you do so, you get what's shown on the image above: A field showing your card number; an empty field where the password belongs; and a text written in red telling you that everything works fine.
Call me pedantic, but that's not very smart. Firstly, there's no reason why I should see the same mask again, unless you want to confuse me; particularly with the password now missing, I'm only tempted to re-enter my data, believing I maybe did a typing mistake. And secondly, never write a positive message in red - even in Russia, that's the color to tell people "something went wrong, watch out".
Actually, it was worse during my last visit here a few weeks ago, when Shakhrukh and me were on our way to Kyiv. Back then, an English translation of this page was missing, so all you could get was Russian. Fair enough with a simple mask like this, every idiot will guess what data you have to enter where, and what button to click - but then, I really ended up entering my card number and password combination three or four times, because I didn't bother to read the Russian text, I simply saw that they brought me back to the initial mask and had something written in red there.
Ts, ts.
The thing is: At the start, you get to a regular "enter your card number and password" mask. Then, when you do so, you get what's shown on the image above: A field showing your card number; an empty field where the password belongs; and a text written in red telling you that everything works fine.
Call me pedantic, but that's not very smart. Firstly, there's no reason why I should see the same mask again, unless you want to confuse me; particularly with the password now missing, I'm only tempted to re-enter my data, believing I maybe did a typing mistake. And secondly, never write a positive message in red - even in Russia, that's the color to tell people "something went wrong, watch out".
Actually, it was worse during my last visit here a few weeks ago, when Shakhrukh and me were on our way to Kyiv. Back then, an English translation of this page was missing, so all you could get was Russian. Fair enough with a simple mask like this, every idiot will guess what data you have to enter where, and what button to click - but then, I really ended up entering my card number and password combination three or four times, because I didn't bother to read the Russian text, I simply saw that they brought me back to the initial mask and had something written in red there.
Ts, ts.
Found this poster in the toilet of a restaurant in Bucharest, Romania. Lots of smiles from my side, for sure: One for writing the words "Happy Smiles" between quotation marks, as if they were being ironic about these happy smiles. One for the shiny teeth of the people shown. One for the selection of people shown (reminded me of some student exchange program posters that I've seen many years back, EF or an organization like that). One for the name Dentex-Flex. One for the shark logo. One for the "Since 1991", but just a small smile, because that's Eastern European reality. And one big smile for the typeface in which they wrote "German Dental Clinic"... ouch:
 (Custom).JPG "teeth")
Now look at this black tea and green tea. The green tea comes in a black pack, and the black tea in a red one. We can also argue about the information hierarchy, in regard to the placement of the "Black Tea" and "Green Tea" versus their attributes ("Best Health Drink" and "Selected Quality", both anyway a bit odd) - but the funniest thing to me remains the choice of colors.
.JPG "tea")
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