NationStates

Dumb Ideologies wrote:There aren't the same trade-offs in staffing levels and service you often get from discount supermarkets in my experience.

It's funny because Lidl pays the living wages and Aldi offers the highest management and graduate wages, but the staff always look the least happy and produce the worst customer service out of all the supermarkets. Have to wonder why a supermarket paying a minimum of 8.30 an hour and 9.20 in London with the same hours has less satisfied/qualified/happy/nice staff than supermarkets paying the absolute legal minimum.

Maybe you just integrate over time to the attitude of your customers.

Questers wrote:Aldi is a good example of superior German business practices. Products are (mostly) cheaper and better than British supermarkets without fucking over the suppliers.

Or lower standards of the German populace.

Ryanair too is an example of superior Irish business practice, but you get the same shit with easyJet, and chances are you'd get better service with Sainsbury's and Virgin Atlantic.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:

Hurdergaryp wrote:Wetherspoons is for pubs what Aldi is for supermarkets, right?

Not a terrible comparison.

There aren't the same trade-offs in staffing levels and service you often get from discount supermarkets in my experience.

I have simple tastes so the fuss-free and pretence-free good value of Wetherspoons is also often preferable quality-wise to the more expensive counterparts in a way that the supermarket discounters don't quite reach with their "nearly as good" brand equivalents.

It's very useful to know wherever you find yourself in the country you can get something good at a reasonable price with the same menu and no surprises. I'm a fan.

When I lived in range of one I had their breakfasts every single day, it probably amounted to half my calorie intake for a reasonable price, and meant I had an excuse to begin the day with a beer sometimes. The magazine is good reading too.

Trumptonium wrote:

Dumb Ideologies wrote:There aren't the same trade-offs in staffing levels and service you often get from discount supermarkets in my experience.

It's funny because Lidl pays the living wages and Aldi offers the highest management and graduate wages, but the staff always look the least happy and produce the worst customer service out of all the supermarkets. Have to wonder why a supermarket paying a minimum of 8.30 an hour and 9.20 in London with the same hours has less satisfied/qualified/happy/nice staff than supermarkets paying the absolute legal minimum.

Maybe you just integrate over time to the attitude of your customers.

Having worked at both a Tesco and an Aldi down the years I can say that Aldi management just really cares far more about efficiency than customer service.

An example would be if you asked a staff member where something is. In Tesco they expect you to walk the customer to the product, in Aldi you are to take 2 paces towards it and then point.

The Archregimancy wrote:Virgin trains is dropping the Daily Mail from sale on its trains due the Mail's politics.

According to the internal memo:

Different viewpoints are often valuable, and it’s certainly true that we choose to take our news from different sources depending on our view of the world.

Thousands of people choose to read the Daily Mail every day. But they will no longer be reading it courtesy of VT [Virgin Trains].

There’s been considerable concern raised by colleagues about the Mail’s editorial position on issues such as immigration, LGBT rights, and unemployment. We’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs. We won’t be stocking the Daily Mail for sale or as a giveaway.

The Mail's response is that:

It is disgraceful that, at a time of massive customer dissatisfaction over ever-increasing rail fares, and after the taxpayer was forced to bail out Virgin’s East Coast mainline franchise – a decision strongly criticised by the Mail – that Virgin Trains should now announce that for political reasons it is censoring the choice of newspapers it offers to passengers.

For the record, Virgin used to sell only 70 Daily Mails a day. They informed us last November that to save space, they were restricting sales to just three newspapers: the Mirror, FT and Times. They gave no other reason, but it may be no coincidence that all those titles, like Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson, are pro-remain.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... daily-mail

paper that routinely campaigns for the government to flat out ban things it does not like cries censorship because a train company won't sell their papers anymore

Souseiseki wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:Virgin trains is dropping the Daily Mail from sale on its trains due the Mail's politics.

According to the internal memo:



The Mail's response is that:




https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... daily-mail

paper that routinely campaigns for the government to flat out ban things it does not like cries censorship because a train company won't sell their papers anymore

So tomorrows mail headline will read either - "Ban Branson" or "Ban reading on trains"

The Archregimancy wrote:Virgin trains is dropping the Daily Mail from sale on its trains due the Mail's politics.

According to the internal memo:

Different viewpoints are often valuable, and it’s certainly true that we choose to take our news from different sources depending on our view of the world.

Thousands of people choose to read the Daily Mail every day. But they will no longer be reading it courtesy of VT [Virgin Trains].

There’s been considerable concern raised by colleagues about the Mail’s editorial position on issues such as immigration, LGBT rights, and unemployment. We’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs. We won’t be stocking the Daily Mail for sale or as a giveaway.

The Mail's response is that:

It is disgraceful that, at a time of massive customer dissatisfaction over ever-increasing rail fares, and after the taxpayer was forced to bail out Virgin’s East Coast mainline franchise – a decision strongly criticised by the Mail – that Virgin Trains should now announce that for political reasons it is censoring the choice of newspapers it offers to passengers.

For the record, Virgin used to sell only 70 Daily Mails a day. They informed us last November that to save space, they were restricting sales to just three newspapers: the Mirror, FT and Times. They gave no other reason, but it may be no coincidence that all those titles, like Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson, are pro-remain.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... daily-mail

It's their right to do so, even if I see this as a curious move.

The Archregimancy wrote:

Vassenor wrote:Also pretty sure just about every station Virgin serves has at least one WH Smith or similar newsagents.

I commute on Virgin daily; my station doesn't have a newsagent or any other type of concession stand or shop (except the independent morning coffee cart in the car park) - though I concede this is unusual, and there are two in Euston, so I could always pick up a paper at the end of my commute.

The only newspapers I've ever seen on sale on Virgin are the Mirror and Mail, so I'm not sure where the Mail is getting its information about Virgin selling the FT and Times.

Edit:
I used to take the Independent daily until it went under; though I'm also older than most readers of this thread. Now I only take the weekend i, otherwise relying on a range of websites. I agree with Trumptonium, for what it's worth, that people living in information bubbles is a serious problem.

I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble. My main hope is that tv news remains fairly neutral in tone, and makes more of an attempt to set the agenda instead of taking the lead from the papers, maybe that way people can be exposed to a variety of opinions and thoughts without it becoming an exercise in forcing ourselves to read the other sides partisan bile.

Shamhnan Insir wrote:

Souseiseki wrote:
paper that routinely campaigns for the government to flat out ban things it does not like cries censorship because a train company won't sell their papers anymore

So tomorrows mail headline will read either - "Ban Branson" or "Ban reading on trains"

Ban trains.

Somecoldwetislands wrote:I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble.

Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

Ifreann wrote:

Shamhnan Insir wrote:So tomorrows mail headline will read either - "Ban Branson" or "Ban reading on trains"

Ban trains.

Maybe the mail will start pushing for nationalization now.
Its readers support it after all.

The Archregimancy wrote:

Somecoldwetislands wrote:I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble.

Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

It's the best of the right-leaning bunch by far. The Express is possibly worse than the Mail, and the one time we got the Times we were surprised at how sleazy it was - absolutely obsessed with stories about porn and sex.

Somecoldwetislands wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:
I commute on Virgin daily; my station doesn't have a newsagent or any other type of concession stand or shop (except the independent morning coffee cart in the car park) - though I concede this is unusual, and there are two in Euston, so I could always pick up a paper at the end of my commute.

The only newspapers I've ever seen on sale on Virgin are the Mirror and Mail, so I'm not sure where the Mail is getting its information about Virgin selling the FT and Times.

Edit:
I used to take the Independent daily until it went under; though I'm also older than most readers of this thread. Now I only take the weekend i, otherwise relying on a range of websites. I agree with Trumptonium, for what it's worth, that people living in information bubbles is a serious problem.

I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble. My main hope is that tv news remains fairly neutral in tone, and makes more of an attempt to set the agenda instead of taking the lead from the papers, maybe that way people can be exposed to a variety of opinions and thoughts without it becoming an exercise in forcing ourselves to read the other sides partisan bile.

TV is dying the same way as paper circulation. TV ratings peaked in late 1980s and have plateaued, slowly fell in the 90s and has been freefalling since the dawn of Netflix et al.

Also, as most students learn to live without a TV licence and thus without watching TV for years, most tend to never watch it again or not see it as a necessity to warrant getting one. My cousin graduated uni in 2012 and he now lives in London but doesn't have a TV and doesn't watch it at all, and given that students now make up almost half of school leavers, it means TV as a source of information is dying, giving way to social media feeds, which is by far the most information bubbled possible medium.

The Archregimancy wrote:

Somecoldwetislands wrote:I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble.

Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

With respect, I really don't think the Telegraph represents the new right (ie what propels Conservative Party policies today) at all. It's really hard to look at May's speeches and her policies and relate them closer to what the Telegraph wants than what the Daily Mail wants.

So you're missing a lot. Even if I think Mail is garbage. But it's nice garbage, because reading it doesn't annoy me like reading the Guardian does.

Ostroeuropa wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Ban trains.

Maybe the mail will start pushing for nationalization now.
Its readers support it after all.

I'm pretty sure they do.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:
Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

It's the best of the right-leaning bunch by far. The Express is possibly worse than the Mail, and the one time we got the Times we were surprised at how sleazy it was - absolutely obsessed with stories about porn and sex.

Do you really consider The Express as "possibly" worse than the Mail?

Remember Kodak? That American company that did a pre-Nokia Nokia and failed to escape the 1990s?

Neither do I.

Well, they're trying to reinvent themselves in the most 2018 way possible. They're launching their own ICO (cryptocurrency) and investing a significant part of whatever is left of their now-family-sized-business to become digital in ... London. Of all places.

Their share prices doubled in the last 12 hours also, so Kodak's now worth around $150m. Hard fall from their $10bn revenue in early 1980s, of course.

They're doubling up with WENN Technologies to make a payment system for both independent and contracted photographers, trying to replicate pay-per-click model into an image version that simplifies paying for image use, makes it harder to circumvent the law and lowers the cost of these transfers, making paying for images more reasonable.

I find Wetherspoons very impressive. Obviously it is not the Ritz but it is genuinely cheap and for that you get quite a lot of food at what would have been considered restaurant quality back in the 90s.

With Aldi and Lidl you clearly trade quality for price which is fine but Wetherspoons is actually better than a lot of places at the next price point up.

Dumb Ideologies wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:
Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

It's the best of the right-leaning bunch by far. The Express is possibly worse than the Mail, and the one time we got the Times we were surprised at how sleazy it was - absolutely obsessed with stories about porn and sex.

Sounds like just the thing for reading over breakfast.

Fartsniffage wrote:

Trumptonium wrote:
It's funny because Lidl pays the living wages and Aldi offers the highest management and graduate wages, but the staff always look the least happy and produce the worst customer service out of all the supermarkets. Have to wonder why a supermarket paying a minimum of 8.30 an hour and 9.20 in London with the same hours has less satisfied/qualified/happy/nice staff than supermarkets paying the absolute legal minimum.

Maybe you just integrate over time to the attitude of your customers.

Having worked at both a Tesco and an Aldi down the years I can say that Aldi management just really cares far more about efficiency than customer service.

The German way.

An example would be if you asked a staff member where something is. In Tesco they expect you to walk the customer to the product

The British way.


The American way is that everything costs twice as much because the store looks like a Tescos from 2005 which in their minds is a palace of sophistication and luxury because it actually sells something other than smoothies and donuts, and the staff still don't know where anything is.

The Archregimancy wrote:

Somecoldwetislands wrote:I certainly agree that bubbles need to be broken, I'm skeptical as to whether the Daily Mail is the right vehicle given how it plays to its own information bubble.

Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

I'd rather read Private Eye than any British newspaper nowadays...

There is nothing basically wrong with the Mail. It is written for but not by stupid people, it's more accurate than the Guardian, and its editorial line is one of the closest to the truth of any British newspaper.

It's despised mostly by socially aspirant lower middle class types who are afraid that the low status of its readers will rub off on them, or use their exaggerated hatred of it as a prop for their insecure self-image as part of the centrist elite rather than one of its subjects. I am guessing this is the demographic that VT is currently trying to woo. It's basically the demographic that rides trains: rich enough to afford the season pass but not rich enough to afford to live closer to work.

As a source of information, it's at least as good a choice as anything else written by journalists (society's most clueless literate people).

Somecoldwetislands wrote:

Shamhnan Insir wrote:Looks like May couldn't do much pushing. Knives must be out.

I get the feeling she's going to limp on out of inertia, like, we're going to have to watch this until 2021. It's going to be like Major post ERM debacle but with the economy going down instead of up...

That is the wrong way around for a start: the economy is currently going up, whereas the beta version of the Euro actually did cause a recession in the early 90s.

HMS Barham wrote:

Somecoldwetislands wrote:I get the feeling she's going to limp on out of inertia, like, we're going to have to watch this until 2021. It's going to be like Major post ERM debacle but with the economy going down instead of up...

That is the wrong way around for a start: the economy is currently going up, whereas the beta version of the Euro actually did cause a recession in the early 90s.

I meant as in post falling off the ERM when the economy and employment started to consistently expand. Plus current growth is slowing to below inflation, we may still technically be growing but we're headed for, at best, a growth recession soon.

Aldi products are better at a lower cost than Sainsburies with a better deal for the supplier.

Sainsburies staff look happier because they lose their jobs if they don’t.

I can confirm that the Mirror is now the only newspaper on sale on Virgin West Coast.

Trumptonium wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:
Which is why I read the Telegraph - rather than the Mail - for a more conservative perspective.

With respect, I really don't think the Telegraph represents the new right (ie what propels Conservative Party policies today) at all. It's really hard to look at May's speeches and her policies and relate them closer to what the Telegraph wants than what the Daily Mail wants.

So you're missing a lot. Even if I think Mail is garbage. But it's nice garbage, because reading it doesn't annoy me like reading the Guardian does.

That would presumably be more of a problem if there wasn't this thing called the internet.

As you've noted, the newspaper industry isn't as healthy as it was. I'm perfectly happy to go to (inter alia) Breitbart and Fox News when I'm looking for a particular type of alternative perspective on the news. I'm catholic in my tastes.

And since I'm a social media luddite, I'm not prone to the problem of having someone else's algorithm decide what news I'm interested in.

For what it's worth, I often find the Guardian as exasperating as you do. I often want to give Owen Jones in particular a slap.

Trumptonium wrote:Remember Kodak?

Of course I do; but then I'm considerably older than most people posting here.

The Archregimancy wrote:I can confirm that the Mirror is now the only newspaper on sale on Virgin West Coast.

Trumptonium wrote:

With respect, I really don't think the Telegraph represents the new right (ie what propels Conservative Party policies today) at all. It's really hard to look at May's speeches and her policies and relate them closer to what the Telegraph wants than what the Daily Mail wants.

So you're missing a lot. Even if I think Mail is garbage. But it's nice garbage, because reading it doesn't annoy me like reading the Guardian does.

That would presumably be more of a problem if there wasn't this thing called the internet.

As you've noted, the newspaper industry isn't as healthy as it was. I'm perfectly happy to go to (inter alia) Breitbart and Fox News when I'm looking for a particular type of alternative perspective on the news. I'm catholic in my tastes.

You read Fox without protection?

Ifreann wrote:

The Archregimancy wrote:I can confirm that the Mirror is now the only newspaper on sale on Virgin West Coast.



That would presumably be more of a problem if there wasn't this thing called the internet.

As you've noted, the newspaper industry isn't as healthy as it was. I'm perfectly happy to go to (inter alia) Breitbart and Fox News when I'm looking for a particular type of alternative perspective on the news. I'm catholic in my tastes.

You read Fox without protection?

He has advanced training in dealing with archaic ideas and opinions.