Out of date

Meh.

I was hoping to have some happy news this weekend, but the Public Sector Workers strike put paid to that. And when I say “put paid”, I mean “put paid, but not with an 8.6% increase and a R1000 housing allowance”. Just put paid a dismal and demeaning wage.
So more on that another time.

Instead, because I have many requests to elaborate on my shopping issues yesterday (as mentioned on twitter), I find myself bitching about the utterly despicable behaviour of local supermarket Constantia Pick n Pay which, as far as my recent experiences go, seems to consider it perfectly reasonable to sell goods which are past their sell by date.

Last week, I had to take some veg back to them because it was three weeks beyond its sell by date. Caveat emptor, you might say, but then why should the emptor have to caveat – shouldn’t the venditor be looking out for the emptor and taking the goods off the shelves once they’re past their best? Sure – I might have been a little more observant, but I was stressed, shopping amongst a million others (business is evidently good) in the narrow aisles of this flagship store.

That was annoying. My money. My petrol. My time.

And then yesterday. Wow. First of all, while looking for yoghurt, I noticed that one of the 6-packs on the shelf was 6 days beyond its sell by date. Not good. Fortunately, there was a PnP employee stacking the shelves right next to me, so I pointed this out to him and he removed the offending item. Easy.

But then, as I walked off down the chilled goods aisle, I forgot to get margarine. Can you imagine life without margarine? Dry toast. Dry…bread generally. And so on.

And when I realised and went back a few minutes later – guess what was back on the yoghurts shelf? That offending 6-pack again, sell by date still 30 Aug 10.
I was aghast. That’s disgraceful. Inexcusable. It was no mistake: he knew they were out of date. I tried to take a picture with my phone, but a security guy stopped me. Very pleasantly, I might add. Just doing his job.
Nice to see someone was, I thought.

The manager was “unavailable” when I asked. The staff seemed unconcerned about what had happened. I was unimpressed. Everywhere I looked, there were words beginning with “un”. That’s never a sign of a good situation.
I made a mental note to call the boss on Monday. And then I paid for the stuff I’d bought and went home. And yes, I tweeted about what had occurred, but I chose not to mention the store in question, despite a plethora of requests to “name and shame”.

And then I slid the cardboard sleeve off the ostrich fillet I had bought (this week, I’m trying ostrich biltong) and found that it too was past its best before date. I could not believe it. (I may have mentioned that.) I named and shamed.

So – back to Constantia Pick n Pay (My money. My petrol. My time), where I met Bertie, who told me that the manager was unavailable. So no change there then.

I explained to Bertie about last week’s veg, the yoghurt issue and my new-found ostrich fillet problem. Bertie half looked up from typing on his computer, apologised and said he “would look into it” with the same conviction which Zwelinzima Vavi might look into taking a 0.3% pay offer back to the Unions. But hey, at least I got to go and get some fresh ostrich fillet, although I had to pick it out from amongst those that were past that “BBD” again – those were still on the shelf when I left. Nice.

But I am determined to speak to Bertie on Monday and find out what he has discovered.
Because surely he wouldn’t have just said that to fob me off. Would he?

Pre-empting your questions:

1. I will go to another supermarket once they have finished building at Blue Route. Until then, it’s impossible to park.
2. I can’t afford the money, petrol or time to go to Table Bay Butchery. But thanks for the heads up.
3. I am aware that @picknpay are on twitter. But why would I want to go through a middleman when I have the name and number of the manager? What is the middleman going to do? Give me the name and number of the manager? Get him to call me? I can just about afford a local call, thank you.
Besides which, I have also had dealings with (and not necessarily complaints) MTN and Avis, whose social media presence is handled by the same agency and have received no assistance whatsoever by going that route.
Is it really worth these companies shelling out for this service? Not in my opinion – all you get are happy sycophants who get the occasional chance to win prizes. When it comes to the negative side of things, things seem somewhat less helpful.
There’s a whole other post in there – have you ever been helped via social media? And by “helped”, I mean got somewhere you couldn’t have done on your own? Let me know – I’d be interested.
My feeling is that (assuming you get any response) you simply get put through to the same people that couldn’t be bothered to help you in the first place.
4. The ostrich biltong should be ready tomorrow – I’ll let you know how good it is.

As for Constantia Pick n Pay – what can I say? I’m appalled.
I hope to speak to the manager tomorrow – maybe I’ll find out why I wasn’t able to on Saturday. And I’ll let you know what he says, because if he’s not bothered about what’s going on, then why should any other Pick n Pay manager be? Perhaps you might want to review your other options (such as they are) out there.

Sorry to rant.
6000 – protecting the rights (and the health) of the South African consumer – out.

“…these things can happen to anybody”

“It is an unfortunate reality that these things can happen to anybody”

The words of Springbok Rugby Coach Peter de Villiers, quoted in this morning’s Cape Times on the Bees Roux incident in which the Bulls’ prop is accused of beating a Tshwane Metro Police Officer to death in the early hours of Friday morning.

De Villers went on to say:

The team supports Bees 100 percent, not on the deed, but rather on the circumstances that led to the situation developing.

Well, let’s have a quick run through on what we know so far, shall we?

It is alleged that Jacobus Stephanus “Bees” Roux (“Bees” being Afrikaans for “Ox”) was pulled over in the early hours of Friday morning (a few hours ahead of the Pumas v Bulls game) when Metro Police suspected he was driving while drunk. What followed seems a little confused – depending on whom you choose to believe, so here’s an independent eye-witness account from Richard Motegeni, a security guard at a nearby building:

Motegeni said the white VW Polo was seen driving very slowly at about 1.36am.

“Suddenly a large man and a Metro police officer tumbled out of the door on the driver’s side.”

He said the big man, whom he only later learned was Bees Roux, was immediately on top of Mohale.

“He shouted, ‘You thief! You want to steal my car!’ and repeatedly hit the officer very hard in the face. The officer did not fight back.

“The big man then twice lifted the officer up by his clothes at his shoulders and back and threw him down hard on the tarred road, head first.”

Motegeni said Roux then kicked the officer, after which he walked away quickly to his car, which was apparently rolling very slowly forwards.

“He brought his car to a stop, returned and started hitting the officer again.”

And that ties in with what paramedics found when they got to the scene:

Netcare911 spokesperson Chris Botha told News24 that when paramedics arrived on the scene the deceased was already dead.

“He had a massive injury to the head. I don’t know what they used (to hit him),” he said.

Botha said there was blood on the road where the body was lying. “It looks like his head hit the tar road.”

Suddenly, all becomes clear. And what seemed like another utterly idiotic statement from the gaffe-prone de Villers makes perfect sense. I mean, who among us wouldn’t support Roux “on the circumstances that led to the situation developing”? You know, having a skinful on the night before a big game and then jumping in your car to head home? Of course the Boks support him 100% in that – after all, it’s the perfect message to be sending out, isn’t it?

Dodgy Headline

And yes, the whole picking up a police officer by his shoulders and throwing him down hard onto the tarred road, head first: that’s the sort of thing that can happen to anybody.

Actually, if I’m absolutely honest, that hasn’t ever happened to me, although I once almost tripped up a firefighter, but that was an accident and he was off duty at the time.

I wonder if it’s ever happened to any of my readers?
Or to Peter?
Or to any of the other Springbok players who are “100% behind Bees”?

There’s long been a suspicion that de Villiers isn’t the man for the Springbok coaching position. They say he can’t handle the media, that he’s out of his depth. Many cite his lack of experience, although the much-loved Jake White had even less experience when he took on the job.

But then others suggest that de Villiers’ detractors are racist and that it is actually not his experience nor his ability which is the problem, but rather the colour of his skin.

Having seen the interview he gave yesterday and read about it in the newspapers today, I’d like to suggest that we look beyond his experience, his ethnicity and his annoying voice and just think about what he has said for a moment.

There is absolutely no excuse for his voicing any kind of support for Bees Roux – either in the alleged fatal assault, nor in the supposedly ubiquitous “circumstances leading up to the situation developing”. I wonder what the players think of this? Are they really 100% behind Roux as de Villiers suggests? And if so, why?

As far as I’m concerned, the diplomatic way to go would have been to choose not to comment on the situation. But he did.

The next best thing would have been to distanced yourself and your team from the situation. To have made some comment about the police investigation being ongoing etc etc and then move on to the next question about why your side doesn’t have a defence.

But at no point do you come out and support a man who has allegedly used his huge size and strength to repeatedly smash a police officer’s head into the road until he was dead.

I don’t care about how good or how crap de Villiers is as a coach. It doesn’t bother me if he thinks there’s a referee’s conspiracy against the Boks. I don’t give a toss if he is coloured, black, white or green and gold. He could come in polka dot for all I care. But when he sits there as the national coach and says what he did, when he sends out the message to kids that it’s OK to drink drive, that your colleagues will support your actions when you have spent the weekend in a prison cell on a murder charge, then I simply cannot understand why this man still has a job. Anywhere else on this earth, he would rightfully already have been sacked.

Peter de Villiers is a disgrace.

Just doing your job?

Or: “Why you need to be nice to people in Cape Town“.

This is a bit of a personal story, but there’s an important message in it (I think), so I’m going to bore you with it anyway.

A few months back, the company I worked for closed its doors “for operational reasons”, meaning that the people working for that company were summarily retrenched. Me included. It was not a pleasant time, as you might imagine and it was a particularly unpleasant process. This unpleasantness was due in no small part to the attitude of the people who employed us and the lawyer who they had hired to do the hatchet job.
Now, at this point, you can spring forth with all your “Did you really expect to meet a nice lawyer?” quotes and your perhaps more reasonable claims that I would say something like this because I’m being subjective and the matter was emotionally charged and of course I’m not going to like what’s going on, am I?
Do you want to get those things out of your systems now? I can wait.

Done? Good.

Because I have met nice lawyers before: they don’t all conform to the stereotype in the same way that not all accountants are dull and grey and not all microbiologists are good-looking, witty ex-pat bloggers.
And while it was not a nice thing to happen, I accepted that a business decision had been made and we didn’t realistically have a huge amount (read “any”) chance of reversing things. So I did my homework, spoke to some (nice) lawyers I know and made sure I understood my rights in terms of the Labour Relations Act 1995 (section 189) and Basic Conditions of Employment Act 1997 (sections 35, 37 and 41). Fascinating stuff.

Given the situation, I chose to put emotions away and went in to the discussions with my new-found knowledge and my scientific logic as my sword and shield.
Sadly, the lawyer who turned up for the other side scored highly in every category of “typical” lawyer behaviour. On the personal side, I found him pompous, arrogant, aggressive, belittling and generally unpleasant. On the professional side, he sailed very close to the wind of illegality in his actions when going through the official processes. And then he made a verbal agreement on behalf of his clients which he later went back on. Which was nice.

Anyway, to cut a long story slightly shorter, we fought back and we won.

And that’s that. Except to say that then, out of the blue, his wedding photos popped up on my Facebook stream yesterday. Because while the entire world is apparently interconnected via the famous human web of Six Degrees of Separation, in Cape Town it’s generally about 1.2 Degrees of Separation. Friend of a friend happens here very regularly.
And that’s well worth remembering before you act like an arse.

Sure – I’m aware that there’s some parts of anyone’s job that aren’t easy and aren’t pleasant. But when you are dealing with people – especially upset, vulnerable people – while “just doing your job” and you act like you don’t give a damn, try to weasel your way out of promises you made and walk all over them, well that’s when you clearly cross the line from “professional” to “arse” for me.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not asking you to care, I’m just asking you to make it less obvious that you really don’t.

Interestingly, seeing his those photos allowed me to put some pieces into my mental jigsaw and I realised that I had actually bumped into him “socially” a couple of weeks ago (through the same friend). My mind couldn’t quite work out who he was, seeing him out of context like that, but I didn’t introduce myself because there was this nagging doubt that I knew this person but I didn’t like him.
Now I know why. My mind is great and I have renewed respect for it.

So be nice, be respectful to people you meet: professionally, socially or even on the roads. Especially in Cape Town.
Because you will meet them again at some point and your previous actions could make that situation rather awkward.

Just saying.

Dan’s PR disaster

With the second biggest event of the year due to take place in Cape Town this weekend (remember that World Cup thing we did?) and following on from his extraordinary comments over the Makhaza toilet saga, City Mayor Dan Plato has lurched into yet another PR disaster.  Helen Zille was always going to be a hard act to follow, but this man makes Nomaindia Mfeketo look good.
And she really wasn’t.

This time it’s all to do with who gets to press the button to bring down the Athlone Cooling Towers. And as the Mayor was pointing out on local radio just a couple of weeks ago, it would be a great honour for some worthwhile member of the community to be able to be the one to trigger the blast. A local charity, Reach For A Dream, which gives dying children the chance to carry out their last wishes was also hopeful of giving some kids the chance to say that they were the ones who demolished the towers.

As Councillor Clive Justus, the mayoral committee member for utility services commented earlier in the week:

It might be the contractors, the mayor, the premier, the Reach for a Dream Foundation – we haven’t made up our minds yet. I will be taking a decision in consultation before the end of the week.
Whoever it is will be outside the 300m perimeter, and it will be very, very sophisticated. The plunger of days gone by is no longer with us.

“It’ll be like pressing a cellphone button,” he explained.

And today – the name of the lucky plunger button presser was revealed – and that person will be…

Mayor Dan Plato!

Why? WHY?!?

Even if this decision was taken “in consultation” and he wasn’t involved in said consultation, why doesn’t he, someone, anyone see what a complete and utter PR disaster this is?
Cape Talk was inundated with calls criticising the decision this evening. And what did Dan have to say about the whole thing?

As time comes nearer I think it will become emotional. I will go down to the towers later this morning to take my own pictures and so on.

Soundbite heaven.

There are still 39 hours before big bang time. It’s not too late to change this stupid decision and to give someone who really deserves something special, the honour. Be it upstanding Athlone community member, be it dying child.

If you’re reading this, Dan (stop sniggering people: I’m going to email it to him and the big lady upstairs) – please just stop and think what sort of message this sends out. Again.
Do the decent thing, give it to someone and make a difference to their life. Be remembered as the man who gave this opportunity to someone else, not as the greedy mayor who kept it for himself.

You can email the Mayor’s office and voice your opinion here: mayor.mayor@capetown.gov.za.

One week on

Just one week ago, I was singing the praises of the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Community Hospital in Durban. And that despite the fact I had to cross a good-natured but vocal picket line to get in:

Sadly, it seems that just one week on, the public sector workers strike has turned nasty, with almost unbelievable reports of working nurses being forced out of ICUs at gunpoint and mobs invading operating theatres.
And several hospitals – including IALCH – have been blockaded (also here).

I’m due to visit a another public hospital tomorrow – but I may be forced to postpone…