How not to manage one of the worlds busiest museums….

Ok, so I admit I am not averse to complaining – in my opinion no one should be, it is the only way things improve. So when there is a total lack of information or perceived management of a situation it annoys me…..

The situation I refer to relates to the closure of the Louvre in Paris on Wednesday 10th April – now the French are very proud of the museum (quite rightly) as it is one of the largest and most visited in the World. This would therefore assume a good level of management. So when we arrived as a family and found barriers up, security staff guarding the doors and very small messages saying the museum was closed – but giving no reason why and no idea when it would reopen – we were naturally somewhat annoyed.

But what really didn’t help was the total lack of real information, it took us at least 45 minutes to discover the reason the Louvre was closed – a strike by staff due to pickpockets – and also that there was no chance of it opening at all on that day. This last point was not clear from the note at the entrance (and the ‘help line’ mentioned on the message was never answered – on strike too?)

Who did I find out from? A security guard – no one else was around from the museum staff.

But what really annoyed me? The fact that the message on the website (which only appeared many hours after the strike started) was so incongruous. One might almost say it was deliberately vague – perhaps they didn’t want visitors to know that the staff strike and that pickpockets are a big problem? I would hardly call a strike in France ‘exceptional circumstances’!

Come on – this is Paris, France – the home of strikes and now it appears Europe’s capital of pickpockets!

So in trying to ‘keep it quiet’ it appears to me that the Louvre’s ‘management’ may well have scored a huge own goal – typically French?

 

A Parisian discovery…

I am in Paris for a few days, a city that I like to think I have a reasonable feel for, but today proved that you can always discover something new, even in a city you think you know…

New York is well known for its HighLine or ‘park in the sky’ – I am looking forward to seeing it in the summer when we are there as a family as I have heard so many positive things about it. However, today I discovered Paris’s own HighLine – la promenade plantee. This is a similar thing – a former railway line and viaduct in a city environment that has been formed into an amazing linear park. In addition the arches below have also been refurbished and created into workshops and retail space for artists and artisans. This in fact was the original High Line, built sixteen years before the New York model, and apparently it served as inspiration to it’s American counterpart.

The promenade stretches for almost 5 kilometers across the 12th arrondissement following the path of the retired ligne de Vincennes railway track from Bastille to the boulevard Périphérique. It is highly popular with runners as well as for ‘promenading’ and was quite busy mid morning when we were walking it. It is also beautifully planted and in places you would be hard pushed to believe that you weren’t in a larger garden rather than on a city viaduct!

It is great to see regeneration on this scale in a city – the walkway itself is great, but the conversion of the arches below is simply stunning and provides fantastic space for new businesses. Sadly I can’t see this level of planning commitment or general vision in the UK – somehow I feel the use of bulldozers would have been more likely?

 

Getting to grips with it…..

Around Christmas I splashed out on a new camera – an Olympus EM-5 – it was a bit of an extravagant move, but I felt it would help me further develop my photography which had been in the doldrums for a number of years until I purchased an Olympus PEN EP-1 a few years ago. The time was right for the next step…..

I was right and have been amazed by the cameras capability to produce stunning results even in my hands! It is well up there with the quality of a full frame digital SLR (it is a 4/3rds camera). And it has allowed me to hopefully develop my artistic side a bit more….

This photo was taken at the orangery at Calke Abbey in March, I quite like it, especially the way the shadows run…..

 

Two sides to everything……

I was told many years ago that your first contact with someone is the most important, it sets their opinion of you. Hence in business your receptionist is perhaps the most important person in the firm. This goes for both face to face contact and phone contact…..

So why do companies insist on using faceless call centres to deal with both new and existing clients?

My ‘history’ with Virgin Media is well documented on this blog, so I won’t go back over old ground. However I have again this week had dealings with one of their engineers who attended to install a new modem (or ‘super hub’ as they call them). He was very efficient, polite and quick – I couldn’t find anything to complain about (strange I know) – and this has always been my experience of their staff on the ground – simply brilliant!

But, to get an engineer you have to go through the call centre! On this occasion they had given the engineer the wrong house number (I corrected it when he called to say he was 10 minutes away). It had taken me four people to get to someone who could deal with my enquiry – and I was returning their call asking me to contact them!

So Virgin – as usual, brilliant staff who actually deal with your clients on site. But your call centre gets worse!

Why can’t you see this?

 

A brilliant new building….

We have been without a library in West Bridgford for some time – the old one was closed to allow for a refurbishment and extension to be done. There was a temporary library in some first floor offices which was a good effort, but was rather like a large cupboard by comparison to the old library!

However the new building has now opened (actually over a week ago) and I had a visit this last weekend. My initial impression is of a light and spacious library with the feel of a book shop more than a traditional library. This is not a criticism – it works, the space is very inviting and relaxed – it is very busy as well! It is so good to go to a public library and literally find it full of all ages and frankly buzzing with activity.

The building we have ended up with is a scaled down version of the original proposal that got ‘canned’ due to the cuts. If the result we see today is anything to go by that would have been amazing!

So credit where credit is due – the County Council have done a first class job here. Well worth a visit if you are local to it.

 

There are still some decent people out there…..

It is great once in a while to have your faith in human nature confirmed, we do live in what seems to be an increasingly uncaring society, so an act of kindness is great to see. The reason for my comment?

Last week my son lost his wallet, he didn’t actually realise this until Friday (he is 15 so doesn’t carry it all the time) when he was about to go into town to meet some friends. A brief but frantic search ensued, but it was soon apparent that it had been lost. Phone calls followed to the bank to cancel his debit card, Nottingham City Transport to cancel his bus pass etc – you get the idea. He was also rather cross as he had left rather a lot of cash in the wallet (despite various warnings to remove it!)

So all in all, a bad start to the weekend! But, due to the act of a very kind gent who found the wallet and delivered it to Lloyds Bank in West Bridgford, who then rang us to report the delivery to them (the card was from Lloyds) he got it all back!

The wallet was delivered to Lloyds because the finder was not ‘confident’ that the Police would be the best place to take it – a rather damning indictment of our boys in blue…..

I wonder what percentage of people finding the wallet would have acted in the same way, unfortunately I believe we fell very lucky.

 

Spam texts!

I find it increasingly annoying that the level of spam received via both email and text message is not reducing. We have been suffering an increase in spam mail at work – although it does now appear to be under better control now due to the work of our spam filter providers arcanza – who are excellent.

What I find most annoying however is the spam text – we have all got them, and increasingly they relate to PPI insurance claims. I received the attached earlier this week, and the urge to reply is so strong, but apparently the best course of action is to ignore it – otherwise you are confirming the phone number is still in use.

Then forward the text to 87726 – which adds it to a black list. Sadly the mobile operators don’t appear able to sort the issue (in the same way the ISP’s have failed with Spam email).

A recent report indicates that over 80% of spam comes from about 3 small areas of the world – surely something can be done?