Sorry, but I just have to weigh in here. I just saw a commercial for a major electronics retailer (which I used to work for) that is offering customers help via the Twitter social networking service.

Although I am a former employee, and current shareholder of said company, I can’t help but fear the worst. First off, I do not believe anyone can give sound advice in 140 characters or less – heck I don’t think the end-user could provide enough info in their “question” in 140 characters for the “helpers” to attempt sound advice.

Earlier this afternoon, I made the “mistake” of using Twitter to express my opinion of this new “service” and was quickly contacted by several “members” of this new “team” of “helpers”. What I discovered in a brief “Twittersation” (is that the proper term for a conversation on Twitter?!?), is that hourly employees of this said retailer are doing this, off the clock, on their own time or even worse, on the clock at other jobs.

When I asked one of these employees if they did this on or off the clock, his answer was delivered over 4 tweets, which proves you can’t help someone or even answer a simple question in 140 characters. He basically told me that although some people in some stores can do it on the clock, he can’t because his manager doesn’t approve since it doesn’t affect his store directly. Since he can’t do it on the clock, he does it from home or from his “second job”. He said he does it because he loves his job, and the company.

First, he talks about “his manager”, which tells me he, himself is NOT a manager (who are the only exempt, non-hourly employee’s in a store), so he is hourly. Although he wasn’t “asked” to work off the clock, he, is in essence still working off the clock because when he is “helping” customers on Twitter, he is representing the company – the company is getting benefit from his actions without compensating him for his efforts. It is awesome he loves his employer, but what about his “second job” where he is at helping customers of his “first” job that he can’t help because his manager doesn’t approve because it “doesn’t effect his store directly” (BTW, great job from that “Manager” – you should be focusing more on District, Market, Territory and Company numbers than just “your store”. I know your type – you just care about your bonus )

So we have this guy who has a douche manager that doesn’t care about the company as a whole and just cares about his store, and in turn his bonus. This hourly employee loves the company so much that he is working off the clock, helping customers while he is at his “second job” who is obviously paying him to do something, that he obviously isn’t doing because he is busy helping customers of “first job” on Twitter.

I see this becoming a “major fail” very quickly.

I haven’t written much here lately. Not for bad reasons, just been busy making the most of summer and that is in some respects why I am updating my blog on Saturday afternoon – I have been out and about so much that my flat has turned into a dump! So I’m having a day of cleaning up, mopping, hoovering – everything. Later on today I’ll be off out to take a photo of a subject I need for my entry to Black and White Photography Magazine’s B&W Photographer Of The Year competition (something I don’t anticipate getting anywhere with but I’m giving it a go, and the end result is 4 prints I will like and hang on the wall even if the critics think they suck!

This time last year

Today a year ago I started walking the South Downs Way, and since then in June I walked the North Downs Way. A combined distance with all the to-ing and fro-ing of probably 380 miles. I’m quite a nostalgic person and I own a pair of rose tinted specs for every day of the year but it did get me thinking a little, of how awesome it is to be able to just get out there and walk, enjoy the countryside and take photos. I’m actually going to do a print tonight of Gander Down which is where I walked through a year ago today, pure coincidence but a happy one all the same. (My subject is the South Downs.)

About three-four years ago I had got myself into a rut, one that I progressively made deeper and deeper, it taught me a lot in hindsight but I got in with the wrong people (again) and it almost destroyed me. It’s only now I’m looking back thinking, “What the… why!” I got myself into something I didn’t need to, probably only because I felt lonely and was having a hard time adjusting to the difference of being in University and then going into work, hardly trauma central but enough to unseat you, especially when you get made redundant  and then progressively all your friends move away back to their parents and you’re holding the fort out of stubbornness, blind stupidity and mostly a love of where you now live. This was in 2005/6 (before this recession) so I do feel for people out of work who have strong work ethic, signing on at the DSS is the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done.

And then there’s the stupid things I did in that time too, at the time I felt I should be doing them, and I learnt a lot, saw a lot (and I already had beforehand, life really ain’t all roses and sweet-peas I’m afraid, not for everybody anyway, but you can make your own life pretty OK if you try hard) but even though at the time I felt I should be doing these things, I look back and think what I damn idiot I was. But c’est la vie; it got me to a good situation now of where I know exactly what I’m doing and most of all, I don’t really have much but I’m now happy and even feel that I’ve got to really cram as much in as possible because life is so short!

Next year I have plans to probably do some more chalk-hill walking, Cotswolds Way is likely. I did think of Offa’s Dyke but I also want to go to France for a week and 2 weeks of holiday one for walking, one for France eats half of my annual leave, let alone taking 2 weeks for Offa’s Dyke and 1 week for France, I’ll be left with nothing for the rest of the year virtually.

Nostalgia

Last night I sat down and went through 4 boxes of Kodachrome slides I got back from walking on the North Downs Way. (It equates to the first 4 1/2 days of walking) I swear that looking at projected slides is one of the biggest things people miss out on with digital photography. I don’t like engaging in any trivial spats like digital or film, Mac or PC etc. but the cost of a 1080p projector (which doesn’t have the resolution of projected slides) vs. a half decent slide projector and some well exposed chromes is an experience so many are now not enjoying. The richness of the colour, the detail almost dripping off the slides. Gorgeous stuff.

Anyway, it was lovely just to sit there and “re-walk” that part of the North Downs, really casts the mind back and it was most enjoyable. It’s much more enjoyable to look at a print or a slide projected than looking at something on a computer screen I think, much more detail and saturation (whatever you use, including digital) and this year alone I have had 4 or 5 people loose their PCs due to hard disk failure and you guessed it either no backups or very little, losing all of their photos!

They’re now backing them up thank goodness but it worries me people aren’t looking after their slides, negatives, JPEGs or RAW files as well as they should. Get prints, get photo books done (one of the amazing things we can now do easily due to digital), store those slides properly, just get hard copies and back up any scan files or pictures from your camera. It’s so so important, otherwise we all risk losing a great deal of photographic history of our time on this planet.