Jack's Life Advice
Oct. 19th, 2011 01:08 pm1. Whether you're cycling or driving, try to avoid undertaking a car approaching a roundabout and pulling out across them without signalling in order to go through a red light to go the wrong way round the roundabout.
2. A "refund" is when you give someone their money back. Or at least, when you don't have to do anything, but let them return what they bought anyway, even if you only offer store credit. Apparently when your train doesn't turn up, a "refund" is in the form of vouchers with specific conditions attached. Sure, if I'm refunded £60, it's worth taking an hour to cycle to the station and back to buy the new tickets. But it's a great scam for refunds smaller than that (and obviously, being an hour late on a 2 minute journey is probably MORE annoying than being an hour late on a five hour journey), because it makes the refund essentially worthless to a big segment of the population. I wonder if they could have attached more onerous conditions if they wanted, or if there's a minimum standard in their contract. Could they say, "here, here's a refund provided you go to [central office, London]" or "provided you go to [central office, Dublin]" or "provided you go to [central office, Dublin] at [four in the morning on Christmas day] and [queue for nine hours] with [a chicken on your head]"?
2. A "refund" is when you give someone their money back. Or at least, when you don't have to do anything, but let them return what they bought anyway, even if you only offer store credit. Apparently when your train doesn't turn up, a "refund" is in the form of vouchers with specific conditions attached. Sure, if I'm refunded £60, it's worth taking an hour to cycle to the station and back to buy the new tickets. But it's a great scam for refunds smaller than that (and obviously, being an hour late on a 2 minute journey is probably MORE annoying than being an hour late on a five hour journey), because it makes the refund essentially worthless to a big segment of the population. I wonder if they could have attached more onerous conditions if they wanted, or if there's a minimum standard in their contract. Could they say, "here, here's a refund provided you go to [central office, London]" or "provided you go to [central office, Dublin]" or "provided you go to [central office, Dublin] at [four in the morning on Christmas day] and [queue for nine hours] with [a chicken on your head]"?