Posted on April 29, 2013 by The Bay Area Brit
The last time I was in England I was reminded of the difference between American and British customer service. When you go to a supermarket in the U.K. the cashier is responsible for ringing up your groceries AND THAT’S IT. If you want someone to bag up your things, forget it, you might as well have a grocery bagger flown in all the way from the States.
Fair enough.
In the U.S. the supermarket cashiers are told to engage their customers, call them by their name, and be familiar to encourage a sense of community and loyalty. But it can all go horribly wrong when a clerk, as often happens, assesses what you’re buying and announces to you (and whomever is around you) what you’re having for dinner. This is all well and good if you’re buying chicken, corn, burgers and buns, and a 12-pack of Bud Lite.
“I’ll bet you’re barbecuing,” they’ll say.
“Yep, you got me, we’re barbecuing.” Your mouth forces a reluctant uncomfortable smile. Perhaps you feel a little guilty that you are indeed off to a barbecue as the cashier toils away at their job for another 6 or 7 hours.
But suppose instead of placing barbecuing supplies on that conveyor belt, you’re buying toenail fungus ointment, hemorrhoid cream, and 27 rolls of toilet paper. The last thing you want is an uber-chatty checkout clerk trying to do their best Sherlock Holmes impression, loudly announcing how they imagine the rest of your evening is going to go.
There’s a clerk at the supermarket near where I work. If I see her manning the cash register on the late shift I (now) immediately leave the store. She is the slowest moving creature with a pulse I have ever seen, and then she wants to chat everyone up when they finally… FINALLY get to the front of the long line. Through gritted teeth I have watched, waiting in line for 15, sometimes 20 minutes as she examines and comments on every item she scans. “Hm, I’ve never tried organic kidney beans, are they good?”
I hang in there, hopeful that a co-worker will soon come and open a second cash register to relieve her of her self-imposed burden.
Well, I’m going to miss my train, but since it comes every 20 minutes I SHOULD be able to make the next one,” I think. If she could just reduce the chit-chat to less than 5 minutes per customer.
So I finally get to the front of the line with my “Hungry Man” Turkey and Mash frozen TV dinner and a Miller High Life tall boy. As she begins to try to engage me in small-talk, all I want to say is, “I have had a VERY long day, just ring up my shit. I don’t even care about getting my change back so that the poor bastards behind me won’t have to wait a fucking eternity to get out of this quicksand you have created!”
But I can’t do that, because then I would be the bad guy. And god knows I hate being the bad guy. So instead, I just politely nod and watch her slowly fumble for the bag to put my two items in and then I hurry on my way.
What a sad and pathetic creature she is, I think. It now looks likely I’m going to even miss that next train now, but, oh well, at least I have a beer I can drink on the platform while waiting 18 or 19 minutes in the cold, and maybe that frozen TV dinner won’t take as long to cook now as it will be thawing while I wait.
On the platform I stew, wishing I could convey to her bosses just how their concept of “good customer service” has backfired because some of their employees don’t understand that it’s okay to have a sense of urgency or to call for help when the line is so long it nears the back end of the supermarket, but in my heart I know that wouldn’t be fair to her.
But oooooh, I really, really wanna.
Why can’t people be more like me, I think. Well if she got let go, maybe she could work at the Post Office or, hey, the DMV would probably think she was a real speedy go-getter.
I laugh to myself as I wait on the train platform. I’m hungry. I open up the box of my gray, frozen TV dinner and peel back the transparent covering. I chip at the red chunks of frozen cranberry sauce with the blade end of a wine opener while sipping my cheap American beer. I’m now waiting for a train that is arriving 40 minutes later than the one I should have been on.
I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have even gone to the store. I should have just come straight to the BART station. I fall for it every time, like Charlie Brown and that damned football.
I look at my watch and scowl and briefly catch my reflection in the platform window. I’m a miserable human. Crappy beer in one hand, my brain directs my other hand to a chunk of frozen cranberry sauce on my chin. My God, look at yourself. Who’s a sad and pathetic creature now?
I am stunned by my own image of misery and accidentally knock my beer over. Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! That’s just fucking great!
I calm down.
Hm, I wonder if I have time to run to the supermarket and get back here before the next train comes.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Lafayette Safeway, Matty Stone, Poor customer service at supermarket, Slow Supermarket cashier, The Bay Area Brit is the Bay Area Twit | 13 Comments »
Posted on February 25, 2013 by The Bay Area Brit
Last week The Bay Area Brit turned three.
The terrible twos were good to me. And since three is one greater than two, I expect this third year to be …er…oh, shit… Math …hang on …carry the one…minus the Leap Year day last year…um…Awesome!
Today is February 25th and marks the one-year anniversary that my host, WordPress started keeping track of the various countries that visit The Bay Area Brit site. Now this won’t tickle your fancy as much as it does me/mine, but in the last 365 days I have had visitors from 99 different countries. Now I know what you’re thinking: So what, 99 people from 99 countries happened to stumble upon your stupid little, somewhat amusing site in the space of a calendar year.
Well that’s not quite the case.
My ego will not allow me to believe this was in any way an inconsequential feat.
I have had only 3 hits from China. It’s a country of a billion people, but I happen to know that those hits came from some pretty influential people. In my mind, I’m bigger than Chairman Mao at his peak, and there are giant banners with my face on it decorating Tienanmen Square. Maybe I should tell the lady that answers the phone when I order take-out from my local Chinese restaurant (Yang Chow) that I am extremely famous in her homeland. Maybe I will get the special friend and family discount or some free Chow Mein or maybe they’ll name a dish after me…That would be pretty cool.
I had a cyber-visitor from Iran. This was not recorded by my host but by a different site that tracks visits. They also showed a visit from someone in Sudan that also wasn’t registered by my host. Well whats up with that, WordPress?
My Iranian and Sudanese peeps want to know the Brit’s scoop too.
The day that film director James Cameron went 20,000 leagues under the sea off the coast of Guam in his mini-submarine, I got a visit on my site from Guam. True. Guess who in my warped mind I assume visited my site? That’s right. Mr. James Cameron. I also feel pretty sure that there will be a British character in his next movie loosely based upon you know who…wink-wink.
- “If something goes wrong down there at the bottom of the ocean, please tell The Bay Area Brit how much I love his work.”
Okay, so yeah, I’m a tad delusional.
I’ve had hits in Africa too. Ten countries in Africa. Did I mention how famous I am in Africa? I’m like Nelson Mandela meets Haile Selassie meets Shaka Zulu meets Charlize Theron. I could like totally be the President of Africa. Well, you know, if one person could rule a continent. *Note to self* learn Swahili.
I’m also massive in random East-European countries. Countries that I never even knew existed. And by massive I of course mean that I get a shit-ton of hits…and why not, yo, I’m eloquent and whatnot. I’m so whatnot.
I’ll bet that if the dismantling of the Soviet Bloc hadn’t already happened I could have helped with that. You know why? Because Mother Russia loves it some Bay Area Brit. Da, it is true.
Some people have said that I must have an agent that spends his calendar year going from country-to-country and logging in Internet Cafes and hitting up TheBayAreaBrit.com. I have encouraged my friends to support: (Whassup, Venezuela, New Zealand, Malawi, and some of Scandinavia) But an agent? If that was the case, wouldn’t I just have the agent go to one more country so I could claim 100 countries? But then I couldn’t use the cool Agent 99 Get Smart reference.
The third highest number of hits after The U.S. and Canada (my face soon to be printed on the Canadian dollar BTW) is of my homeland: Great Britain.
However, In spite of the hits, I’m pretty sure the British don’t care about me….No, no, no, no …it’s okay…But that’s the beauty of being British: We really don’t care about stupid things like a trivial blog written by some Trans-Atlantic twat.
I’m appreciated in China, ALL of the former Soviet bloc, every European country, Iran and a bevy of other countries in the Middle-East. Almost all of Central and South America, Some of Africa, and all of Asia excluding North Korea. But the response back home in Britain? “Think you’re better than us do ya?”
“No, no, no, no. Well, yes, of course I do. Did I mention I’m a tad delusional?”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Agent 99, Delusional Bay Area Brit, Matty Stone, The Bay Area Brit now read in 99 countries, The Godfather of Bay Area British comedy, Wordpress blog | 6 Comments »
Posted on January 8, 2013 by The Bay Area Brit
Look at me. I’m like a child on the morning of his birthday, waiting for the mailman to bring him a gift. No, it’s worse than that: I’m like a spoiled lapdog running to the window every ten seconds, waiting for his owner to come home. Every faint whiff of perfume that wafts through the slightly cracked window has him running around in circles near the front door.
Why? I’ve been waiting for a delivery from Fed Ex. It’s a laptop; I paid a lot of money for it and I want it, now. I’d like to take my mind off receiving my new “toy” by going for a walk or something but I’m imprisoned in my home waiting for the uniformed delivery person to arrive. “We’ll be there between 8am and 7 pm, guaranteed,” the Fed Ex representative told me when I called to ask for more specific delivery details.
“Well that’s great, but my schedule isn’t as flexible as yours. I have to leave my house to go to work at 4 p.m.” I chose my next few words carefully, aware that I may get red-flagged for a later delivery time for my insubordination. I continued, trying to convey that I was only trying to arrange a specific, smaller window of time to save the deliveryman, or woman, any inconvenience.
“Surely the most disappointing thing in the world for a driver is to ring the doorbell, it not be answered, and have to take the package back to the hub at the airport. Wouldn’t it make sense to give the customer a two-hour period that they could plan their other obligations around? Surely it would save man-hours and let’s not forget the cost of gas.” The phone representative was unimpressed with my logic. Realizing that this person was almost certainly, in spite of all my charmed attempts, not able to bump me up to a quicker delivery time I revealed my true personality.
“Well, sir, is there anything else I can help you with today?” she said.
“No thanks. Pretty much the only thing I needed from you was a rough idea of when I might see my package. You couldn’t help me with that. The chances that you can help me find an alternative, energy efficient, eco-friendly fuel source for my vehicle is not likely, now is it?” Yes it is true, I get the phone hung up on me a lot. Having said that being a smart-ass is easier on the phone, it lessens the likelihood of being punched in the nose.
With every truck that I hear trundle down my street, I rush to the window, only to be disappointed once again. I need a Fed EX truck, not a brown UPS truck, not a yellow DHL van, neither of these are any good. The truck that contains my new laptop has to have the words FED and EX in it.
When I was a child back in England, there were no package delivery companies competing with the postal service. If you didn’t get your package early in the morning delivered by the Royal Mail, you waited until the following morning. Yes, you might have to wait until tomorrow, but at least you can get on with today rather than being held hostage.
“WHERE IS MY PACKAGE?”
So I wait and I wait, and yes, even the big, green Alhambra water delivery truck sounds similar to a van that would deliver my package. The sliding door, on a Soccer Mom’s SUV, alerts me for a brief second. There’s a yellow school bus making the rounds. As it makes its way up the slight incline, it shifts into another gear. It sounds so similar to a delivery truck, my heart sinks when I see the animated joy of the small children on their way to their homes at the end of their school day. I look at myself in the mirror. I see the facial expression of a miserable and impatient human being.
Who are these delivery people that feel they have the right to steal a day of my life away from me? I suppose if I lived on a street slightly more traveled, then I wouldn’t pay such close attention to every over-sized vehicle meandering past my window; but I do. I’m so blinded by my excitement and impatience that it crosses my mind that perhaps my door buzzer is broken. Could I have possibly missed delivery of my package? I run down the three flights of stairs; there is no little sticky paper attached to my mailbox. How can I be sure though? It’s possible that some miscreant peeled off my notice of redelivery. Which I am sure would be in a timeframe somewhere between tomorrow and next month. How can I discover whether or not my buzzer is actually working? I knock on my neighbor’s door. “Hey, Jim.”
“It’s John.”
“Oh, sorry, can you come into my apartment and tell me if my doorbell is working? I’m expecting a package.”
I am caught between flights in the stairwell when I hear a truck slowing down; the high-pitched squeak of its overly used brakes grabs my attention. Should I run downstairs and wait? Or should I go back up to my apartment?
I run upstairs, usher my neighbor from my living room, and stare out my window. There it is: the big white delivery truck. The words FED EX painted in bright orange and purple. I watch the driver’s every move. He checks his little piece of paper to make sure he has the delivery address correct. “Come on buddy,” I say to myself. “I’m up here #301.”
He gets out of the driver’s side and walks around to the back. He climbs into the truck; he’s in there for ages. Has he lost my package? I hear the sliding door slam closed. Here he comes. Here it is. He is carrying my laptop. Oh my God. Oh my God. I stand by the door entry speaker in my hallway. I imagine him surveying the list of numbers next to the names on the row of door buzzers—any second now. The intercom buzzes. “I’ll be right down,” I yell into the speaker before even allowing him to announce his arrival.
I fly down the stairs and giddily accept the package and thank the driver ever so politely. My signature on his handheld computer is shaky. I don’t care I have my laptop. Sure I had to call in sick for work, but yes, the representative was right; my package arrived before 7 p.m. A whole ten minutes under the wire. I’m so grateful; I don’t care. I run up to my apartment and tear open the packaging. I have my new toy.
Now every truck, school bus and SUV can feel free to drive down my road without fear of being spied and scorned. That is until the next time I order something online.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Bay Area Brit, humor, Matty Stone, The Bay Area Brit, The Package, Waiting for a delivery | 3 Comments »
Posted on October 9, 2012 by The Bay Area Brit
Well, friends, it’s that time again. Here’s The Gospel Part IV. I put Gospels II, and III and a link to the first one below because I love you all so very much.
This young man’s ability to snore his way undisturbed though a busy evening commute was astounding, until I poured piping hot coffee on his crotch.
Blocking the passage way with your Burning Man luggage and ugly clown pants will likely earn you an unwanted “decompression” from Desert-Life, especially on a late-night BART to the murder capital of California.
Edith Humphrey, age 53, confronts her potentially life-endangering pollen allergy with reckless abandon on the 2:17 to Fremont.
Text reads: “Mom, I don’t think this is Tatooine, please beam me back. These are my co-ordinates.”
“OMG! Mom, ur the worst! Forget it. I’m gonna just take the train.”
“Actually, Mr. BART Po-lice-man, I don’t think my feet ARE on the seat.”
“Sign? I didn’t see any sign.”
Ever wonder what lurks behind those dreadful poster ads? It’s Cyber-technology, and much like me, it’s watching you misbehave on BART. My favorite part is the guy who thinks I’m just randomly taking a photo of him. Don’t flatter yourself, dude. Besides, this blog is read in 76 countries, and that disapproving scowl could go viral.
The Gospel According To BART….Part III
Picture if you will, a series of tunnels and tracks that run through the Bay Area, both underground and above it. A place where not everything is what it seems. A place known as…..
Who knows what creatures you might see lurking out the window, tearing at the engine of the train.
When I’m having a rough morning after a late night fight with my wife, I love to bow my head, inhale the “fresh scent” of a BART seat and cry. It smells like dirty hair and things I regret saying while I was drunk.
These ads are everywhere. I care about them enough to make fun of their “awesomer” ability to make up words, but not enough to actually look up the website to see what the bloody hell it’s all about. WORST BART AD EVER!
It’s late, and on the BART platform sits proof that (somewhere) a Chippendale’s dancer is out of uniform.
If “fragile” means, “The suitcase that will crush all other suitcases when coming into sight at baggage claim,” then, yes, this suitcase is indeed “fragile.”
“My bike!!!!!!”……………BART would like to remind cyclists that it is not responsible for bikes parked on BART property.
“I can’t believe this jerk just put his feet up on my seat penning in me in like this. I’m going to tell him off any second now…..I’m just going to give this rude piece of shit a piece of my mind…..Oh, boy he’s going to feel my wrath….I’m just gonna……I’m ……Meh, maybe I’ll just stare wanly into an open space wishing that I had the nerve to say something.”
At least this guy had the sense to keep his feet off the seat.
Get me Bert Goldstein in Hollywood and find out why he hasn’t got me an acting gig in 5 months.
I said, “Ma’am, I don’t think this train goes to Paddington station.” She looked at me like I’m crazy and shuffled away from me. Yeah, like I’m the crazy one.
Always pay attention to the signs on the platform; they often contain information that must be obeyed.
The Gospel According To BART ….Part II
BART continues to be a source of amusement for the pic-and-caption team at The Bay Area Brit. I hope that you feel the same way.
The BART station agent’s financial woes are aired for everyone to see. However, if BART paid him more money maybe he would stay in his little booth the whole shift like he’s supposed to.
I keep seeing these ads on the BART platforms everywhere. I know when I’m scraping together the $2.75 to take BART in the morning, I often think to myself: “I should just donate my luxury yacht to some page 3 pin-up dressed like Donald Duck.” Really?
Speaking of ads: Why did the people that paid for the Judgment Day Warning posters pay to have their ads run through the end of July? Silly rapture-wanters.
This young man takes a heroin nap during the evening commute to San Francisco. He will wake up three hours later in Richmond and will have somehow lost his wallet, his ID, his sunglasses, and his Nikes.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen, people.
A Female commuter regrets her decision to partake in “Take A Convict To Work Day” when he tells her that he’s never really known true love before…until now.
You know I just couldn’t resist.
Here’s that link to the first Gospel.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Bay Area Brit funny blog, Funny blog about BART, Matty Stone, San Francisco BART humor, The Bay Area Brit | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 14, 2012 by The Bay Area Brit
Due to the popularity of a blog I wrote last year called: “The Illustrated Guide On How To Dine & Dash,” I made a short film. So now you don’t have to read all those long and complicated words.
Click the image below. Enjoy!
Feel free to comment and share the video, or hey, you know, you can donate to The Bay Area Brit too if you want. That wouldn’t suck.
Sincerely,
Your Bay Area Brit
xxxxx
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: funny blog, How To Dine and Dash Film, Matty Stone, Satirical How To video, The Bay Area Brit | 2 Comments »
Posted on May 27, 2012 by The Bay Area Brit
Without a doubt, the highlight of my first visit to San Francisco was seeing (and then crossing) the Golden Gate Bridge. As famous architectural icons go, it stands with the Taj Mahal, The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, The Eiffel Tower, and Sydney Opera House.
Not only that, the Golden Gate Bridge is an authentic color blindness test. You see, I could have sworn that the Golden Gate Bridge was red. In every photograph of it, scene in a movie, or opening TV credits of a San Francisco based sit-com or drama, the Golden Gate Bridge looks red to me…but no, it is apparently orange.
A pot of Golden Gate Bridge sits at the end of this rainbow.
I was told/misinformed that there was one man whose single job responsibility was to paint the illustrious bridge. He starts painting at one end, and by the time he gets across to the other side of the bridge, effectively finishing the job, it’s time to repaint the thing all over again. The painter’s name is Frank, and he is responsible for making sure that the bridge stays its famous color, which is apparently called International Orange.
When I heard of this, I told anyone that would listen that the Golden Gate Bridge was red, and I would not hear of it being referred to as orange—International or otherwise.
When I first traversed the bridge, it was near sunset and I wondered whether Frank the lone painter was still at work. Perhaps he was hoping to finish just one more little stretch of column before calling it a day. I imagined the monotony of such a lonely profession.
What did he think about, day in and day out? When he closed his eyes at night, did he see that same red-orange color?
Maybe he dreamed about coming into work and painting the bridge a different international color. I wondered how much of the bridge he could get painted before his boss, or the Five O’clock News, caught wind of his little game?
I imagined Frank going into the paint store holding a small book of color swatches, which yesterday—perched on top of the Golden Gate Bridge—he had held up against the San Francisco skyline.
“Ten thousand gallons of the usual today, Frank?” the paint store manager asked, happy to see his best customer.
“Yeah, I suppose,” said Frank firmly clasping the swatches. “Actually, instead of making that International Orange, have you got any Equatorial Turquoise or Continental Mauve?”
“Ooh, not ten thousand gallons, I’d have to special order that,” said the manager.
“Could you have it by Thursday?”
“I could try. Say—you’re not planning on painting the Golden Gate Bridge turquoise, are you?” asked the manager suspiciously.
“Me? No, no no, heavens no. The turquoise is for—another job I’m doing further up north.”
“Okay, Frank, whatever you say, but I’m going to need you to pay for this up front, since it’s not for the bridge an’ all.”
“That’s fine,” said Frank. He nervously opened his wallet and placed his credit card on the counter. The manager picked up the card, and the two men silently waited for the transaction to process. Frank scratched a larger fleck of International Orange paint off of his dark blue overalls.
The payment came through, Frank signed the credit card slip and left the store. The painter jumped into his truck and drove off. As soon as the store manager saw the truck was out of sight, he picked up the phone.
“Get me the Five O’clock News.”
******
Happy Birthday, Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Area would be a lot less awesome without you.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: funny San Francisco blog, Golde Gate Bridge 75th birthday, Golden Gate Bridge 75th anniversary, International Orange, Matty Stone is The Bay Area Brit, The Bay Area Brit Golden Gate Bridge, who paints the golden gate bridge? | 1 Comment »
Posted on May 21, 2012 by The Bay Area Brit
So I was going to check out the solar eclipse yesterday afternoon, but you know I was in a bar at a show in a windowless venue, and this solar eclipse nonsense was happening, and it was like ALL the way outside.
“I suppose I’d better go and check it out,” I said to no one in particular, and I started to get up off of my seat to go, but right at that very moment, my attention span was distracted by a song, or was it a pretty girl, or maybe it was just those floaty things that move around under the surface of your eyeballs when you’re not really looking anywhere. Either way, I missed the eclipse because of a combination of laziness and a terrible attention span.
It all started at a young age, the teacher would be prattling on about what causes a solar eclipse and what Isaac Newton, Britain’s most famous astronomer, wrote about them, and I’d be thinking about a song, or a pretty girl, or mentally chasing those floaty things under my eyeballs. Or maybe my mind would just go off on an unexplainable one minute tangent.
Sir Isaac Newton
The famous English physicist and astronomer was one of the key thinkers on the understandings of the principles of gravity. One day, while he was sitting under a tree, an apple fell on his head prompting his thought process………………
Huh…an apple?…that’s weird…lucky he wasn’t sitting under a cherry tree. He wouldn’t have even felt the little berry hit his head because of those big gray wigs that they wore in those days. He would have just had this bright red cherry sticking out of his wig like a traffic light indicating STOP! in a thick fog.
No one would have said anything to him about his cherry wig accessory to embarrass him, because he was a really famous physicist and astronomer—except that he wasn’t, because he SHOULD have been under a tree whose fruit bore a little weight, like a grapefruit or a coconut, although that might have hurt.
Could you imagine if a coconut hit him? He might have got a concussion or worse—instant death. Then we’d still be without this whole gravity thing sorted out; maybe we’d have to wear moon boots like the astronauts.
I wonder if Newton ate the noggin-bruised apple. Or did he run home clasping the fruit in his hand so that he wouldn’t forget what principle it was that he discovered?
Maybe Newton kept the apple like it was a trophy awarded for his genius.
How long would it be before the fruit decomposed and became an eyesore?
Or did he have the apple preserved forever? Whenever Mr. and Mrs. Newton had guests over for dinner and conversation got stale, would Newton say, “Lord Montague, have you seen my apple?”
“Oh God, he’s getting the apple out again…Yes, yes, gravity, we’ve heard it,” Mrs. Newton would groan.
Did it irritate Mrs. Newton that her husband was a genius? He must have been right about everything.
I think being right about everything would be brilliant. For one thing, you’d be rich. You’d win the lottery because you’d know all the numbers. I think if I were rich I’d keep all my money in a big room in a mansion I bought with my winnings. I would make sure that I didn’t have large denominations, though, just small ones to make it look like I had even more money, like the old One Pound notes that they had in England before they changed to the Pound coins.
Why would you have a Ten-Pound note when you could have ten One Pound notes? The One Pound notes were the best. What was the name of that famous English physicist and astronomer pictured on the One Pound note?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: eclipse schmeclipse, Matty Stone is The Bay Area Brit, random funny stream of consciousness, San Francisco funny blog, Sir Issac Newton and his bloody apple, solar eclipse May 20th 2012, The Bay Area Brit | 2 Comments »
