CMG R.I.P.

In 1990 I got a job with a fairly small IT services company called CMG. Over the next 10 years it grew steadily into a medium sized IT services company. There was an incredible sense of community in the company. All the shares were held by the staff and there were regular after work updates on how business was going - followed by drinks on the company. When the company went public in the December 1995 it made quite a few millionaires over night, and over the following few weeks, as the share price went through the roof (sadly I was not among them). At one point during the dot.com bubble the company was worth something like 70 times the floatation price, and many employees had aquired shares at a fraction of that price . However, during those heady, frothy days at the turn of the century, CMG made a rather poor investment in merging with an overpriced and over large IT services company called Admiral. As a result of that deal, and the should-have-been predictable collapse in IT stocks a few months later, CMG became a take-over target itself; and in December 2002 was bought up (they say "merged", but we all know the truth) by Logica, forming LogicaCMG. I left LogicaCMG in 2005. Today, LogicaCMG has renamed itself to just "Logica", so CMG now officially no longer exists.

One long-serving member of CMG has organised a "wake" to mourn the loss of this great name. About 700 former employees will be meeting in a pub in the City of London on Friday evening 2008-02-29 to re-live the good times for the last time. CMG, R.I.P.

Why can’t they just apologise

Have you ever complained about something? Have you ever had your complaint taken seriously? Or do you just get fobbed off? I’ve found an increasingly common response to any complaint is “well you’re the first complaint we’ve ever had” with this implication that it’s good enough for everyone else, so you can bloody well put up with it too.

Here’s an example: a website called Intelligent Giving. It’s a very interesting website, and I may well do a post about them. But the site includes a feature they call the “Karma Calculator”. In essence, you answer a brief questionnaire and the calculator generates some insults, hiding behind the excuse of being “light-hearted”. I found it utterly offensive, so I wrote to complain as follows:

"I like your website and find the information you give very interesting. However, I did not like your 'karma calculator' one bit. I appreciate that it is intended to be "light hearted", but to be honest, I don't find sarcastic insults very funny. I am not confused - just in search of the type of information that your site seems to contain; I do understand the difference between philanthropy and misanthropy; and I do not appreciate being compared to a character from an odious American cartoon show. I suggest you re-write this nasty piece of software before you alienate any more of your potential customers."

Their response:

“Thanks for getting in touch. I'm sorry you don't like our Karma Calculator. However, over 6,000 people have used the Calculator since our site launched and yours is the first complaint we have received. We believe it fulfils its function as a light-hearted spur to giving.

I hope you profit from using other areas of our site.”

OK, so they used the “S” word, but did they take on board what I said? But they’re doing their best to do a good job, so look them up and read what’s on their site. Just steer clear of that “Karma” thingy. http://www.intelligentgiving.com/

Pineapple Slicer Gadget

Do you eat fresh pineapple? Or do you find that the hassle of pealing the things isn’t worth it? I’m sure someone has told you that there’s a way to cut the skin so that it comes off in a spiral, but no one has ever actually been able to demonstrate this trick. Then there’s always a hard core down the middle that you have to cut out.

I was given a gadget for Christmas that makes pineapples easy to eat. It’s a pineapple slicer, and it’s dead easy to use. All it is, is a plastic tube with a plastic cutting disk on one end. It’s hollow, with a removable handle. Watch this:

Cut off the top of the pineapple and place the slicer on top of the pineapple and twist, applying a bit of pressure.

Continue to twist until it reaches the bottom of the fruit

Pull the slicer out

Remove the handle, and the spiral of edible fruit comes off

The pineapple skin and woody core is left behind. You could even fill this with ice cream and freeze it.

Now all I need is a source of reasonably priced pineapples.