These two posters are currently on view on Liberty Street, Stanmore, near the railway bridge. I can’t help but think there’s some sort of connection… but what?
Virgin Blue’s mistake reveals countless selfish whingers
Thank you, Virgin Blue, for sending your “erroneous” email Friday night. You’ve done us a great public service. You’ve exposed a pack of greedy, selfish, shallow tools who deserve to be ridiculed publicly. Thank you.
On Friday evening, Australian airline Virgin Blue sent an email telling some Velocity Rewards members they’d been upgraded to Gold status. But as documented at mUmBRELLA, the email went not just to those entitled to the upgrade but their entire database — including people who’d opted out of email marketing.
Including me because, yes, I’m a Velocity Rewards member.
“That can’t be right,” I thought. “I haven’t flown with Virgin Blue this year.” Then I saw others saying similar things online and I figured the mistake was more widespread. I chuckled, knowing that someone had a bit of a mess to clear up.
Sure enough, three hours later a second email arrived.
Oops! Due to an error you’ve received our previous email by mistake. Please disregard the free upgrade communication as unfortunately you do not qualify for that upgrade.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Mistake. Correction. Apology. That’s the end of the story, yes? Alas no.
Suddenly a whole bunch of people are demanding their Gold status should stay even though, like, they’re not actually entitled to it. People are “upset”. They’re demanding compensation, some even saying they should be compensated with a free flight voucher.
Compensated? Compensated for fucking what, exactly?
Compensated for being too stupid to realise the email was obviously a mistake? Compensated for having a vastly over-inflated sense of entitlement? Compensated for being so much of a consumer-puppet that you validate yourself by bragging about some confected faux-status symbolised by which colour plastic card sits in your wallet and then being embarrassed because, oh sorry, you’re actually still just another cheap-arsed prole after all?
I don’t think that’s Virgin Blue’s fault.
Losers.
Now of course there’s a metric bazillion blog posts and comments banging on about how this is “epic fail” on Virgin Blue’s part and how they’d have handled it so much better and faster. I won’t link to them because it’s too depressing to realise how many instant fucking experts appear after every little glitch is made public.
However I will link to Darryl King’s excellent piece about what he calls Crowd Spanking.
Why is it that the tools of Social Media make tools out of people?
Yes, companies, people and organisations of any sort can and should be open to criticism and correction of poor behaviour. I agree totally. However I don’t agree that Crowd Spanking of everyone that does something wrong is effective nor necessary …
Add some perspective. This is not a corporation that has exposed their staff and customer to asbestos and are denying compensation. It is an upgrade people! …
Before all the Social Media Gurus come up with the 10 things that Virgin Blue could have done better blog posts think through how businesses and people at work live.
Ex-fucking-zactly.
“Epic fail” on Virgin Blue’s part? Bah! Step back a little and think about the full gamut of things which an airline can get wrong and the potential consequences. Up one end, you’ve got mistakes where hundreds of people die in a ball of flame, traumatising their loved ones. Down the other end you’ve got… gosh! A marketing email that was sent to people by mistake.
To the folks who reckon they’d have handled it better and quicker, well, are you really set up to handle such an unusual situation on a Friday night when people have gone to the pub or gone home for the weekend? Personally, I reckon identifying the problem and getting the second email out in three hours isn’t a bad effort — especially when in the meantime there’s, you know, a fucking airline to run!
Well done, Virgin Blue. Well done.
I reckon — and this is just my opinion here — but I reckon we save the Really Big Stick for mistakes which actually matter. Also, stop being such selfish, judgemental little pricks.
[Update 16 October 2009: To illustrate some points I’ll be making in the comments, here’s a screenshot of the erroneous Velocity Rewards email.]
Town Hall Hotel Furry Alert!
Look, I know it was Halloween yesterday, but it’s no excuse.
The Snarky Platypus and I were intending to enjoy a quiet drink at one of our local hostelries when we were confronted with the sight of a young man sporting a long — nay, very long — fake fur tail. In public.
In daylight!
This, Young Man, is the Town Hall Hotel! A reputable establishment. We do not need your bizarre sexual proclivities to be displayed so prominently. We do not need your bizarre sexual proclivities to be displayed at all.
Look, I’m pretty broad-minded, and generally I’m OK if you stay within the order Mammalia. But fake fur? Really?
Just where do you draw the line?
Who needs a Hummer, really?
A year-old post HUMMER to WANKER, originally a silly little piece of wordplay, has triggered a fascinating stream of comments today.
Does a suburban family of four — two adults and two children — really need a big vehicle like a Hummer to get around? I recall that as a kid we didn’t. A normal-sized Holden station wagon, which would even be considered small by today’s standards, did just fine for two adults and two kids and the everyday business of running a farm
Even with a farm, we didn’t need 4WD for the car. That’s what we had a tractor for.
If you want to have your two cents’ worth, do feel free to comment over at the original post.
Tweeting the Windows 7 launch
Tomorrow morning I’ll provide live Twitter coverage from Microsoft’s Windows 7 launch at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
There’ll be plenty of people covering the event from a technical viewpoint, so I’m going for the anthropology. The culture. The fashion.
The style is bound to be a lot like my Gonzo Twitter 1: Saturday Evening in Newtown, but with more focussed snark.
The event officially starts at 9.30am Sydney time, but I’ll start the commentary on my Twitter stream from 9am. If you’d like to play along at home, you can watch Microsoft’s live video.
I’ll use the official Twitter hashtag #win7. To see everyone’s tweets, use this Twitter search or, for a prettier version, use this Twitterfall search.
Update 3.25pm: It’s been pointed out that using the hashtag #win7 will mean our coverage of the launch event will be lost in the global chatter. We will therefore use #win7au, which you can track on Twitter Search or track on Twitterfall.
Am I John Birmingham’s inappropriate Muse?
I seem to have some really odd Special Powers. I can walk into a strange pub, buy the last few tickets for the meat raffle, and win — much to the chagrin of the regulars. I can also create inappropriate mental images which then persist.
Like “masturbating to tentacle pr0n”.
Yesterday, I made an offhand comment on Twitter to writer John Birmingham (pictured), who had the misfortune of having to watch the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion special last night.
This morning, his column Hey, it wasn’t that bad, quotes me by name.
It is, as I say, a Special Power.