What an email!

Quite possibly the most spectacular email I have ever received. It's a bit long, but worth it. They say thanks four times and apologise on five occasions, but the icing on the cake is the text in bold. some names changed.

From: lastminute.com Customer Relations [mailto:ukcustomerrelations@lastminute.com]
Sent: 10 August 2009 08:44
To: Moctopod
Subject: Complaint about Theatre+Meal Package

Date: Monday 10th August 2009

Booking Reference:
Incident Number:

Dear Moctopod

Firstly I would like to thank you for choosing to book with lastminute.com, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your recent correspondence, which we have received in us at lastminute.com regarding your booking for Sister Act tickets tickets and Pizza Restaurant Chain reservation. Customer feedback, be it critical or complimentary is extremely important to us and we truly appreciate the time you have taken to write. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuous patience understanding and cooperation with this matter.

Naturally, I am extremely concerned to learn of the disappointments you have experienced with your above booking, Please be assure that I completely understand your disappointment and frustration with this situation which is why I have taken the time to thoroughly investigate your case in full for you, as here at lastminute.com we value all of our customers and their feedback.

Having studied the points raised, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere apologies for any inconvenience, disappointment or upset that may have been suffered, after investigation into your case please be assured that we had sent your reservation details to the Restaurant at the time of booking and they were aware your booking was made through us, please accept my sincere apologies that this was not the expressed to you upon your arrival to the restaurant. We had sent a fax confirmation to the restaurant and I can only apologis that the restaurant did not pick this up.

Please be advised that after spending some time discussing your case with My colluegues who deal direct with our restaurant contracts, and I am pleased to advise that we have heard back from the restaurant direct and they would also like us to extend their sincerest apologise for your experience with them.

I would like to thank you for having taken the time to bring your views to our attention, our customer comments are vital to the future success of our operation, helping us to monitor analyse and improve our service to our customers, and all correspondence is carefully analysed and brought to the attention of those responsible for effecting the necessary improvements.

I would like to reassure you in that fact that have spoken to all involved with your booking endeavouring to ensure a more professional and high level of service in the future. I wanted to ensure that your situation was highlighted to all the necessary parties in order to secure a more professional approach in the future aiming to provide the highest level of customer service that we at lastminute.com have come to expect, all customer feedback and concerns will be logged against the particular Restaurant/supplier in order for us to monitor their operations and practices. I would like to explain that here at lastminute.com we do keep a log of complaints received into us and logging each complaint against each property. This is to allow us to monitor the operations and practices of our restaurants suppliers. If complaint levels reach a certain rate on a certain suppluer we do have the ability to run reports and asses our contracts. Therefore please do have faith that your feedback is extremely valued by ourselves as it will help us to ensure we maintain the highest level of service we aim to work towards. our customer comments are vital to the future success of our operation, helping us to monitor analyse and improve our service to our customers, and all correspondence is carefully analysed and brought to the attention of those responsible for effecting the necessary improvements.

Please be assured that here at lastminute.com we do pride ourselves on our customer satisfaction, we value all of our customers, and all customer feedback be it critical or complimentary is extremely important to us. We are continuously working to exceed all of our customer's expectations, we are continually looking to improve the service we provide and ensure every customers experience with us is an excellent one. We are continuously and actively listening to our customers in order to improve our service and retain and encourage repeat customers. Therefore it is extremely disappointing when business partners we are involved with jeopardise the high reputation that we at lastminute.com work so hard to achieve.

Furthermore as here at lastminute.com we take customer service very seriously, we always strive to exceed all of our customers expectation and expect all of our suppliers and hotels to do the same, as a valued and loyal customer, and in appreciation of your feedback and the series of events experienced, as a gesture of goodwill from lastminute.com and Pizza Restaurant Chain I am delighted to explain that have negotiated A full refund on the restaurant element of your bookings and also the chance to revisit Pizza Restaurant Chain for a complimentary meal up to the value of £xx. I can confirm that I have successfully refunded your card used to make the booking s for a total of £xx; this refund process has been successful and teh amount should show back into your account within the next 5-10 working days. I would like to explain that when you are ready to book your restaurant reservation pleasae email me directly on .@lastminute.com and i will arrange this with Pizza Restaurant Chain on your behalf.

In closing, I would again like to offer my sincere apologies for any distress that may have been suffered, I trust the above information has clarified any concerns you may have had, and I thank you for your most valued custom and raised comments. I do truly hope that you were still able to enjoy your theatre show, I have to say sister act does look amazing.

I do hope that my assistance has helped towards restoring your faith in us, lastminute.com and will ensure your confidence and reassurance when enjoying our activities in the future.

I do truly hope that the above information has helped to explain and sufficiently respond to your previously raised concerns, however if you do have any further queries or questions at all regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us either by telephone or by return email back to myself.

I do truly hope that you continue to be a valued customer of ours and continue to enjoy our products and services on our site www.lastminute.com.

Assuring you of our best intentions at all times

Kindest regards

Generic Name

Therapy: the game

I’m currently on my psychiatry placement. I’m not going to write about any of the patients I’ve seen and spoken to so far (to be honest it’s a bit overwhelming and there’s still so much to think about), but I wanted to share something that caught my attention. My consultant runs a ‘first episode psychosis’ clinic in a fairly innocuous looking youth centre, where patients with newly diagnosed psychotic episodes can receive medical help away from the stigma-attached local mental health unit. One patient didn’t want a student present, so I went to the waiting room where I spotted the above ‘game’ on a table. Alas I didn’t have time to explore the contents...

Kilburn

I love where I live. The culture, the energy, the amenities, the transport links. It's been my only home, and it hurts to see what's happened in the past few months, as the economic downturn has taken it's grip.

Photos taken on Kilburn High Road on the 5th April 2009

Week's achievements

Random things I've done this week, in no particular order:

1. Retched in a paraglider.
2. Saw a surgeon faint mid-operation.
3. Clerked a patient about her alcohol usage (she said she drank champage at the weekends. When I asked how many glasses, she replied "Glasses? I'm talking bottles!).
4. Flossed.
5. Lost a very special friend.
6. Won an unimportant pub quiz.
7. Assessed first aid proficiency.
8. Attended a lecture Linux kernel modules.
9. Visited the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition.
10. Learnt how to tell the time in Portuguese.

A question

"Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. ….Would you plug in? What else can matter to us, other than how our lives feel from the inside?"

Robert Nozick, ‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’

A lesson?

My thesis is drowning me. Slowly and insidiously, it's started to occupy all my waking and sleeping hours. And it really doesn't seem all that important any more. Will it change clinical practice? Unlikely. Why couldn't I have achieved more in the thirty six moths of slog? Do I have the maturity to overcome this mental stagnation?

And yet, with two months until returning to medicine, I'm also excited again, intoxicated by the promise of a new challenge. Questions of inadequacy will always be my companions, but maybe there are simpler paths to a a more enriching life.

Sardarji Joke

Another Sardarji joke...but this time the tables have been turned!


A sardarji comes up to the Pakistan border on his bike. He's got two large bags over his shoulders.

The guard Iqbal stops him and says, 'What's in the bags?' 'Sand,' answered the Sardarji.

Iqbal says, 'We'll just see about that. Get off the bike.'

Iqbal's guard takes the bags and rips them apart, he empties them out and finds nothing in them but sand. He detains the Sardarji all night and has the sand analyzed, only to discover that there is nothing but pure sand in the bags. Iqbal releases the sardaji, puts the sand into new bags, lifts them onto the sardarji's shoulders, and lets him cross the border.

A week later, the same thing happens. Iqbal asks, 'What have you got?' 'Sand,' says the Sardarji.

Iqbal does his thorough examination and discovers that the bags contain nothing but sand. He gives the sand back to the Sardar, and crosses the border on his bike. This sequence of events is repeated every day for three years.

Finally, the Sardarji doesn't show up one day and the guard, Iqbal, meets him in a 'Dhaba' in Islamabad.

'Hey, Buddy,' says Iqbal, 'I know you are smuggling something. It's driving me crazy. It's all I think about...I can't sleep. Just between you and me, what are you smuggling?'

The Sardaji sips his Lassi and says, 'Bikes'