It’s the end of April – May starts this week – and I’m still walking around with my poofy North Face jacket on. I still lean into the 30mph wind gusts and try to ignore the biting 40 degree weather, telling myself that I’ve made it through worse weather in this city. I tell myself that I only need to hang on for another few days, and surely things will warm up then. Except that I’ve been telling myself this for the last month – a month where the rest of the world long ago decided to usher in Spring. While elsewhere flowers bloom, birds sing, babies laugh, and people sing Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” to each other – in Chicago I still wipe away my tears of frustration and soldier on.
What makes things worse is Chicago’s schizophrenic insistence on sprinkling balmy warm days between the regular arctic blasts. This continues until one day it will be summer and 90 degrees out. Chicago plays sick mind games with its population, and for the longest time I struggled to find the proper analogy for what the city goes through, until it finally hit me – every year Chicago gets pregnant in September, and tries to give birth to Summer nine months later.
Think about it – the city starts out happy and giddy with possibilities in September. The first trimester is not too bad – sure there is morning sickness here and there as the mercury drops occasionally, but there’s the bigger picture to keep in mind. The second trimester the hormones go out of whack, and things get dicey. You can’t do anything to please the city, and even if you take one wrong step you get hit with freezing -20 weather, with snowstorms that make you wonder about this whole global warming nonsense. You eventually round the corner into the third trimester, which is when you begin praying for the pregnancy to conclude. This is the most frustrating part, especially the last few weeks.
Here is where the false contractions begin. One day it’ll be cold and blustery, and then suddenly it’ll be 65 and perfect. Is this it? Do you rush to pack away your winter clothes and bust out the flip-flops? Haha – no. Just kidding. False contraction – the next day it’s back to 30 degrees and depressing. Then the contractions start coming closer and closer together – two warm days here and there separated by only four or five cold ones. But your patience is being tested, because it is May now, and you really, really want to feel the sun on your face.
Now the contractions are close enough together that Chicago has to be taken to the hospital, where you as the useless significant other wait around, twiddling your thumbs, leafing through old magazines and drinking bad coffee from the cafeteria. And you wait. And wait. And then suddenly it begins. The city is ready to give birth! You rush to its side and hold its hand and ice its brow while it flings obscenities at you that make you blush. “C’mon honey, c’mon, you can do it” you gently encourage.
Suddenly Summer starts to crown, and the city tries to push, and you hold your breath in anticipation, and time slows down. And then it’s there – with a wet plop Summer arrives into the world. Temperatures immediately soar into the 90s, you are dazed and confused, but weirdly happy. You’re a new person now, with new responsibilities. You have to wear lighter clothes now, and purchase things like running shoes and bikes and roller blades. You wonder what life was like before Summer, but can’t quite remember, and anyway you don’t really care anymore. The city has blessed you with warm weather, and that’s all that matters.
Personally, I’d rather we just induce pregnancy or have a C-section every year and get Summer here on time in April – so what if Chicago thinks that’ll result in a premature baby? I don’t care. It saves me from the agonizing depression that I’m currently going through. Unfortunately I know I’m not in control. It’ll be warm when Chicago is ready to let it be warm. Until then, I’ll have to suck it up, and continue to wear my poofy North Face jacket.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Guilty pleasures
My work productivity has been creeping up during business hours. Whether this is because my nascent coffee habit is turning me into twitchy yet efficient worker bee, or whether I’ve reduced the frequency with which I browse www.cakewrecks.com, I don’t know. But I’m happy with this development, especially since it means that I have less work to do over the weekend, and can actually tackle those pesky projects that have been sitting on my to-do list, collecting the proverbial dust.
This weekend’s project entailed taking my calcifying CD collection and ripping the songs onto my computer's hard-drive so that, you know, I too could act like today’s cool youth and listen to music on something called an “i-Pod” (you should check these devices out, seriously). My ulterior motive, however, was to do away with damning evidence that I have no taste in music – it’s easier for me to secretly store my Michael Bolton collection as mp3s in a folder cryptically titled “Bichael Molton”, than to have my daughter accidentally discover the “Best Of” collection years from now, and go crying to her mother because she doesn’t understand why daddy is this way.
Along the ripping process I discovered that at one time I enjoyed listening to all things Jackson (several Michael CD’s, as well as multiple Janet compilations), that at one time I had an affinity for Celtic music (go ahead, laugh – I’m proud of being the only Pakistani who enjoys jamming to a rollicking Irish bagpipe number), and that I have a fetish for Backstreet Boys songs. There, I said it. It feels good to let that out. I can finally move on now.
And don’t you dare judge me. I know you have secret song crushes too, even though you hate to admit it. Act nonchalant if you want. Flaunt your love for indy music and that obscure band from Turkey that no one else has heard, as evidence that you’re a music cognoscenti. But at the end of the day, I *know* that when you’re cruising down the highway with no one in the car, you’ll roll up the windows and secretly blast “Quit Playing Games With My Heart”. And that you’ll sing along. Loudly. And cry, because you don’t want others to play games with your heart.
Anecdotally I know this to be true. But I obtained evidence this weekend as well. I was ripping songs from a mix collection that a special someone gave to me while I was a freshman in college [special someone shall remain unnamed but this was well before I met my wife, my true special someone (I love you honey!)], when Saeeda brought Nuha into the room and started playing with the baby. It just so happened that I was burning a Backstreet Boys song from this CD at the time, and I couldn’t mute the computer volume fast enough. I don’t know why, but I felt flustered and dirty almost, like I was browsing an adult website and was trying to Alt-Tab my way out of the screen or something. Still, a 3 second clip managed to escape before I could mute the speaker. That’s when Saeeda turned around and casually asked why I was listening to “As Long as You Love Me.” From the Backstreet Boys.
Let me repeat – she identified the song from a three second clip. I’m not the only one people …
This weekend’s project entailed taking my calcifying CD collection and ripping the songs onto my computer's hard-drive so that, you know, I too could act like today’s cool youth and listen to music on something called an “i-Pod” (you should check these devices out, seriously). My ulterior motive, however, was to do away with damning evidence that I have no taste in music – it’s easier for me to secretly store my Michael Bolton collection as mp3s in a folder cryptically titled “Bichael Molton”, than to have my daughter accidentally discover the “Best Of” collection years from now, and go crying to her mother because she doesn’t understand why daddy is this way.
Along the ripping process I discovered that at one time I enjoyed listening to all things Jackson (several Michael CD’s, as well as multiple Janet compilations), that at one time I had an affinity for Celtic music (go ahead, laugh – I’m proud of being the only Pakistani who enjoys jamming to a rollicking Irish bagpipe number), and that I have a fetish for Backstreet Boys songs. There, I said it. It feels good to let that out. I can finally move on now.
And don’t you dare judge me. I know you have secret song crushes too, even though you hate to admit it. Act nonchalant if you want. Flaunt your love for indy music and that obscure band from Turkey that no one else has heard, as evidence that you’re a music cognoscenti. But at the end of the day, I *know* that when you’re cruising down the highway with no one in the car, you’ll roll up the windows and secretly blast “Quit Playing Games With My Heart”. And that you’ll sing along. Loudly. And cry, because you don’t want others to play games with your heart.
Anecdotally I know this to be true. But I obtained evidence this weekend as well. I was ripping songs from a mix collection that a special someone gave to me while I was a freshman in college [special someone shall remain unnamed but this was well before I met my wife, my true special someone (I love you honey!)], when Saeeda brought Nuha into the room and started playing with the baby. It just so happened that I was burning a Backstreet Boys song from this CD at the time, and I couldn’t mute the computer volume fast enough. I don’t know why, but I felt flustered and dirty almost, like I was browsing an adult website and was trying to Alt-Tab my way out of the screen or something. Still, a 3 second clip managed to escape before I could mute the speaker. That’s when Saeeda turned around and casually asked why I was listening to “As Long as You Love Me.” From the Backstreet Boys.
Let me repeat – she identified the song from a three second clip. I’m not the only one people …
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Making It
Yesterday I had to go to one of our team members to give him a heads up on a new project that was coming down the pipe, and which would need a pretty quick turnaround on his part. This team member has been with Abbott for a lot longer than I have, and his grasp of things is impressive. So we started our conversation and he began to ask me specific questions. I started merrily answering away, until he suddenly interrupted me.
"Wait ... hold on Faisal. You ... actually ... sound like you know what you're talking about dude!"
And I paused. Not because I was offended, but because he was right. I DID know what I was talking about. Heck yeah! It only took me eight months in my current rotation to get to this point, but I had made it!
See, I prescribe to the Infinite Monkey Theorem - if you give a monkey sitting at a keyboard enough time, it will eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare. And I sometimes think of myself as that monkey - stringing together random jargon endlessly in the hopes that one day it will make sense to someone. And today it did.
Now, if only I can game the system so that this guy writes my performance review, I'll be set.
"Wait ... hold on Faisal. You ... actually ... sound like you know what you're talking about dude!"
And I paused. Not because I was offended, but because he was right. I DID know what I was talking about. Heck yeah! It only took me eight months in my current rotation to get to this point, but I had made it!
See, I prescribe to the Infinite Monkey Theorem - if you give a monkey sitting at a keyboard enough time, it will eventually type out the complete works of William Shakespeare. And I sometimes think of myself as that monkey - stringing together random jargon endlessly in the hopes that one day it will make sense to someone. And today it did.
Now, if only I can game the system so that this guy writes my performance review, I'll be set.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
I'll beat you silly .. when I'm 60
Last week we concluded play in our Abbott basketball league. My team, playing in the competitive division, came in a respectable 3rd, although I feel that we did not live up to our potential. There was plenty of blame to go around, including some for yours truly - ever since the marathon last October, I've engaged in activity that can very loosely be defined as "exercise" - and even that I've only managed to do once a week. Although the almost daily cleaning out my daughter's diaper pail should count - the little thing is a champion poop generator, and carrying that pail to and from my building's trash chute would leave anyone winded.
What disappointed me most about my play, however, was my inability to keep up with the younger whippersnappers on the court. I'd be guarding someone who would blow by me with ease, and I'd be left blaming my aging knees. Or I'd go up for a jump shot only to have my shot rejected into the bleachers. My coping mechanism focused on the fact that I was more than 10 years older than some of the competition, and that I was actually pretty physically fit for my age. In fact, were I to face my opponents when they were older - say we were both in our 60s - I'd kick their @$$. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it helped justify why I kept tripping over myself.
Still, I need to figure out an exercise routine, and fast. And cleaning out my daughter's diaper pail does not count.
What disappointed me most about my play, however, was my inability to keep up with the younger whippersnappers on the court. I'd be guarding someone who would blow by me with ease, and I'd be left blaming my aging knees. Or I'd go up for a jump shot only to have my shot rejected into the bleachers. My coping mechanism focused on the fact that I was more than 10 years older than some of the competition, and that I was actually pretty physically fit for my age. In fact, were I to face my opponents when they were older - say we were both in our 60s - I'd kick their @$$. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but it helped justify why I kept tripping over myself.
Still, I need to figure out an exercise routine, and fast. And cleaning out my daughter's diaper pail does not count.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Stewart vs. Cramer
I wanted to wait a few days before putting pen to paper on the recently concluded Mad Money/The Daily Show Battle Royale. There are plenty of opinions floating around, and I wanted to add mine to the mix, but only after spending a few days digesting last Thursday’s events.
Basically, I think that the Cramer interview was one of Jon Stewart's best ever. Which is funny because Stewart has had dignitaries, celebrities, and luminaries on his show before, and has handled controversial topics galore. But this time he clearly chose to dispense with the gloves, and to aggressively pursue his guest at all cost.
I don’t know why Cramer chose his approach of almost complete subservience. I was expecting to see some of the vigor he displays on Mad Money or, at the very least, the aggressive recitation of a couple of talking points CNBC had to have provided him with. But in retrospect, it was probably smart on Cramer’s part to avoid from being confrontational. How would he have been able to remain aggressive in the face of video clips of him touting hedge fund strategies that were at best shady, if not borderline illegal? How would he have been able to remain aggressive when trying to defend the idolizing of CEOs by his network?
Throughout the interview, the passion in Stewart’s voice was obvious, and his language and delivery could not have been more potent. I also can’t say enough about the research and writing teams that support Stewart’s interview prep – they have got to be one of the best in the business.
Stewart’s performance was eerily reminiscent of his takedown of bow-tie wearing Tucker Carlson on Crossfire several years ago. Given the result of that confrontation (Crossfire canceled, Tucker Carlson subsequently condemned to bouncing around), and now this Cramer interview, the powers that be can no longer afford to underestimate TDS. Jon Stewart has become the unofficial outlet of frustrated masses that have no special interest group to represent them, no talking head to spin their points, and no lobbyist to pressure Congress. Don’t get me wrong – there is an undoubted leftward lean to the politics of TDS, and there are differences that I have with Stewart. But he invariably presents a reasoned, logical, and impassioned argument of the type that you just don’t see used anymore.
So what will be the likely outcome of this episode? I don’t think CNBC can tout “In Cramer We Trust” as the show’s tagline anymore. Doing so would be crass and disingenuous. Cramer’s ratings are likely to suffer – the spat with Stewart and the subsequent outcome has been covered by multiple media outlets, and has had to have reached his viewership.
Unfortunately, unless the network loses advertisers en masse, I don’t expect to see changes to the channel itself. But I’m positive GE executives were watching to see what would happen during the TDS interview, and are now contemplating making some modifications, however superficial. Is it too much to ask that CNBC reporters actually fulfill their responsibility to the public and do hard-core investigative reporting that ensures we don’t get blindsided with a financial catastrophe next time? Probably. The existing culture is too far ingrained to change overnight. But I do believe that there are good people working at CNBC, and I hope their voices are going to be heard a little more clearly now. The tomfoolery of “Fast Money”, the coddling of CEOs and the bombast of Mad Money has got to tone itself down, if not stop altogether. Because, at the end of the day, what is happening around us, as Stewart so clearly stated, is not a f*#$&^% joke.
Basically, I think that the Cramer interview was one of Jon Stewart's best ever. Which is funny because Stewart has had dignitaries, celebrities, and luminaries on his show before, and has handled controversial topics galore. But this time he clearly chose to dispense with the gloves, and to aggressively pursue his guest at all cost.
I don’t know why Cramer chose his approach of almost complete subservience. I was expecting to see some of the vigor he displays on Mad Money or, at the very least, the aggressive recitation of a couple of talking points CNBC had to have provided him with. But in retrospect, it was probably smart on Cramer’s part to avoid from being confrontational. How would he have been able to remain aggressive in the face of video clips of him touting hedge fund strategies that were at best shady, if not borderline illegal? How would he have been able to remain aggressive when trying to defend the idolizing of CEOs by his network?
Throughout the interview, the passion in Stewart’s voice was obvious, and his language and delivery could not have been more potent. I also can’t say enough about the research and writing teams that support Stewart’s interview prep – they have got to be one of the best in the business.
Stewart’s performance was eerily reminiscent of his takedown of bow-tie wearing Tucker Carlson on Crossfire several years ago. Given the result of that confrontation (Crossfire canceled, Tucker Carlson subsequently condemned to bouncing around), and now this Cramer interview, the powers that be can no longer afford to underestimate TDS. Jon Stewart has become the unofficial outlet of frustrated masses that have no special interest group to represent them, no talking head to spin their points, and no lobbyist to pressure Congress. Don’t get me wrong – there is an undoubted leftward lean to the politics of TDS, and there are differences that I have with Stewart. But he invariably presents a reasoned, logical, and impassioned argument of the type that you just don’t see used anymore.
So what will be the likely outcome of this episode? I don’t think CNBC can tout “In Cramer We Trust” as the show’s tagline anymore. Doing so would be crass and disingenuous. Cramer’s ratings are likely to suffer – the spat with Stewart and the subsequent outcome has been covered by multiple media outlets, and has had to have reached his viewership.
Unfortunately, unless the network loses advertisers en masse, I don’t expect to see changes to the channel itself. But I’m positive GE executives were watching to see what would happen during the TDS interview, and are now contemplating making some modifications, however superficial. Is it too much to ask that CNBC reporters actually fulfill their responsibility to the public and do hard-core investigative reporting that ensures we don’t get blindsided with a financial catastrophe next time? Probably. The existing culture is too far ingrained to change overnight. But I do believe that there are good people working at CNBC, and I hope their voices are going to be heard a little more clearly now. The tomfoolery of “Fast Money”, the coddling of CEOs and the bombast of Mad Money has got to tone itself down, if not stop altogether. Because, at the end of the day, what is happening around us, as Stewart so clearly stated, is not a f*#$&^% joke.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The reason the economy is where it is today – me
But I showed up dutifully at the start of this two-day class anyway. The morning of the first day, I learned that we would be breaking up into teams of three to four individuals, and would be running a company for the remainder of the class. The company would be a manufacturing concern, where we would have to make decisions such as how much raw material to buy, how much to produce, what price to set for our goods, what loans to take, and how to manage our expenses. We would get to observe our company for the course of a “year” – at the end of each “month” we would see what happened in the market the instructors created, and have the opportunity to adjust each of the variables above. The emphasis throughout the course would be on managing the financials of the company by monitoring cash flow, the balance sheet, and the income statement, with the goal of learning what made a company financially sound. Pshaw! I thought (again). I got this.
Except that I didn’t. My team, egged on by yours truly, made a couple of bad decisions, caught a few unlucky breaks, and ended up as a marginal takeover target by the end of the game. We did so poorly that we barely had anything of value left at the end, but I took solace in the fact that we weren’t alone. Inevitably, those teams that had individuals with financial backgrounds performed poorly. Instead, the team that won consisted of one person from Abbott’s foodservices division (the people in charge of stocking Abbott’s employee cafeterias), someone from Abbott’s library, and someone from Abbott’s technology arm (the IT folks).
While I spent the game acting out my investment banker fantasy (“Guys, let’s borrow up to our eyeballs and get all the loans we can. This is called ‘leveraging’ in the financial world. What good is it to own a building when it doesn’t do anything for you? Better to sell it, then rent it back, and use the cash from the sale instead.”), and while a fellow financial wizard at a neighboring table urged his team to price their product absurdly low (“Let’s capture market share and crowd out the competition – those suckers won’t be able to compete at these low prices and will go out of business”), the winning team was employing a slightly different strategy. For them, it didn’t make sense to take out large loans, or sell their buildings and land. Instead they borrowed only what they could comfortably repay. Neither did they horse around with pricing too much – they set a decent price that earned them an honest profit, and they reinvested that profit back into the company.
Around halfway through the game it became clear that my team wouldn’t be able to make its debt payments. On the other side of the room it struck the other financial geniuses that they had priced their products so low that they were selling at a loss so bad that they weren’t even covering their expenses. Meanwhile, the librarian, foodservice manager, and tech lady kept chugging along. The humiliation was complete by the end of the game, when each team got to walk around the room and see how the other teams had played the simulation. “Why would you take a loan that you couldn’t repay?” someone would ask. “Why would you sell all your assets?” I had no answer for either question.
I left that two-day seminar happy that I had learned more about financial statements than I could have imagined. Abstract numbers on a sheet weren’t so abstract anymore, and the interconnectedness of the various statements that measured the health of a business became a little less arcane for me, the snooty MBA graduate. But as I packed my things and left class to go home that last day, a depressing thought came to me. I realized, in a flash of distressing brilliance, that it was because of idiots like me that we found ourselves in the economic mess we see now. Some overly clever bankers got together and thought they could game the system, except that the system bit back hard. But as soon as I had this epiphany, I also understood the way we could make sure that this would never happen again: when the dust settles on this economic scandal, and all guilty financial whiz-kids have been identified, they should be stripped naked one by one, taken out back, and slapped silly by librarians, foodservice managers, and tech ladies.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
How to write a consumer complaint
I've found my inspiration for any future customer complaint that I ever write. The letter below was written by a Virgin airlines passenger at the conclusion of his flight. You have to check the link to see the pictures that he refers to in his beautiful prose. Enjoy!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1, above].
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: [see image 2, above].
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: [see image 3, above].
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation: [see image 4, above].
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on: [see image 5, above].
I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: [see image 6, above].
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.
My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations: [see image 7, above].
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
Yours Sincererly
XXXX
Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1, above].
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: [see image 2, above].
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: [see image 3, above].
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation: [see image 4, above].
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on: [see image 5, above].
I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: [see image 6, above].
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.
My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations: [see image 7, above].
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
Yours Sincererly
XXXX
Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”
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