Tiger on TV
Have you watched the TV show 'Airways' which shows the dramas surrounding the day to day running of a budget airline. Which is Australia's latest low-cost airline 'Tiger'. There is only one thing this show manages to do, show just how a budget airline forgets about its customers. The cheaper the seats, the cheaper the service from start to finish. I'm not sure if the producers of the show intended to shine a good light on the Jetstar brand, but it seems to me to be a degrading show for their public image.
This show always shows arguments between customers and the clerks at the counter. Their complaints are always about delays, missing baggage and those really annoying check in laws. No one ever seems happy with the outcomes and the AFP are called in to sort out the odd nut case customer.
If Tiger want to improve their credibility they could start with dropping the show, get their mistakes out of public view and sort them out quietly.
Baby On Board Signs (100th Post)
Those pesky little yellow signs that are displayed in the windows of cars everywhere annoy me. They don't make logical or meaningful sense to me. I've thought of possible reasons, like altering others drivers to be more careful around that car, but who pays that much attention to their driving style around those cars? And how to you alter your driving style to suit another driver who is un-predictable to you?
Then there is the argument that when they are in a crash the first on the scene can attend to the baby. This idea is flawed considering half the cars I see don't have a child or baby in them. So instead of only using the sign when they need too, they leave it up constantly to cause un-due concern in cases of an emergency.
Apart from that I cannot think of any other reason. So to all those parents who think it is also the responsibility of the public around them to help with their lives, mind your own business. I don't walk my dog and put on sign saying "Dog on Lease" to alert people that to drive carefully as my dog may be run over, or if I am walking around with a lease and no dog, that you should help me look for the dog.
How about you do the only think you can do, drive safely and only when you need too. Because people speed, drink drive, disobey lane change rules, what makes you think they will listen to your little sign?
Wonderful World of the Obvious
Sometimes you’ll be out and about and see some signs that defy belief, you begin to wonder if man is getting smarter or have some of us lost half our brains overnight. I saw a sign on the back of a long bed truck which read “caution: vehicle subject to reversing”, which no doubt was included with a reversing beeper. Now I hear your rebuttal, that the beeper is for the blind, first of all, just how many blind people do you see walking behind trucks and how many of them can’t hear the truck in the first place?
I’ve seen a new trend in signs warning you about fines for doing the wrong thing, for instance on the train, it warns you not to put your feet on the seat, if you do ‘you might be fined’. What kind of threat is ‘might’? Does a boxer threaten his opponent by saying ‘I might knock you out’, of course not because that shows weakness. Telling the public there is a chance they will get away with it, is enough of a reason for them to try.
Now there are people all over our country putting up signs saying they recognise the traditional owners of the land where their house is. But how much do they really care about those previous occupants. If that tribe where to come around one night in search of accommodation (as was organised by John Safran) would people allow them to stay. Considering you acknowledge their previous tenancy, you would think that its ok for them to come back wouldn’t you? Not so clean cut as that. There is a fine line between the truth and the image people like to portray.
One sign that is quite large and obvious but largely ignored is the sign asking people not to climb the Rock at Uluru. Now I think we should not climb it to be honest, my reasoning for this, Americans. They bring toilet paper, because who wants to come all the way to Australia and not dump on our rock, just another reason why their called septics. They think that a half day trip up and down the rock cannot be done without a bowel movement, so they bring toilet paper. Which means a jolly good number two and plenty of ones to flow down our rock. Now there is a simple way for this to be rectified. Don’t let them climb it! Now I’m sure they figure the climb is part of the lure to getting the tourists there in the first place, but I don’t buy that. You see after 9/11 the Statue of Liberty shut her doors to tourists going to the top, and it still received normal visitor numbers for years until it re-opened. It’s a huge tourist attraction, but that doesn’t mean you can let them defecate on it for the sake of the dollar.
‘Don’t feed the birds’ is a sign all too often ignored at a local park. What parent bothers to explain to their child why you shouldn’t feed the local birds. Instead they cop out on a vital educational moment for the ease of giving their brats food to throw at the wildlife. You see I used an important term there ‘wildlife’ more importantly the word wild. These animals are relying on the visitors for a very basic not natural portion of their diet: bread. They don’t normally have such a readily available source of carbohydrates, yet from us they can eat all the bread they like. These birds and water fowl have lived their quite happily before us and could do so after us, yet they come to rely on us if we bring them food, even teaching their young the importance of us over hunting. Your changing nature in a very dangerous way. But hey it’s only a sign, don’t feed the birds, maybe they mean everyone else except you, yeah that sounds right.