You know, of course, that these days I have three British houseguests, all around 19 years old. The one dearest to me is my adorable grandson, Julian, his gorgeous girlfriend, Rosie, and his tall, lanky bestfriend, Dan. They have turned my home upside-down. Where once I was the empress, now I am a shadow. They occupy two of my three bedrooms, work on my dining room table, drink strong beer on my porches. In other words we all have a lot of fun.
They are all techies. I think Julian is the greatest techie among them. In exchange for their free stay in my home they’re supposed to be working on a web page for me but I’ve only seen one attempt and I didn’t like the color. What Julian has managed to set up for me is a blogspot, twee.life, which once in a while you should visit. It’s called A Thousand Words but it also is a work in progress. It happened because Julian worked on it before his bestfriend and his girlfriend arrived. After that. . . well. . .
Anyway but I have started to try to get some attention around here. You know that I am teaching writing again and I have a lot more spirit teaching it this year. I have added a session on editing. Since I worked 33 years in marketing and advertising, I wanted to do that onscreen. I don’t exactly know what you call it, I call it a projector. You attach it to a computer, an iPad, and it projects the words on a big screen and you can edit there and people will understand.
I remembered that in 1993, a long time ago, when I became the new president of J. Romero & Associates, that was one of the first major decisions I made. We bought a projector for presentations. At theat time, it cost P250 thousand. Now it costs around P25,000 for the top-of-the-line and I did not want the top-of-the-line.
So off we went the three of us. Julian didn’t want to buy at the mall because it was more expensive there. So we went to those small two- or three-story structures that I couldn’t quite figure out. We entered a first one. He asked if they had a projector. They said they had one. Can I see it? I asked. No, we have to get it from the warehouse, it will take half-an-hour. How much is it? P21,900, he answers. If I pay cash do I get a discount? No.
There were three scruffy young men staring at Rosie. There was one trying to call up a picture of the projector on his old I don’t know if it was a telephone or an iPad. I got annoyed. Nobody was really attending to us. We went upstairs. There was a couple seated, looked like they had been seated there for hours, they were looking quite desperate, their eyes rolled up to heaven. There was an older man who asked us to wait a while, who seemed professional enough, but suddenly a woman’s shrill voice shouted, “Ay hindi ko ito maintindihan, what will I do?”
That drove me up the wall and I decided then and there I did not want to buy a projector from them. How can they be so indifferent, so loudly stupid almost? I asked Julian.
They’re techies, he said, they have no people skills.
Well they should have people skills. Who do they think will buy their equipment if they have no people skills? This began an argument between Julian and me that went on until I said I would write about it.
Maybe the computer colleges can add a skill to their curriculum, can teach their students how to be personable. Why is it that when I go to an Apple store I get the quality of service I look for? I asked.
Because they’re an Apple store. A big company. They train their people well.
So, you see, it can be done. I hate it when small stores don’t see the value of training their people. It’s like saying customers don’t matter.
We get home and Julian says he and Rosie want to go out and look for a projector for me. Okay, how much money do you need? I had been saving up for this and had withdrawn quite a sum. Give me two thousand less, he said.
In an hour he was back to pick up my iPad to make sure it was going to work. Within two hours he was back with a brand new projector that cost P5,000 less than the one I was ready to buy and a free big beautiful screen. Now, Nannie, Julian says. We can even watch movies on your new screen.
So now I am really happy. I rearranged my house so I’m facing the screen. Maybe I will show movies, serve popcorn and charge admission. That should be fun. Thanks so much, Rosie and Julian.
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And by the way, starting new writing classes on Saturday, March 21. If interested let me know. Text 0917-8155570.