An avid fan of portals like Groupon, DailyDeal, DealLX and the like I did my monthly check of open vouchers that expire soon. I came across a voucher with the tempting headline “Exclusive spa-day including ultrasound facial, relaxing on a lava stone bed and much more at Spa & Health Vienna”, valid for another month (expiry date: 16 June 2012), which I had received as a gift. Just what I needed.

I checked my schedule for the upcoming month, selected a few possible dates and this morning called the number showing on the voucher. As soon as I mentioned the word “Groupon”, however, I was passed on to a Mrs Fröhlich, who couldn’t even wait until I had introduced myself before starting to throw a tirade of the most awful customer service imaginable at me: How she was supposed to schedule “us all” in when “we” apparently “didn’t have our lives in control”. How it “wasn’t her fault” that “we” now realised we needed to use our vouchers now. How did we imagine she was going to cope with that? “Us Groupon customers” demanded as much time for the treatment as “regular” customers who – this she needed to repeat a couple of times - “paid full price”. There were countless accusations of “us”. She made it clear that I am part of a much larger collective, a thoroughly unorganised mob. Of a group of people Spa & Health Vienna can clearly do without as customers.

This went on.
And on.
And on.

For 4:46 minutes.

By and by a few questions popped up in my head during her rant (which I was unable to ask since I didn’t get to have my say):

• If a business can not summon up the capacity, why does it offer an unlimited number of vouchers (instead of limiting it to, say, 100 vouchers like other companies do)?
• If Groupon-customers are merely perceived as second-class customers (rather than potential new customers) – why bother to cooperate with Groupon in the first place?
• When a business is expecting  additional work ahead, why not see it as an opportunity (again, potential new customers) and work towards and with it?
• What about offering some sort of “goodwill solution”, especially if obvious that the demand will be much higher than the supply in the last couple of weeks the vouchers are valid for? In similar situations I have received full refund in the form of credit vouchers for the coupons I was not able to use. Not by Groupon, mind you, but by the companies the vouchers were for. Needless to say, I have stayed a loyal customer to these places since.
• Excluding today & public holidays, according to the opening hours stated on the website, there are 240 work hours left until the expiry of the voucher. The treatment takes 2 hours (according to Mrs Fröhlich). Let’s just assume that there are 2 persons working at all times. In my simple maths, this means 240 possible treatments. Not counting the Sundays which are explicitly stated to be also available “by appointment” in the opening hours on the website.

Conclusion: After having worked in customer service & quality management for over 2 years it never ceases to amaze me how unprofessionally some businesses present themselves.

Seriously, why would someone who is clearly not able to cope with a certain amount of stress choose to work in direct customer service?

Yep, I’ve been back for a few weeks now and no, I haven’t yet posted anything about our recent holiday in Madeira. The reason – besides me feeling not inspired at. all. – is that it really wasn’t as great as everyone had bragged about.

We may have been off to a bad start when our first flight was delayed and we missed the connecting flight by minutes. The plane was still at the gate but they wouldn’t let us board. Also, the flight attendant on our flight from Vienna kept lying to us that we were only 10mins behind schedule, when we clearly were 40mins late (with a connection time of 60min that was just too much).

At Lisbon airport we were ushered to a taxi that brought us to a hotel where we stayed the night, i.e. the few hours until the first morning flight.

Finally we arrived at Funchal – only Mr A’s suitcase didn’t. Therefore, we spent the first day trying to track said suitcase (with not much help from extremely disinterested staff at TAP desk as well as DerTour, the company we’d booked our trip through) which eventually arrived some time at night.

Mr A drove us around in our rental car and we found the villages, that our guidebooks called “picturesque fishing villages” dull at best: no little harbours with little cafes, no old men with worn faces stitching fishing nets back together, no waterfront to walk along and at times really depressing-looking houses.

Well then, there’s still walking. And walking we did. Each day we decided on a walk – along a levada, the typical Madeiran waterways, or along the coast – and loved it. It really felt like taking long walks and less like hiking because there is hardly any incline. Wonderful!

The first walk was extremely crowded (partly because of our bad – late – timing) but each day we saw less people on the chosen paths. The last one along Levada Nova we met 3 people in over 4 hours! And it had everything: views, a waterfall, a tunnel – sunshine even!

Altogether, it wasn’t such a bad trip, I guess, only our expectation had been unusually high due to the hype our friends, family & acquaintances had built up.

You can browse a few impressions here.

Tonight, Mr A and I will embark on a weeklong stay in Madeira and we’re both very much looking forward to it. Given our last holiday was only in December – and we were travelling for 3 whole weeks – it’s amazing how much I already need a holiday again. This vacation will be all about relaxing, we’ve decided. There will be some walking, there will be some sight seeing, there will be a whale-watching trip on Tuesday (yay!) and maybe a dive for me. Other than that – no hassles.

After checking the price, I abandoned the idea of high tea at Reid’s Palace Hotel (ok, it may still be somewhere in the back of my head) but apparently, Mr A has collected a few ideas of where to dine and mentioned he may even want to try the traditional Espetada skewer. Since I’m slowly weaning myself off my former meat-intake, it sounds very tempting to me.

However, for the first time ever I did not jot down a packing list, which is kind of scary because not only I love lists, but also normally the list is done before I’ve even booked the tickets. Then again, I want to take a different approach this time, inspired by Corporette’s fabulous drawn packing list. Not that I’m going to draw one but I’ll pack outfits instead of items that at times only somehow go together. Let’s see if Mr A will be adequately impressed by my appearance

As usual, my suitcase (not backpack this time) is heavier than my backpack would ever be since I won’t be carrying it on my bag for hours on end but will coolly tow it behind me (bless those wheels!).

Only minutes ago we completed our online-check-in to secure window seats for me on both flights (I panic when I can’t see where I’m going) which required a call at Austrian Airlines helpdesk because the system crashed during our attempt to reserve seats, but apparently all went well and so we’re almost on our way.

Being “good” travellers, we’ll get to the airport 2 hours prior to departure, rid ourselves of our suitcases, buy a newspaper (Zeit – Mr A) and a glossy mag with pictures (me) and cross our fingers that our flight leaves on time and we make the connection in Lisbon, since we only have 60mins between flights which is the minimum connecting time of Lisbon airport.

You’ll learn more about my fabulous holiday in Madeira upon my return.

Tata for now,

Alice

The power of secrets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0H1zU2ytxA

Has Alice given up on travelling altogether, you will be tempted to ask. No, I can assure you she has not and does not ever intend to. After Thailand/ Cambodia I needed to save up on money and holiday time and also decide on our next travel destination together with Mr A.

What we’ve come up with so far:

• Madeira – 22-29 April
• Lago di Garda – 25-30 May, for climbing/ walking (and Italian food, but don’t tell Mr A)
• Chicago – for a week in August or September; since I’ll be visiting a friend of mine I may be going by myself. There will be a reasonable amount whole lot of shopping

Other than that we are contemplating the where-to of our next bigger trip.

Shortlisted candidates are:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Nepal

OZ/NZ would be December 2012/ January 2013, while Nepal would be April 2013. At the moment I am finding out whether it would be possible for me to take all of April off or alternatively be absent for 4 weeks over Christmas and New Year.

On top of that, I am open for suggestions and a spontaneous get-away is always appreciated.

So, what do you think?

Nice enough, my employer gave everyone a day off for Good Friday which brought along a much appreciated (and equally needed) 4-day-weekend.

Despite the rather dull weather (cold, windy, there even was snow on Sunday, mind you!) I spent a good deal of time walking around the city.

On Friday, I met Mr A (who had to work) for lunch at Holmes Place in the city, where he had a pretty amazing fish with wild garlic risotto while the only spice in my vegetable wok was the salt in the soy sauce. Afterwards I came across a really pretty shop called Kokon hidden away in Renngasse behind the Kunstforum. It took me some willpower not to buy anything because despite all things being really sweet and lovely and everything, they do not go with my apartment at all and since I do not yet (hint to Mr A) have a balcony, I decided to have a proper look around and save my spending spree for later (albeit for the very same shop).

Originally, we had wanted to spend this Easter weekend – which also coincided with Mr A’s birthday on Sunday) skiing in Gosau, but since Mr A was still feeling the aftereffects of a nasty cold we agreed on staying home and taking things very slowly.

On Saturday, we had a late breakfast, then sat on the couch with our respective laptops and a Zeit-newspaper. I filled some pages with content before I finally headed out to take a stroll. When I returned home, he “cooked” tortillas for dinner and we watched some documentaries on youtube.

Sunday morning I followed a flock of Lindt sheep from the hallway to the kitchen where they led me to…a strawberry plant! What an exquisite gift for Easter! I had been less ingenious and prepared only a nest with a Lindt bunny and other chocolates which fortunately was received well and we spent the morning munching chocolate.

For Mr A’s birthday, I had organised brunch at hotel Rainer in the 10^th district. It turned out to be no brunch at all but a rather decent buffet lunch with numerous courses to choose from (or try them all) and a gift bottle of prosecco to take home. With this bottle in my bag (yes, it fit inside my handbag) we took the tram to the city as Mr A had announced a craving of hot chocolate. We were dumbfounded when all of a sudden it started snowing. The same time last year Mr A and I were already completing our first easy via ferratas and hikes in the Rax/ Schneeberg-area and I definitely remember there not being any snow to speak of.

Café Central was the location of choice and we were really lucky and had to queue for only a few minutes before being shown a table. When we left we realised that in the meantime the queue had acquired a considerable length and people were already standing outside waiting to be permitted in. Incredible in this awful weather!

Back home we curled up on the couch and watched Idiocracy.

Monday we again had a late start and did mostly nothing except for taking a long walk (home – city – home). For dinner I grilled veggies in the oven which we had with couscous (and which I’ll have for lunch twice this week).

This week, Mr A will be skiing with friends from Wednesday until Saturday – and I’ll go out to meet friends every evening since I won’t have a reason to come home. Also, for Saturday a girls only-brunch is planned that will include a bottle of champers.

For the next couple of weeks I have a few things planned for this blog. Let’s see how they go and how you like them.

What I want to do/ achive/ get done this year – in no particular order:

• Whatever’s on my list of things I want to do once a year every year
• find a new apartment
• become more reliable in replying to emails
• file my bank statements, invoices, documents etc. (currently most of last year’s incoming is sitting in a big blck box)
• file my tax returns for 2010 and 2011
• enroll for an interesting education programme (be it to improve my Spanish or apply for a Master degree)
• turn aliciouslog into something fantastic
• improve my photography skills
• become a more concious consumer

I am immensely looking forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow evening I will finally see a friend again who last summer moved to Chicago to complete her PhD. She is one of those friends I really look up to, especially when it comes to career matters. She knows exactly what she wants to achieve and always finds a pretty straight way to get there. I love how she pusues her goal – and not at the expense of a private life since she’s very sociable and generally very good with people.

Now she’s back in Vienna for a couple of days and we’ll be having dinner (and probably drinks) tomorrow night. Yay! 

And not only that! She’s also delivering a few small glass bottles with a coloured liquid inside. The bottles read O.P.I. Double yay!

Always happy to support my addiction, she is

I hope she can provide some input on how to become great (like she is in my eyes) as well since my own career planning hasn’t stalled simply because it never quite started. In my last job I practically “fell” into a promotion and in my current job as an executive assistant, chances are … low. This doesn’t mean that I won’t take a chance if it comes along or even provoke a chance (however I’m going to do this will be improvised at a later date). However, unlike many other friends and acquaintances I don’t have a master plan I follow step by step, knowing action A will trigger effect B to get me to position C.

Even though I generally like planning and my whole life could be broken down into several lists full stop, the part that’s never interested me enough is planning a career.

Maybe because money is not important for me but that’s probably for another discussion.

How did you get your career on track? Were you an ambitious student who became a focused employee? Or were other things always more important to you? Or could you simply not be bothered?

Eventually, I have become the owner of an iPhone. It’s nothing I was especially eager to be but when work asked me whether I wanted the new iPhone or the new blackberry or keep my old phone, I chose the iPhone. “Blackberry” sounds too much like “work” to me and with my old phone I could only receive but not make calls:
 

It took me roughly an hour and a lot of very supressed swearing (since I was at work) to set it up. Allegedly, there was a time when you merely put your sim-card into your phone and could start calling people. Now it takes a whole hour to get the registration over with.

I haven’t made a single phone call but used it to check emails, update my facebook-status and read the paper – oh yes, and to take pictures of course. I love the camera! One futureweekend will certainly be wasted on downloading apps, typing my most important contacts into the phone and adapting the settings to my needs/ wants but so far I’m glad I haven’t broken it yet.

To be honest, I’m fairly excited to find out what this new device can do for me and what use I can put it too without damaging it. Too much.

Do you have an iPhone? What do you think? Is it worth the hype? Or can you not understand what all that fuss is about?

One of my aims has been to not be overly political on this blog.

This particular story, however, has been on my mind for days. Therefore, I’ll share it with you. It’s the story of Mohammad Mostafaei, an Iranian lawyer who is attempting everything in his power to save juvenile delinquents from the death penalty.

You can watch a short video, summarizing his efforts and what drove him to study law in the first place HERE.