A turn for the worse

So I haven't so far mentioned my kitchen to you all. I will now rectify this. In November 2005 I went to a well-known DIY store (we'll call it Q&B), and chose my kitchen. I even paid a deposit. In January 2006 the bits of kitchen duly arrived and were installed by a team of friendly, if not entirely tidy, chaps. Which was nice. And I looked and saw that it was good.

So for a few months I enjoyed my new kitchen, which is very lovely. After a few months, however, I observed that the stuff that covers the doors (the plastic stuff that makes it look like wood - I didn't say this this was a high-quality kitchen) started to peel. So I phoned Q&B and asked for new doors. They said this was fine, and they ordered them, and I waited for them to arrive. And waited, and waited.... Several phone calls were made; each time the lovely friendly person on the other end denied all knowledge but ordered me new doors. And still I waited.

There follow several months of me making intermittent phone calls to the warranty department who tell me to phone the warehouse who tell me to phone the warranty department who tell me they'll sort it out and call me back.

One day, out of the blue, the doors arrived at my house, in several huge boxes. And again, I looked and saw that it was good. So I phoned Q&B to arrange for someone to install them.

There follow 6 months of me making intermittent phone calls to the warranty department who tell me to phone the warehouse who tell me to phone the warranty department who tell me they'll sort it out and call me back. Occassionally someone from the warranty team calls me, to make sure that the kitchen has been sorted out. I say 'no'. They promise to sort it.

So finally, just before Christmas, a very pleasant sort of chap phones me and says he'll be there the next day. So the next day, he arrives, and begins installing the new doors. Unfortunately, one of the new ones has been damaged, so he can't install it. So he says he'll arrange for a new one to come, and he leaves.

I come home to find a mountain of empty cardboard boxes, and the entire set of old doors sitting in my living room.

I wait a few days for Q&B to phone. I wait a few weeks. I phone them. I explain the situation and they say that they will order the one remaining replacement door and let me know when it arrives. I wait, and Christmas is approaching. Strongly suspecting that workmen and Christmas are not two things that are liable to lead to my kitchen being finished, I phone and tell them to hurry up. I put on my angry voice. The lady who answers the phone calls me 'dear'. I know I have lost.

There follow several months of me making intermittent phone calls to the warranty department who tell me to phone the warehouse who tell me to phone the warranty department who tell me they'll sort it out and call me back. Occassionally someone from the warranty team calls me, to make sure that the kitchen has been sorted out. I say 'no'. They promise to sort it.

So eventually they say that they will deliver the door to my work on 2nd Jan. This is not hard, since their warehouse is less than a mile from my desk. I can even see it out the window. They don't turn up. So we're now into January 2007, and it is a full year since the kitchen was installed.

I give up in despair for a while. Then I decide to call in and see if I can just get the door from the warehouse myself. This works quite well; I get as far as holding a replacement door in my hands. I speak to a girl called Kerri. She knows nothing and can't give me the door without confirming it with the warranty department, who have all gone home for the evening (at 4.30). So she emails them and tells me that she'll let me know.

Easter comes and goes.

One evening I get a message on my answering machine, saying 'This is Greg from Q&B warranty dept. Please give me a ring'. He doesn't leave a number, so I call the only number I have and they have no idea, but they say they'll sort it out.

Then on Tuesday past, Steve calls. Steve is a cheerful sort of chap. He asks whether the kitchen is finished yet. I explain the whole tale. Steve is very sorry about it and says he will order the new door straight away and it will be delivered soon. Then I have to ring him and he'll arrange someone to come and fit it.

Last night, I get home and there is a huge box in the hallway with a Q&B sticker on it. Pausing only briefy to wonder why the box is quite so big, I rejoice that it has arrived, and go straight back out. I get home later, and open it, thinking I'd better check that my nice new door is undamaged. Except, when I open it, it's a cupboard. With a little message on the box saying 'to complete this cupboard, you need a door, hinges and a handle'. Thanks.

So this morning, I try to phone Steve, in the Warranty department. I get Aaron. Aaron listens to the whole story and says he'll put me through to head office. I tell the whole story again to the man in Head Office. He tells me I need to speak to the warranty depatment. I tell him I just spoke to them and they put me through to him. He says 'oh'. He tells me to wait, and I get put on hold. After a few minutes, another man answers. I don't know who he is, he clearly doesn't know who I am. I explain the whole story again. We agree that Steve (who, incidentally, seems to have disappeared) sent me the wrong thing. We agree that Steve should have sent a door, not a cupboard. He says he'll arrange for the door to be sent to the warehouse and for the fitter to pick it up and fit it.

I ask about the mountain of old doors, and the cupboard, to be sent back. He says he'll look into it.

We agree again that Steve should have sent a door, not a cupboard.

So I wait, in anticipation of this man phoning me back.

CS Lewis on Worship

The more observant among you will have noted the disappearance of the 'Books lined up to read' section in the left-hand margin (and possibly the unchanging nature of the 'Currently Reading' list, despite the fact that I read at least a book a week). This is not because I have no books lined up to read (in fact, I have several piles, some of which are growing so large that I have now hidden them so as not to become disheartened at the task of reading them all). No, this is simply because I'm not organised enough to know which ones I'm going to read next (I say 'ones' because there are usually at least 3 on the go), and if I list them all, then the list would be really... sorry, I'm bored of this paragraph. Let's move on.

Anyway, this weekend I picked up 'The Four Loves' by CS Lewis, which I started about 3 years ago and never got round to finishing. I've been astonished again at the power and clarity of the observations and sentiments he expresses, page after page.

I haven't quite finished it yet, so I may mention it again, but I thought I'd share a little bit of it with you here. It's a paragraph at which I gasped out loud when I finished reading it. In the first chapter, Lewis introduces the concepts of Need-love and Gift-love - the first being the love we feel for someone who can meet a need in us, and the second being that which we feel when we do something for someone we care about; the ultimate example of Gift-love being, of course, God's divine Love for us in giving Himself for us. Naturally, neither of these loves can exist in isolation; virtually always we find them weaving together in the love we feel for the people around us.

In Chapter 2, however, Lewis examines what we feel when we appreciate something which we call 'good' (the smell of a flower, the sound of birds, a great work of art) - the feeling that that thing in itself should continue to exist, even if I were the last person on earth and were about to die, leaving no one to appreciate it. It is something for which we have no need (although we may take pleasure in it), and in whose formation and being we have had no part. Lewis says this:

There is a third element in love, no less important than these [Gift-love and Need-love], which is foreshadowed by our appreciative pleasures. This judgement that the object is very good, this attention (almost homage) offered to it as a kind of debt, this wish that it should be and should continue being what it is even if we were never to enjoy it, can go out not only to things but to persons. When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply.

Is this what we think of when we think of worship? So often our modern 'worship' songs have so much about 'what God has done for me' and 'how much I want to do for God' that we simply miss this third strand, so quiet and still and yet so loud and vital... when we worship, we should be expressing as best we can, albeit falteringly and crudely, that God Himself is very good, that He does not exist for us nor we for Him, but that He is and must be forever God.

Do as I say...

Last week I was driving through the Harbour Estate, when I saw a fence to which was attached the following sign:

'Please do not attach signs to this fence.'

And I laughed.

Materialism and the demise of all we have known

On Friday my iPod arrived (the one I won). On Saturday I figured out how to put songs on it. On Sunday I realised I was addicted. On Monday I discovered that the same has happened to The Soapbox.

What is the world coming to?

I own a gadget. And what's more, it's a gadget that no one else has owned before me; it is possibly the first actually brand-new thing I have owned since my roly-poly chime ball when I was 6 months old. I didn't pay for it, of course, so that's one point in my favour, and nor did I actually ask for it - I won it and can therefore be said to have had next to no choice in the matter. I'm still a few steps away from being sucked into a consumerist pit and seeing my soul sacrificed on the altar of materialism.

But I always thought The Soapbox knew better. I thought he was stronger. When all else fails, I thought, old Soapy will still be standing strong. But no.

Hope is fading fast.

New Responsibilities

So my favourite manager has left work and I have been assigned all kinds of Important Tasks ^TM until we get a new person. Two days ago I got to chair my first ever work meeting. Now, in our office, meetings don't get 'chaired' so much as 'refereed'. The success of a meeting is measured not by what is achieved (since this is usually not a lot, especially if previously-mentioned now-resigned manager is not involved and the boss is) but by amount of blood (the less the better, we're not sado-masochists or anything), entertainment value (who shouted at who, how loudly, for how long, and about what - this can add to or detract from the overall score) and quality of tea.

By all these standards, it was a reasonably good meeting.
No blood was spilled (10 out of 10).
Arguments were of the 'snappy' variety rather than the long drawn-out variety. I should explain here that the boss and her 'boyfriend' (hideous term since they are both in their forties, but 'live-in lover' makes me want to vomit and I can't think of anything else) are 'in charge', and frequently spend meetings shouting at each other while anyone else in attendance takes immense interest in the table top, their shoes, an important doodle etc. Anyway, the shouting was enough to be mildly entertaining, but not enough to be too embarrassing. So we'll give it a 6 out of 10.
I had chamomile tea, which is a mild sedative, which is a good thing when in work meetings, and we shall award it 8 out of 10.

So overall, my first meeting scored 24 out of 30, or 80%. I am quite pleased with this score and shall award myself a prize. I think I may make myself Employee of the Week, an award which I started last week and have so far failed to win.