The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

Post about an ex colleague dying so trigger warning. First time I've ever experienced this.

It shows a great deal of positive sensitivity and compassion that you feel that way Qikz. I'm sorry you have to go through considering the fragility of all people ultimately even when they are not within our sphere anymore. Very sad since they just got married.

Some of my plans were affected that way by Covid too. It sucks. I didn't get to meet my newborn niece or take my partner to Japan at the same time to discover temples and things.

Had to do a little "return to work" thing with my manager since I took a couple of days off because my car was broken (mainly as an "it's 2023 and my entire job is sitting at a desk and working on a computer why the strawberry float won't you even consider hybrid working you distrusting dinosaur" protest). My manager mentioned what my current Bradford score is... :slol:

It's 2268

Is that high or low?

Drumstick wrote:Is that high or low?

I did some research:

...so quite high really.

Frank wrote:Had to do a little "return to work" thing with my manager since I took a couple of days off because my car was broken (mainly as an "it's 2023 and my entire job is sitting at a desk and working on a computer why the strawberry float won't you even consider hybrid working you distrusting dinosaur" protest). My manager mentioned what my current Bradford score is... It's 2268

How the strawberry float has he calculated that? You’d need to be off almost once a week for a year.

(For anyone wondering, it’s (total days absence) x (total periods of absence))

Last edited by Frank on Thu Jul 06, 2023 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They said that the system would flag up anything over 45 as a cause of concern, so it's pretty high. The vast majority of that absence (like, fifteen days) was caused by office-acquired covid and the subsequent chest infection it left me with, which ended up being two separate "instances" of absence since I foolishly tried to get back to work once I'd start having negative covid tests but was still a bit coughy before it really went downhill.

I think they're using the calculation which for some reason squares the "number of instances", so it just gets exponentially worse. I genuinely have no idea why anyone would think it's a good idea :lol:

It also seems like they might have more "instances" of absence down than I've got in my records, which is weird. Are they counting working days separated by weekends as separate instances?

Bravo, a real top score there :toot:

What is Frank's Bradford score as calculated by Frank?

Edit: posted here as I guess it's more work related than general annoyance. Don't do this to tiny business owners.

What the strawberry float thinking is this:

Great T-shirts and Totes I commissioned for the [just take the opportunity to both not actually be helpful at all and promote my Instagram account] art show at [nobody strawberry floating cares] in [pointless mention of the month of event, in the past] QUality was excellent and we sold out so clearly our visitors thought so too. Thanks to Ben and Kat

4 stars

For 10 years my business has had a 5.0 score on Google with 93 5 star reviews across platforms. I get the above review and associated 4 stars after requesting feedback from a couple of select clients (all else of which are 5 stars), after thinking hey my competitors keep asking for and getting reviews so I should too. What I wasn't expecting was to make the situation worse because of one person's bizarre internal logic that doesn't represent their experience at all, it's just an idea in their head that 5 stars doesn't exist.

So I asked what could be done to get the review up to the 5 star standard of literally every single other customer that has posted a review ever (and by design;- this is a result, not a mistake).

In my view a 5 star rating for anything should be about achieving absolute perfection which we both know isn’t really tangible.

I’ve never left a 5 star review for anything but I don’t generally leave reviews. For me the words that accompany the rating are what’s important and the score is subjective. The words I left were complimentary so anyone reading them would be left with a positive perception of you and your business.

Anyone who knows anything about statistics knows that the value is in grouping results together to smooth out the subjectivity if the scorer. So 4/5 are effectively the same thing.

Sent from my iPhone

OK great, I understand your personal philosophy that 5 stars is impossible thus 4 stars is the same 5 stars.

But (in terms of "statistics") that doesn't feed directly into a global system of ranking businesses within search results that materially reduces my revenue/income potential, thus costing me more money than I earnt on the entire thing, that I would get had you not posted a review at all, you pretentious strawberry floating dick. You just eliminated the value of the entire transaction and others by being weirdly principled about it.

For the record, the products I produced for about £100 in gross profit, took several days, involved 11 hours of back and forth just on emails over the course of two months, and were personally delivered on foot by myself despite it being a collection (because they couldn't be bothered to come and get them from 15 minutes away), were sold at 200% mark-up meaning they made £500 and thus 5x what I earnt producing.

I used premium heavy weight ringspun & combed cotton organic Stanley/Stella shirts, instead of carded cotton "value weight" Fruit of the Loom or some other gooseberry fool, at a wholesale rate and with a discount on printing. Because I want to support artists (albeit seemingly not myself in the end). And yeah, it's this kind of pontific bollocks I will avoid in the future and never ask artists for a review. And I am one. Just in case they don't believe in things like perfection corresponding to 5 stars. That's all well and good in a nice little circlejerk convo on deep universe gooseberry fool after a couple of bottles of red, but it is damaging in the context of real businesses competing neck and neck in a local space i.e. the real world. Where there are absolutely zero consequences for the customer.

That's why they all sold out. It was by design and I made that choice.

Hi,

If you could drop them at the venue that would be amazing ….we’re there all day today until this evening so anytime

If that’s a problem I will probably drop over tomorrow morning after 10am

Many thanks,

Sent from my iPhone

So not an ideal result at all, 4 stars is the highest score we can give. strawberry float you. Not only have you had a quote *excellent* product, that *sold out* and thus *made you money* and for all intents and purposes was a resounding success, you got me to deliver them for free as well.

Now all my direct competitors are ranked with 5.0 on Google and I'm knocked down all because of some batshit opinion that nothing can be perfect or "tangible" (which doesn't even make sense), therefore I don't use 5 stars as a score.

It's not a film or a theatre or a sandwich, which would be meaningless in the grand scheme of things, it's literally my direct source of income. Nice one.

The guy isn't even local (but wanted to use a "local company to undertake the supply") and with it being their first review on Google probably has no idea how any of this works but my god that is just bizarre and supremely annoying thinking. Now everyone local (like hundreds of people per month) are going to look at that alongside the competition and draw a conclusion, however lazy that in itself may be.

Also I'm not a company, I'm one person and you just dicked my income in a cost of living crisis, for a business that still isn't profitable yet because I keep over-delivering and trying to bring quality to people, exceeding their expectations.

Jawa is a customer confirmed

Edge 7/10

Eurogamer Recommended

I'm getting angry on your behalf reading that idiot's explanation Gecko, sorry mate that must be infuriating.

I sent them a long and academic letter from an antithetic standpoint of varying ways of looking this, plus the reality of how Google actually works (I was an SEO for a few years), which they probably won't read because that would require them to think to query their hot take, so all I could really do is reply to the review publicly with this:

Update 06/07/23: Client clarified 4 stars is the highest score they ever give and does not believe in 5 stars i.e. perfection. No complaints/negative feedback.
____
Hi,

Thank you so much for the positive feedback, which is much appreciated. As I aim to deliver a 5* service, and excellent products, like you say, very much to support my clients' goals such as selling out the T-shirts for your event, it would be great to know how we can maintain the 5* standard and perhaps any areas of improvement you've identified that knocked it down to 4 stars?

With this being the first such case in many years (with online reviews being present in perpetuity), it is very important to me so that I can both improve the service and address any concerns that you may have had. We are here to listen.

I do intentionally raise the bar by electing for extremely high quality garments (in this case ringspun & combed cotton, certified organic and Fair Wear Foundation Stanley/Stella 185g/m2 heavyweight T-shirts and 200g/m2 heavyweight cotton canvas premium totes, compared to more generic options such as Fruit of the Loom) and high definition, durable, full colour CMYK+W and eco-friendly print methods as standard (with no set up or artwork fees, minimums or other hidden charges). Offered at a reasonable price point that is commensurate with those goals (honestly subsiding this in terms of real revenue to provide a simply better standard, as we could charge a lot more). I was happy to meet your original budget in this instance by making a couple of concessions on price, as I would sooner do that then bounce down to a midrange product that may not make the same impression for the visitors.

However, I realise that is not all that makes up a service like a commercial art studio and perhaps there is something else I need to focus on improving?

In terms of expert attention paid to the enquiry from start to finish (the printer not any sales staff), this was logging around 11 hours (just emails) with exhaustive detail, which may have been too much. I am trying to refine this aspect of my service and would be interested in hearing your thoughts here too. The best source of feedback in this respect has to come from my clients.

Besides consistently targeting the highest quality, this process never ends; we are constantly updating, improving and investing in the service to provide this standard at a very small scale locally within the community, and shipping worldwide. And I feel that is why the business has consistently maintained over 93 5* reviews since 2014 (9 years). I truly care about each and every order and am always looking at the competition to see the various ways we could improve, including reading their reviews!

You know how to reach us if you would like to share with us any areas of improvement, and how we can earn your full five stars on this or any other occasion.

I am of course so happy to hear that you sold out of all the merchandise, thus turned a profit of around 200% and hence netting a source of funding, and marketing, for your events (in terms of leaving something quality and long lasting in the hands of every person who was lucky to grab one!). And yes the visitors most likely would concur they were about close to perfect (as is the aim), hence purchasing them. It is often just that little bit more tangible quality, such as softness and density of jersey knit, and print look and feel, that convinces and makes a sale compared to something so-so. I fear that, in many cases, promotional items of this nature are left unsold in piles, because often the service producing them never really cared about the quality, or this impact on the environment (if left unsold), and just wanted them out the door and to maximise the profit possible.

I was grateful for the opportunity to work with yourselves and look forward to the possibility to produce more in the future. Thank you so much.

With very best wishes,

Ben (Artist/Owner)

Translation: strawberry floating stupid.

And I will now move on my life like a good boy.

Sometimes a 4 is better than a 5

Amazing really isn't it. Absolutely no effort required to just chuck 5 stars on for a good experience. Makes no difference to him whatsoever but no he's got to stick to his stupid NO PERFECTION system as if anyone cares.

Oh my god, did you see what Mike gave Ben on Google reviews?!

Like, no?

5 stars

OH MY ACTUAL GAWD

Well, that really was just high and mighty of them. Even in every single review score policy, a 5, a 10, a 100!, isn't indicative of a perfect product, so why they feel it must is beyond me.

Apparently they are now considering changing their score because I seemed "perturbed" by it, with myself expressing the material impact to me whereas self evidently there is none for them. They also misuse "your" which is very annoying.

It's not an emotional thing, it's straight up business logic. If your clients (no wait, this one client) have a framework for reviews that is incompatible with every other of the thousands of Google users that view my profile per month, of course it's going to strawberry float things up.

I have bills to pay, and that's all it is about. Cost to them? Absolutely piss all.

Appreciate the comments to help remind me I am not in fact mental about it and I honestly wish I didn't have to waste my time with it.

What is it with these people who are obsessed with making other people life a misery. I couldn't even imagine what a 70 hour week would be like but I feel I would probably be dead by Wednesday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67269976

poshrule_uk wrote:What is it with these people who are obsessed with making other people life a misery. I couldn't even imagine what a 70 hour week would be like but I feel I would probably be dead by Wednesday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-67269976

How many hours should a person work in a week?

That's the question being asked in India over the past few days after software billionaire NR Narayana Murthy - the father-in-law of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - said that young people should be ready to work 70 hours a week to help the country's development.

lmao, of course

The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

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