About the Author… Anthony, Every Service Provider’s Nightmare

Anthony complains about almost everything....

When he’s not complaining, he works in the design business – because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. However, he only works two days a week these days and is due to retire shortly to devote more time to being miserable.

Throughout his career, he travelled internationally with his work which meant lots of aeroplanes and hotels – both of which he hated with a passion but which provided lots of raw material for his letters. His favourite places are the Yorkshire Dales and Africa – with the Dales probably edging it because there you can eat the animals whereas in Africa, you are not allowed to eat the animals, but they are allowed to eat you.

Anthony portrait

He has been married to the same (remarkably tolerant) woman for a very long time indeed and has two grown up children he refers to as Pugsley and Veruka. He also has two grandchildren and because of his general disposition, is now known as Grumpa.

His greatest passion is food so when he’s not at work or writing his letters, he is usually cooking or eating.  Consequently, he tends to complain about restaurant food rather a lot and rarely pays the entire bill. He once broke into the kitchen and attacked the chef at a local hotel after an appalling meal that ended with a dessert that contained a pubic hair.

His other great love used to be his mistress – a very old and very fast sports car – which he took out on sunny weekends to drive at indecent speed through the local countryside whilst terrorising and shouting obscenities at anyone and anything that got in the way. Alas, he recently sold it and spent the money on a new very posh kitchen on the assumption that it would be much harder to kill himself whilst cooking.

Anthony also loves great coffee and drinks copious amounts of espresso (which may explain why he’s so bad tempered). He regards Starbucks as a scourge on the face of the planet akin to Swine Flu and thinks that serving weak coffee is on a par with mass murder or being an estate agent.1 

In the meantime, he has built a sister site British-American-Dictionary.com which takes a not even slightly serious look at the differences between British and American English. Do take a look as he’s really rather pleased with it.

One day, Anthony intends to turn both sites into books to provide beer money during his retirement.

You can get in touch with Anthony via the Contact DCR page.


  1. For American readers: An estate agent is a realtor, otherwise known as a bastard. 

3 thoughts on “About the Author… Anthony, Every Service Provider’s Nightmare”

  1. Hi Anthony,
    I love your site, always good for a laugh. One of my favorite posts in Wookie at the Checkout. I am also working on a company geared towards calling out bad customer service and empowering customers.

    Here is what my site is up to:
    nevaHold (www.nevaHold.com) is a new startup that seeks to eliminate the most frustrating and time consuming part in the customer service delivery process, by providing consumers with a unified platform that allows them to reach out to any company on the go. The service supports multiple channels to ensure the consumer’s voice is heard. Check out our 90 second demo video: https://bit.ly/KUcHkH

    nevaHold receives a question or complaint from a consumer and posts it to the respective company’s customer support channels being Facebook, Twitter, email or any other support channel. The consumer goes about her daily activities and receives a response from the company through nevaHold. If the brand does not respond to the consumer within a certain time frame nevaHold blasts the company on all of its social media networks until there is a response.

    Now instead of a consumer spending 30 minutes on hold for a customer support agent or searching online forums for an answer, she spends less than a minute to make her voice heard. nevaHold does the rest so she gets the support she deserves.

    So that’s us. Just wanted to reach out to see if there are any areas we could work together or help each other out.

    Cheers,
    Kena

    Reply
  2. Please feel free to stick this on your website 😉

    From: Alison Robins
    Date: 4 November 2010 21:14:48 GMT
    To: “custserv@gap.eu”
    Subject: Re: Shipping query (KMM288046345I28583L0KM)

    Katherine

    This gets even better.
    I live in the Channel Islands, NOT the Canary Islands – big difference.

    Kind regards

    Alison Robins

    On 4 Nov 2010, at 21:08, custserv@gap.eu wrote:

    Dear Alison,

    Thank you for your email. We sincerely apologize for your frustration
    and disappointment that we do not offer shipping to the Canary Islands
    at this time. We just recently offered our online services to the
    United Kingdom and want to make sure that we do this properly. Please
    know that we have forwarded your request to see our service expanded to
    include the Canary Islands to the appropriate parties. In the meantime,
    we hope that you have an opportunity to visit one of our UK stores in
    the future.

    For locations of our UK stores, just visit gap.eu and click on Store
    Locator.

    If we may be of further assistance, please contact us at custserv@gap.eu
    or toll free from inside the United Kingdom at 00800 06006666 and
    outside the United Kingdom at 001 614 744 3997.

    To review the complete Terms of Sale and Use applicable to your purchase
    and use of our website, please visit http://www.gap.eu/terms.

    To review our Privacy Policy, please visit http://www.gap.eu/privacypolicy.

    This email is sent from Gap Europe Limited, a company registered in
    England and Wales with company number 06279672 and a subsidiary of Gap
    Inc, USA. The registered office is at Berkeley Square House, Berkeley
    Square, London W1J 6BS, United Kingdom.

    This email may contain information which is confidential, privileged or
    subject to copyright. If you are not the intended recipient of this
    email you are on notice that any use, disclosure or copying of this
    email is expressly prohibited.

    Sincerely,

    Katherine
    Gap Inc. Customer Relations

    Original Message Follows:
    ————————
    Stephanie

    Sorry, but there is no ‘understanding’ on my part. This is quite the
    most bonkers customer relations reply I have had the misfortune to
    have received.
    I am asking a simple customer relations question. I am not asking you
    for your profit and loss balance sheet.
    Perhaps you would be kind enough to let you ‘corporate offices’ know
    that I shall now take this further through the media.

    Kind regards

    Alison Robins

    On 3 Nov 2010, at 17:24, custserv@gap.eu wrote:

    Dear Alison,

    Thank you for your inquiry regarding our lack of delivery the Channel
    Islands. Although we appreciate your interest in our brand, we are
    unable to say why we do not deliver to the Channel Islands at this
    time
    as this information is held at our corporate offices and is not
    available to the public. We apologise for any confusion or
    frustration
    this issue may cause.

    We appreciate your understanding.

    If we may be of further assistance, please contact us at
    custserv@gap.eu
    or toll free from inside the United Kingdom at 00800 06006666 (Please
    dial this number exactly as it appears.) and outside the United
    Kingdom
    at 001 614 744 3997.

    To review the complete Terms of Sale and Use applicable to your
    purchase
    and use of our website, please visit http://www.gap.eu/terms.

    To review our Privacy Policy, please visit http://www.gap.eu/privacypolicy.

    This email is sent from Gap Europe Limited, a company registered in
    England and Wales with company number 06279672 and a subsidiary of Gap
    Inc, USA. The registered office is at Berkeley Square House, Berkeley
    Square, London W1J 6BS, United Kingdom.

    This email may contain information which is confidential, privileged
    or
    subject to copyright. If you are not the intended recipient of this
    email you are on notice that any use, disclosure or copying of this
    email is expressly prohibited.

    Sincerely,

    Stephanie
    Customer Service Consultant

    Original Message Follows:
    ————————
    Dear Stephanie

    I have no idea what you mean by ‘this information is proprietary and
    is not currently available for public consumption.’
    Any chance you could explain in simple, easy-to-understand English why
    Gap does not deliver to the Channel Islands?
    It is a simple enough request.

    Alison Robins

    On 2 Nov 2010, at 21:53, custserv@gap.eu wrote:

    Dear Alison,

    Thank you for your inquiry regarding why we do not ship to the
    Channel
    Islands. Although we appreciate your interest in our brand, we are
    unable to address your specific inquiry at this time as this
    information
    is proprietary and is not currently available for public consumption.

    We appreciate your understanding and look forward to shopping with
    you
    again soon.

    If we may be of further assistance, please contact us at
    custserv@gap.eu
    or toll free from inside the United Kingdom at 00800 06006666 (Please
    dial this number exactly as it appears.) and outside the United
    Kingdom
    at 001 614 744 3997.

    To review the complete Terms of Sale and Use applicable to your
    purchase
    and use of our website, please visit http://www.gap.eu/terms.

    To review our Privacy Policy, please visit http://www.gap.eu/privacypolicy.

    This email is sent from Gap Europe Limited, a company registered in
    England and Wales with company number 06279672 and a subsidiary of
    Gap
    Inc, USA. The registered office is at Berkeley Square House, Berkeley
    Square, London W1J 6BS, United Kingdom.

    This email may contain information which is confidential, privileged
    or
    subject to copyright. If you are not the intended recipient of this
    email you are on notice that any use, disclosure or copying of this
    email is expressly prohibited.

    Sincerely,

    Stephanie
    Customer Service Consultant

    Original Message Follows:
    ————————
    May I ask why you don’t ship to the Channel Islands but you do to
    certain European countries that are further away? Has to be the most
    bizarre shipping policy I have ever come across and not one I would
    have expected from yourselves. All the major retailers – John Lewis,
    Boden, Laura Ashley etc etc ship here. Why not Gap?

    Many thanks.

    Alison Robins

    Reply

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