Did you know if you are one of those noisy ignorant Spanish students that spend their time loitering in Irish towns and cities each summer and doing things such as splitting a coke between 8 of you in McDonalds that you are entitled to skip the queue in an O2 store and to hell with those people wanting to buy more than a fucking charger that are in the queue? Well that’s apparently the policy in the O2 experience store in Patrick’s Street in Cork.
Despite me raising a complaint about the queue jumpers the girl serving them didn’t seem to care, nor did her colleague who looked at her and me and pretended not to notice.
Fuck your mobile broadband product I was signing up for and fuck your 16gb iPhone I decided to to get while I was in the queue.
This what Flickr brings back for the phrase fuck you. G’wan George:
Photo owned by Tony the Misfit (cc)
God bless those spanish students…
Typical bullshit from the Spanish students, I get to kick them out of work if they annoy me 😀
Both those staff should have had a bit of cop on and at least tried to lie to you saying sorry we didn’t see that, etc.. So they lost two juicy contracts all in exchange for a charger worth less than 20euro. Well done to them.
On the subject of Spanish students there are a few things I enjoy doing.
When they’re walking 3,4,5 abreast on the path, I like to walk right through the middle.
Telling them to keep it down or shut up: When there’s a hoard of them being stupidly loud next to me when I’m buying something, I tell them to shut up, do I work there? nope, but I’m a customer and I shouldn’t be subject to their bullshit when I’m queuing, and as you pointed out, the 1 coke between 8, all 8 still queue up.
I’ve met some of the older ones and talked to them, they seem to grow out of the obnoxiousness, but still that bit loud side.
Maybe it’s just a major culture difference, I’ve never been to Spain, but is that behaviour normal over there?
such crankiness from one usually so calm.
They are a scourge with their incessant machine gun chatter and their desire to walk 57-abreast on the narrowest streets.
Then again our own homegrown muppets do give them a run for their money.
They had iPhones in stock?
Well done Damien, what an ignorant generalisation about Spanish people. A real ambassador for Ireland you are.
Thanks but I didn’t realise I was appointed to speak on behalf of you and every other Irish person.
It would only be an ignorant generalisation if it were untrue.
hey damien – answer THE question – did they have iPhones in stock? of course you may never have found out 🙁
keith
@Darran @Keith I didn’t get the chance to ask.
Oh yeah and their “demo” 3G iPhone is the old EDGE iPhone from what I could see.
bugger! Enjoy your charger 🙂
keith
Keep waiting so I guess! 🙂
Had an almost identical O2 Experience on Monday in the one on Grafton St Dublin!
In the queue for 10 mins whilst the staff leisurely chatted with the customers / info seekers at the counter then as I was about to be seen next this auld fella (Irish Victor Meldrew type) just slinks in front of me and the rest of the queue and starts to ask about something.
The O2 staff member catches my disgusted look and just smirks back in my direction whilst continuing to chat to Victor.
This goes on for almost another 5 minutes when I get to the counter to ask – have you any 3G iPhones?
Smirky – No
Me – Do you know when they’ll be back in stock
Smirky – No
Me – What about a waiting list? My friends got one from a waiting list?!
Smirky – No waiting list here
Me – Have you any idea when they’ll be back in stock – next week the following week?
Smirky – No Idea
Me – You’re a fucking asshole
heh. Grafton Street customer service was sucky when I was there too. Was looking to buy a new phone, but nobody seemed interested in serving me, despite there being next to nobody in the shop.
I went elsewhere and was glad of it – a nice phone shop on Camden Street threw in a free 1G SD card with my purchase.
You are certainly full of yourself Damien,
That’s a very interesting IP you just came from.
Leaving out the Spanish aspect (and the fact that O2 is Spanish) the age old chestnut comes into play – shop staff who couldn’t give a flying fiddlers…
If there’s a queue they should work the queue. I have on occasion walked out of shops that have refused toacknowledge their queues and maybe now that business is tightening standards of customer service might improve.
Ahh! come on Damien you had decided well before you got to the queue about the iphone 3g. You have a mac book air and an iphone already don’t you? 🙂 it was only a matter of time. How come it took you so long?
@John B Nope, didn’t want one for the shitty monthly charges and what you get in return and then decided in the queue that I might as well.
They gave you time to think in the queue, that’s clever!! Foiled by those pesky Spanish students…. Personally i have no time for hideously expensive tariffs. As you can tell (ip address) 3 is really good. Flexible tariff and 9.99 for a gig of data.
Those bloomin’ Spanish (or other European) students are a pain in the rear. I was at the shop a couple of days ago about to hit the checkout with a basket filled with goods, and then a whole bunch of them just legged it to get in front of me.
And they were being a nuisance as well, messing around with some of the displays…
Lock them up in Mountjoy for their holiday over here, I say, then they can experience some of Ireland’s culture that not everybody can talk about!
hate queue jumpers, but don’t mind noisy Spanish students. In my experience, yes, spaniards are more ‘animated’ in general, at home or abroad. I think it’s great, wish I had that much enthusiasm for seeing how many mcdonalds straws you can put together and will they span accross the street…
@Liam: The shop assistant didn’t have any 3G iPhones and he didn’t know when they’d be back into stock.
So he didn’t have what you wanted – either the goods or the answers. That hardly makes him a ‘fucking asshole’.
It’s not just Spanish students. I was in one of the O2 store on Grafton St in the queue behind an English woman. She gets served and then I’m next, except when I go to move to the next server an older English woman comes over from the phones and gives out to me since she was there before me.
Turns out they had an interesting queuing technique. One woman would queue while the others go off and browse the shop. Once the first woman gets served her friends can then join the top of the queue in her spot. Seemed perfectly logical to her and the O2 staff who shrugged and served her.
Also Irish people are just as bad. My local Spar has 3 checkout spaces. People queue at the middle one and get served at whichever one comes available. Except of course if you are a mid-50s mid-level management type guy in a 2000 reg mercedes who can just walk into the shop and straight to the next available counter. When the queue was pointed out to him by the person at the top of the queue he argued back, loudly, that everyone in the queue was queuing for the center counter and so he was fully entitled to walk to any other available counter. Obviously in his world there is special checkout reserved for people of his self importance in his local shop. The person who had been at the top just ended up putting their headphones back on and stopped listening to the guy rant about how this checkout was free when he came in and the queue people would just have to wait.
Shop assistants should have the courage to send people back to the queue but they would probably end up getting fired.
A little phrase you can use in that situation:
No se sálte la lÃnea, concha (pron: no say sal-tay-a la lee-nay-a, con-cha)
Translation: Don’t skip the queue, c**t.
Ahh I thought it was pronounced conyo.
@NiallOK
Fair enough but it was the arrogant / dismissive manner in which he said it coupled with the fact he knew I was pissed off at the line-cutting pensioner!
I’m not usually in the business of verbally abusing shop staff.
Damien, it seems you just love complaining about just about anything, and your always the poor innocent victim, if its not your stuff been nicked, then its your bags going missing, now its having to queue with some noisy Spanish students , poor little you, what will it be next? where will you get the next trilling story to keep us all on the edges of our seats?……………. Yawn..
Conall and Fergal both using the same proxy server to leave comments. Bit odd that. Fergal be a good lad and read that I queued, the students did not and the 02 staff couldn’t care less. Do you think O2 should continue this policy of treating their customers badly or change the policy?
You’d think that working with a phone company, that does mobile broadband, they’d be able to cover up their tracks a lot better than just using a proxy server…
More fool you for buying mobile broadband and an iphone after receiving that service
What despod said.
And as for tracking IP addresses? It brings new meaning to cyberstalking those who disagree with you.
@73man – Hardly. A little transparency when it comes to your identity never hurt anyone. Except for idiots with agendas.
Damien, I only left one comment in this thread, The first one. I didn’t write “You’re full of yourself” or anything Fergal wrote. check this IP. It’s in Dublin.
That’s right, idiots with agendas. Because us intelligent people don’t have agendas, right?
@73man – Well, unlike the respondents above, you’re not hiding under a veil of anonymity to push your agenda. As such, I’m assuming you’re not an idiot. Then again, you ARE putting words into my mouth – so maybe you actually are an idiot. I’m out on this one. Best of luck to you nonetheless.
@73man Some people have left defamatory, nasty and threatening comments over the past while and the majority have been using the proxy service HideMyAss.com. One such user has been pretending to be me and has left comments on numerous other blogs. So when people leave comments using the same proxy IP I get notified as it’s on a watch list.
I don’t cyberstalk those that disagree with me. I’d be busy all day were that the case.
@Damien: fair enough. It’s an occupational hazard I guess.
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Ye sad cunt. Got nothing better to do with your life than moan about kids. I’m sure O2 don’t give a fuck about you not buying a 16Gb iPhone either – plenty more fashion victims out there willing to take your place. Ta ta for now…
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS! George (the man) Carlin!
I’m not sure if I’m posting on the correct site but I would like to tell ye my story. Last night my iPhone was stolen in town (Cork City) and I was obviously very upset and angry. Myself and my mom went to the o2 store on Patrick’s street to see what could be done. Emmet was the representative who was looking after us and we remember his name because he really went above and beyond the expectations. He was very sympathetic towards my situation and stayed with us to help resolve the problem even though me and my mom are a bit illiterate when it comes to phones! He was also friendly, funny and chatty which cheered me up and put me in a better mood than I was when I arrived at the store. I just wanted to write this because people like this are an absolute credit to their employer. We just wanted to give him a hug before we left the store! We got great satisfaction out of our dealings with him. There was another man with Emmet who was also very helpful but we didn’t quite catch his name. I hope the relevant people will see this post because I wanted to express my sincere gratitude to Emmet for helping me out in my time of need!