Dispatches from the retail front line

These people think we have so much time to waste, electricity, phones, mobile phones, legal help, business rate reductions, and don’t get me started on internet search engine performance.

All of these people are so (mock) surprised when you say you don’t have time to talk right now. “Don’t you want to save money sir?” is the stock answer, yes I would love to but they just cant equate every minute talking to them you costs me money and more importantly, time.

The time I waste trying to be polite to these people. But some deserve the short answer I give them when they go on and on and on….

For years I’ve had the PRS Society bug me. They claim to collect money in royalties for singer and songwriters. They have never proved to me after years of asking that anyone gets this money but never mind. However, one of the staff decided to put the call through to me after telling the person on the end of the phone that the music he could hear was a radio in the background.

You know how the conversation started don’t you? “How many people can hear that radio sir?” I knew what was coming so I said “one” and it was her radio. I was then told that if I walked past the person and could hear the radio I needed a license to do so. I told him she was locked away in the stockroom and no one else went in there and anyway my hearing isn’t that good.

We argued for several minutes about several scenarios, did you know if you are in a work van with the window down and a passer-by hears the radio in the cab you have to pay for a license? Or if you listen to Talksport, Radio 4 or any station with no music, you need a license to hear the jingles or music in adverts? And the most stupid? Did you know that if your phone rings and someone else hears it you need a license? Bloody madness.

I was so pissed off with this one that I didn’t give up without a fight and after 45 minutes we reached an agreement where I paid a fraction of what he wanted and he had a very useful recorded telephone conversation for “training purposes”.