Other Things I’ve Noticed

03 January 2015 Eindhoven 534 words, 2 minutes #misc  #noticed 

Here are some other things I’ve noticed.

  • So far, Big Data is not there. To quote a fictional character (Harvey Specter, Suits): "This phrase: 'I know what the procedure is' …​ I don’t think it means what you think it means."

    • Amazon still can’t figure out that because I buy someone a gift I wouldn’t otherwise buy, this is not the kind of item to start recommending me;

    • It’s great that some algorithm determined the best moment in the week to send promotional e-mails. Shame that everybody seems to use the same algorithm, resulting in me chucking out messages in bunches just because I’m annoyed;

    • Twitter seems to think that a tweet I sent out and got 12 views is great. And that I want them to e-mail me about it. Thanks.

  • Some people have ridiculous job titles. The constant stream of these on LinkedIn is a source of hilarity to brighten my day.

    • What keeps an Insight Architect awake at night?

    • What exactly does an Engagement Manager plan to do during an average working day?

    • You thought you had issues focussing your activities? Now imagine your boss has deemed you a Technical Marketing Engineer.

  • Your bank will actually tell you: Dear customer, we have just lowered the interest rate on your savings account. The following sentence will say: we like to help you achieve your savings goals. Well, hang on a minute, how’s that supposed to work?

  • It seems ironic to me that some motorways have trajectory speed control and that it’s exactly those motorways where you’re always at a standstill when it matters most. I’m looking at you, A12.

  • For some unclear reason, somebody at Amazon thought it would be a great idea to have the title of their pages change 25 times at page load. I’m not sure the combination of purchasing printed dead trees and stroboscopic light effects will catch on as a major hit.

  • There’s one important piece of information that belongs on a DVD/BRD box besides the title and a picture: the running time. It’s almost always there. Why they make it impossible to locate by using the smallest font size known to man, is beyond me.

  • People who work somewhere for a long time start assuming that everybody understands how things operate there and this expectation includes people who don’t work there. Say, customers. Which means they are confused or even rude when others ask "silly" questions.

    • "But that’s a Friday. We don’t work on Fridays." - How the heck am I supposed to know that?

    • "No, you can’t buy that today because the warehouse is closed." - Should I know which items are kept in your warehouse and which are in the store?

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