Offer and Acceptance

All Change!

I've been a little quiet of late and now is the time to share the reason why.   Firstly, Indigo Red moved offices.  After a few teething problems with IT and phones we're now up and running and are in swanky new offices in the heart of Watford town centre. 

Secondly, I have a new job.  Tomorrow is my last day at Indigo Red and I will be joining my new company at the end of the month - after a week of R&R and visiting parents, taking the cats to the vets and having my eyes tested!  I am going back to my recruitment beginnings and am re-joining the Taylor Bennett family to work on a new venture recruiting graduates.  Although I will be working across all industries recruiting fresh faced grads, I will still keep a hand in the PR industry so if you need AEs, give me a call.

Offer and Acceptance

The time has come to change the name of my blog.  "Wedlog" was terribly short sighted, in that I picked the name whilst in the midst of the whirlwind which was planning my wedding and at the time fitted the blog much better than it does now.  I'm now a smug married with a whole two months of marriage under my belt and so felt it was time to pick a name which reflects the content.... and so Offer and Acceptance is born.  As a recruitment centric blog, with a bias towards the PR industry, Offer and Acceptance reflects two of the most important parts of the recruitment process (the parts that earn recruiters their commission!). 

I'm keeping the URL the same for now, just so that I don't break any links elsewhere and can keep a track of the stats.  Right or wrong?  I may change my mind in the future.

Q. When is a review not a review? A. When it's censored

A friend of mine recently had a bad experience in a restaurant.  She and her husband only WENT there because it came highly recommended on a restaurant review site.

So, after complaining at the restaurant and refusing to pay for part of the meal she decided to put her own review on said site.

Today, she received this email:

>Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 16:55:35 +0100
>
>Thank you for your recent review of Gurkha Grill
>
>As you may have noticed, it has not yet appeared on Sugarvine’s Reader
>Recommended section.
>
>
>
>The aim of this section of the site is for people to recommend restaurants
>they have enjoyed to other people -- we have tried to make this clear both
>in the title (Reader Recommended) and in the FAQs box (Our policy on Reader
>Recommendations). We don't post negative reviews for two reasons -- legally
>we have been advised we are on unsafe ground posting potentially libelous
>comment unless we have actually visited ourselves and also we have no way of
>differentiating between 'genuine' poor reviews and malicious reviews from
>jealous competitors, disgruntled staff etc.
>
>We do, however, forward these reviews to the restaurant concerned,
>explaining that whilst we are not going to publish what has been submitted
>to us, this is legitimate customer comment which they might wish to take on
>board.
>
>
>
>I do hope you will continue to write restaurant recommendations for us.
>
>
>
>Yours,
>
>
>
>
>
>Daniel Coffey
>
>Administrator
>
>Sugarvine

Is it just me that doesn't get it?  You can submit your reviews, but only if they're good.  In which case - what's the point of the reviews?  You don't get a full picture of what all the customers really thought, you just get the few that thought it was fabulous - which is misleading surely?

Imagine if you could only say great things about anything you ever bought.  Imagine if theatre critics could only say good things about the plays they see, or food critics only publish rave reviews for restaurants they've finished. 

Criticism is an essential part of building a business.  How do you change those things that people don't like if you don't allow them to criticise?  In this age of online reviews and word of mouth marketing, this sort of censorship is not welcomed by anyone I know of.

Come on Sugarvine, there must be a better answer than censorship. 

Harveys Hell

I am losing my patience with the furniture store, Harveys.  I've just sent them this email:

"Order 72724xxxxx

I am writing to complain about the appalling customer service provided by Harveys. We bought a sofa back in 2006, which we took delivery of in June 2006. In Dec 2006 the sofa broke. After numerous emails and phone calls an engineer was sent out to take a look at the sofa and took a few pictures, and we never heard anything again. We called the store we bought the sofa from (Hounslow) repeatedly asking when we would have a replacement, to no avail. Eventually we had to contact one of the Directors of Harveys who immediately authorised for us to go into store and pick another sofa. So we did that. Over 14 weeks later we are still waiting for delivery of said sofa.

It was due to be delivered on Saturday between 11am - 2pm. We waited in all day, until 3pm, before we had to leave the house to attend an appointment. At 4.30 I had a phone call from the driver to say it wasn't being delivered. Really. Like we hadn't noticed!

I called the number provided (08700 663853) to arrange redelivery today (as it's not open over the weekend or holidays). The customer service representative who I spoke to at 9am promised someone would ring back by the end of play today to arrange redelivery. At 5.30pm when still no one had called me back I phoned again. I asked for redelivery this Saturday and was told no, there are no slots available. I asked to speak to someone more superior and Camilla, the customer service representative, refused.

I wasted a whole day on Saturday waiting for a sofa to be delivered - with no notification that it wasn't going to arrive until after the delivery time had been and gone. We have waited MONTHS for a sofa we can actually sit on. It is not our fault that the driver was unable to deliver this weekend.

The next available Saturday slot, I was told, is Saturday the 9th June which is absolutely no use to me as we're at a wedding that day.

I NEED OUR SOFA DELIVERED ON SATURDAY 2ND JUNE. If you are not prepared to arrange delivery for this Saturday, we would like a refund, IN FULL.

If delivery cannot be arranged for this Saturday or a refund be arranged, I am prepared to stand outside your Hounslow store and tell everyone who passes the door what absolutely shocking service we have received from Harveys from start to finish, and if necessary remove the display model of the sofa we have purchased. I am also prepared to call the local press to watch me do it, and every consumer watchdog I can think of to warn other people of the shoddy merchandise and useless service.

I expect a reply to this message by 10am tomorrow morning.

Mrs S"

Hands up who thinks I'll get a reply?  Hands up who thinks I'll be searching for the name of the Head of Communications tomorrow to let them know the local press are about to be informed of my protest this coming Saturday?

Wedded Bliss

We did it, we got hitched Turkish style!  Thanks to everyone who made it over to Turkey for our nuptials. We had an absolutely fantastic time!  We hope it was memorable, well the cake was if nothing else!

I'm now officially Mrs Stimson and will be changing my name in all the relevant places.  I started with my hotmail account and have already had a few "I wondered who the heck Sarah Stimson is" replies!  I will also be bucking the trend in recruitment and will be changing my name at work once the IT guru manages to change my email account. 

For those of you that can bear it, you can see the photos here:

Before and Ceremony:
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=2x5xrpet.5lpy3yxx&Uy=ek6wcb&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&localeid=en_GB&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Reception:
http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=2x5xrpet.82wdxkdh&Uy=j4224d&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&localeid=en_GB&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

My Life is an Open Facebook

My online social network is continuing to grow.  I've now joined Facebook.  Added to my online presence on Faceparty, Linked In, WAYN, Viadeo, Friends Reunited and of course this blog it will now be impossible to hide from anyone.  Not that anyone in particular is seeking me out. 

That said, an old work colleague of mine contacted me today.  She's married to another old work colleague and they have two children - last time I saw her they were still snogging in the local pub toilets.  You know who you are.  Who else will crawl out of the woodwork?

Maybe I should check out Twitter next - there are plenty of bloggers talking about it but I'm not sure I actually *get* it.  If you have a Facebook account, feel free to add me.  I figure there must be lots of PR people on there just dying to be headhunted!

Ended up in an Ambulance

I survived my hen do.  A ridiculous amount of dodgy cocktails, beer and German wine later I've dragged my sorry behind back to the office.  I got off fairly lightly on the tacky factor - a plastic tiara and a flashing L plate, well I guess it was par for the course.  Explaining endlessly what an L plate is and how it's relevant to getting married was interesting, considering my pigeon German (I can ask for 8 beers fluently now though).

Credit where credit is due though, my chief bridesmaid did us proud and we stayed in the most amazing hotel.  I'd like to say we planned lots of cultural activities, but we stumbled upon them rather than actively arranged them.  That said, it turns out it was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome which established the EU so there was plenty going on.  The huge stage with a mixture of excrutiating EuroPop blaring wasn't that welcome on Sunday morning with delicate heads all round.

As suggested by Simon Collister I did indeed end up in Ambulance (the bar, not the vehicle) although by that time we'd already had significant amounts of cocktails (I don't recommend them, they're horribly strong) and had accidentally ended up in an S&M gay bar (we made a sharp exit).  Ambulance serve the strongest gin and tonics known to mankind and that was the death of me.  I started the day with my first G&T at 5.30am in Stanstead and it was a fitting end to finish it with another G&T at 3am.

Just over five weeks to the wedding.  Better let my liver recover.

Wedding Wonders

I have just over 6 weeks until our big day.  The suits are ordered, the dress is bought and the nerves are kicking in.  I keep expecting someone to pop up and say "you can't get married, you're not a grown up!"  So far we've managed to have a reasonably calm lead up.  No tantrums or bridezilla moments so far - but give it time.  My hen do in Berlin is next Saturday so no doubt I'll have a sore head and a few tales to tell after that little shin dig.

The average cost of a wedding in the UK is £17,000. 

That's a HUGE amount of money.  Well, it is to me.  Ours is costing about half of that and even then we've had to make major cut backs in our lifestyle to pay for it despite some generous contributions from our parents.  Our American cousins apparently pay a lot more than that.  Weddings are a huge business, all you have to do is find a niche and there is money to be made.

Sarah Hayman 3 is getting married this year too.  Actually, it turns out she's getting married THE SAME DAY AS ME!  Freaky!  So freaky in fact that a journo is going to write a nice little piece on us and flog it to the highest bidder.  Every little helps.

Google Gracious Me! Part 3

Google has delivered the goods once more!  Another Sarah Hayman has contacted me after finding this blog.  Goodness me, how many of us are there?  We shall call her Sarah Hayman 3!  Sarah 3 has just had a baby boy called Samuel - take my word for it, he's CUTE!  We've been chatting on MSN messenger and there are a few spooky parallels in our lives.

I introduced Sarah 2 to Sarah 3 via email.  This could get confusing.

So now we have: -

• Sarah Hayman - PR Headhunter, frustrated writer, getting married this year, has a dad originally from Devon who now lives in London
• Sarah Hayman 2 - lives in Australia
• Sarah Hayman 3 - lives in the midlands, has a dad originally from Devon who now lives in London, has two sons, is getting married this year, has an interest in genealogy, been in Panto, now an agony aunt for a teen magazine.

The Sarah Hayman Society - current  membership - 3.

Bridezilla Bite Back

A little short of two weeks ago, inspired by the madness that is wedding planning and the goings on on the Confetti forums, I started writing a book.

Diary of Bridezilla has taken on a life all of its own.  Over 20,000 views in a week and rising it has turned into a daily occurance to ponder to myself what Bridezilla will do next.

I've had to be structured and plan the book out in advance, so I know where she will end up and how the story turns out, but the day to day thoughts of this bride to be remain a mystery to me until I start tapping away at the next entry in her diary.

Very flatteringly, I have Confetti forum members crying out for the next installment.  I have created a rod for my own back

It's a good thing too really.  I have tried writing books before and get bored and disillusioned by chapter four.  Regular feedback is proving the spur I need to keep going.