The Mark Ellis Blog

All this travelling on public transport has got me wondering. You wonder what people do for a living, where they are heading or even what's going through their minds !  It's fair (or fare) to say that there's all sorts of people using public transport for their trip to work, school, the shops or for lots of other reasons.  My trip on the bus on Friday into Sunderland got me thinking as there was a lad got on in Bournmoor in working togs and a high-viz vest, got himself a Metro and sat down.  When the bus went through Penshaw, his workmate got on the bus - he had the same togs on and the pair chatted away as the bus rolled to Sunderland. So, it got me thinking where were they heading and what they were doing - they could be builders, but they looked a bit too clean.  They could be road sweepers, but again, a bit too clean. For those keeping up, you'll have sussed that I was on the 78 heading to Sunderland, now the 78 goes into Sunderland down Chester Road and fo...

Here we go for a bit of a controversial one, with some thoughts on Mackem Logic. Now, you have to appreciate that, for my sins, I was born in Sunderland.  However, I know that there's not very much Mackem Logic has got through to me, especially with being Black & White through and through. Thanks to the girls doing various SAFC Foundation Family Learning courses at school this year, I've had the pleasure of free tickets to the Stadium of Light three times so far this season.  On all three trips I've noticed some really strange things, but today's trip was a priceless classic, but some of the behaviour has been repeated on all three visits.  This is a good feat for them as we've sat in three different areas of the ground on all of the visits - we've been in the East Stand, North Stand and today, in the North West Corner which was nice as it was very close to the away fans, so we got a little bit of atmosphere. So, today, the crew from Lumley where pretty ...

So, this week, I've been looking at a few things to do with Customer Service.  As I've been thinking, I've looked at some of the Customer Service that I've experienced over the past few weeks and there's been some really good and some really bad examples. We've had a problem with the car radio as its had a new radio and we couldn't remember the radio code.  After a lot of pondering, I remembered once being told that Autosounds on Scotswood Road were the experts at being able to sort the problem out.  Whilst feeling inspired, I dropped them an email one Sunday night to ask if they could do it - at 8.24 on the Monday morning I had a reply confirming that they could do it and giving me a price and to give them a call to sort it out.  To me that was impressive and they did solve the radio code conundrum and they were really helpful throughout and rang me when they said they would, plus the price was exactly as quoted.  Superb customer service in my humble opin...

Respect is a funny thing. There's been a fair bit of debate recently on local radio about the lack of respect that young people have in their everyday lives. Personally, it is something that winds me up as a simple "please" or "thank you" costs you nowt and its nice to be pleasant.  But, at the risk of being too controversial, older people are just as guilty and possibly even more guilty than young people.  As an example, I was in Morrisons at Doxford Park today and within a matter of seconds, an old guy sauntered straight in front of me with his trolley - had I not stopped quickly, I'd have knocked him flying and he didn't even acknowledge me.  Then, as I started to walk again, an older lady coming the other way dropped a carrier bag out of her pocket and I told her what she'd done.  She then simply bent over, picked the bag up, put it back in her pocket and walked off - not a please, a thank you or a kiss me arse !  Needless to say that I was pre...