Sideswipe: Perspective on parking

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On a shopping trip to Westfield Shopping Centre, Westcity on Sunday, our reader parked next to the vehicle pictured. "I managed to extricate myself from my car and took a photo just to show my wife," he explains. "Imagine my surprise returning to the car to discover the note left under my wiper blade. It made me wonder just how they viewed the situation!"

Poor performing staff

Hilary Sumpter had to laugh at the irony of receiving an email from the EMA about an upcoming workshop about managing poor performing staff. Under the exclamation, 'Disengaged Staff Damage Your Business!' the spiel reads: "How can you tell if it's a performance or misconduct issue? Last year you learnt about the process of managing your poor performers ... In 2011, it's time to take the next step and learn how to take charge of the most difficult parts." Maybe it's time to take their own advice?

Well-meaning slip-up

"Has anyone else stepped and slipped on the yellow 'buttons' liberally placed at pedestrian intersections, near traffic lights?" asks this reader. "I understand their purpose (for the visually impaired) and their placement, but does it have to be painted with slippery yellow paint?"

Communication breakdown

Vodafail: Matt Belcher writes: "We changed communications providers a year ago due to poor customer service. Yesterday I received a phone call from a debt collection agency saying we still owed them money. It turns out the provider had not only been sending the bill to an address we have never lived at but they also couldn't figure out how to call us to let us know!"

Petrol tie-ups common ploy

AA aligning itself with BP is very simple says Rob: "Shell (and I assume Z Energy) is aligned with FlyBuys, whereas BP is aligned with AA Rewards. It is probably part of the agreement to accept AA cards that for BP's membership to AA Rewards they will get a certain amount of marketing support."

What a gas - not

"To the cretin who felt it acceptable to repeatedly share his intestinal gasses with me on the 7pm Auckland to Wellington flight on Friday night," writes a reader. "Clearly you didn't realise that the person sitting opposite you was 8 weeks pregnant, that her sense of smell is not only acutely heightened, but also directly connected to her gag reflex. The fact that you were rude enough to release the gas from your rotting bowel no less than 10 times in the ONE hour flight in a confined space with recirculating air flow, made a usually effortless trip completely torturous."