2012-03-16

Elf & Saftey

So, you queue for a new shiny... And Apple seem to try and provide some sort of refreshment while queuing. I don't know the commercial arrangements but when queuing in Covent Garden last year we had food and drink provided by local vendors. I expect Apple pay for that.

So, in Reading Oracle shopping centre this morning, we have someone from the Starbucks that it literally at the end of the queue opposite the Apple entrance asking if we want a coffee, juice, or some food item... Excellent. The food thing they were handing out, and no, I do not recall if a biscuit, a bagel, or a croissant, sorry. I think a biscuit of some sort.

So I said I would like a coffee. My son said an orange juice (which is a juice in bottle from "just juice" or some such which Starbucks sell).

Excellent!

Except...

For "Health and safety reasons" they cannot actually bring you the drink! Not even the bottle of orange juice. And no, you cannot jump out of the queue line, it seems.

WTF!

Really?

This is a person that works in Starbucks, handles hot coffee and cold orange juice all day, is trained in such handling and conveying of such items, and they are not allowed, for health and safety reasons to bring it too us.

Yet, we, as mere mortals, with no training, can (after queuing, trusty, for some time and getting the new shiny from the Apple store) are allowed not only to carry away our coffee and/or orange, but take it to our car, drive to the office, carry it up some stairs (stairs! I kid you not - real stairs - dangerous things) and hand it to someone else...

WTF is the world coming too?

8 comments:

  1. Oh dear, that's not very Apple-esque is it? I could possibly see the logic with hot coffee (but definitely not agree with it), but cold drinks with lids?

    Does this imply that before they could do it, they would have to have some bod come and do a risk assessment?

    I genuinely don't know what to say!!! What did you do in the end?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We bought two frappachinos after leaving the apple store, one was for someone in the office. I drank the free orange.

      Delete
  2. So you invoked ADR on them then...

    Alternative Drinks Recovery

    (Got coat, heading for the door)

    ReplyDelete
  3. So let me get this straight.

    They came and offered you free drinks, but they would not bring them to you and if you left the line, you could not come back again?

    ReplyDelete
  4. The problem is that when people say "for Health & Safety reasons", they are not really considering your health or safety at all; they should really be saying "for fear of litigation".

    This over protection of society stems from two things: the lack of willingness of people to take responsibility any more for their own actions, or inactions (someone else is always to blame) fuelled by ambulance chasing no-claim-no-fee lawyers. These wind up MDs and CEOs who fear ending up in court, insurance companies who fear a claim, so their simple answer is don't allow it.

    There are real people out there that do care about improving health and safety but their hands are often tied by those who don't know the first thing about it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like a insurance issue, likely Starbucks insurance only extends to the threshold of the shop.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, sometimes it's "for fear of litigation", and sometimes it's "For another reason that we don't want to admit to, and H&S is a good excuse".

    The unfortunate effect is that it promotes a public (and then government) backlash against H&S, which then actually harms and kills people :/

    ReplyDelete

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