What were they thinking?

A friend brought this little "what NOT to do" to my attention. Australia Post have a nice little promotion on until the 25th:

You complete an entry form, and have your $20 spend validated by a customer service person. 

The obvious next step is for you to go about your day with a little happy glow knowing AustPost have noticed that you're one of the few people sending snail mail these days and keeping them afloat and is actually a bit grateful and trying to reward your behaviour.

Instead, some bright spark decided you have to buy a 60c stamp and post the entry form:

Because it's not enough that you are actually in an Australia Post branch, spending 20 of your hard-earned dollars in a single transaction. 

My friend was not exactly feeling the love. I guess "Spend $20.60 in store…" didn't have quite the same ring to it. This from a postal service which also advertises Reply Paid Mail so that "your customers can respond quickly, easily and with minimum fuss."

It has all the hallmarks of committee idea dilution. Some marketing person had a neat little idea for a cheap and cheerful little campaign to identify high-volume consumer customers.  Then someone had the brilliant idea of wringing a few more stamps sales out of it.

So congratulations to AustraliaPost, you've annoyed my friend, a rare bird who still sends letters, and moved her from mild indifference to active dislike by revealing the contempt in which you hold your consumer customers.

A 100% cotton non-iron dress shirt - really!

Mr O has just discovered Seidensticker 100% cotton non-iron shirt. Which really is non-iron. No, I mean really. Once again I find myself exclaiming, O brave new world! (I expect we'll crack poverty and world peace any day now….)

We recently bought some other shirts that claim to be non-iron, with varying degrees of success. The Seidensticker are the real deal.

I do not use any tricks or special equipment. The O household has a front-load washer, and I do use the crease free setting. When I hung the shirt out on the line in a light breeze I got the best result. Drip-dry inside was not exactly creased, but did not have the same crispness. Moving air seemed to help. The shirt dried inside did need a quick 'touch up' with the iron. What my mother used to call 'a lick and a promise'. This was made almost worth doing because I sprayed on some lavendar water for the totally over-the-top care. (Yes, sometimes I am that much of a domestic tragic - but not often.)

The next best non-iron shirt was Brooksfield (by Gloweave). It was not crumpled either, but you could tell it had not been ironed. The Seidensticker shirt did look ironed. No creases, at all. Other shirts in various brands all needed to be ironed.

Both the Brooksfield and Seidenticker shirts iron like a dream, if one feels very dedicated or if the gentleman has a very important meeting or a wedding or funeral to attend. I do prefer the German shirt though - it handled better and the seams were so even the shirt laid flat ready for the iron. Both had a soft smooth texture, which I think of as 'buttery' even though no grease is involved.

Serious attention to detail, and a seriously wonderful sensory experience. If you have to wear a business shirt. Or launder one.

Grace notes

In music, a grace note is an ornament. It is something of an extra, which gives something more to the note to which it is attached. A grace note adds a little extra, and exactly how much (and what) emphasis it is given, is up to the individual performer.

Life offers many opportunities for grace notes. Too often, we don't take advantage of those opportunities. Too often, we don't even realise there are such opportunities.

Lotus Health, a Chinese massage centre in Camberwell, have a particular grace note that I like. There is a small vase of flowers on the shelf below the head hole, in their massage tables. So you can look at three cheerful little gerberas while you're flat on your stomach with your head poked into a hole. You may (or may not) be surprised that it was the masseur's wife who came up with this lovely idea.

A grace note is a gift. A small moment of generosity - of spirit, of thought, not necessarily of money. I suspect such gestures nourish the spirit of both the giver and the recipient.

This is post 37 of 43 posts.