General

I recently needed to contact the Department of Education in relation to a cycle to work scheme query regarding two issues: 1. the VAT number that they say must be sent to the supplier of the bike when they are situated outside the country, and 2. information on how you pay the extra money when you go over the €1000 covered by the scheme (which they again insist must be paid before they will sanction the purchase).

I knew it could take a bit of time to get a response as I had already tried to contact them before regarding a number of issues that were conflicting on their own submission form (6 days and a few emails). Finally someone did respond to me, so at least it gave me a little hope of getting a response this time also.

On the 03/02/2014 I decided to contact them with the following email, asking for information on the two issues above:

4 days passed and I hadn’t received any sign of acknowledgment that my email had been received so I decided to send the same email again on the 07/02/2014:

I followed this process for another week, sending an email on the 10/02/2014 and the 12/02/2014:

It has now been 29 days without a single response, either of acknowledgement of the emails, or answering the questions asked. What’s extremely annoying about this, is the fact this is information they say must be provided in order for them to sanction the purchase of the bike. So rather than being able to send all the right information at the start, I must instead send the incorrect information to them, have them read through it, and send me back what must be changed – a frustrating process and a waste of everybody’s time!!!

Over the last few days I’ve also tweeted them twice to see if I can get a response but alas nothing:

Why do Americans prefer things to be bigger, longer, and louder? They have the Big Mac, big cars, and big buildings. They also happen to have rather large people but perhaps that is down to their insistence on super size me fast food experiences. But something that has always bugged me a little bit is their overindulgence to try and zap every single cent they can from TV shows and movies – something I will refer to as chasing the cheque.

I first realised this when watching the TV show Lost. Rumours quickly started swirling around that because the show had been such a hit with the first series, they were going to extend it from an originally planned three series to six series. Then as it grew ever more popular they decided they would have to complete it with a movie. And while all this was happening you could see the plot was getting thinner and thinner, to the point where people stopped caring about it – I didn’t even see the final series after watching all the others. They decided chasing the cheque was more important than the shows reputation!

But something I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is bigger, longer and louder doesn’t necessarily mean better. Lets look at one of my favourite TV shows The Office – ran from 2001-2003, had a total of 12 episodes and 2 Christmas specials. Arguably one of the greatest TV shows ever, and ended perfectly. Ricky Gervais wanted to emulate Fawlty Towers (which also had 12 episodes), where rather then trying to squeeze every penny out of its fans and lose some of the magic about the characters, he moved on to other projects.

Something not so easily done with the American Office – ran from 2005-2013, and had a total of 201 episodes. They even managed to squeeze out two series without the main character holding it all together: Michael Scott (Steve Carell). While Ricky Gervais was making plenty of money from this, it was the show that continued to chase the cheque, and it must be said damaged its reputation by doing so.

Now while I know I’ve only given two concrete examples here, something I’m trying to build from it is an idea that has been storming in my head for awhile – building one’s reputation is more important and more rewarding, then going after money all the time. For example, Ricky Gervais has managed to build a great reputation by making shows with great characters, and walking away from them at the right time when he could take the easy pay cheque to continue churning out more episodes of The Office. But this reputation has led to him being able to command money for new ventures much easier in the longer term.

For me it is more important to work towards something that is enjoyable, and reputation building, then just going after the big cheque all the time. Examples of this include helping any students that ask for help towards projects – adding this kind of work to LinkedIn enhances a reputation, or going doing a charity cycle and raising money is again reputation building. Obviously this is an idea still swirling, and I’m sure I’ll have a few more posts towards it, but it might get some people thinking.

So while America is bigger, longer, and louder, at the moment I would definitely say not better – chasing the cheque is not as good as raising your reputation.