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Thursday, 20 February 2025

Lessons never learned



The other day found Mrs H and I having breakfast in a nearby Costa. Something we rarely do, but it was a cold, dull day so we decided to try something different. It's not much and we used to shun Costa, so for us, breakfast at Costa is something different.

I had a sausage cob and Mrs H had the egg version and both were pretty good and certainly cheap. We chatted about it, about the way corporate giants like Costa do what they do to a reliable standard and it may not be fashionable to say so, but that standard is pretty good. The coffee isn’t the best, we can do better at home, but it’s good enough and reliable enough.

From what we see, the Costa staff know what they are doing, do it well and cheerfully. It’s corporate, it’s the same everywhere, but it’s a good service, so no wonder the place is usually busy.

As a stark contrast, Keir Starmer and his Ministers have no notion of providing a service, let alone providing it to a good standard at an acceptable price, so here’s an idea. Politicians should spend a few years at least serving in Costa or some equivalent. Seriously – they should.

All politicians should find out what works and what doesn’t in the real world before being grossly impertinent enough to pass on lessons they never learned themselves.

9 comments:

dearieme said...

Not only have they never held proper jobs they don't even seem to have had school holiday or university vacation jobs that would confront them with reality.

Tammly said...

And what they learnt at school and university probably wasn't worth learning.

decnine said...

Politicians all like to see themselves as The Boss. My view is that the Prime Minister's job is to be the nation's Butler. He manages the servants. He is entitled to no say in how the family, individually or collectively, behave themselves. Conservatives used to get it, sort of, until Cameron started touring with his Blair tribute act. Socialists all long to be Lenin. The worst of them long to be Stalin.

DiscoveredJoys said...

Except their CVs would assert Customer Interface Manager rather than serving coffee.

Anonymous said...

"Politicians should spend a few years at least serving in Costa or some equivalent. Seriously – they should."

Now ... how can we implement this?

A K Haart said...

dearieme - they probably didn't have vacation jobs or they would have learned about the real world as many of us did and probably never forgot.

Tammly - yes, whatever they learned, it isn't real life.

decnine - that's a good analogy - nation's Butler. Yes most socialists seem to see Lenin and/or Stalin as their goal for how things should be. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes more covertly, but their political solutions always edge towards a goal where everything is compulsory or forbidden.

DJ - or Senior Latte Design Consultant.

A K Haart said...

Anon - to begin with we'd need one of those online petitions to attract enough signatures so that it has to be considered for debate in Parliament. Given some publicity it might do that.

Sam Vega said...

"So that's one cool americano because the wind isn't blowing, and for your raspberry croissant we can re-join the EU. Will you be eating it in, sir, or are you being deported?"

A K Haart said...

Sam - blimey, imagine being served by any of them, it's nightmare time.