The title is in response to your question “where have you been?” and I reckon that “in the huff” neatly encapsulates it.  I’m aware that probably makes me sound a teeny bit childish, but it just so happens to be true.

It’s Been A Funny Old Time Since January

Since January I’ve been in a terrible old state really.  In my post back then I mentioned my site, Lingerie Brands was looking to be falling out of favour with Google ever so slightly.  Realising I had to improve quality dramatically I had to take an unprecendented step….

Yep, shock horror… I had to let someone else do some development work for the site. In my 8 years as an affiliate I’ve always done my own work and development. Thusly I could do a bit, tinker around with it, change my mind, and generally fart around to my hearts content.  For the first time ever I had to admit something was beyond me and go through a process to develop a brief and actually visualise (or try to) a project from start to finish.

Get Out The Thumbscrews Dan…

To say that this was a mental nosebleed for me is a positively rabid understatement.  Fortunately Dan at WP Doctors is everything I’m not and managed to steer me through the process without ever letting on his desk now sports a forehead shaped dent thanks to his efforts at getting me to tell him what I actually wanted beyond “look, just make it good eh??”. More about the ins and outs of the project at a later date when it’s all integrated into the site.

Combine this with me trying to work out what Google actually wanted, and the further decline of my site in several depressing stages and by the end of my working day I wasn’t in any fit state to actually talk to you guys.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bemoaning cruel fate – Lingerie Brands has been in dire need of improvement for a long time now. And that’s exactly what it’s going to get.  Fortunately I’m in a position where other sites rose as good ‘ol LB fell… so I’m only marginally worse off in terms of revenue.

Again, more from me on all of this later. On another note it’s also solved my far too hasty complaint about being a bit bored!

On A Brighter Note I’ve Also Been to New Zealand!

Very therapeutic this was – I’ve returned with a clear head and a quite badly dented bank account. Hey ho, it was all worth it to finally see a little bit of the South Island.

Here’s The Obligatory Boring / Smug Holiday Snaps…

Some dazzling (and slightly squint) self photography at Lake Tekapo observatory

We grabbed a helicopter to take us to look at Mt Cook. I didn't know you could scream inside your head till it took off...

Duncs and I on our overnight trip around Milford Sound. It were bloody freezing so don't laugh at my hat!!

Although Just To Show You Can Never Escape From Your Work…

We had a lovely time spending the night on a boat on Milford Sound. We were seated with two of the only other young-ish people on the boat for dinner (much to our relief), two lovely lads from San Francisco.

As we all got stuck into our respective bottles of wine we talked about technology, the internet, and travel. Eventually I mentioned a bit about what I did for a living and how Google was being causing me a few wee hassles at the moment and that I was convinced Matt Cutts was stalking me because every time I went on holiday there was an Algo change (I arrived in New Zealand on April 12th).

“Oh really?” they said. “Ahhhh… we work for Google.”

“What?!” I said. “REALLY??!! Back of the boat – youse are leaving!!”

They hastily explained search quality was not their bag, and cordial relations resumed.

I should really have asked them if they wouldn’t mind letting Matt Cutts’ tyres down when they got home and perhaps popping a wee note on his windscreen saying “Get it right Matt! Leave me alone and stop ruining my bloody holidays! Lots of love from Kirsty xxx.” I was to polite to ask, but I’m sure they would have been happy do it if they had a notion never to work in the tech industry ever again.

I will always smile when I remember meeting those guys.

Anyhoo…

There be more from me soon on fun topics such as my Google Panda recovery strategy and similar type stuff. LB has been terribly affected by the update, odd considering it’s so similar to my other sites in structure (don’t know if I’m relieved or terrified about that one!). I have some theories on this though and will share them once I’ve thought about them a bit more and played around with things. I don’t want to go chucking red herrings around the joint, there’s enough of those on that subject already!

Cheerio

Disconnection.  It’s a common feeling amongst people who have emigrated when they leave their old life behind, but in my case it’s doubly odd because I’m not only several thousand miles away but am still trying to “be involved”.

Sadly I don’t feel like I’ve been succeeding recently.  This failure (real or imagined!) doesn’t really affect my day to day work, but it’s increasingly making me feel far removed from the day to day goings on with “affiliate world”.

Where’d Everyone Go??!

I don’t get to see much of what goes on with my UK affiliate chums on Twitter and Facebook due to the time difference, and sadly things over at the A4Uforum aren’t what they used to be in terms of a good old chit chat with other well seasoned affiliates.

What that translates into is that I rarely seem to be up to date with industry goings on (I probably am broadly, it just doesn’t feel like it!!), and I’m really suffering from a lack of ability to discuss things with my peers about the day to day running of an affiliate business.  Networking and parties aren’t just about getting pissed (honest) they also provide an invaluable opportunity to let off a bit of steam and get a few new tips and insights.

Solutions?

Maybe it’s just all part of moving to Australia.  There’s not such a big affiliate scene here, although I have been lucky enough to meet some really nice affiliates on the Sunshine Coast which does keep me sane.  A very negative part of me says the solution is to just remove myself from the UK “scene” and accept I’m too far away to really participate – but I’m fairly certain my sense of disconnection would quickly be replaced by a real feeling of loss.

I guess it must just come down to the same sense I get when I’m missing my friends.  After a while, immigrants like me start to form new social circles and feel all nice and secure again.  Forming a comprehensive network of affiliate contacts complete with racy and exciting social scene??  Not so simple.

Answers on a postcard guys

A few times recently I’ve awoken to discover that one of my main sites, Lingerie Brands, has been down for several hours thanks to a corrupted .htaccess file. After taking a bit of advice I changed the permissions on my file to make sure it could not be written to.  A week or two of uninterrupted traffic and I relaxed thinking all was well again.

Imagine my horror this morning though when I awoke and discovered a mail from my friend Lee telling me the site had been down all day.  I logged into my FTP account and sure enough, the .htaccess file had been altered – again. The addition of a single “s” after all the wordpress stuff had knocked my entire site over.

So Who’s Been Dicking Around With My Damned Site??!!!

Well, as it transpires my issue is all thanks to a technology improvement at Clook.  One of their support chaps informed me that

“We’ve recently changed the PHP setup slightly which makes scripts like WordPress, Joomla etc. run better as it gives them better permissions on the files. However it looks like your wordpress installation is now able to write to the .htaccess and its writing to it incorrectly”

At this point I was relatively unconcerned, after all wouldn’t Clook be able to sort this issue out for me by pushing their magic techie type buttons just like they always do?

Ummm… Apparently Not!

I was then asked if any of my plugins controlled the .htaccess file (there’s nothing I use that directly says it alters it) so I suggested one which dealt with redirects which was only on LB and one other low traffic site and therefore could be the culprit. Clook responded with

“I would definitely check into that first plugin, especially since it’s only installed on the one site. Since it does manage redirections, it could very well be the culprit. Please let us know what you find.”

I was unable to work out from the code if anything in there might be the villan of this piece but then I’m no programmer, so given that their new setup is clearly causing issues in some scenarios I felt certain they’d want to confirm or deny if that particular plugin could be causing the issue so they could perhaps gain insight for future situations.  They were certainly interested enough to ask me to tell them about it.

Alas, “Unfortunately such coding issues are beyond our scope of support.”

Ah. OK then. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere.

So It’s All Down To A Process of Elimination

Basically, this issue is likely to be down to a plugin performing wicked deeds somewhere. So all that Clook can suggest is a process of elimination. I switch off plugins I think might be causing the issue and wait to see if it happens again.

I find this sort of situation immensely frustrating.  I can’t find out what is causing it because I have to wait for it to happen again (if my plugin purge doesn’t fix it), and I can’t stop it from happening again because of the new and improved write access.  Perplexed I asked Clook if their new setup was changing file permissions and they told me that in fact

“Our changes don’t make it so that WordPress can modify the permissions on a file, but rather so that it can modify necessary files without you first having to change permissions.

This is noticeable when you try to make changes to a theme. Before the upgrade, you would have to individually modify the permissions on any files (header, footer, etc) before you could make changes to them, then you’d have to change the permissions back. Now that is not necessary.”

Well That’s Quite Good Isn’t It?

Quite a good, convenient change for most Clook users (they did say most people were very happy when I casually mentioned how I personally thought it was shit!).  Also, it probably prevents the odd scenario where forgetful people change the permissions to “Yeah baby overwrite me!” and then forget to change them back, subsequently resulting in website hackage and general unhappiness all round.

It’ll also make the whole WordPress setup / customisation process easier.

Do I Like It?

Frankly no, I don’t like it one little bit. I hate the fact that I have handed control of my .htaccess files in particular to WordPress which can sometimes behave in unexpected and unstable ways thanks to its “aggregate” nature, which often results in conflicts.  I don’t like that I now have an issue on a rather large site that I can exert no control over whatsoever. Honestly, I feel like an ancient occupant of  Troy who has just wheeled in a rather attractive and unexpected garden ornament that’s just convieniently big enough to hold an entire murderous army and retired to bed for the evening. It’s only a matter of time!

It just seems nonsensical that I know where the issue comes from, how it can be stopped, and I simply can’t protect my file from it.

Ah Well, I Needed To Sort Out Uptime Monitoring Anyway

One reason this has been so damaging is that it’s tending to happen when I’m asleep here in Australia. This means the site has been down for an entire UK workday twice now, and I think there have been 2 or 3 other shorter outages which I’ve caught before too much damage was done.  Lingerie Brands has gotten to a size where it probably should be monitored, so at least this situation means I’ll stop procrastinating and get it all sorted out.  It will mean I’ll probably get woken up at some ungodly hour of the morning if (when) it happens again and will be incredibly grumpy the next time I contact Clook about it.

I did enquire if they might consider adding an opt out sort of system but was told they’ve applied it over all servers for consistency. If I want a customised setup I’ll need to pay for one.

Would I Still Recommend Clook?

Hmmm… I do still really rate their service. Despite me being severely pissed off about this issue I was still very impressed with their support which was prompt, curteous, and as helpful as they could be within the constraints of their role.  However, I am deeply uncomfortable about not being able to prevent files I want protecting being overwritten. It just doesn’t feel right and I feel as if my control over my sites has been compromised.

Still, I certainly won’t be moving my site elsewhere so the fact I’m prepared to work through this issue rather than jumping ship must mean I still love them really. Only time will tell if continuing to use them is sustainable.

Now… Who Owes me a Favour?

I’m off to find some technically able type to look at the code of my suspect plugin to see if it is indeed the culprit. I certainly hope so, there’s nothing else I’m using that should be dicking about with the .htaccess file, but it’s always so hard to tell with WordPress!

Whenever I’m talking about affiliate marketing I always tell people I “eat sleep and breathe” my work and am totally passionate about it.  I genuinely didn’t realise how much this was the case until these past few weeks.  I’ve been living on a building site since the start of February and all the noise, mess, dust and general intrusion into my work and personal space has had a huge impact upon my effectiveness and concentration.

Concentration? Sorry?  Eh?  Now, What Was I Saying…..

When I work it’s like I’m immersed in a rather fabulous underwater world.  I spend my workday submerged in a sea of information, ideas, and concepts which captivate me utterly.  Once I’m “under” the day vanishes in what seems like seconds and I’m left at close of play feeling content and empowered.

I’ve always suffered from dreadful concentration so I’ve just spent 10 excruciating weeks floating at the surface amongst all the chaos and noise of our building project watching the faint and indistinct lines of all the things that usually fill my working day whizzing past without so much as stopping to say “G’day” before vanishing into the distance in a blur. As I watch all the things I should be involved in slipping away I feel vague, hopeless and cut off – yet helpless to do anything about it.

Get Out Of My House!

I’m now at the stage where I’ve decided enough is enough. I’m suffering from terrible insomnia, I’m very stressed out, and I don’t feel like I’m in control of what’s going on with my business any more. Affiliate marketing is like oxygen for me, and without it I feel completely suffocated.  So I’ve called a halt to the building  job for now (which was mostly finished inside the house anyhow) and am really looking forward to things getting back to normal.  I’ll be letting the builder return in a few weeks to do some finishing off on the house exterior once I’ve had some time to myself. We will have a plasterer in next week, but he’s a very quiet worker so I’ve decided to let him finish his work

It’s About More Than The Money

As I was lying wide awake last night (yet again) I started wondering if the way I’m feeling, although perhaps extreme, is an indicator of why very few people who do well at affiliate marketing are in it purely because they saw a way to make money and set out to exploit it in a formulaic way.

I love the creative processes involved in identifying new things to market, trying to get inside the minds of the people likely to buy them, designing landing pages that will appeal to them, and working out ways to scale and increase traffic and conversions.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I still get a little excited every time I wake up in the morning and realise it’s time to go back to work.  I arrive at my desk within minutes of waking, clutching that first cuppa of the day and keen to hook up to the oxygen supply to breathe in more of what the affiliate world has on offer.

Does this border on the obsessive? Probably.  Do I care? Not a damned jot!

See You All Back In The Water Next Week…

Now that those noisy buggers are about to be evicted from my space I’ll see y’all back in the deep end on Monday

Woohoo!  What a proud day it is for me today guys and gals. I’ve just smashed my own (very impressive) procrastination record by taking a whopping 518 days to take a simple yet effective piece of advice that would take just 10 minutes to implement.  One of the agonising things about being me is that sometimes I’ll just know I should do something, it keeps popping into my mind… and I promptly do nothing about it.

At 518 Days This is a Personal Best

Behold my shiny new RSS subscription button. Revel in its sleek design, prominent position, squeal with unbridled delight as you make use of it, and gasp with joy as you realise I’ve finally made heavy use of the CTRL+C button and provided an e-mail subscription box. (Look, when it takes you this long to do something it needs a bit of fanfare OK?).

Where did I get this advice? Slides 33 &34 of Joost De Valk’s very useful WordPress optimisation session at the 2008 A4U Expo. So I’d like to thank him for the past 518 days of unadulterated procrastination, the odd 3am “oh my god I’ve still not done that” moment, and several brain freeze type episodes. I don’t know why it’s his fault. Maybe his “get a big subscription button” button on slide 33 wasn’t quite big enough

In My Defense Though…

I did take lots of advice from that session and implement it to great effect. Promptly even.  If you have a WordPress blog and are still getting to grips with SEO I’d urge you to visit the above link and take good note of slides 12, 15, 18, 20 & 21. I’ve used all of these in the last 18 months to powerful effect on my WordPress sites.

See you all at the 2010 A4U Expo and I hope to be a little quicker off the mark with taking good advice this time!

It’s been mission impossi-blog this week for me I’m afraid guys and gals.  I’m currently living on a building site so alas my concentration levels have been shocking and I’ve been spending my time after work clearing bits of wood and plasterboard from our home renovation to help keep the labour costs in check.

Here’s a pic of Affiliate Stuff central at the moment: -

The old wall that our builder (and next door neighbour) is trimming off is connected to my office which should neatly explain why I may not be fantastic at talking to you guys for the next couple of weeks!  As you can see both Duncan and him are sporting lovely ear muffs to protect them from the din so there’s not been a lot of work going on with me this week.

I had meant to do a bit about how the A4U Awards nominations were now open complete with lots of detail about various people I’m thinking of voting for (haven’t made up my mind properly yet), however I seem to keep on getting migraines for some reason. Not sure if its the noise or the 6 whisky and coke I need to calm me down in the evenings re: my concerns with what’s just happened to my formerly lovely home!

Finally….

Because it’s been a while since I posted a pic like this, and I’m famous for them I thought you all might like to see what we found in the void of a roof we are removing to increase the ceiling pitch in our kitchen: -

As you can see, Duncan is expertly modelling a lovely carpet python skin from behind our dust sheeting.  It’s not the only snake skin we found behind our walls, but it’s certainly a crackingly big one!  Life is never dull here in Australia that’s for sure

Something that never fails to amaze me is the amount of outright and blatant shit that is spoken by the “Make Instant Money Online Today!!!!!!” fraternity.  My near terminal bewilderment at the outrageous nature of their claims is only matched by my disbelief at the amount of people who fall for their spurious claims about lacklustre and / or completely useless products each and every day. (Sadly it’s usually the latter).

As a public service I’ve created a translation of the sorts of claims people make versus what they really mean.  That way, if you must search for things like “make money online” and “make money fast” you might have a chance of telling the bullshit from genuinely useful information (hint, searching for those terms rarely produces useful info).

Visit OurSpammySite.com and make enough money to quit your job next month! Free System!

We will send you a (useless) video on how to make money.  By the time we tell you the way to make the REAL money even QUICKER you’ll be too excited not to give us your credit card details.  Subsquently you may discover that the initial $849.95 wasn’t for the entire system and that you will need to give us $200 per month so that we may drive 85,000,000 visitors to your site.  Per second. When those visitors don’t turn up, this will be your fault.  But don’t worry!  We can fix that RIGHT up for just another $500 – you dolt!

Our simple system will create you a website with no knowledge of coding required.  Cowboy Dave’s system is a simple little method that has made many of his happy customers thousands of pounds!

For a simple one off payment you too can own a website about a product you know nothing about which is exactly the same as the other 24,000 we’ve sold to gullable fools here at Cowboy Dave Inc.  Once you get your site you’ll have no clue what to do with it, nor will you posess any of the marketing skills required to make a single bean.  However, worry ye not.  We’ll have your money by then and will be only too happy to draw your attention to the “No Refunds will be issued and all claims are for illustrative purposes only” clause in our terms and conditions.  We will think its great we totally blew smoke up your ass and took your money – and you can’t do a damned thing about it!

I make £10,000 a day doing almost nothing, sign up to my exclusive members club for full and FREE proof of my income.  All you have to do is exactly copy my system and you’ll be quids in.

I make lots of money every day by being a complete and utter scumbag.  My system consists of nothing more than lots of vague instructions, bland platitudes, outrageous promises, and absolutely no useful information whatsoever.  By the time you realise my red hot system gives you an ice cube’s chance in hell of ever making a penny, I’ll have spent your hard earned cash on something nice for myself.  Aren’t I wonderful?

Make £35,000 a month with my completely automated online system. Absolutely no work involved, no website, no building lists, no advertising spend.

Seriously, I can’t believe people fall for my bullshit sometimes.  Myself and my mate Cowboy Dave spend all our time competing to see who can make the most outrageous claim – and you guys still sign up.  To make things even more hilarious, I’m going to hook you into a monthy subscription and bombard you with advertising filled with increasinly ridiculous claims – and the odd request for cash to keep my Porsche 911 in petrol – those cars don’t run themselves you know (I’ve got 5,000 mug punters doing that for me).

Finally, my guide to the deep meanings in commonly used punctuation, words and symbols.

!!!!

We said absolutely nothing worth listening to in that sentence, and there was absolutely no information about what it is we’re trying to sell, but we’ve put these exclaimation marks in to show you just how dashed exciting our mystery product is.

Guaranteed

It’s guaranteed we’ll make money.  You didn’t think we were taking about you did you?!  *guffaw*

UNDERLINED and IN RED and UNDERLINED IN RED

We don’t want you to read the words in between these because you might work out our product is about as substantial as a puff of air.  Hopefully you’ll be that desperate you’ll only see words such as MILLIONAIRE and also EFFORTLESS SYSTEM that is FREE TO RUN except for our $200 a month admin charge, and your first born son’s lifetime earnings but this bit is not in red or underlined so its invisible.  Sneaky eh?

$$$$

Yep, you can earn $$$$ simply by joining our monthly club where we will slowly reveal absolutely hee haw of use to you.  We’ll keep you hanging on for as long as possible by repeatedly promising the really good stuff will turn up next month.  Eventually you will discover that you really can earn $$$$.  Of course, we didn’t put any figure in front of that so your earnings will be the multiple of zero of your choice.

Got Another Example?

Add your make money online translation to the comments section!

If ever merchants needed a good reason to sort out their blinking well Xmas promotions before December 15th then this syndrome must be it. I’m sure I can’t be unique when I say I’ve had it with Christmas.  In fact, I’ve had it with Christmas for at least two weeks but have struggled gamely on.

My brain is currently at the point where me simply sitting in front of a computer screen seems to induce me to contemplate my navel closely for several hours interspersed with the odd visit to Facebook or Twitter to talk a load of shit.  This is in stark contrast to my usual feelings of energy and downright go getter-ness (another symptom is that I’ve started making up my own words).

Merry BuggerAllThisMass…

As I sailed out the door to the shopping centre at 10am this morning full of the spirit of “Bugger All This Mass” I said to Duncan; “I really don’t know whats up with me dear I really just can’t think straight.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what’s up?” He says.

“Eh?” I eloquently replied.

“You’re like this every effing year love!”

“I am?”

And it’s true.  I am.  There’s something about the push for Christmas trade that is incredibly exciting.  But bear in mind that much like an over excitable 6 year old I’ve been getting myself all wound up for it since the middle of June and making sure I was going to do as good a job as possible in getting those affiliate pennies in at this very lucrative time of year.

And So My Dear Friends, This Tightly Wound Affiliate Coil Has Unsprung…

I must have done quite well with my festive efforts, because my “Cant Be Assed Mass” has arrived almost 20 days early.  I feel as if I have now done as much as I possibly can for the big man in the red suit and as a result I’m like a balloon that’s been burst (by that over excited 6 year old we were chatting about a couple of paragraphs back).

I think my lack of motivation is in reverse proportion to the amount of money appearing on my screen when I log on to the networks each morning. The more thats there, the less I want to do! What little brain capacity that remains has been devoted to keeping an eagle eye on my margins.  Much time is being spent analysing every single penny I spend and click I send. So merchants, it is now too late to grab my ear with your latest and greatest promotions.  That ship has sailed and it’s captain is  roaring drunk in the wheelhouse.

What Now?

Well, I’d better get my finger extracted from my derrierre and my head out of the clouds.  Christmas might be all sewn up but January is still flapping in the wind.  I’ve got a LOT to do.

The only thing I can think of is to take the rest of the week off, power down, power up Sunday night and hope the old spring gets wound up again to get into my January promotions.

So Merchants… Please Leave My Commission After The Beep. Anything Else Will Be Deleted. BEEEEEEPPPPPP!!

I don’t usually do blogging without making more than one effort to contact a company, but this time I’m making an exception and I’m making it for Tradedoubler and their dreadful support system.  I’m seriously considering indulging in a bit of brand name bidding because I reckon it might well be the only way to get Tradedoubler to actually talk to me in a time period that can be described as “less than an ice age”.

I submitted a support request quite a few days ago.  I know they got it because I got a “we have your support request” mail back.  I can’t remember how long ago and I can no longer find the mail, but I was already annoyed about it on October 28th when I posted about it on Twitter.

So In The Spirit Of Comparison…

Here is the time it took a recent support request from another network to be responded to.

Affiliate Window:

Ticket Submitted: 27 Oct 2009 23:53
Response: 28 Oct 2009 11:18

Within 3 hours of office hours resuming. Nice one Awin.

But Of Course, Tradedoubler Know All This….

Because people never cease talking about it on forums and blogs, and they have been talking about it for some time.  To be fair there has been one time this year (June I think) where a support ticket was answered within 72 hours, which I consider to be adequate.  I remember being distinctly surprised by this.  I’ll also be honest, this ongoing issue means I only ever contact Tradedoubler when its absolutely unavoidable.

Do I Need To Know The Secret Handshake?

I don’t have any contacts in there I can use (which is the first thing anyone suggests I need) but why should I need a direct line to one of their staff to get a simple request sorted? In this case I need my payment details altering before the next run else I’ll miss out, so I’m feeling moderately aggravated about the whole thing. 

Lets Try This One More Time…

I am now off to re-submit my request. Perhaps they did reply and it got lost somewhere in cyber space, or perhaps my request vanished into the ether quite at random. But  is it absolutely out of the question that a multi million pound company might have a communications system that works?  Or am I being foolish?  Tradedoubler have beautiful offices in the centre of London, a massive client base, and an internation operation.  But do they have a support ticket system that works?

Lets leave that one for Tradedoublers newest member of staff to answer….

Computer Says No…..

P.S. Read This Post About Their 2007 Same Day Response Promise.

**edit – I had contact from TD and it transpires that they did respond to my original support ticket (on the first working day they got it) it’s just that I didn’t get it. So they did do what they should have – but alas because they don’t have a support section for me to log into and check on these things, I didn’t know. This is a bit of a shame as the network are probably copping bad PR for “ignored” support queries that they answered promptly and efficiently. I feel TD need to invest in one of these as I think people would see a marked improvement overnight in what is often seen as a poor support service.

Well, the parents have left the building and have all returned home safely.  We had a fab time and it really was all over way too quick.

As always after a few weeks off, re-starting work will be a completely mammoth task.  This time it should be relatively easy for me, I’ve got some accounts stuff I need to catch up on, need to prepare a brief for the guy who writes my content (a great way to feel like you’re getting back in the saddle without really having to do much!!), and need to finalise moving my business here to Australia under a new company name.

Did I say It’d Be Easy?!

Nobody with an aversion to swearing should ask me about the last point on my affiliate to do list.  I had to open a GBP account here and was staggered to discover that none of the staff in my local NAB branch had a clue how to pay my cheques in for me.    I first had the audacity to try and pay in my cheques on Thursday, but after a seemingly endless wait whilst the teller checked with any staff member she could grab to see if anyone knew what one of these accounts was, called a helpline, printed a form, read the Ts & Cs, etc -  I was informed that as I had no ID I couldn’t give them any money.  This took us 30 minutes on my parents last day in the country.  I think the teller was glad there was some glass separating us because I could have melted it quite easily with the 1000 megawatt glare which I treated her to.

Upon returning today clutching my form (which as an aside would make any beaureaucrat beam with pride), and no less than two forms of idenfication I enjoyed another hour stood in the bank whilst (the same lady as her bad luck would have it) made phone calls and generally admitted she had no clue what the form was on about.

“Oh, it must be a new product.” My poor teller twittered.

“No, NAB have been doing these accounts for at least 2 years. The terms and conditions are dated 1997″ I managed to say (very nearly politely)

“Oh.  You’d think they’d have told us”

At this stage the teller beside her leans in with “Nobody here knows how to do that you know.  It’s new.”

“Yes, I can tell” I said, winning several awards for diplomacy.

After 2 or 3 more eternities, another call to a helpline, a debate with some other tellers about one or two of the options on the form and what they might mean, she trooped off to the managers office to get him to countersign my application to give them some of my money.  After 20 minutes she returned and declared,

“Manger’s never seen one of those forms either.  He didn’t have a clue what it was about.”

“Oh how super, you must feel so much better!” I enthused (winning 3 baftas)

So Webgains and Affiliate Window I may well be asking you to reissue some cheques.  They’ve probably been sent to Outer Mongolia for all I know.  The only silver lining in todays sterling customer service experience was seeing the look on the tellers’ faces when I remarked,

“I’ll be in every month doing this you know.”

“Can’t you get paid electronically?” They gasped.

“NOPE!” I beamed.  “See you again later in the month!”

Hopefully that will be the most of the switchover sorted now, it took them no less than a  month to even open my account so it’s something I’ll be really glad to see the back of.

I should be firing on all cylinders by the end of the week and getting back into a nice bit of Christmas type fun.  Now I (allegedly) have somewhere to store my money, this will actually be worthwhile again!