Phillip Renouf – Blog

Wow, airlines have one hell of a scam going

April 17th, 2007. Published under Business. No Comments.

I’m no math genius, but follow along with me for a second here:

One way trip to Ottawa from Toronto on Westjet: $11

Two travelers, round trip would be: $44

Have I got that right so far? How in the hell does that translate into $275 round trip for two people?! Yeah, yeah I know there are airport fees, taxes, surcharges, fuel tax….blah, blah blah. Come on though, there is no way that an airline should be allowed to advertise an airfare of $11 if that actually ends up being a hundred (or more) dollars more! I like understanding the breakdown of why my airfare costs so much, but if you’re going to advertise a rate, then I should just be paying that rate plus tax. $11+tax.

Airlines: do the right thing and stop jerking our chains with false low-sounding rates. I’m not asking you to lower your rates (that is a separate issue), just don’t advertise an airfare that is artificially low.

Bell Canada helps Air France passengers

August 10th, 2005. Published under Business, Life. No Comments.

I haven’t seen this in the news anywhere so I thought I’d mention it. Apparently when Bell Mobility executives saw the smoke from the plane crash and found out what was going on they immediately set into motion getting enough cell phones and long distance calling cards to take to the Air France passengers at the airport to try and help them be able to call their family and friends to let them know they were all right. I just want to say bravo for stepping up and doing this without being asked and without trying to garner media attention for your good deeds. I am glad to see that you put the passengers needs a head of your own and did an incredible thing by enabling the passengers to be able to call their family and friends.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=697713

2005 08 04 – Mobility team races to connect crash survivors to loved ones worldwide
“Hello maman” brings tears of joy and relief

As thick smoke billowed from the Airbus A-340 crumpled in a ravine at Toronto’s Pearson airport, a team from Bell swung into action.

Their goal: get cell phones and calling cards to the survivors to enable them to tell family and friends they had made it through the terrifying crash of Air France Flight 358 Tuesday afternoon.

“One young girl of about 17 was shaking so much she couldn’t dial the phone,” said Julia Quinton, Mobility’s Associate Director of Communications, who went behind police lines to help in a room packed with about 200 dazed and tired passengers. “She was holding my hand, my arm, so tightly as I dialed. Then I heard her say ‘Hello, maman’ and burst into tears. I had to struggle to hold back my own tears.

“She said the media in France were reporting no survivors. Can you imagine how relieved her family was to hear her voice?”

That’s just one of many stories of the fast and compassionate response from Bell that put 50 cell phones and 500 calling cards into the hands of passengers, crew and emergency workers within three and a half hours of the crash. All 309 people escaped with their lives after their plane ran off the end of runway 24-L after a flight from Paris.

And many of them got in touch with loved ones using Bell cell phones handed to them by Julia and Dave McCullough in a hotel ballroom near the airport where they were bused after the accident.

“Dave and I were there, but it was a total team effort that enabled us to do what we did,” said Julia.

CEO sets plan in motion
It started just after 4 p.m. Tuesday when Jim Jaques, Senior Vice-President, Consumer Marketing, noticed the heavy black smoke from his office window at Creekbank, a few hundred metres from the crash site. Interrupting the meeting he was in, he rushed to the next office to bring the smoke to the attention of Robert Odendaal, CEO of Bell Mobility and Video Services.

After checking the radio to get the news of what happened, it didn’t take long for them to act.

“As the pre-eminent communications company in the country, as the national carrier, we have a responsibility to the community and to the country that we take very seriously,” said Rob. “This was a crisis. There was no question we had to step up to the mark. And we did so immediately.”

It was a team effort from the start. Said Jim Jaques: “Rob said we should get some cell phones over there for the survivors, the families and friends who are waiting and the emergency teams. And I thought what a great idea. We’ll do it and can even go one better and get some long distance calling cards too.”

That set in motion a whole range of activities as teams from customer service, hardware, testing and development, network engineering, marketing, Bell Distribution and Unigistix all went to work.

“People put their private lives aside to do their duty for Bell and for the community,” said Rob. “They made personal sacrifices like coming back into work, or staying late, to ensure people’s needs were met. This is what makes a company great and I am very grateful to everyone who contributed.”

Jim cited the example of the network engineers. “Many of them were already out tramping through the storm because we had lightning strikes at a lot of cell towers. They really came through as they always do. Not only did they keep the network up and running but they also boosted our coverage in the airport area to handle the increased traffic.”

In another case, an employee at Unigistix, which is BDI’s warehousing supplier, jumped in his own car to deliver the 500 LD calling cards.

Activating and charging
At Creekbank, people were literally running through the halls to locate enough phones. “It took us a couple of hours – seemed like an eternity – but we got it done,” said Jim.

Ian McCaig, Edward Siddeley and Dave McCullough delivered a cart full of phones to Silvana Hollett and her Acquisitions Centre team. Then they got down to business. In many cases, the phones had not been activated and also needed to be charged.

“I just took boxes and dropped them on eight reps’ desks and told them to get busy programming them for overseas calls,” said Silvana. “Everyone pitched in and within an hour every phone was ready to go. That was quite an accomplishment considering some people had never programmed a phone before.

“Everyone felt pretty good to help out. Once the last phone was programmed there was some spirited clapping going on, even from those employees who stayed late to make sure the entire job was done right and done quickly.”

Into the “war zone”
From there, Julia and Dave loaded the phones into Dave’s car and he and Julia headed to the airport. Once there, though, and after a frustrating wait while authorities figured out what to do, they were re-directed to a nearby hotel where the passengers who did not need hospitalization were being bused.

After explaining repeatedly that they were there to help the passengers and their families, Julia and Dave had a police escort past the media scrum to the room where most of the passengers were being held. A room where even the waiting families had not been allowed to go.

“It was like a war zone,” said Julia. “Huddled families, crying babies, people talking in every imaginable language. And about three-quarters of the people were wrapped in blankets because their clothes had been burned or torn off in the accident.”

Some people thought they were selling something, Julia said, not believing this help was being offered with no strings attached.

They moved through the room offering phones and calling cards and much more. Meanwhile, they had also given some phones to Air France personnel who distributed them to families waiting in a separate ballroom.

Going the extra mile
“For three hours, no one had really talked to the passengers except to get them to this gathering spot, so we spent a lot of time talking and simply making sure people were OK. I think I handed out three packages of tissue for every phone. But the cards were a real surprise to people – they were shocked to get them . . . and so appreciative.”

Julia said part of the challenge was to offer help without intruding on the private moments people were experiencing. “The initial shock had worn off by the time we got into the room, but they were still quite emotional.”

In one instance, Julia really went the extra mile, making a decision on the fly that may not have been strictly by the book.

She gave a phone to the leader of a group of about 30 teenaged exchange students just starting their trip to Canada. “He was no more than 18 himself. I said he should keep it as long as he needs it, even throughout the trip, because people don’t get over an accident like this right away. I gave him my card to call me when he’s finished with the phone, but I told him if he didn’t call it was ok. What’s one phone considering everything else that was going on?

“He phoned me three times Wednesday morning to thank me, to say how much he loved Canada because of that.”

A powerful team effort
It wasn’t the only phone call Julia received Wednesday morning. Another was from Air France, wanting to know if they could borrow some cell phones for the executives and investigators who were flying in from France that morning. Our answer? Oui, bien sûr. And within half an hour, they had 30 phones at their disposal.

“The whole experience was amazing,” said Dave. “It just shows once again the resourcefulness of everyone involved – load it up and let’s go.”

News of Bell’s initiative even reached New York, where BDI’s Mark Weisleder was attending a prepaid card conference. “I read Julia’s email to the conference at the beginning of this morning’s session. There were tears around the room and I received a very loud ovation from everyone.”

“It was a powerful night,” said Julia. “An amazing company. Thanks to all the people who made it possible to provide this unforgettable gesture of connecting people in need. It was an honour for us to be able to help, even in a small way.”

Phil

Interview your potential employer

March 3rd, 2005. Published under Business, Work. No Comments.

I seem to be on a kick about interviewing lately, but I stumbled across this posting from Lisa Hanebergs blog about How to interview your potential employer. I thought there was some great information there about questions to ask during your interview and it leads you through the types of information that you as a candidate want to know and shows you that it is ok to ask these types of questions (and is often encouraged). Personally I don’t think I would want to work for a company that had an issue with me asking any of those questions, so that is a good way to telling how it would be working there as well.

I wish I had seen this before my interviews at Microsoft because although I did ask a few of those questions there were a few others there that I would have liked to ask. Now that I’ve been offered the position I am pretty comfortable that I’ve got the answers to the questions now, but it would have been a good idea to ask them earlier on in the interview process.

Great stuff Lisa!

Phil

MS Small Biz Blog == Sales pitch :(

February 2nd, 2005. Published under Business, Technology, Work. No Comments.

There have been lots of people giving advice on how to blog lately and one of the main contentions is that you must be passionate about your subject and engage your users by talking to them without any BS. Basically: avoid the sales pitch and just talk about the subject.

Since I am now running my own small business I was pretty stoked to see that there was now a MS Small Business Community blog being written by Eric Ligman who is the Small Business Development Manager for the US Central Region. Unfortunately, since I started reading it almost every post feels just like a sales pitch. The information is great as he is providing valuable information about the Small Business opportunities for savings on software purchases etc., but that gets lost in the delivery (for me at least). If Eric could find a style of delivering that information along with other subjects that are important to small business owners I think he would have a very successful blog.

Eric, please loose the sales pitch…but not the content!

Phil

Mises.org “Proposal to end NHL lockout”

January 19th, 2005. Published under Business, Sports. No Comments.

I have really been enjoying reading the Mises.org site lately. Maybe I didn’t miss out on the family business/accounting genes after all…that’ll make my dad and grandfather pretty happy ;)

Today they posted an entry with a proposal to end the NHL lockout which I thought was an interesting take and is an option that I have yet to hear in all the endless discussion about the lockout. Living in Canada, hockey is one of the only things we talk about ;)

The crux of the suggestion? Dissolve the Players Union and let the owners/players determine the salary situation on an individual level. Will there be players who won’t be willing to take a pay cut? Probably. There will also be a large number of players who just want to get back to playing hockey and will be more than happy with the deal they can work out.

Phil