Taken from my favourite bench, 8:43pm tonight.
Vancouver
JJ Bean Woodwards
When I moved into the Gastown area in February, I was really happy to discover JJ Bean in the Woodwards building. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I’m a vegan, and they had two kinds of vegan muffins. It’s often slim pickings in this respect in Vancouver, so I made a habit of stopping by on my way to work. Probably not the best habit, because the cost starts to add up.
Although I appeared almost every morning for a couple of months, there never seemed to be a glimmer of recognition from the staff. They were not unpleasant, but not really enthusiastic, either. One day in April I was looking through my receipts when I got home, and discovered that I’d been charged $4.10 rather than the usual $2.25, so the next morning I took my receipt in and pointed this out. I expected a quick fix, but instead the fellow, one of those whom I think had been there pretty much every morning, started arguing with me about it. I wasn’t belligerent, but just pointed out that I’d been overcharged and had only bought a muffin, even though my receipt just showed the total amount. At a certain point, he appeared to get frustrated or lose interest, and walked away. I was surprised that I’d caused such controversy over $1.85, particularly as I thought someone might have recalled that I had been coming in like clockwork on weekdays, and sometimes on weekends. Ultimately I was given another muffin, and told that in future I should keep an itemized receipt. I know that cities can be anonymous places, but I’m certainly not going to go to the effort to ask for, and keep, a book of itemized receipts from a coffee shop just in case I’m overcharged for a two dollar item.
This experience tipped the scales: getting a snack should be enjoyable, of course; but I also realized that I could just as easily make myself something for breakfast. Maybe I’ll learn to make muffins. I haven’t been back to JJ Bean.
Canada Line Tunnel Photos – Tamara Leigh Photography
I bought these amazing photos for my new place:
Yaletown Curve
Pipe Line
Canada Line Signage
I’ve noticed several instances in Vancouver recently of whiteboards and other makeshift signs erected (“plonked” might be a better term) at new facilities in an obvious effort to compensate for poor design. One example is the new extension to the CBC building on Georgia Street: a hand-written sign pointed people to the main entrance, which apparently the architect had neglected to make obvious.
The other day I came across this sign at one of the Canada Line stations.
It’s jarring to see such a band-aid on a brand new multi-billion dollar subway line. I’m guessing that no one bothered actually to test to see whether people entering the stations could tell which direction the trains are travelling, perhaps even after checking the overhead red LED signs. I wonder if anyone ever thinks of doing “usability” testing of built environments and wayfinding signage—or the lack thereof.
Robert Davidson: Oyster Catcher
Fear and Loathing at Canada Place
I was walking around Canada Place the other night; it’s finally getting warm enough to be be pretty comfortable in the evenings. I got into a conversation with an unemployed fellow who was riding his bike around the area looking for money and odd jobs. He told me he worked in the trades and things were pretty slow; he was from back east and renting a place out in Burnaby. His landlord had given him a break on his rent.
He seemed like a pretty normal, decent guy. I didn’t have any money with me, but we talked a bit about the cost of living in Vancouver, among other things.
A security guard approached: not a so-called “Downtown Ambassador,” but someone without a uniform, as I recall; I assume he was employed by Canada Place. He started giving the fellow a hard time about panhandling. I don’t know whether Canada Place is considered a public space; it seems wide open to the public, and I assume that people are allowed to talk to one another in such places, but I am not familiar with the legal fine points.
What struck me was that the security guard, or whoever he was, seemed genuinely stressed by the situation, his adrenaline obviously racing. I don’t think he could have been talking to two less threatening people. I told him that there was no problem, that I was just chatting to the fellow. Mr. Security then said something like, “He is always friendly with people. And then…”
He broke off and left us—stormed off, actually. But I wondered: and then what? He stabs you? Or—gasp—he asks you for money? Are people in need not supposed to be friendly before requesting help? Perhaps they should be obnoxious. Do we live in such a polite society that we feel uncomfortable saying “no” (as I did) if someone asks you nicely? Is the implication that friendliness in this situation is somehow dishonest?
Delta Sunshine Taxi Vancouver
Update, April 26 2010: I complained to Parking & Ground Transportation at the Vancouver Airport Authority and that seemed to get Delta Sunshine’s attention. The company has apologized and refunded my money.
I want to warn people to be very wary of using the cab company Delta Sunshine Taxi.
On February 28 of this year, I hired a Delta Sunshine cab; the fare was about $20. When I received my credit card bill a month or so later, there was also a charge from the company for $50.70, with a transaction date of March 11. I don’t take many taxi trips, and certainly not of the length that would result in such a charge; and I didn’t take a cab that night. So I called the company and talked to their accounting department. I was to be called back, but wasn’t.
I called back and this pattern repeated for a few weeks, until today I decided to be more persistent. The person seemed reluctant to look up the transaction. She assured me that the card had been swiped. I asked for details of the trip; it was from YVR (the Vancouver airport) to North Vancouver—neither of which I was anywhere near in March. So, as I was certain the trip was not mine, I decided to call my credit card company to challenge the charge.
Vancity told me that to identify the transaction as fraudulent I’d have to cancel my card and get a new one. They also told me that my card number was manually entered, not swiped. Getting a new card is always a massive inconvenience, so I decided to call Delta Sunshine back and try to get a refund.
I challenged the person at the cab company with the fact that she’d told me the card had been swiped. She tried to brush this off, then told me the slip was signed—but how did she know it was my signature? Easily faked. She refused to consider reversing the charge. I asked to talk to a superior; there was apparently no such person. I asked if the driver who charged my card fraudulently was still with the company; he or she was. I asked if there would be an investigation. Nope.
This was all seeming increasingly suspicious to me. I tried to insist on a refund, pointing out what an inconvenience cancelling my card would be, and that they’d be out the fifty bucks either way, but she would have none of it. She hung up on me when I said I’d make sure to pass the word around to beware of Delta Sunshine Taxi.
So I’m following through. I’d recommend avoiding them at all costs; you may be risking your credit card security by using this taxi company.
I will also go ahead and put in a fraud report on my credit card. It seems that the Better Business Bureau does not handle cases in which illegal activity is involved. Any other ideas would be appreciated.
CJ Frederickson
In my work on genealogy to date I’ve focused mostly on my maternal grandmother’s family: her parents and eight Corry siblings. But one figure that looms large in my life is my mother’s father, Clarence John Frederickson (everyone called him “Fred”).
Recently I’ve come across a couple of tidbits online that are worth sharing here. First, there’s a picture of him in Radical Campus: Making Simon Fraser University (see also Writing the book about SFU, by the author, Hugh Johnston).
My grandfather is standing second from right in this picture of the Simon Fraser Board of Governors, taken in December 1963. I was just six months old, but this is how I remember him: in the remaining twenty years of his life, his appearance changed little.
He retired from his involvement with SFU in 1967, and was awarded an honourary degree the following year. (One of the other recipients that year was H.R. MacMillan, after whom the Space Centre, among other things, was named.) The citation (PDF, all caps!) reads as follows.
An original and creative thinker; a highly logical, Christian gentleman dedicated to the cause of education: thus has Clarence John Frederickson been described. Those of us privileged to have known him as a colleague and friend will warmly endorse the tribute.
Born in Nanaimo in 1897, Clarence John Frederickson came to Vancouver in 1903. From 1915, when he left Normal School and began to teach, till late last year, when he retired from the Board of Governors and Senate of this university, his interests have embraced the whole realm of education and his work has influenced teachers and teaching in far-reaching ways.
In 1933, Mr. Frederickson received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia – in his own words, fifteen years late! He taught and was principal in British Columbia schools until 1937, was appointed Inspector of Schools in January 1938, and became Superintendent of Schools for Burnaby in 1954. He retired from the Burnaby School Board in 1962.
One suspects that this outstanding educator should consult a good dictionary: he does not know what the word “retirement” means. Since 1962 he has engaged in a host of activities not normally associated with taking one’s ease. He worked with the Department of Northern Affairs from 1962-63, acted as Interim Director of Adult Education in Langley, and was Co-ordinating Chairman, Canada Land Inventory, ARDA, for British Columbia from 1964-67, taming this omnivorous body and bringing B.C. into the forefront of its nationwide programme. In September 1967 he once more retired after four years of creative service on the Board of Governors and Senate of this university.
For his contributions in the field of education Mr. Frederickson has been awarded the Fergusson Memorial Award and a life membership in the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation. His ideas concerning the effective design of school buildings are reflected to this day in architectural features of many B.C. schools, and his influence is still felt through the in-service training programmes for teachers which he helped to develop.
In Clarence Frederickson we encounter an individual of the highest integrity, possessed of an analytical mind and considerable organizing ability; an extraordinarily hard worker; and one who is intensely interested in people, both as individuals and in the team context. He rejects conflict as a means of solving problems, appealing always to the best in others: his philosophy is that logic must prevail. I sincerely believe that any one generation produces only a few men such as he.
Mr. Chancellor, for his service as a founder member of the Board of Governors of this institution, his outstanding contributions in the realm of education in this province, and his remarkable personal qualities, I present to you John Clarence Frederickson for the degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa.
It’s surprising how little of a life can survive; he’s been gone just a quarter century and there are only a few other bits of information of which I’m aware. I think I may have the honourary degree stashed away somewhere; at some point in the early days of the web I found a picture of him as a very young teacher on Vancouver Island, which I hope I saved somewhere. I will do more research.
Columbus Group Alumni
When I returned from Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley to work in Vancouver, I landed at a small but growing web development company called Columbus Group. Only a couple of years later, in 2001, the company was acquired by Telus.
The Columbus Group offices in the Arts and Crafts building, near the old A&B Sound, were maintained by Telus for almost three years after the acquisition. At that point, when the remaining employees moved out, there was virtually no evidence of the company on the web. I’d seen various employee alumni sites, for example the Apple HI Alumni page, and decided to create one for Columbus Group.
I’ve now moved it to this new site, but over the six years it was on my old site it was, from month to month, often my most visited page. I think this is because it has long been one of the best ways to find some of the former Columbus Group employees on the web. I also put a fair amount of thought into the display of information on the page.
The central part of the page is a large table which includes information on role, years at the company, current whereabouts, and contact information, including social media links (where they were quick and easy for me to find) and LinkedIn profiles where available.
The “Years” column shows visually the span of time each employee worked for the company, so you can see whether people’s tenure overlaps. The final element in this column is the Telus logo, which if present indicates that the person was employed at the time of the acquisition. And rows coloured green identify those who still work at Telus. Overall I think it’s a successful information design.
Finishing Touches, or How to Treat Your Customers Like Idiots
My company, Vision Critical, recently held a management conference at the new Vancouver Convention Centre. The interior struck me as somewhat cold and spare but functional and nicely designed. However, there were a couple of things I encountered in the men’s washrooms that made me (and my colleagues) laugh out loud, and marvel at how a couple of ill-considered finishing touches can degrade the experience of being in a building. (It reminded me of visiting the Terasen building in Surrey a few years back: a nice design pretty much wrecked by the liberal use of the Tekton font throughout the interior.)
First, a sign posted above the urinals informs us that we shouldn’t drink from the toilets:
Of course, what they really meant to say was that they are being environmentally conscious by not wasting drinking water in the urinals and toilets. Poor writing results in raw material for a running joke in session presentations.
Then I noticed a sign by the sinks, “How To Wash Your Hands:”
I assume the intention here was to convey the importance of washing one’s hands, rather than condescend to the users of your washroom. Add to this that if someone really needed this much hand-holding, the sequence isn’t even correct: we’re told in Step 6 to turn off the tap, but Step 1 is “Wet Hands,” not “Turn On Tap.” Of course, they were motion-activated taps, so Step 6 was unnecessary. But so were the others, really. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve seen suggested elsewhere is the length of time to rub in the soap.
At least there wasn’t a “How To Use The Toilet” sign in the stalls.