Tomorrow, I'm going out for a picnic with Louisa (my best man), her boyfriend and her soon to be step-daughter, Ella. Which means that I'm going to be spending a large proportion of the day with my future sort-of-niece person. I'm obviously quite keen that she likes me.

Louisa has taken it upon herself to inform me that Ella doesn't like people with beards and in fact gets very shy and withdrawn around them. Now, Louisa is a long-time facial hair hater herself and her badgering to shave is often the impetus for me to grow a beard in the first place. However, keen as I am, I promise to shave before the morning.

The problem is that my beard trimmer's gone missing. I hadn't planned on needing it before the wedding and, as we're moving house before then, I assumed it'd turn up. I don't like looking for things, when laziness is so much more fun an option.

So, after a cursory search, I abandon the idea of my trimmer and go looking for more... creative methods of beard disposal. The first idea I have is nail scissors. They're sharp and people trim their beards with them. I'm sure I can cut it down to a length good enough to be wet shaven.

The plan is good, just like planning to cut down a hayfield with a strimmer is solid in theory. The problem becomes apparent when I realise that it will take me hours to even do my chin alone. I briefly consider expanding to a larger set of scissors, before remembering that I've never been that good with hand-mirror-eye co-ordination and am likely to stab/slice/cut off part of myself trying. I could abandon the attempt here and wait for the morning to borrow someone else's electric razor, but I now have a thin line of baldness across the front of my chin. It looks like I should really have a zip there. Weirdness has never stopped me inflicting myself on society, but I feel I could have another go at being creative.

Plan C involves lots of shaving foam and my rarely used wet razor. Theoretically, low-tech should only cause me to pluck my chin-forest, but this razor can hardly be called low-tech. It's got 23 blades! And it goes at Mach 3! And it's stealthy! With turbo! And the foam matches it for an unparallelled shaving experie... oh. I've run out of foam.

Plan D. No foam, just the uber razor. It's a lot smoother than I expected, with barely any plucking at all after the first stroke. I congratulate myself for being on the way to a smooth chin, only to realise that the razor is completely clogged with hair. And has been since the first stroke. There appears to be no visible effect on the beard.

200,000 strokes later...
I have clearer a small patch of my skin. Images of strimmers and the Yorkshire Dales are running through my head, but a perverse desire makes me seek to shape what I have. If I'm planning on looking ridiculous, I may as well look ridiculous in the way that entertains me the most.

Thus, what you see here. A masterpiece.

PJW

Balancing the article

The article, as it stands, seems to be very aggressive towards PC World. Granted, the company has done some pretty reprehensible things in the past and customer experience fluctuates wildly depending on which store they visit and which member of staff they meet. However, the article reads like a hatchet job, with individual customer reviews of a personal bad experience with a store held up as the status quo for the chain and there are people aggressively re-editing attempts to introduce any opposing viewpoint. I myself attempted to add one of the positive Ciao reviews available (such as this one: http://www.ciao.co.uk/PC_World_Shop__Review_5053345) and it was quickly deleted. The negative Ciao reviews are still referenced in the article.

This is in startling contrast to the articles on Currys and Dixons, both of which barely mention any criticisms, despite the chains having as bad or worse press as PC World.

Another example would be the infamous commission claim, which has bounced back and forth from edit to unedit. The staff at PC World do receive a monthly bonus which is based upon total sales figures. This is not necessarily something to condemn the chain for; they are in the business of selling things! The previous commission system, however, was something to condemn them for; staff were bribed with individual profits for selling particular products. These commissions were, of course, funded by manufacturers, meaning that the advice offered varied depending on what was most profitable for the salesperson to sell! The current text of the article, and some of the editors, appear sceptical that any change has occurred and so any editing to the sentiment that any claim of an abolition of commission 'is misleading' is swiftly unedited.

I feel that this lack of balance is responsible for some of the vandalism of late. People work there to make their living and while the quality of service and effort may vary from employee to employee, I'd imagine that several of them are quite proud of doing their best at their career and thus quite hurt when see what they consider to be insults to their efforts.

I would like to propose merging the criticisms and controversies and re-examining some of them for verity. I would also propose a section entitled Changes, which could ennumerate the attempts that the chain have made to improve service (such as removing individual commission, removing product-specific commission and introducing the Power of Knowledge training).

I am in no way proposing a whitewash of the article, or in any way claiming that the chain is whiter than white. It has problems and those problems are many and varied. However, I'd like to conclude by pointing out that the 'Criticisms' section contains 8 unreferenced statements, such as "Sales-oriented culture that pressurises staff into promoting more expensive goods, regardless of suitability, and often with misleading or incorrect information", without any citation of any source. Any attempts to defend the store or its employees have been met with "Provide citation" edits (which would be very difficult to find, considering I don't imagine many companies publish their employee handbooks and bonus values on the internet).

I would be willing to spend some of my time to provide a draft of my proposals, although I will obviously not bother if they will be instantly edited, without consideration of their merits.