The Meerkat Muse: 8th of April, 2026
Welcome back everyone, to the Meerkat Muse! Let us rewind a bit, to two weeks ago…
Koalas
I would like to gather that most of you dear ‘kats have at the very least heard of koalas. These little critters are native to Australia, and whilst they look adorable, they are in fact not noted for their social skills, and tend to sleep for most of the day.
You may be wondering why I’m referring to them. Well, the answer is that one popped up in my dream! It was entirely random; my wife had it curled up in a blanket, and when I realised what it was I put some distance between myself and the creature. I remarked that koalas are known to be riddled with disease, and then I woke up.
This was far from the only peculiar dream that night. There was a brief appearance of Indiana Jones, and a dream where I landed a new job at some sort of music store, following a spell in a warehouse for my current employers. However, I had to reject the music store role, because I had believed it to be a full-time role, when in fact it was for a few hours a week. To be clear, I have no desire to work in a music store, I am not musically inclined!
Relief
Whilst it may be a little premature to declare that the stuff I’ve been worried about is now over and there’s nothing to worry about, the news on that front is better. I know I’m being vague about all this, and for that I apologise, but I don’t want to issue decrees and statements before having certainty. I am however grateful that the scariest possible scenario should – should – be behind me.
My aim now is to get back into something of a regular flow. Eagle-eyed readers of Meerkat Musings will have noticed my output rather dramatically dropped off in March. The stuff that had been on my mind rendered it hard for me to focus on site activity, and in truth I may remain a little quieter on the website front, because I need to focus on my stories. You may say that work – albeit my better form of work – is getting in the way!
Is Hay-fever on the Rise?
I ponder this question because my eyes have been a bit sore, and my ears have been hurting. There has been a surge in pollen, and thus it is entirely possible my recent sense of feeling run-down is due to hay-fever. Then again, I had been operating at a high level of tension, recently eased by better news, and perhaps relaxing led to me being more vulnerable to feeling tired? I don’t know.
‘The Customer is King’
These are the words a customer said to me the other week, and if she had been present in the showroom as opposed to on the phone, I might have rolled my eyes. This attitude is absolutely wrong for a number of reasons, not least of all because a lot of people – especially customers – ignore the full quote. ‘The customer is always right in matters of taste‘. Needless to say, where returns policies, terms and conditions and other factors are concerned, the customer is decidedly not always right!
The circumstances involved some confusion – which may be partially down to my colleague, though I wish to give him the benefit of the doubt – over the size of a product. The customer argued that she had never been consulted on the size of a product, and that she assumed it would be right when delivered. Well, I am looking at invoices and designs that suggest she had that information. She argued that because it was a store ‘mistake’ (which I am not convinced of) it is up to us to swap out the item, regardless of the status of the packaging. Well, if – if – the company decides to agree with her, we may be able to complete an exchange on that basis, but why did she not check the order information and invoice info at any point prior to delivery, and did the box for this item not look too big after delivery?
Why then ignore the terms and conditions, laid out to her in email form, as they are with every customer? Additionally, why not exercise some common sense? If you want to return any given product for a refund or exchange, it stands to reason that unless it’s faulty, it needs to be returned in a resellable condition. That is certainly my employer’s expectation. Removing and throwing away most of the internal packaging doesn’t qualify as ensuring it’s resellable! Nor is it so simply to repackage the product at the warehouse; the customer is assuming we have padding and polestyrine laying around for such eventualities. Perhaps we should have some on hand, for when customers fail to understand simple instructions…
The thing is, the customer had the information about this allegedly incorrectly-sized product back in February. Looking the history, I can see several emails confirming this. I ought to bat the entire affair to customer services and let them deal with it. I suspect they’ll side with the customer as they always do, but sometimes they surprise us.
The Possibly Lurking Lurgy
Whilst I have suspected hay-fever may be the cause of my recent drop in energy levels, and my general sensation of feeling a bit run-down, I have to wonder if there’s a cold trying to force its way through my system. It has come at the worst possible time, and I am resisting it, through whatever means are at my disposal. I do not need to be ill right now!
Yet Another Nocturnal Adventure
I say adventure, but the reality of this dream is that it was set almost entirely in an office, populated by a bunch of people I didn’t recognise, save for one of my cousins. She was showing me the ropes, because I was new to this environment. I got on with my work, observed the banter of my colleagues, and at one point watched one of them leave the office in tears, for reasons the dream never made clear. Later on, I was recalling events of that dream as though they were memories, whilst making sure to pick up a stack of documents I’d left in the middle of a pathway (as you do).
The cat interrupted this dream, choosing to scratch the wall to signal his wish to go out, and within minutes he was getting into a hissing contest with at least one other cat. No sooner had my wife and I taken care of him, the alarm went off.
I’m convinced that the early starts required by my employer are contributing to feeling exhausted of late. I’ll say this for the cat; whilst he normally contributes to early wake-up calls, he’s not been too bad recently. Here’s hoping the other night was not a case of him warming up to resume regular services.
Weather Woes
This meerkat is a summer creature, and he had been hopeful that the weather was getting warmer. Alas, the end of March brought back some colder conditions, precisely the opposite of what we need right now. We’re into Easter, and whilst Easter is not traditionally a time of bright sunshine and warmth, it should be a little better than it is.
Romeo and Juliet
I am not the greatest fan of this tragic love story. I found it tedious as a teenage cub, where I was forced to read it at school. The notion of seeing it on stage was not one that thrilled me, but it ended up being what transpired on, of all days, April Fool’s Day. My great hope had been to see The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which possibly speaks volumes about my personality, but then again, the Mario franchise speaks far more to my childhood than Shakespeare ever did!
I will say this. Sadie Sink, who portrayed Juliet, is a very good actor. I haven’t seen her in Stranger Things, but her stage performance was without fear and delivered with power. Indeed, the performances were all strong. I can think of several other ways I would have preferred to spend those three hours, but these are the sacrifices one makes for family!
Back to the Moon
Humanity is returning to the Moon, an amazing milestone moment, and what’s more, the astronauts aboard Artemis II (Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen) are blazing a trail. They will soon be further from the earth than any human has ever been, as their ship zips around the far side of the Moon.
The ambition behind all of this is to test new technology, with a wider aim of getting humans to Mars. A Martian mission would be a lot more dangerous, but by testing now, and collecting data, these brave voyagers can reduce the risk a little bit. It must also be tremendously exciting to head out into space, surge around the Moon, and become a major part of exploration history! I wish them good luck and good fortune on their epic journey.
Dreams of Work
But, not dreams of my current workplace. Not for the first time, I dreamed of being back at my old office supply retail job, with old colleagues and friends. It was a somewhat weird dream, because I was able to join my old manager in carrying out a disciplinary procedure against another member of staff, which is hardly a pleasant activity. I don’t recall how this got resolved, because later in the dream I was on the shopfloor, alone, as scores of customers came through the door. I woke up shortly thereafter.
The last part is relatable to current experiences. On occasions where lone-trading has been required, there is always the possibility of a small rush of customers, often at the worst possible times. I’ve said it before and I’ll lament it again: people seem to know when those worst times are, and choose those moments to come into the shop. It is deeply frustrating.
Alas, my search for new pastures has not yet yielded an option I deem viable. I am stuck, for the time being, barring a miraculous financial windfall (a major lottery win would be a thing of bliss in normal circumstances, let alone now!). I’d also be very happy if my book sales took off big time, though I can’t see that scenario playing out any time soon.
I certainly found myself wishing even harder for this outcome following yet another day of lone-trading. As I have said many times before, I don’t mind it, but when I have to deal with a lot of faff, including difficult customers who don’t understand the returns process, and unfortunate customers messed around by transport, it can grate on the nerves, very quickly. It’s retail, so situations arise and evolve, often quite rapidly, and usually to my despair.
As a case in point, last Thursday the store delivery turned up, with some boxes of tiles for a customer. No more than a minute after the driver departed, the customer for said tiles walked in, and said she didn’t want them anymore. Could she not have called up an hour earlier?! The human ability to annoy me is seemingly boundless.
It got even better! Recall my earlier moan about a product and the customer who wanted to return it? Her partner got on the phone, and to describe him as conceited would be an insult to the term conceit.
Customer services backed up the store. They agreed that the item was not resellable, therefore could not be returned or exchanged. The irony behind all this is that the customer had proceeded on the assumption that they would get their way. One might even regard this as an entitlement complex. However, their desire to send back an item without packaging, that could easily get damaged in transit, and that would be near-impossible for us to resell (not to mention their defiance of reasonable terms and conditions) meant their wish to return it was a no-go.
Cue the call from the husband.
He was like his wife. He too wished to absolve himself of any responsibility for why they’d ended up with a product that was, in their eyes, too big. He was aggrieved that the showroom would not take any of the responsibility. Well, as far as I can gather, we have. We provided plans, renders, quotes and invoices detailing exactly what the customer would receive, well in advance of them taking delivery. Had their fitter not over-zealously destroyed the interior packaging, we still might have been able to do something. For this guy to talk about responsibility is a further example of irony; heed your own words sir, and perhaps speak internally to yourself on the subject first.
The Easter Weekend
Working in retail sales means the concept of a long weekend over Easter is foreign to me. Oh, I get Easter Sunday itself off, as the entire company closes, but do I get much more? Nope. Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays, meaning the hours are shortened, but there’s still a requirement to work, and therefore still the untimely arrival of members of the public. Most people have bank holidays off by default, and therefore have all day to plan and organise their activities. Why would they choose to arrive late to a shop that is closing early?! Do they not stop to wonder if those of us who have to be here have anything better to do? It’s a bank holiday, I am not staying late, I have a life outside of this place.
Scrapers
Lately Meerkat Musings has been getting a lot of views. One may even say the views are spiking to unheard of levels for my little corner of the web. Whilst I’d love to believe this is the result of my hard work and dedication to self-promotion, I think it’s actually some form of AI scraping.
In effect, scrapers are using my website to train AI models, via my content. I’ve taken steps to resist this, and we’ll see if this bears any fruit. If Meerkat Musings has a dramatic fall in views, I’ll know my new plugin has worked. We shall see.
Mario Time
On Easter Sunday my wife, daughter and I saw The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. I may offer up more detailed thoughts elsewhere, but my initial thoughts are that it was a good, fun film, without being particularly ambitious or pushing for the slightly deeper meaning of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. I’d heard reviews suggest Nintendo and Illumination were playing it safe with this film, and perhaps they were, but then again, Nintendo have often aimed the Mario franchise at younger people, despite the presence of older generations who grew up loving the games. The film is clearly directed at a young audience, and like the games, aims for a light-hearted approach.
It was watchable, and colourful, and filled with nods and nostalgia throughout. To this meerkat, the highlight had nothing to do with Mario and his companions, but rather the appearance of Fox McCloud from the Star Fox games. I had figured he’d have little more than a cameo, but instead had a fair bit to do. Are Nintendo teeing up a multiverse? Other cameos hint at that possibility.
Upheaval
My manager has been off sick for about a month, but came back on Monday. They were confronted by what is, in my view, a snooty, condescending, bullying email designed to push them out of the business, via an unrealistic expectation. One of the absurdities about all this is that this expectation seems to be in place regardless of how profitable the store proves to be over the next few months.
My boss feels singled out, and is deeply stressed by all this, whilst recovering from serious surgery. They are now actively looking for another job, and I don’t blame them. I dare say I need to redouble my own efforts to escape. This awful attitude from my employers is deeply disappointing, and their expectations are painfully unrealistic.
Disturbances
At the weekend, sleep proved elusive, thanks to an epic screaming match between two people, presumably a couple. They shrieked at each other for what felt like an eternity, in defiance of virtually every form of public decency. I get it, sometimes couples argue, but an argument and a full-scale banshee contest in the middle of the night are two different things. It was loud, and not-so-proud.
The Disturbed
Five weeks into Trump’s Epstein Distraction War with Iran, a war he declared to be won within a few days, it is clear the Tangerine Tyrant is growing more unhinged. His actions have created a crisis that has seen domestic costs continue to rise, his stock with the American people continue to plummet, and historic alliances continue to fracture, and all for what? To destroy a nuclear programme he supposedly destroyed last year? If this is Trump winning, how much worse will it be for everyone when he’s definitively losing?!
What’s perhaps even more disturbing is that despite his increasingly thick catalogue of failure, Trump’s MAGA worshippers will double-down. You just know they will not accept any evidence that he has grown more and more unhinged. Their faith in their messiah is blind.
As I have said before, the Iranian regime is not a good or noble one. The world would not be worse off if it crumbled. However, as I have also said before, forced regime change from without rarely leads anywhere good. You’d think Trump would know this. Republican misdaventures in Afghanistan and Iraq created regional instability for years, and some of that is still going on now.
Much of Trump’s irrational bluster is playing directly into the hands of Putin’s Russia too. If Trump tears NATO apart, the real winner is Putin. Once again, it would appear Trump is in Putin’s pocket. A sorry state of affairs. There is now a ceasefire in place, but for how long?
Wrapping Up
Let’s not end this Muse on a bum note. Looking ahead, April is definitely going to be busy, and some of it for stressful reasons, but right now the sun is out, there’s a pleasant warmth in the air, and optimism is always preferable to pessimism. Until next time!
‘Kat Comments