Measles, mediocre service and Muff Rd

Okay, forget swine flu - we can all start worrying about measles now instead.

We've had an estimated 90 notified cases of the disease so far this year, according to the Ministry of Health. That's more than seven times the amount we had in all of 2008, and there are still months to go.

Just recently in Christchurch there have been 50 confirmed or suspected cases, leading the Ministry to launch a nationwide measles awareness campaign. But that's not going to do much good when there are so many parents out there who are choosing not to vaccinate their children. Herd immunity, people!

So which worries you more - swine flu or measles?

I've lambasted budget airline Jetstar before in this blog for first giving customers woeful service, and then insisting it was their fault for checking in too late (despite reports to the contrary). Since then, they've taken out full-page ads in the NZ Herald to apologise and promise better service in future.

Well, today Jetstar unveiled their plan for happier customers: make them serve themselves.

In order to speed up the check-in process, passengers will now be able to 'self-tag' their checked luggage and drop it off at a designated point. This will speed up the process and give passengers greater control.

To be fair, Air NZ also provides self-service check-in counters (and there was a brief flurry of indignation when they introduced them, too). So I'm not saying it's a bad idea, or singling Jetstar out for bringing it in. And of course I'm glad they want to do something to fix their ongoing problems.

I just think it's funny that their solution to prevent long check-in queues and bad service is to eliminate the service part as much as possible. Do they have so little faith in the abilities of their counter staff to pick up their game?

Another thought just struck me: when they say this system will give passengers 'greater control', do they mean they're hoping to shift any and all responsibility for lost luggage incidents onto the customer? Or am I becoming a conspiracy theorist?

Oh well, at least I'm not a party-pooper. A resident of the unfortunately-named Muff Road in Ohapi, Canterbury is pushing for the name to be changed. (If you don't understand the issue, consult someone with a more juvenile sense of humour than yourself.) Apparently the street signs have a habit of going missing, to the point where authorities have simply given up replacing them. Poor old Muff Road has been sign-less for about 18 months thanks to the pranksters.

Now resident Roger Payne has had enough. He suggests the road be renamed Ohapi Road, as it was previously known according to old survey maps.

In case you were wondering, Payne is not the party-pooper I referred to earlier. He's entitled to live in a street that has proper signage. The party-poopers are the idiots who insist on 'souveniring' the signs. If the street name is so hilariously funny, let it stay so the sign can be admired by all!

Instead of going to the trouble and expense of renaming the street, I suggest a sign-recovery taskforce be implemented, to inspect the dwellings of local gentlemen in their teens and early twenties. No doubt the missing street signs will be found in pride of place above the beds of people who, judging by their lame antics, are unlikely ever to have seen the body part referred to in the street name.

Have you ever stolen a street sign? Or have you had great service on a Jetstar flight and want to clear their name? Have your say in the comments.