The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Pyxis

I love the idea of secret compartments!

ivyleaf

((HUGS)) Lydia. He sounds such a lovely man

LydiaJ

Thanks Pyxis and ivyleaf!

Pyxis

I think mixing the very old and the very young is a superb idea. The way we segregate ages sometimes is bonkers.

We rue the demise of the extended family and then separate all the age groups! Kra-zee!


Take those awful gated communities they have in Florida for the elderly! Brrrrrrrrrr!
Like a small village with only elderly people in it! 'Tain't natural!



Shame your 'person' wasn't there for the filming, Lydia! Although if it becomes a regular thing, then I suppose they might be, eventually!

zagubov

There have been ideas about mixing generations in accommodation, I think the Netherlands have been developing "kangaroo" houses to hold multiple generations.

Seems bonkers to me that we have young parents with multiple kids squeezed into small cramped housing when older empty nesters are rattling around in massive empty houses they took a lifetime to buy. Some people on other threads moan we're overcrowded. I wonder if we're just poorly organised.

Pyxis

Lydia, I'm just watching the programme about the elderly people and the children, and I can't get over what a lovely place that sheltered housing is!
I'd love to know the history of it; I must google it.

I bet those residents didn't realise that they'll turn into celebrities overnight!


One thing that often irritates me is that on some surveys and demographic data-gathering things, everyone at or over retirement age can be lumped into one group at the bottom of the list of age options.
That can infuriate me, because half that age group are old enough to be my parents! I do not consider myself to be in the same demographic group as my parents would have been!

I've always been immature and I ain't gonna stop now! :rotfl:




Talking about surveys.........
Some surveys are strange. I've been doing some for Boots for a while now. There's no monetary gain, just the occasional prize draw entry. However, I'm considering giving up as they can be very annoying. Apart from some being repetitive and too long, the worst thing is when there isn't a 'none of the above' option, or 'don't know/not applicable' option, but you're forced to answer because it won't let you proceed unless you do, so you have to just pick a random answer which isn't correct.
I put that in the feedback, but they still do it.
I've just done one for them which was with a very different compiler, and it was just awful. They picked a couple of retailers that I'd only ever bought one thing from, and proceeded to ask me dozens of questions about them, very repetitive questions, most of which I couldn't answer as they didn't apply to the thing I'd bought, as I'd only bought from them once, but luckily there was a don't know option, so they got about 30 answers which were all 'don't know'. I wonder how useful that was for them?
It was really long, too, about 30 minutes, and I was bored rigid.

I only continued it so I could give them feedback on the survey and enter the prize draw, but at the end there was no feedback option, and I didn't see an entry box for the prize draw!

I want my 30 minutes back! :rotfl:

Does anyone here have experience of compiling surveys?


The worst ones are when they're about perfume, because they ask you questions like, is this perfume value for money, or would you buy this perfume!? Well, how on earth can you answer that if you have never smelled the perfume? They're bonkers!

vivatifosi

One of the big issues with surveys is that they used to be very expensive to conduct, so you would do a test version to make sure it all made sense and the answers could be interpreted, there was no implied bias etc, before it was launched.

Nowadays anyone can use a tool like Survey Monkey to get results very quickly and cheaply. This is great, because it opens the opportunity for engaging with customers to companies that previously couldn't afford it. However the downside is that good survey design is a skill, giving the job to a random in the office and thinking it is easy is a bit of a disaster. I studied marketing and survey design is quite a large topic.

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

One of the big issues with surveys is that they used to be very expensive to conduct, so you would do a test version to make sure it all made sense and the answers could be interpreted, there was no implied bias etc, before it was launched.

Nowadays anyone can use a tool like Survey Monkey to get results out very quickly. This is great, because it opens the opportunity for engaging for engaging with customers to companies that previously couldn't afford it. However the downside is that good survey design is a skill, giving the job to a random in the office and thinking it is easy is a bit of a disaster.

I know Boots uses a survey firm, (can't remember the name), but the most recent one I referred to was some completely different firm. Another grouch was that the pages didn't fit on my screen, so I had to keep scrolling left and right to read each bit, and to find the Continue button!
I agree, though, that a good survey is hard to achieve. However, if the results are going to be skewed by poor questions resulting in poor answers, it rather defeats the object of having a survey, as the firm concerned will be acting on info that isn't really accurate.
, I would have thought!


Some of the worst I've come across have been from local authorities, asking things like "Do you want us to save money by ........(us not doing a,b,c)". "Do you want your area to improve by us doing x,y,z."

(Ok, not exactly those questions, but you get my drift).

The answers can only really go one way, and then the Council say "the residents have voted overwhelmingly for.........".
It made me feel sick.


Also, so many questions can only be answered with 'it depends!' But you are given black and white options only, none of which really illustrates your view.

antrobus

zagubov wrote: »

There have been ideas about mixing generations in accommodation, I think the Netherlands have been developing "kangaroo" houses to hold multiple generations.

Seems bonkers to me that we have young parents with multiple kids squeezed into small cramped housing when older empty nesters are rattling around in massive empty houses they took a lifetime to buy. Some people on other threads moan we're overcrowded. I wonder if we're just poorly organised.

I believe that something like half of all owner-occupiers are 'guilty' of 'under occupation'. In the sense that they have more bedrooms than people. Various measures have been suggested to encourage people to downsize in order to free up this space.

The problem with 'organising' it, is that people have their own ideas of where they should live. Like me. I like my house. I ain't flippin moving just because I have a spare bedroom or two.:)

antrobus

Pyxis wrote: »

...Some of the worst I've come across have been from local authorities, asking things like "Do you want us to save money by ........(us not doing a,b,c)". "Do you want your area to improve by us doing x,y,z."

(Ok, not exactly those questions, but you get my drift).

The answers can only really go one way, and then the Council say "the residents have voted overwhelmingly for.........".
It made me feel sick.

That's the council doing its 'consultation'.

The answers (as you might have guessed) are designed to only really go one way. The purpose is to undermine whatever opposition might emerge to whatever it is the council wants to do or stop doing.