Do what you do, do it well, win awards

Chuckled at an amusing customer satisfaction questionnaire at Holmes Place at the weekend. It was one where you have to tick a box on the strongly agree↔strongly disagree spectrum. The question in question was “would you describe our service as ‘award–winning’?”. Well, since I am not aware that your service has won any awards (nor, indeed, what awards might have been available to be won — are there gym ‘Oscars’?) I would have to say that I would be extremely unlikely to describe your service as “award–winning”. Of course, in the PR flack’s lexicon:

award–winning (adj.) — good, of a high standard, non–heinous.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a question dealing with whether or not ‘chill–out’ music was the appropriate aural accompaniment in an environment that is supposed to be about pushing yourself and getting fit (I was busy trying to run 10k on the treadmill at 10mph, something which I had never previously managed to do — so a fast techno build–up, culminating with the Theme from Rocky might have been more encouraging). Then again, the environment on a Saturday morning is probably supposed to be more about having an aromatherapy massage and a wheatgrass, so maybe the music was spot on.