Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "bakers"

Streetlife is a local social website and when I posed a question a few weeks ago it elicited a response any blogger or writer would have been proud of. Locally we have a vibrant high street and each week seems to bring a new shop or eatery. The shopkeepers have lovely window displays and when one shop closes another enthusiastically replaces it. But as in any town there are bleak spots. A tiny bakers' has stood empty for years; dark, dismal and dirty, incongruous between a designer furniture shop and smart hairdressers. My husband claimed he could smell fresh bread when he cycled past early on the way to work.
On Streetlife I asked if anyone knew about this place. There followed plenty of moans and claims, not only to have smelled fresh bread, but to have seen trays being loaded into a white van early in the morning. The plot thickened, but no one seemed to know who owned the place. There were acid remarks, such as why didn’t someone just ask the mystery van driver or contact the council.
The council website offered nothing remotely connected to environmental health; so when, as a member of the council residents’ e-panel I was asked if I wanted to help test the council’s new website it seemed a good idea. They wanted a range of ages and there would be a thank you gift voucher.
The first test was getting into the office building, but upstairs I was greeted by a pleasant young man who told me it was the website being tested, not me; just as well. Creepily, each candidate was being filmed, only to help the website company, I signed the agreement, but as a writer I knew there was something more sinister going on! I had ten tasks to complete and was asked to give a running commentary; the man sat opposite behind another computer. At home you have no one to grumble at if a website is unhelpful; so it was satisfying to give my views as I battled with my ten tasks. As a ‘new resident in the area’ I would have managed to put the rubbish out, but could not have got my child into school, built a conservatory or gained help for my elderly mother. ‘Nice Young Man’ assured me that no one had found the website user friendly. I am convinced the whole thing was a cover for something else. A study for psychologists and interrogators, who would watch on film the deteriorating mental state of each victim as website frustration overwhelmed them.
I fled down the fire escape stairs with my £20 Marks and Spencer gift voucher, not wishing to risk the lift again. For a moment I was trapped, till I realised the street door did open from the inside.