J’ai donné mon avis à Cetelem

Il arrive parfois que les étoiles se trouvent dans un parfait alignement. Comme hier. Un samedi gris de début avril, tombant en fin du premier quart de la période de « mesures supplémentaires de freinage du coronavirus, durant l’extension de l’allègement du confinement » cette dernière étant en vigueur en France métropolitaine depuis le 16 décembre 2020. Bref, j’avais le temps de répondre à l’enquête de satisfaction commanditée par Cetelem. Et l’envie.

Parce que Cetelem, j’ai des choses à dire à ton sujet !

Cetelem c’est un peu comme l’hôtel Californie, quand même : “You can check-out any time you like. But you can never leave!” (« Vous pouvez partir à tout moment. Mais vous ne pouvez jamais partir ! ») Je le sais, car j’ai essayé.

En fait, à chaque fois que je prends place sur mon canapé-payé-en-4-fois-sans-frais, une infime zone de mon cerveau s’active : celle qui se souvient que c’est via un produit Cetelem, même si je l’ignorais à l’époque, que j’ai pu faire l’acquisition de ce canapé, il y a bientôt 4 ans.

Entre-temps, j’ai respecté le contrat et soumis par courrier recommandé la signification de son arrêt (c’est ambigu si une fois le crédit remboursé le contrat s’arrête), dans le délai imparti. Depuis : boîte noire.

Et puis j’ai envoyé un autre courrier recommandé, quand ils ont continué de —ou recommencé à — envoyer des courriers tout aussi ambigus m’informant de la situation de mon compte. Et puis ce sont les courriers électroniques que la boîte noire a émis. L’un pour m’informer d’un message dans mon espace personnel. L’autre pour m’informer de la disponibilité de mon relevé en ligne. Puis ce fut une offre de bienvenue à un nouveau service de paiement. Dans TOUS les cas, il faut s’identifier sur leur site pour savoir de quoi il s’agit. Et dans TOUS les cas, s’identifier sur leur site semble m’engager à réactiver le contrat. NON MERCI !

Trois panneaux de l’enquête

Graduées de 0 à 10, je ne comprends pas vraiment la dynamique des questions.

Je crois que ce genre d’enquête ne sert que pour ceux qui n’ont rien à dire.

J’ai mis des zéros le plus possible et fourni des raisons là où c’était possible.

Non, je ne recommande pas Cetelem à quiconque. Mon niveau de satisfaction concernant les produits ? Comment dire… Les offres commerciales proposées ? Impossibles à éviter ! La fréquence ? Dès lors que non c’est non, même une fois est trop fréquent.

Les trois derniers panneaux de l’enquête

J’ai mis 10, la graduation la meilleure, à la question « est-ce que Cetelem s’engage pour une consommation plus responsable et plus durable ? » Je l’ai fait comme une plaisanterie où oui, je vous garantie que je vais me responsabiliser : Cetelem c’est terminé !

Est-ce que Cetelem a facilité mon parcours et l’accès au service ? LOL.

Est-ce que je choisirai Cetelem pour un projet futur ? Absolument pas.

Mentions légales et courrier
Mentions légales et courrier

Les mentions légales de leur email me demandant de leur donner mon avis m’ont permis une nouvelle fois de leur écrire, cette fois pour exercer mon droit relatif à mes données.

Work won’t love you back

2022-08-03 Update: reflected that the transition to a legal entity was postponed by a year; gave link to media advisory of that transition; rewrote two phrases.


Abstract of what is on my mind: work is transactional by nature, excellent connections with coworkers are precious (I am fortunate to have many). Now, the companies that consider their work force “family” puzzle me. This is not exactly the case where I work (or is it?), BUT we are in a setting that is pretty conducive to it, AND after 27 years, this is going to change –in less than a year two years. SO I really wonder what that change will do to the current equilibrium (I’m pretty sure it’s going to put it to the test).


Screenshot of a Tweet by Kevin pointing out that work won’t love you back

This stemmed from my browsing The Twitters yesterday. I read Kevin‘s tweet.

He wrote “work won’t love you back.” And as much as I’ve loved the people I’ve worked with, it’s always turned to be correct.

Screenshot of the The tweets that Kevin quoted, referring to work as family but also as being a transaction

Kevin was quoting another Twitter thread where I read “it’s so emotionally damaging when companies self-style their workers as ‘family’. you can have deep emotional connections with your coworkers, if you’re lucky, but don’t forget that work relationships are fundamentally transactional. i hope your family is not.


I don’t consider my workplace to be like family and we aren’t self-styled as such either. But, work is very central in my life: every other week I spend most of my waking time at work (the other week, I am solo parent of a teenager, spending just normal amounts of time at work).

Firstly, I am fortunate to have very deep emotional connections with many of my coworkers, a few of which I even regard as father parent figures, many of which are true models for me, most of which I respect tremendously.

Secondly, we have very little turnover. I’ve worked there for over 22 years and many current colleagues were already in the team when I joined. And we welcome newcomers, not as siblings, but with similar care and attention to their success. As though we have a stake in it –and we do, yes.

Thirdly, we get together (we used to, pre-COVID at least) every now and then and those occasions are always enjoyable and looked forward to by most. Yes, like any other workplaces, there are difficult people who get along with fewer people, or are not interested in making any connections at all. That’s my description of our unusual work environment. In fact, I remember how I described it to my mum a few years into it: it’s like summer camp where you make new great friends and do exciting stuff, but it’s all year-round.

Now, our administrative setup allows us to do our work without a whole lot of competition, without too many frustrations, because we are employed by four different institutions that legally “host” our consortium, and in most of our cases, the people who employ us are not those we take work orders from. I think that makes a world of a difference.


Change is coming. The Hosts arrangement, in place from the start in 1994, has enough drawbacks that for a few years now we have been exploring how to become our own legal entity. This is set to happen on January 1, 2022 2023. When it does, the consortium will have its own bank account, legal and fiduciary obligations, and traditional management powers that we currently do not fully have.

The dynamics are bound to change. While today I (and many others in the team) are moved by the sheer impact our work has on society (HTML –heard of it? CSS, Web accessibility, Internationalization, etc. We are the little known consortium that makes the Web work, for everyone) and the Hosts that employ us provide the best abstraction to shield us from the reality of the transactional nature of work, this is going has the potential to hit us in the face like the train crashing Dr. Woodward’s truck in the movie Super 8!

There is a lot on our plates and most of us overwork because it’s really worth it! I remind myself on occasion that work won’t love me back, but once we are truly as valuable as our ability to make the company money, I wonder how the care will fare.

Exercising: one-year anniversary

A year ago, my Apple Watch suggested that it wasn’t too late if I wanted to earn the 2020 International Women’s Day challenge: all it took was a 20-minute walk!

How it started

My dog in tow, I went for a walk. I earned my first “activity” badge. And this marked the start of my exercising daily.

iPhone screenshot: International Women’s Day challenge award, earned by completing a workout of at least 20 minutes on 8 March 2020.
International Women’s Day challenge award

The mammoth total!

In the past 365 days, I covered 1,172.78 kilometers (728.7 miles) in logged walks, or runs.

To put this into some perspective:

  • That’s about an eighth or a ninth of what I drive yearly.
  • That’s an average of almost 100 kilometers per month.
  • I will note that about half of it was achieved during the first five months (because that’s when I ran.)

As someone who abhorred even the idea of exercising and had stopped any practice of sport for a couple of decades, I find all of this both impressive and very gratifying.

Graphs

Bar chart of the number of exercise minutes between March 2020 and March 2021
Daily average of exercise in the last year: 70 minutes
Bar chart of the active energy between March 2020 and March 2021
Daily average of active energy in the last year: 547kcal
Bar chart of the number of steps between March 2020 and March 2021
Daily average steps in the last year: 7872
Bar chart of the running and walking distance between March 2020 and March 2021
Daily average running and walking distance in the last year: 6,4 km
Bar charts of the move, exercise and stand rings between March 2020 and March 2021
Activity graphs in the last year: move, exercise, stand

Notes on the graphs, key stats

Except the “stand” graph which so far has been steadily increasing (spoiler: it is about to plateau at 19 times per day, or decrease. I don’t sleep so well but I’m hopeful this can improve), all of the bars of the other graphs are consistent (that’s reassuring!)

March and April last year were the slow but steady start, then in May I really upped my game. In June I probably was like, “chill if you want to sustain this.” But July, golly! July was too much. So much that a huge dip followed and it took me all of August, September and October to recover and make really small progress. I didn’t resume running though. November, December and January 2021 were tough too, with another dip and a general but consistent sluggishness. I was back at it in February. And a week into March suggests it’s going to be a pretty good month.

Notable rounded numbers include:

  • May 2020: walked 110 km
  • Jul 2020: ran 100 km (over 12 hours), covered a total walking + running distance of 175 km
  • Aug 2020: 15 hours of core training and yoga
  • Sep 2020: 42 workouts out of 60 were yoga and core training, for a total of 33 hours
  • Dec 2020: daily yoga practices of 40 minutes
  • Jan 2021: only month in the past year where I didn’t exercise every day (only 25 workouts)
  • Feb 2021: 1:40:00 of average walk time (13 walks, over 21 hours, over 106 km)

How it’s going

My primary motivation (beyond the Apple Watch successful nagging of exactly a year ago) was to lose the extra weight that I had put on due to some medication I took for a month or so, and to get back in shape.

In that regard it has been a complete success. Although it took eight long months to complete the former! I am back in shape: no more knee and hip pains, stronger legs and arms, slower heart rate.

Weight chart between March 2020 and March 2021 showing a steep decrease between february and december from 68 to 58 kilos, and then a small rise again under 60.
Weight graph over the last year: 62.09 kg

But what keeps me going is this: exercising is now a key part of my life. I swear I never thought I would think that! I still can’t wrap my head around it 🙂 but it’s true. This is the only thing I do for myself. This is the only thing I do that is not working, or caring for my child or relatives (both of which, with a little sleep, a little Netflix, or a little art making or reading, fill the rest of my life.)

Art: Angela Davis (step by step)

Angela Davis.
Power To The People ✊🏿 Power & Equality ✊🏿

This took me a long time: 5 or 6 hours over two days for a rather small piece, as I drew it on my little Canson artbook (10,2 x 15,2 cm – 4 x 6 in).

Apparently this month is the celebration of Black history, so this is timely.

Very detailed pencil sketch on an open artbook of the face of Angela Davis, ornate flowers and lettering. The mechanical pencil and eraser pen are on the cutting mat.

I enjoyed doing the pencil sketch. I found it very pretty.

Black ink for the face, shadows and earrings. The black pen is next to the open artbook on the cutting board.

Black ink.

Red lettering in acrylic paint: POWER on the left side, TO THE on the top, and PEOPLE on the right side. The red acrylic paint marker is on the cutting mat next to the artbook.

Red acrylic paint and black ink.

Work in progress to paint red the ornaments at each corner. The pens are next to the open artbook.

I used a thicker black pen with an angled nib. I also had to make small corrections which I did with a red ink felt tip pen, and a think white acrylic paint marker.

Drawing finished. I put a mounting card and wooden frame on top of the open artbook to see how it looks framed.

Finished!

Trying out how it would look like if it were framed.

Close up of the finished signed work with white mounting card around it.
Close up of the finished signed work with white mounting card around it.