Not quite that abstract.
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Not quite that abstract.
Ah... Yoshimitsu it is.
Paul Phoenix is quite a drug death name.
TFW you love skag
https://i.imgur.com/zgNBd4a.gif
Doing another trip this week. Only a two-dayer but suffice to say the overnight venue is the Premier Inn in Worksop, this is about as glamorous as it gets.
A colleague has died. :arry:
Sidekick?
Unexpectedly?
Propositioned?
Some bloke who's not in my team but I work closely with. Probably under 50.
Wife went for a walk with their kids, he wasn't feeling upto it. Came home and he's dead in bed.
Vaxxed?
Had some great fun with one of those shite recruiters who just clicks through LinkedIn.
I got an email at work from a guy offering to help me recruit for my department, the usual bollocks. About a day later I got an email from the same guy on my personal email saying I'm a good candidate for his specialty and he would help me find a better job. Sent him a modified CV for a bit of a laugh to see what come of it. Just now he's emailed my work email saying he's got an ideal candidate and attached the CV as his evidence.
These cunts don't even check the name do they? :D
Ask him to arrange an interview.
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Ben
You've got to keep this going.
Recruiters are scum, they use every trick in the book. They'd sell their nan if it earned them an extra £10.
That’s glorious. Keep going until he figures it out.
I got a linked in mail for a senior international tax role (I do domestic US tax - I am already a senior) at my own company. From our own recruiting team. Summed up why we never got candidates for our entry level roles.
100% keep it going. Hopefully it's the same cunt that tried to strong arm me into an hour and 45 minute commute each way after the recruiter offered me the job but said I'd have to work from Biggin fucking Hill for 6 months.
"It's only an hour, I'm looking on Google Maps right now!"
I've just done it mate... during rush hour it took an hour and 45 mi...
"I really think you'll regret passing up this opportunity"
Fucking snakes.
Emailed back expressing my interest so let's see how this goes. :D
Bear in mind that I've not explicitly told this guy (from my work email) that there's a job opening. He cold emailed me and I basically said "let's have a look at what you've got then" in response.
Can you hire yourself and double your salary?
I'm definitely going to ask for more money than I'm on.
Obviously if this gets as far as HR they will lol it off as there's not actually a job available, especially when I indirectly give myself a pay rise.
:lol:
Is it wise to be publishing that sort of information online?
Recruitment agents really are the epitome of money for old rope.
The recruiter has messaged my work email asking for a job description etc. because his candidate is ready to have an interview and discuss terms. Lol.
I can do a fake one to keep this going, right? Or will I get a slapped wrist from HR if it came to their attention?
However, minor downside to this. I accidentally left my phone number in my email signature when replying and now he's ringing the shit out of me.
Is he ringing candidate you or hiring manager you?
Put your numbers in the email signature of the other one and see if he notices.
Hiring manager. I think he's desperate to tell me what a great candidate he's got.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
“Wow he sounds almost as good as me. Might take my job lol”
The GMB has narrowly lost its historic bid for union recognition at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry.
Some 49.5% of workers balloted voted in favour, while 50.5% voted against. The union needed a majority to vote in favour.
If the GMB had won it would have been the first time Amazon recognised a union in the UK.
The online giant would have been forced to negotiate with workers on issues such as pay and conditions.
???
I would assume some kind of bribery on the behalf of Amazon there.
Don't they just randomly hire loads of people before those votes so the 50% threshold is much harder to get to?
I'm in a place very similar and yes. Usually an influx of agency, possibly even incentivised to vote it down.
RIP those who were outspoken against the company in the lead up to this hoping for some union representation on the back of it.
I've never been involved in such things, but if everyone who works there is unhappy then I've genuinely no idea how they've won that vote.
They know that big Jeff is a good man and has their best interests at heart.
They were threatened with no pay rises etc if it passed apparently. My wife has gone from a job where people scream and shout and bully people to a big corporate unionised job and she can't believe it, she was lolling the other day about everyone being worried about some notoriously stern woman that works there.
Just logged back in to LinkedIn and the first post was a recruitment bro mocking candidates asking for too much money and the video in the post was a guy running across a road getting hit by a bike.
I set up a Linkedin account in the autumn when we were all going to be fired but then actually promoted, I have trouble believing anyone on there making the promoted posts is a real person.
Broke up for the summer hols today but my own kids are in until Wednesday. Best bit of the holiday.
Job ad is up:
https://careers.thefa.com/jobs/vacan...7/description/
Embrace DIFFERENCE?
Definitely going to a soft arse like Potter or Howe then.
Rushing the process before Yev can get his Pro License. :nono:
Did Southagte have any of the non-bullshit qualities when he took over?
Howe ‘ruled himself out’ already.
I'm really hoping the wording in that job spec paves the way for Klopp, or at least the intention to land him.
Start date March 2025 would be the only thing that might get close to achieving this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
- Have a UEFA Pro License : TickQuote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
- Will have significant experience of English football, with a strong track record delivering results in the Premier League and/or leading international competitions.: NOPE when he arrived, Tick when he left.
- Will be an exceptional leader who understands and will enjoy the international football environment. : Tick? These will be the best results of his entire career.
- Will be experienced in successfully identifying, managing and developing English qualified players. : Tick. How many of his U21 squads have graduated to the seniors?
- Will be highly resilient and comfortable in a very high-profile role with intense public scrutiny. : NOPE. Left after some notable scrutiny.
- Will have a track record of creating a high performing, positive team culture and environment. Tick. He never lost the dressing room.
- Will have strong personal values and integrity and understand and embrace the role that the England Men's Senior Team Head Coach has inspiring the nation. Tick. But he's no Serema Wiegman.
I know, I'm doing this in hindsight but it's that hindsight that informs the FA's next pick.
What sort of rinky-dink shit is that? How many joke applications is some poor administrator going to have to waste their time deleting?
As if anyone who just applies like that would even be considered. It probably all goes straight to the lol bin.
Tell me about a time when . . .
Any serious candidate walks out of the room. Graham Potter remains, jubilant in the waiting room.
They're probably hoping Klopp will send his CV in without them having to suffer the social awkwardness of ringing him up.
Do we think Klopp would be a good fit to international football? Seems more like a manager that grows with his squad.
His record in one off finals suggests not, but I think realistically he'd be a pretty 'good fit' for any job involving the management of football players for the purposes of playing football.
Not sure how much the role of Head Coach of the England Men's Team requires that though.
I'm not sure why people are surprised, it's from exactly the same playbook as taking the knee and standing up for LGBQT+ rights.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
And actually, on the whole I've come to think it's a good thing. This country is so diverse now that the FA should absolutely be appealing to as many people as possible to get them into football.
I don't want to shoot the messenger with this reply, but I've seen this take all over the shop and it's the dumbest one ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adramelch
The man is a man management God, tactically astute and his teams play obscenely good football. On paper he'd be the best international manager going and by a country mile. Even if we allow for football not being played on paper he's still miles ahead of the other semi-realistic candidates and (from the never gonna happen bucket) I'd even take him above Guardiola (albeit I would love to know if Pep could actually get us passing a football properly and consistently).
It's true that the minorities have never shown any interest in football. If only they had some representation at the highest level, maybe things would change.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
I am actually surprised at the smalltimeness of it. Even with all of the other politicised corporate bollocks taken as a given, there should still be somebody in the building saying come on lads Real Madrid don't put out job adverts for managers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
Someone should be sending cheeky fake Klopp/Guardiola/Bielsa/Ancelotti etc. applications right now.
I'm gonna write one as Steve Bruce.
They must be getting thousands of bogus applications, some of which could be very amusing.
Having had Klopp in charge of our lot for 9 years I can tell you he's probably the least England manager of anyone out there. What he loves is coaching a player on the training ground until you get a good player out of him. He needs that time and international management is not something that will allow it.
You also saw with Sir Gareth that they like a well spoken, non-offensive yes man for their press conferences. He isn't going to do that sat in a room of hyper critical press, who have spent years annoying him whenever he(rightly) mentions things like fixture congestion being a big issue. He's going to say exactly what he thinks and they wont like that.
Sir Gareth was the perfect man for the FA to trot out at press conferences and whatever public appearances, he just lacked a little in the bravery department come match day. Had he been a little more proactive rather than reactive, he's now probably actually knighted and with at least 1 winners medal of the 3 he's had a great chance at.
Exactly. I genuine don't think Klopp's style is suited to international management. Ancelotti on the other hand I think could work relative wonders given a squad full of good players.
I still think Frank Lampard would be a genuinely good choice.
What a player he was btw.
Klopp needing time to improve Divock Origi, the FA prioritising someone who is good in press conferences and Frank Lampard being seriously suggested. I need a lie down.
You say this, but Origi has been a starter for two good teams since leaving us and has been wank. Yet at Liverpool has so many important goals as well as a winner in a CL final.
I think with Klopp you could maybe get by with vibes based on the quality of players available. But you can’t think he’s suddenly going to turn England into prime Dortmund or Liverpool without that training time.
Not sure I would call him a starter or Forest a good team :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Gray Fox
In my mind he played for Villa for some reason. As you were.
Klopp would be an unreal appointment, but I'm hoping for a Gerrard Lampard power sharing role.
There's no doubt he improves players, but Engand's are already of a level where he shouldn't need to do much of that so not having the time to wouldn't be so much of an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Fox
International football is about vibes, defending well, and making pro-active substitutions. Let's not over-complicate it. We can manage perfectly well with another binman as long as he can find a way to generate more than a shot a match and can see when to bring another midfielder on without having to check notes made the day before.
Absolutely a Pre Emery Villa signing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Fox
See, obviously he's not available, but Emery is one of the managers I think would really suit international management. Track record of doing really well in knockout competitions in his first seasons at a club.
Ok take this to the football thread. I’m here to see what drama’s have happened where Jimmy works and for not much else.
Ian goes missing and chaos ensues.
Poch and his lemons it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Does Beckham have his badges? That'd be wonderful to see unravel.
Anyway, I did some overtime today and two hours of it was discovering we didn't need to be there in the first place. Someone assumed the work would be there and didn't bother to check before the weekend. :D
Just received an email. Here it is in full and unabridged:
No context, never heard of the person before. Quite magnificent.Quote:
you bunch of pricks scotland is outside your country shipping zone and you want to provide a customs quote how about stick it up yer arse
Bring on indyref2.
He donned you there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
It must be the day for it. I've received an email from someone I conducted a tenancy audit with 8 months ago, telling me that it's none of my fucking business how many dogs they have and that they don't care what their tenancy agreement says.
No contact since the start of December.
Fuck knows.
It's the heat.
This particular delight is from Dagenham and I THINK something has been put up on Social Media by the "Coms Team" regarding XL Bullies. It's probably in response to that, but I don't care enough to find out to be honest. Not my area.
Weather or the dogs?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
I will have to one-up you I'm afraid.
Just before lunch had a call from someone wanting a bolt for a Ford tractor. Sorry don't have it. Oh right, he says, I can't find this anywhere, you wouldn't believe the trouble I've had. I think it's those asylum seekers, he says. You know, in our area, they sent a military truck in with a major on it - not a sergeant, not a corporal, a major - with AK47s to fight the asylum seekers. What we had Thursday, Friday, that's just the start. We're all going to be killed. You know, he says, there's a 12,000 year cycle - everything resets. There was a sun spot six weeks ago which was totally abnormal. NASA are covering all this up. I have a friend - a famous face - he knows everyone there is to know at NASA. He was telling me - Brian Blessed, you know him? The actor. He was telling me that NASA don't tell us half of what's going on. Anyway, would you believe, I was talking to this guy the other day, and I said, you wouldn't believe, I've got 12 foot of peat in my field. The deepest peat deposits in the country. This guy said, no you never. He didn't believe me so he got the testing people in. 12 foot, I've got, and you know how many compressed trees it takes to produce that much peat? All the peat in the country, yeah, all the coal, it was all produced 12,000 years ago, at the last reset. Only 30 women survived in the western hemisphere, and we're all descended from those same 30 women. Anyway, the asylum seekers, they've taken my guns off me. Not allowed a licence. I couldn't believe it. The problems they're having in Sweden, Norway - that's just the start. It was just a small one on Thursday. The next one will be big, and I won't have any guns.
20 minutes in, having not said anything more than 'mm', I just said sorry I have to go, and put the phone down. Hope he hasn't topped himself.
:D
Where was he based?
Hampshire I think. It was Brian Blessed's entry into the fray that turned my frown upside down and earned him another 10 minutes of uninterrupted runtime.
Reminds me of working at the court and having a guy with a TV Licence fine contesting his it because he was only watching the BBC to collect evidence on them manipulating our weather.
I do love a nutter.
12 foot of peat? No fucking chance.
That was the best bit in a way. A good seven or eight minutes of monologue solely on his dispute with an unidentified person about how much peat there was in his field. It was like being in a Bob Mortimer sketch.
I think we should use the TTH kitty to hire some of our own testing people.
The resolution to it was that the speaker said to the sceptic 'Come and test my field any time' and the sceptic then actually did arrange for testers to go onto this man's land, which he found them doing a few days later and welcomed their results that he really did have 12 foot of peat in his field. I was impressed that the sceptic cared enough to make it happen. Then it went off into 20,000 trees being compressed to make the world's supply of coal and I lost the thread a bit.
Ordered a tiny little trophy for the winner of my work sweeper and going to set up a little “trophy presentation” tomorrow (hopefully he’s in).
I’ve filled it with as many pound coins as I can to make up (part) of his prize money (thirty five of 70).
Considered getting it engraved but have instead decided that I’m going to claim it’s got “personalised engraving to document the scale of the achievement of his victory” and then watch him hunt on the trophy for the non existent engraving, before highlighting that it was indeed an achievement unworthy of documenting.
Might get sacked.
We have a new guy at work and I think he's the most autistic person I've ever met. Constant disagreements with people over unimportant points, the latest being taking issue with someone calling the Union Flag the Union Jack.
I might have to leave.
Lewis didn't say he had a new job.
Be the Jim to his Dwight to entertain yourself during the day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
The Arab and the Romanian have just had a shouting match in the office, about the covid vaccine. The Romanian refuses to believe in the existence of covid at all, whereas the Arab says it does exist but it's a conspiracy by western governments. 1,000 decibels moron tennis for half an hour, I've had to put headphones in and loud music through them which is a first, let's hope I haven't missed the phone ringing. I would moan but there's an established precedent that the Arab is allowed to do what he likes in the office because his sales budget is a million dollars.
How are these people employed?
I assume that whoever hired them does not have to listen to their everyday conversations.
They very much do. Arab has had about 14 warnings in the last year for various things, but he's essentially untouchable, because Arab customers generally will only deal with other Arabs, so to replace him you'd have to find another Arab and teach them from scratch as well as re-establish all the relationships. You'd also need them to be the right kind of Muslim (can't remember whether Sunni or Shia is the acceptable one in his countries) and to be related to the Prophet, as his family claims to be.
Even if he gets deported, which is not impossible the way he carries on (already had a police warning for flattening some bloke in Tesco), they'd probably keep him on remotely from Dubai or wherever he washed up next.
The Arab :cool:
What a character.
Handed in my notice today. What a feeling.
Great work. Anything lined up?
Cheers. Research role at Leeds Uni.
Looks like a new team leader role is up. This all came about because the incoming employers fucked up the existing one’s role during the TUPE process.
Their pension and wages look shit. I’m not going forward for that.
Today I've had to do 5 extra phone calls because I'm the only one between myself, the Romanian and the Arab who can understand a Northern Irish accent (specifically county Tyrone). Absolutely seething and ready to chuck a brick through the window of Greggs and loot a steak bake, fucking useless immigrants.
Or as the man on the phone would say, hurdy durdy hurdy roind soind durdy.
Spent all day yesterday interviewing people as a favour to someone, and the person who was the standout for the job has decided he lives too far away and doesn't know whether he can accept it. Why get this far only to say no. :cab:
Is there an easy way to claim the extra 20% tax relief from my pension, or is it one of those things I just need to pay an accountant to do?
I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm listening. What's this?
My company is backwards so our pensions aren't salary sacrifice (most are now so you don't need to worry if so), so the pension provider claims the basic 20% tax relief for you. However, if you're a higher rate tax payer (ie. 40%) then you've got to manually claim back the difference yourself.
I had a go on my self assessment earlier in the year but it said I owed money so I obviously did it wrong.
Just wondering if there is a fool's guide to doing it before I overpay an accountant to do a five minute job.
You could ring HMRC and ask them.
Cheers men.
Just had to tell a mum that her son is dead... I've had better days. As, I suspect, has she.
How does that come about? He stopped paying his rent six months ago, door bashed in, he's dead, you have to tell her? Surely the police can do it.
His mum has consent to discuss his tenancy as he has additional needs (read: addictions), so she calls every now and then to make sure all is OK as he keeps things from her.
However, the police and paramedics were called a couple of weeks ago after a neighbour saw him on the floor through his window, they forced entry and he had been dead for a day or so. I can only assume the police just didn't contact her. Which was nice of them.
Yesterday in the bathroom at work there were only two stalls available: one sandwiched by two persons having one of those intense grunting shits and the handicapped one at the far end. Needless to say, I took the handicapped one. I did my business and then probably stayed a good ten minutes browsing on my phone. When I came out, I saw a man on a wheelchair leaving the bathroom, who then turned around when he saw me leave the stall. I wonder how long he waited. :rosebud:
I can't match that, although I did read the phrase, "Human debris." on some paperwork this week.
Just handed in my badge as we're moving to a new office (and company) on Monday. I think I'm the only person so far who's passed the vetting process. :D
Sorted this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Weird that you still have to do it by post when pretty much everything else is online now. But easy enough.
I just exchanged my Irish driving licence for a Northern Irish licence (yes, 8 years after moving here). The application had to be posted with a cheque and proof of ID. It took 2 months from date of posting to the new licence arriving at my door. The website claimed it would be a maximum of 3 weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
The new office has no bins. Feels like the last office I may ever work in. There's no mobile coverage and the place is just barely out of reach of civilisation.
Today I'm hosting a Q&A session after a film screening at a cinema.
Remember when I tested eyes in care homes? :cab:
You probably should do stuff like that for a living. MC, hire yourself out for a grand a night.
Can it be watched and - more importantly - can questions be submitted online?Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Sadly not. Went well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Should you put your references direct on your cv or should it say 'available on request'?
The latter. They’re all bollocks anyway.
I don't have references but direct quotes from customers and clients. They are named along with the company they own/work for so easily contactable. Gets you loads of interviews and offers.
Thats not a bad idea.
Probably more relevant if you're in sales. If it's just a normal job then "available on request" is fine. I'm not sure I've ever had mine checked
I have. My current job was delayed for about a month cos my previous job was stalling on giving a reference until they hired a replacement. I wouldn't have put them down but they insisted on 'current employer' being one. F U Specsavers.
Speaking of which, got a 'congratulations on six years' notification on the payslip website today.
Speaking of payslips, got the last one for the old employers today. Got the bonus :cool:
Been battling with business ethics in my head recently. Heard something last week which really ticked me off and I couldn’t stop thinking about it over the weekend, even impacted my sleep.
My employer are looking to reduce costs and are restructuring, whilst simultaneously hiring in a low cost area (where they currently don’t operate). It’s clear their plan will be to gradually shift roles from area A to lower cost area B.
In some aspects of the business you could argue that might be acceptable, but it seems to be being used widely as a “we have a problem, hiring a UK employee or contractor is too expensive, get them to do it” which is abhorrent for a company extracting a natural resource, profitably, from a country.
Told my team leader and then direct line manager I believed how it was being used was unethical and am now working out to approach someone more senior to understand what ethical assessments have been done to define ethical boundaries for use.
Hopefully I don’t get sacked, but I suspect the “but we need to reduce cost” is the new ethical culture basis. Spoke to a few other people who hadn’t really thought about it, but seemed to then come to the same scathing conclusion I did.
Suck it up cupcake or go work for a charity.
How close is said ethical quandary to something like ... say, a Piper Alpha scenario?
I've landed on my feet with a new job. Less hours, more money, and greater flexibility.
Unless it will produce dirt that could hit top people personally, you'll get nowhere with ethical anything in the analytical efficiency age.
Someone at work bangs on about some project he lead on being a huge success and getting loads of engagement and spent almost all of his puny budget (£7k vs my £4m lol) on the launch and advertising the website people visit to ‘pledge.’
One of my service managers asked if something I’m involved in could have a similar pledging system so I did some digging and found the person in the comms team who set it up for him. Emailed her expressing my wishes and her response was basically ‘don’t do it, it’s a massive failure, they had a handful of pledges in the last 12 months’ olol good one pal.
Really enjoyed forwarding that on to stakeholders saying we’re not gonna do it and here’s why.
I got up at 4.30am this morning to go to Leeds and do a customer meeting. Drove 4 hours there and 4 hours back in the driving rain, as well as 4 hours at the meeting. Got back home half an hour ago. Got a whatsapp from my boss complaining that I didn't take pictures at the meeting to put on the company LinkedIn.
Fuck off.
Been at my new job for two months and still done fuck all. Best part is that scamming time is piss easy, even though we're supposed to log in everything we do in six minute increments for a total of 40 hours per week. Lad next to me has spent the last three weeks discussing the purchase of a heat exchanger. 200 billion dollar company and they cannot agree on who to buy a $2k piece from :harold:
What are you doing now?
Nothing.
Designing airplane engines.
Boeing, is it?
They don't do engines. General Electric or Pratt and Whitney?
*Aeroplane you noobQuote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Foe, go short on all Aviation stocks.
He's had us all on and took a job at Rolls Royce.
It's a joke m8Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
I’ve been asked to do something similar recently re logging time.
I’m working on the assumption they want to sack us all and move jobs to India so I’m filling it in showing I do zero admin tasks and everything I do is value adding and requires specific knowledge.
I have not booked the time I spend sifting through trading212 and buying shares in Snapchat.
We'd be impossible to catch. We have impenetrable deception measures in place, such as using the same account number of the old Russian customers but putting -KZ at the end to denote we're shipping to Kazakhstan instead.
Whatever happened to the salesman the Saffas insisted had to visit Belarus or whatever to inspect a part he wasn't qualified to look at?
I've just been told my department is being made defunct and I'll be redundant before December, unless I'm found a new role.
I'm just about to receive an order for £1.1m that I'm about to tell the customer not to place. :drool:
It's done. Fuck them.
It's an open secret now that our head of IT (supposed to be full time employed, paid probably six figs) is simultaneously the head of IT for another similar sized company and gets paid two salaries while darting madly between the two. We required three days a week in the office, the other place one. You should get involved in that kind of game.
I could honestly easily pick up a second job effort wise, but not sure I'd want to do it on a schedule juggling level.
There's a whole subreddit dedicated to people doing it.
Edit: This one: https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/
This was all the rage during COVID particularly in the software industry because most companies were hiring like mad for a while. I thought it didn't really work in the UK though because we have PAYE and your second job would be able to tell from your tax code? Is that not true?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
He's probably an independent contractor for at least one of them rather than an employee. He's been with us about 20 years but has a long history of having tantrums to get more money, then fired and then re-hired so at some point during that he's probably fiddled himself into an untouchable corner.
Also has a photography business on the side.
Also is the Arab's brother, obvs.
That guy is doing it right. My side business gets me about £500 a year.
I could definitely do my previous and my current job simultaneously and I still wouldn't be anywhere near 40 hours per week of actual work.
My favourite IT story was the guy who outsourced his own job to China without telling anyone. He was paying 1/5th of his salary to a company in China to do his job and spending the day on Ebay.
They only found out because they thought they were under attack from Chinese hackers but it was just the company accessing documents to do his job for him.
You can only do that in sales if you have a good customer base (I inherited one when I moved here). So I've basically done account management and upselling rather than business development. My figures are great and I've barely worked at all.
I knew this team well before I joined so they trusted me. I am totally screwed now in the respect of getting a 'proper' sales job i.e building it up from zero. That is going to be insanely hard unless I can luck out and replace someone else who had a base already.
Fuck. Either that or I get a job to practice my counselling, but £21,000 pro-rata for 16 hours a week as a school counsellor doesn't really excite me...
The Arab, who in recent times has been an irritating prick rather than entertaining, has just told us that he's spent the last year being blackmailed by a woman. Said woman went out with him for 3 months, then asked for a lot of money, then upon the resultant breakup emailed his boss, family etc with kompromat of them together and demanded money to stop doing so. The Arab paid up and continued doing so, to the tune of £1,300 over the course of a year. He's only now got the police involved.
He also claims that three or four named people who work in our warehouse have been subject to similar blackmails in their relationships. Is this something I've missed, an epidemic of blackmailing women, or am I just naive?
I would think there is something about you that makes you a less ideal target than The Arab.
Are there any applications integrated within Teams that improve meetings significantly?
The do not disturb button
Co-pilot? Let AI figure out what people are talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
My GOAT. :cool:
Do I mention or put on my CV that I'm doing an MSc or do I wait until interview stage to mention it? I feel like it would disqualify me almost immediately...
I just wouldn't mention it until I was about 2 months into the job, if at all, but maybe I'm a cynical piece of shit.
I'd need approval for the 26 days off a year to attend though.
I'm with Jimmy. They'll seethe when they find out, but will just take it because companies are firing-averse. Just like you wouldn't recommend a woman to mention they are pregnant, you should do the same.
I understand, but this is sales. Firing-averse doesn't apply here.
I'm leaning towards disclosure at interview stage, or at least raising it. I don't feel all that comfortable lying, it's not my modus operandi.
What's the MSc in?
Counselling.
"This guy's studying to be a counsellor, he'll leave in a couple of years, no point in hiring him."Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Presumably you can use your communication skills from your MSc to convince them.
Ignore these lunatics, you obviously need to tell them. Interview stage is probably right, ideally after you've nailed the first 90% of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
I was counting on it being an evening course that would only result in your eventual departure, rather than five weeks off a year, no sane person would give you a job doing that unless it was commission only or something.
The truth is somewhere between SvN and Pepe.
You have to tell them, but at the same time you have to be aware that if you tell them the full details it will be received in much the same way as a woman turning up and saying "oh, I'm hoping to start a family this year". You aren't getting the job and neither would she.
So the question is; how do you tell them in such a way that you can downplay the obvious impact its going to have on the business?
I would be more wary about him turning any workplace into a mindfulness wankathon than a few days off.
'You do realise we don't have a mental health first aider?'
And then Baz swoops in.
Retired from that.
"you haven't hit target"
"Thank you for sharing that with me in this safe space, I understand how hard that was for you, it was really brave. Maybe we can explore some of your feelings around that at a later session?"
"I understand you don't want the thing we're selling, but think of it from my perspective."
"Fuck you, pay me"
Tell them you’re doing one, but be vague in what it’s in. Make it seem like it’s just something you’re interested in, rather than a new career.
I'm definitely not hiring someone who does a course in counselling just because they are interested in it.
"I'm doing an MSc in Counselling, but DON'T WORRY! I'm just a busy cunt"
I'm not averse to canning it for the right opportunity, but only as a last resort. In this day and age people skills are absolutely critical for sales (unless you're selling dog shit and it needs to go at all costs).
It's not a million miles away from the job at all.
Edit: the uncertainty is killing my motivation to study.
I've decided to send a few feelers out for new things (2 year itch). I have a "senior solutions consultant" interview tomorrow with HR (the check if you're an idiot) which will be for the first time on the vendor side. Also have a friend from my old employer who seems really interested but it really will depend on the seniority (and obviously the money). I'm pretty happy to stay put but still good to know you're wanted.
We sacked our useless remote Italian today. Lovely man but doesn't get sales at all, to the extent that he steadfastly refused - for 12 years that he inexplicably lasted at the company - to lower any prices in 13 of his 14 national territories despite getting fuck all sales and his prices being obviously way too high. Our total sales to date in Switzerland this year are £7.90. Slovenia, couple of hundred quid. Montenegro - it's a small country, sure, but seven months in the total is zero. Serbia, one thousand pounds.
We came up with the theory in the office that he was being paid another salary by our competitors to be incompetent and keep our product out of these countries. Kind of stacks up. Anyway, it takes me another step closer to seizing my empire.
Not Benito Nipplini? :(
What do you mean vendor? Don't you work for in finance?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
I work for a bank but I don't work in finance. A vendor selling the software/services banks use.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
So are you like system support or something similar?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
'Your free trial of Pensioner Swindler 9000 expires in 30 days...'
Anti financial crime. We try to stop the pensioner swindling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Grass.
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
I genuinely thought you were a banker lol. Wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
It's a filthy lie shared by the powers that be.
Time to put you in the same bracket as Shindig.
Wash your hands Keeks.
Probably better to be a banker than a "senior solutions consultant" or whatever wanky job title it was.
Regarding the job, Magic, is the qualified counsellor salary not a lot less than your current sales earnings? Might be aswell to take the crap wage and re-adjust now, at least you'll be doing what you want? Or look at jobs where they will actively like you doing your course.
Just win the lottery. Thats my plan.
I just want to be part of team sales.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Magic giving you counselling. It truly is 'Those that can't do, teach'.
In unrelated news, I'm training to be a barber.
Yes. Like half. There are no real jobs that compliment it, unless it's like school guidance counsellor or something and most of them are part time just above minimum wage lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
I love the course, the first year is teaching you how to human on a much deeper level. Could always jack it in when they start preparing you for practice in year 2.
If you're not intending to do anything with it you could likely get the same out of watching university lectures on YouTube and buying the set books suggested. Doing the actual course is only really worth doing if you need that bit of paper.
I am quite surprised it's a low paying job though. Surely there's some money in listening to Big Banker Kiko's woes twice a week.
Is the plan to counsel people through gluten intolerances?
I hope a module on the replication crisis comes soon.
They'd probably want someone, if not with medical training, then not Mr fucking Mackey up there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
£29-£40k if you work for someone. You can probably up that to £50k in private practice and maybe more if you have a proper niche. It's really limited by your own mental capacity. 25 clients a week @ 50-55 minutes is the max recommended.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
I got dealt a rough hand in life as I'm sure some of us on here did, I crave connection and meaning and I desperately need to heal. That said, it doesn't put food on the table and I feel like chucking away my career in toxic capitalist land is probably a bad idea at the moment. I am devastated my plan (working here for 3 years, saving then quitting and trying to build my own practice) has fallen through so quickly.
Ditto. Tonight might be the night.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Interview tomorrow. Only applied today.
Seems legit.
Passed the first HR hurdle and the hiring manager already liked my profile. Salary isn't an issue either. Might be a goer this one.
It must be the season of job moving! I'm hopefully about to land my first client secondment with a video game & entertainment company, which probably has the potential to either br the coolest 6 months of my career or just a period where I get fucked by the US & Japanese overlords.
Keen for a short-term change either way, plus an excuse to have a taste of the in-house life. Win.
Is it CA?
Secondments always sound a bit shit unless you get to go somewhere on a jolly as part of it. You're just being leased out to manage relationships at a higher level.
I've got my first consultation next week. The guy that's shutting my technology team down is a director of plumbing and HVAC. And he'll have a trainee HR assistant with him. Employment lawyer calling me tomorrow lolz.
CA?Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
We've got a pretty large commercial team and so there's usually half a dozen secondments on at any one time, with some of them definitely being more valuable for the secondee than others (some are dross).
My guess is this will fall somewhere in the middle - some work will be simply negotiating templates and pulling together playbooks, but there should be scope for some more strategic level input on more interesting workstreams.
Worth it for the name on the CV, if anything. And some of the team are based on the West Coast so there's an outside chance of a jolly, otherwise it's the continued joy of central London.
Not CA then (creative assembly) although I think they only have Japanese overlords (Sega) so sort of realised straight away. Doubt they're really big enough to be getting lawyers seconded to them.
Ah, got you. Yeah, it's one of the big boys in the sector, rather than a UK-based games studio or anything like that.
Clearly he's been drafted in to fix FM 25. Sega of America demands it.
For some reason I thought you owned your own company, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Wasn't it a self-bald joke?
He does. He's too shy to admit it but he's actually a bit of a tycoon in the hair and beauty game. Bought out Nicky Clarke several years back.
Ah, was not aware of that fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
Commiserations SVN on the lack of hair, but congrats on being a tycoon.
Thanks m8
I'm trying the self belief thing and it seems to be really working, even if it's almost delusional.
So either I'm exceptionally negative or people only care about can, not can't.
Anyway whatever it's working. Blag it, lads.
On Thursday our area manager (for lack of a better term) was down pretending everything isn't terrible, and when she asked if anyone had anything they would like to raise my line manager did a full Rafa Benitez - piece of paper from his pocket and everything - pulling her and the organisation to bits. The next day she sent him a properly shirty e-mail calling him unprofessional and playing to the gallery, so he came in today and retired. I am proper lolling at that for a move.
:cool:
Are you applying for the job?
I would last about a week so there wouldn't be much point, but we've all agreed to refuse to take on any of his duties if they fail to replace him. Fun times.
Brilliant.
I'm getting up at 5am to go to Sheffield tomorrow. I'm going with the newish Romanian, who is a proper legend. We got him from McLaren. He's about 5 foot 1 and in his spare time he sells trainers on ebay. This involves having a dodgy connect somewhere in the arse end of the Mike Ashley empire, who gives him a call if and when a shipment of rejected trainers is about to leave. He then hotfoots it up the M1 to the national distribution centre (in Newark or Hucknall or some place like that) and sits around for hours waiting for this mythical lorry to turn up. If it does then he shoves as many of the rejected boxes as possible into the back of his boat of an Audi (doesn't even hire a van, because bang goes the margin), drives back down south and then catalogues and lists them all for sale under retail price, even if he makes a loss. Makes something like a 4% margin overall from this charade. Says he could do it full time if he wanted, but it's too boring sitting around in lorry parks so instead he just does it on the side and sells parts for us, which he is bloody good at.
Well, he sounds top!
What's the margin on Jimmy's organs?
Sheffield is a dump. Jesus. A pit. I nominate it for destruction should we have to offer anywhere in particular up to Sir Vladimir Putin for nuking.
I think Threads is still on iPlayer Jimmy. That should cheer you up.
https://youtu.be/p5IAXoOfFf0?si=S-gUCAT5220Xl-Jl
Yeah, I was going to say you're 40 years late on that opinion Jim.
Playing pickleball with the office LADS today. Better than working, I guess.
Pickleball?
Low-intensity tennis.
It's a paddle racket sport played with a hollow ball that has holes in it.
You play on a half-ish sized tennis court with a low net.
Played it at Centre Parcs and it's pretty fun, you can get some sweet spin action when hitting the ball.
Why was he playing women's tennis?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
I lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Is that not something for over 80's?
There's a comedy film being made about Pickleball, written by one of the Workaholics writers.
I presumed Kyle Newacheck (Karl in Workaholics, and also a director) would be involved but apparently he's busy directing Happy Gilmore 2. A film nobody wants, surely.
Teenage Spikey loved Happy Gilmore.
So no. They probably don't.
Adam Sandler's agent probably does.
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
I'm up for a promotion into a new manager role that doesn't currently exist, and they've asked me to write a business case (for the existence of the role). Obviously not being a director or whatever I don't have access to key stats and data, just a general idea of why the role should exist. Is this a normal situation?
Is anything there a normal situation?
I can picture it now: you’ll write a business case, the higher-ups will use it as a job description and advertise the post, you won’t apply cos they can get lost, someone with big nips gets the gig.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
They've already written and sent me the job description, so then being asked to write a business case strikes me as back to front, but I could be wrong.
That exact thing happened to a mate of mine and he had to work for two years under the numpty they recruited that phoned it in every single day, except in his case he was pushing to create the role rather than being told there was one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
I'd politely tell them to do one Jim.
Not content with shutting my department down they're now looking to sell our customers to the highest bidder. Fucking bastards.
Sounds like a job for ChatGPTQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Isn't everything? I couldn't do my job without it, these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
"Tractors are a four-wheeled vehicle often used for agriculture ..."
Like swearing, it should be used sparingly for maximum impact and I despair at people who haven't even attempted to re-word what it spits out before rampantly passing it off as their own work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
This is a genuine posting for an enormous company. Role is business development manager.
What we’re looking for:
- Proactive and Driven: You should be highly motivated to find and pursue new leads and opportunities
- Exhibit relentless drive as a go-getter, with the confidence to pick up the phone and make things happen
- Excellent Communicator: You must possess strong communication skills, allowing you to quickly build rapport with potential clients, through a variety of different methods (including verbal, written and presentation)
- Innovative Thinker: Creative in your approach to sales, developing unique strategies to attract new business
- Track record of selling: Possess an unwavering "hunter" mindset with a demonstrable solid sales background
I have to give a presentation for a second round interview in a couple of weeks time. What the fuck is that? I feel like just dropping out now.
What if I have a "hunter" mindset, but it occasionally wavers?
Can you do it on micro-brewing?
Then you become the hunted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Who are we kidding, you are a farmer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I presume I need to do it on the job in question. I could waffle about brewing for hours.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
Then you're a complete failure and don't have what it takes. You need to pick up the phone and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Hadn't occurred to me they were referring to that old chestnut. My drive as a go-getter must have accidentally relented.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Having never heard of such claptrap this lead me here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Chris Leader, of course. I bet his son is called Hunter Leader, whether he exists or doesn't yet exist, as is the mentality:
Rapey.Quote:
Hunters view every “no” as “not yet”.
"Your body, my choice".
Sales must be the worst job of all time. You need a neck like a jockeys bollocks and even then it all depends on the mood of the cunt you're talking to.
My approach to being a salesman is to do the opposite of what sales experts / charlatans want me to do. I don't chase new leads. I don't follow up on contacts. I'm not persuasive and I'm not a people person. I simply give them what they want while talking as little as possible. Currently up 23% year on year, sales theory books on the bonfire.
Inbound is cute. The challenge is either you don't have what they want, or they don't know what they want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
If you're trying to sell things to people that don't want them, then, I mean, you're probably selling to the wrong people. It's much better to try and sell things to people who do want them.
You don't get this sort of insight in the business section at Waterstones. Read it and live it.
I meant you aren't selling something anyone wants. Hence why you need to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN and be an UNWAVERING HUNTER.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Maybe sell things someone wants?
I guess Magic isn't getting a John Deere crankshaft for Christmas, then.
Bingo.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
The amount of cold calling emails I get because I sign up to a webinar drives me mental. I'm not the decision maker and even if I was, this is not the process for buying software. Fuck off and stop emailing me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I only heard of it recently because my wife applied for a sales job and was asked if she was a hunter or a farmer, which made both of us lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
This is the way. The number of salespeople I have contacted who then don't answer or not give me the information I need is astounding. You have a website, I know the product. Just give me the fucking price and how long it will take me to get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Rule no.1: Don't pitch to the bitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Your asking the wrong questions. You need to be asking 'where do I sign?', 'can I pay it all upfront before the project starts?' and 'do you do 10 year contracts?'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Can we set up a time for a call to discuss your needs?
I already told you my needs. Now fuck off.
Following up on my last 15 emails,
"Just checking in."
I've just been speaking to a man that has been "basically made homeless" after assaulting his wife, mum and son and having restraining orders taken out against him.
"I slept in the car last night mate. Where am I meant to go?"
To hell, ideally. Save me the tears.
People like that should be conscripted into the army. There's my progressive, forward-thinking opinion for the day.
I'd prefer prison.
They just get packed off to hostels like the YMCA and Salvation Army, where they become addicted to substances.
I like to think of it as job security.
Not down here he won't. Single straight men spend years on the street. He will eventually be picked up by HARP, but they're massively overstretched and offer very little support anymore.
There are basically no support services left in Southend. Which is normally very sad, but in this instance lol. Unlucky m8.
Got my redundancy pay schedule (£1,400) lol.
I'll be on gardening leave for my 4 weeks' notice which starts either late next week or early Dec.
What's your next move?
Pip.
Not the button factory, that’s for sure.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...eek-stress-job
Won't be long now, gents.
Things like this:
Don't sound like real life to me.Quote:
On his free days, he loves to sleep in, then to make long phone calls to his fellow pigeon fanciers while cleaning the kitchen, before going to the shops in search of interesting books. Moreover, he is home in time to pick up our son from school at 13.40. Since I collect our son the other days, this gives me the freedom every other Friday afternoon to meet friends for a chat, volunteer, or simply to go to the swimming pool alone, which is an absolute gamechanger for a tired teacher who wants to escape burnout.
My brother in law's wife is also an engineer but in France and despite them having 35-hour workweeks by law, she works way longer hours than me.
My wife recently applied for a job that was only M-Th. That sounded great and I hope it catches on.
I would argue that there is already an unofficial 4 day week in many sectors. Today is absolute bedlam as usual with people trying to get things done, tomorrow will be deathly quiet.
I work remote Monday and Friday and we all know what that means.
Yep the supplier of some of our critical gas equipment has dropped the Friday because they already make a shit load of money so why not have an extra day off. Chaos on Fridays here is not uncommon as a result, but they're rolling in our pounds so they don't care.
And no, there are not really any decent alternatives.
In classic NHS style, official communication to doctors from NHS Employers was that we will receive all backpay automatically, regardless of whether we have moved trusts or not, in this month's pay.
Slowly coming out that loads of trusts are not planning to pay it unless you specifically contact them and ask for it. They have obviously made absolutely no effort whatsoever to communicate this, people have just had this response to individual emails because they (correctly) did not trust the hospitals to do what they've been told they are meant to do. They are citing various excuses including GDPR.
Being a non-consultant NHS doctor is so fucking tiring. And yes, we are treated uniquely badly (because we are rotational so who gives a shit) compared to any other staff group. Case in point, Trusts made noise all over social media and via emails to make sure other staff knew how to ensure they got their backpay, but absolute silence for us.
Thoughts and prayers, mate. Hope you can pull through these trying times.
Nah but having to deal with a big beast like the NHS does sound quite tiring.
Funny how often GDPR is used as an excuse for organisations not being arsed to do something.
What do you mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
Just the narrative of what these people spend their time doing.
I mean, he's gone to some effort to concoct an apparently believable story to cover his morning of doom scrolling pornhub, I guess.
'meet friends for a chat, volunteer...' is proper early 2000s German language textbook territory.
'At the weekend, I play volleyball and spend time at the youth centre with friends.'
Pottering about is what life is all about. Not fucking emails or calls or b2b saas.
Waking up after 3 days in a bath robe not sure where the jizz starts and kebab sauce ends probably doesn't have the same ring to it.
I'm about to become a top big bollocks canine alpha male at work (or heading up Europe, anyway) and the first decision I've been given is whether I want to sack my long time field sales 'boss', who is 75 and increasingly useless, and replace him with a younger model. I do want to sack him, but going from working under him to sacking him in the space of literally ten minutes feels like some KGB shit. Am I right to be trying to shove that decision upstairs?
You've been hired to do it. Do it.
Or send him on a six month sales trip to Africa on his own.
Had a bloke call in a lorry breakdown yesterday called Andy Townsend and I'm gutted (not really) that i bottled asking if it was his tactics truck.
Perhaps it is a test from the superiors.
If not then it seems you are the designated hit man.
Football cliches recently mentioned a lorry driver called Andy Townsend being mistaken for the real thing and invited on a football podcast, or something, surely it must be him.Quote:
Originally Posted by igor_balis
They are itching to let him go, and his contract is with them, I don't see why I should be wielding the murder weapon. Oh well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gray Fox
I've been doing shallow but fast paced and reactive work for 18 months now (call centre work), and i really do fucking love it, still, after years of middle class bullshit jobs.
A couple of us were invited into a teams meeting with some head office people, and it was fucking whiplash having to deal with that world for half an hour. The first five minutes was spent with us using some app to reply to questions like "what word describes how you're feeling about this quarter's challenges", and "give the name of a song that describes your mood"
By the fifth slide I was desperate to get back to answering fucking calls, and I'm the laziest cunt in the world. A third of my fucking working week was being in or preparing for meetings like that in my previous two jobs, now a typical week is like
Monday 2pm-10pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
Tuesday 2pm-10pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
Wednesday 2pm-10pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
Thursday 2pm-10pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
Friday
2pm-4pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
4.30pm-4.50pm quick huddle with some colleagues and a manager
4.50pm-10pm make and receive calls, do associated admin
I know it's prob most people's idea of hell but I fucking love it. I do appreciate it's a bit gutting to realise, despite being a high academic achiever, and naturally reasonably (more than I seem here) smart, my professional skill set is precision engineered to be really good at and really enjoy low paid work with little chance of progression but fuck it. I'm a lot happier.
Couldn't do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
We've had a new approach (or finally a decision on WFH policy) at our work. The managers have got it first ahead of the big announcement tomorrow and it will move to a mandatory two days in the office a week and more restrictive on working from abroad. There's quite a few in our team, me included, that likes the opportunity to be at a family home and still being able to work but that will pretty much be gone or harder to do without prior authorisation. While giggles will be happy, it will likely lead to good people leaving. There's also a group of people who are remote first and a few of them will not be offered a remote contract and be expected to be in the office. I'll have to have the conversation with one of my team tomorrow on that while I'm one of those who will be able to continue working remotely full time. Good end of year bonus for everyone.
I am. Absolutely delighted this fuckery is being weeded out.
I would love the novelty of doing my work from another country but the job strictly forbids it. As for another WFH hiccup, my laptop doesn't like one particular windows update so I've been hastily called to get it swapped.
I miss the good old days (July) when we had one desktop for home and one in the office If this laptop ever gets knackered, that's me out of work for however long it takes for a replacement.
Two days in the office is the sweet spot.
Our new WFH policy is going to roll out soon, one of my soon to be team is mad keen to move to 3 days a week at home. No matter how many times I tell him the policy is going to be 3 or 4 days a month at home, he's not having it and 'believes' it will be 2 days a week in the office. Hopefully tripling the size of his commission will shut him up but I'm not sure.
Congrats Jim. If it’s the right thing for the business and the rest of the people in it bin your old boss off.
The boss.
:(
You need to at least take him on a road trip and end it with something like I told you the le centre du job was this way.
Oh wait, is the the boss of former trips fame or not? If not then yeah, congrats and in the bin.
Yeah, it's him. Recently he's been giving it the 'I don't even need the money, I just need to stay active' chat. He knows the gig is up.
The Arab's dad will then be the last of the old guard. Well, him and the Aussie who is the number one salesman so gets away with pitching up once a year and calling all the women 'sweetcheeks'.
The thread's going to be class when the roles get reversed in 40 years.
Congrats Jim.
Sack the old codger.
I think it's fine and if I was close enough to the office, I'd go. I can see how it impacts people though as mandated days means having an extended home visit (most people who work for the company aren't German) is now not possible. I think ultimately my days will be numbered on being one of the remote exceptions but I cannot see myself living in Berlin in the short term.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
You'd have to say there's a somewhat chequered history for those who choose to work from home in Berlin, and much more success for foreigners who have the get up and go to travel into the city.
Zero.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
The call has begun with a stream of downward thumb emojis. The populace has taken this well.
I'm all for WFH but working from abroad is an absolute con. If I could have lived in the UK while earning my Swiss salary for 6 years I'd be out there with the farmers protesting about inheritance tax.
Well, this laptop doesn't have the things I need to actually start working with it. I'm going to see how much of Half-Life 2 I can blast through instead. I think they might've given me the wrong accesses. :D
Old Father Time would sack you in a heartbeat, Jim. Give him the Old Yeller special.
If they try and get me back in the office fulltime I'll be cooking off kippers for breakfast and exceptionally harsh curries for lunch every day in the office kitchen, under my newfound religion Loftism.
Nothing like a grief fueled 3 hour eviction to end the week. Brutal. Cherry Jim Beam on offer in ASDA on the way home though. £14. Bargain. I haven't got drunk in months, but I'll be doing atleast £10 worth of damage to that tonight. :happycry:
(Note: I won't.)
Indeed. My UK wage in a second World country (or a cheap part of a first World one) would see me living like a king.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Alright, this day was a complete write-off. I do have those systems allocated to me but they're just not coming down the pipe yet. At least I got to see Sunderland (had to go there to pick the laptop up) for the first time in 20 years.
It's still shit.
Big ITK news - Dundee United's bus has broken down.
We're doing all we can to help.
Shit, apparently we failed, apologies to @Waffdon and his people
Last 5 week day of the year coming up. Followed by a couple 3 day weeks and then off from Wednesday 11th until Monday 6th January. Mon
My leave is shit this year. I'm only off on Christmas Eve because I've booked it off, and I'm back in on the 2nd. :happycry:
I've got the two weeks over Christmas and I might do one extra for the first week of the year. Quite a bit of work to get done in the next three weeks before being able to switch off.
At least you can switch off.
We’ve got some wells stuff looking likely to sit over Xmas time, stuff we’ve never done before and v expensive equipment offshore. I’d noticed a few weeks ago it was sitting there in the schedule and started to query what we were going to do.
Christmas is cancelled, seems to be the outcome. My colleague is heading off to south east Asia for a family wedding and I’m pretty confident they’re going to try and get him to take his laptop. Absolutely fuck that.
I’ll be coasting the shit out of January if I have to dial into calls and check trends over the festive. If you can’t switch off then, you never can.
I was going to have this week off but now going in because the CEO, my boss, the Arab, the Russian and another guy have all jetted off to Shanghai for the worst week of their lives. I was talking to my colleague, if the plane goes down it's probably a straight run-off between us for some big wonga board position.
I've been saving my time off because I have been in an extended house purchase process and was going to use it to move in, builders etc.
Now none of that seems to be happening until the new year I have 11 days to take before December 31st and I have nothing to do with them. My old job had rollover but they don't do that and they also don't pay you out for holidays not taken so I'm just going to be taking nearly 2 weeks off to get behind on work to sit on my arse 10 minutes away from said jobs office. I don't think this is a great use of anyones resources.
We've got a huge bid in and we find out next Friday if we've been successful.
If we are, then my last 5 days are getting banged in immediately and I'm going to fly somewhere in Europe on a whim, because January will be insane when all the prep work starts. If we don't win, I'll roll the remaining 5 days over to next year because there will be fuck all to do for a while anyway.
I have 10 days left to take, 5 of those have been allocated towards taking 2 weeks at christmas (the other 2 days coming out of next year's allowance). I can roll 5 which might be handy as I am away on a few long trips next year and traditionally the run up to christmas is hectic in my job so unlikely I'll be taking days then - I can take days but it just means I have to do additional work to hit deadlines so unless it's something amazing why bother.
I've got a week off in December and another day I fancy rolling over into next year. No idea what the Christmas workloads will be but I'll be in for all of it.
It doesn't really matter when I take my leave, nobody picks up my work for me anyway, so it's always a shitfest when I return. I often wonder what they'd do if I was long term sick. I hope to never find out, but I imagine the answer would be to panic.
Most years there is an odd day around Christmas. This year it's the Friday 27th. We're closed the two days before and whenever this happens, said odd day always follows later on. It just tends to take them until about a week or two before to actually confirm it.
Well this year they've gone early and we're closing. Cue people now complaining that they're losing a days holiday to cover it off. Can't win.
Since condensing my hours (Mondays off) I’ve got more holidays than I need, cos when I book weeks off now it’s only 4 days used rather than 5. So I’ve had a few random days off, and have two more booked in December, as well as being off from Christmas Eve to 7th Jan, and having another 4 days to use before the end of March. Genuinely might have a week off to play Warcraft.
I feel like I'm in the wrong job when you spin it like that.
Nah you probably make 2 x my pay.
21st December until the 7th Jan for me.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...eking-new-jobs
I don't know why employers are determined to make themselves less attractive as a workplace.
Pretty sure every single senior manager has them condensed hours. Must come with the territory of the job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Flooding closed my school today so worked from home. Had a parent meeting scheduled for after school so around 2 I emailed to say as the school is shut, can we re-schedule to tomorrow. Bloody mad woman replied about 10 mins later saying she was already in the school carpark! First of all, who leaves that early for an appointment 20 mins from their home, and secondly why did she think it would be going ahead with the school closed??
You'd think the number one obstacle in teaching is the kids, but it's the parents. Always the parents.
Because they're running a business for themselves, not a service for their employees.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
There's so much old fashioned stuff that needs fixing here. I put a contract up for bids and got a few written applications - all pretty good tbh but two absolute standouts. Wanted to interview just those two to narrow it down to one and award the contract but have had to interview them all, even though all the others have zero chance of getting the gig. Just a waste of everyones time.
Was meant to award the contract on 1st June and it's still not sorted heading into December. Embarassing.
Is that old fashioned, or new fashioned in the name of transparency / accountability?
I accepted a job as Head of Networks for a small CCTV company as they want to grow. Brand new department and they don't know anything about networks or tech.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
However I've got a couple of other things on the back burner that are more exciting but if they don't come off at least I won't be unemployed.
What a tease.
It's a waste of time, whatever it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
It's transparency, we all have to do training about it our spot since we are technically government owned now, all tendering of contracts has to be open and transparent, and you basically can't accept anything more than tea and sandwiches off them due to bribery legislation.
I had a weird run-in with IT today. We're launching a new website and whatever country list they've imported (for when you submit your details at checkout) doesn't include Kosovo (or South Sudan, it must be from about 2006). I told them that they need to add Kosovo. IT shot back with a harrumphing 'Well, you should have included that in the original parameters and we could have included it in last fortnight's sprint' (whatever any of that means). I said look, it's pretty important because we're going live this week and if anyone from Kosovo logs in then they will a) not be able to place an order, and b) may well take away from this that we are a company that doesn't recognise Kosovo, which is, you would have to say, a slightly more senstitive issue than accidentally leaving out Luxembourg. They responded 'oh, well, that's very unlikely isn't it? We don't have any customers from Kosovo' and I said actually we have two and - imagine this as a revolutionary concept - we might want to attract MORE customers in the future! They harrumphed again and said that I should add it to the 'checklist' for the next fortnight's 'sprint', neither of which I have the first clue what they are talking about.
I just cannot stand the attitude of IT people. God complex, all process process process, don't give a shit about results. Terrible people.
So elaborate on why you didn't include it within the original parameters?
Given how old the management is, count yourself lucky the Weimar Republic wasn't still on the list.
A sprint is just a two week (usually) commitment of a bunch of tasks.
Isn't there someone in charge of this lot who has a brain? It should be a tiny change relatively, so sounds like they are gimps.
“Sprints” are such a bag of shit. Someone has made millions telling people to stop getting distracted and focus.
He's who I was having the argument with. Lord knows they wouldn't let sales anywhere near the borrowers actually writing the code, it would be like Cortes discovering the Aztecs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
I just hate how they refuse to change anything on the fly. You - must - complete - tasks - in - the - order - assigned - by someone else weeks ago.
Just say 'if you haven't added them to list by tomorrow dinner time you can explain to the top brass why we've lost those orders,' laddo's balls will shrivel quickly then.
I assume this is an outside consultancy team?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
And while this sounds like a simple case of making a quick fix, the reason they're coming across as process droids is because as soon as you let the "business people" start making changes on the fly, they want to change fucking everything and they really don't understand how much effort some changes take.
Plus they'll start to make/demand changes another department hates and then you're caught in an in-house political shitstorm because you just wanted to help.
Not that that applies to the balkanisation of a website country list.
My customers make ludicrous demands all the time, and I either just get on with it - because the customer pays my wages - or I politely explain why it's not possible. Having a huff about why making a change to something THEY got wrong was not in the original parameters just makes me want to blow up their office.
IT only works properly when you have someone at the head of it that can speak English as well as IT. If you don’t, it’s a complete shit show.
Kosovo isn't included in ISO 3166 list of countries, which pretty much every platform uses when showing any sort of "Country" input. Depending on the platform, it might not be trivial to add in a custom country, and probably requires some investigation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I'm not surprised they were arsey with you trying to add in new requirements the week of launch. Have you not had any visibilty to the website before now? Or exposure to the initial requirements at least?
Jimmy throwing a grenade into the IT bunker. :drool:
Like digging up an ant nest. Here they come!
Every customer thinks that the only thing you ever have to do is sit outside their gate waiting for them to call.
IT geeks unite. Raise a jira ticket and we'll try to prioritize it mate
I don't think I've ever had a response to one of those tickets. I've a list a mile long, all waiting on a reply.
The week of launch? Oh don't worry, we're six months overdue and counting. It will end up not being the week of launch, just like the last 5 weeks of launch haven't been.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
I personally hadn't seen it until now, and clearly the geniuses above me who had hadn't noticed this was an issue. They just set me loose testing and then told me to report any issues straight to Mr Happy. You're going to tell me that this is an issue with our internal processes - well duh, we don't have any, we are ad hoc problem solvers, outcomes people, not process people.
Why would someone know that you need to specifically state in your "parameters" that Kosovo needs to be included on the list of countries?Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
The fact that Kosovo isn't in ISO 3166 means that any Kosovans will be entirely used to not being able to locate their country when registering on a website. They don't exist on ebay or alibaba either. It would probably be a surprisingly big ballache to maintain.
A part of the world famed for the reasonableness of its peoples.
It's basically the same as me having to select United Kingdom as my country, when it isn't. Ingerland m8. But never mind, just send me a pack of tractor spark plugs ffs.
Please select Yugoslavia in the drop down menu.
Hello? Hello?
Google Maps even give it the ol' dotted line boundary to avoid upsetting the Serbs too much.
Because he knew there were customers there lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomlegend
I'd argue that it's exactly the sort of thing that testing is meant to catch. I find it hard to believe that the product owner will know off the top of their head that Kosovo isn't included in ISO 3166 and that they have customers there.
We've got into massive hot water before when we put out some kind of marketing piece that showed the flags of the 160 odd countries we sell into, and Arab customers absolutely lost their shit that Israel's flag was included (this was about 5 years ago). So since that experience we always go out of our way to make each country feel special.
Made the (probable) mistake of making a department manager look like a knob earlier. They have decided we don't have enough data on our residents. Ethnicity, religion, sexuality, pronouns yadayadayada.
So, the empty head in the office pipes up: "But surely, if we have all that on their account, any racists could use that information to discriminate!"
Manager: "I don't imagine anyone here would discriminate like that, do you?"
Me: "Isn't that the main reason we want that data? To make sure there's no discrimination, be it on an individual or institutional level?"
Manager: "I guess so".
I mean if you want to push us down the EDI route, fair enough, we did well to get this far without being sucked in, but at least know why you're doing it.
So he was meant to list every country in the world they do or might in future have customers in?Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
The vast majority of those country drop down things finally have us right these days. Under I, not E or R.
If something is important to you then you make sure it happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomlegend
I know working in healthcare you have no concept of that, of course.
How's your coeliac tripadvisor coming along?Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
It cost me £34 to wind the company up lol.
There’s a dodgy batch of heroin going round. After suspicions of some far worse contamination, it turned out it’s “only” mixed with spice.
Anyway, when it was thought to be laced with fentanyl an alert went out to the homeless shelters and hostels warning service users of the contaminated batch that has killed half a dozen people and nearly killed a lot more. The response? Absolutely buzzing there was some new drug on the streets and they all rushed out to buy it. :cab:
Wiping out heroin users would be so obvious I'm surprised nobody hasn't thought of mixing it all.
Homeless heroin users, no less. Dream come true.
I don't know what tinfoil hat selling website you've stumbled upon recently, but you sound like Taz before he fucked off at the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
Ah RIP Don. You would have thought/think that an all conquering Liverpool team would prove an irresistible lure.
Did he join a jihad or something? Was he, in fact, that Daniel Khalife guy? Did you know Daniel is an anagram of denial?
Israel/Gaza sent him completely over the edge. He always had issues though. The BLM/ebony stuff he trotted out for years was some deep-rooted shit.
It's ok to now guilt old people into getting the injection so you can get their house, but junkies are ok?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Please consider not using such stigmatised language. :dc:Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
Sorry, I should have said elderly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Nurse!?!?
Maybe a big black guy seduced his tick ting and he never mentally recovered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The day before my final consultation it's just been announced we've bought our biggest competitor lol.
Jesus, I thought you boasting about your wages was a lie but look what they can do as soon as you're off the books.
My partner in crime is unexpectedly out of action for the next two weeks. Rough calculations, but I reckon I've got to pump out 110 hours to get through the work. I'm in the hospital on Wednesday, so that's a casual nine twelve-hour days ahead of me. Merry Christmas.
Are you the co-host of Masterchef?
Tempted to apply for a 'Senior Communications Officer' job cos based on ChatGPT's summary:
I could almost completely do this with AI and play World of Warcraft for 5+ hours a day.Quote:
What You’d Be Doing Day-to-Day
Developing and delivering campaigns to promote large-scale regeneration projects (e.g., town centre developments, housing schemes).
Writing content for newsletters, websites, and press releases to inform residents and businesses about upcoming changes or projects.
Liaising with journalists and preparing responses to media enquiries.
Hosting or attending stakeholder meetings and public consultations to ensure community buy-in for regeneration initiatives.
Using analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of communication strategies and making recommendations for improvement.
Collaborating with council colleagues in regeneration, growth, and other departments to ensure consistent messaging.
Tell me why it's a bad idea.
"collaborating with council colleagues"
Was tapped up for a job a while back but when it was finally advertised it was essentially the same salary as my current salary due to some internal arguing about pay. I said I only wanted to move from my current role for an uplift rather than a sideways move.
Just been announced the senior guy in my team has got it, he's on about 10k a year more than me and will have probably got an uplift on that. He does mental hours and a lot of long meetings etc, guess who's going be picking all that up for no uplift :moop:
Uplift, mate.
Being forced to take my accrued annual leave (19 days) during my notice period. :(
Can they do that?
Apparently so.
Does your holiday year run from Jan-Dec? How the hell do you have 19 days to spare?
I was saying them for potentially taking the days off for uni/working so hard to hit target I didn't have time to retire holidays.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
Depends who asks lol.
Our lot's a bit like that. If anyone's in line for retirement, they're encouraged to take as much leave as possible rather than getting a big dollop of holiday pay at the end. Same goes for anyone returning from long-term sick. I'm sure there's probably some small number of days they'd pay out but I'm not bothered enough to find out.
I'm sure there's some people on our leave sheet still with double-figure days to take. I can't really understand that. Even if they're holding it back for emergencies, we've got emergency leave (separate to our regular leave quota) that can be taken.
If you don't use it, your employer can just say "tough shit, it's gone". They don't have to pay for you unused leave.
Of course you would know, Scrooge.
Yes daddy.
I've had it with the fucking Irish. They do everything verbally, everything informally, refuse to write anything down. Then they come crying when something goes wrong and expect recompense even though there is no record of any of it because they are an 'everyone knows everyone' country and expect that somehow to translate into international business. What a strange people.
You lot taught them well.
The service manager of my biggest contract is leaving. :cry: Thankfully I already know her replacements, but I feel like I'm gonna have to do more work now. Bad times.
Only a 12-month secondment, but people never seem to return from those.
Work lunch today. BBQ followed by bowling, billiards, laser tag, and arcades. Not sure how to feel about that. Can't be worse than being in the office.
That sounds hellish. In a meeting here the other day someone mentioned us all going hillwalking some weekend as 'team building'. Hopefully he falls down a stairs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
I figure I can just go to the arcades and play Street Fighter on my own for three hours.
Anytime anyone suggests anything like that, the women at my work jump over the ‘will we get paid if it’s a work thing’ and it never happens thankfully.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
The only out of work thing I ever do is if it’s the pub for Christmas and summer holiday drinks.
I can count the hours towards my weekly hours whenever there is an event like that. Four hours for the lunch today and two for tomorrow's happy hour. After that I am off until Jan 2.
Only time it's acceptable is during working hours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike
We had a Toby Carvery at lunch time today as our Christmas meal. They ran out of time to book an evening "event", thank Christ.
Who is it that actually likes those things?
Is it women again? I keep walking into traps that expose my misogyny.
Get in, get out, get home, get paid. Fuck everything else.
Women, yes (you sexist pig).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
We typically do all day events for Christmas and one in the summer. People have the choice of having the day off and not participating (while still getting paid) and noone has ever taken it. Perhaps they're worried about retribution.
Perhaps you just employ a bunch of normal people who don't melt at the thought of having to go bowling or something equally fine.
On that positive note, AFF until 6th January. Hold it down for me, chaps
:harold:Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Some utter bell went to a team building afternoon bowling in Leeds once, our office is in Manchester and he lives in Liverpool, he got absolutely cunted, had to be helped onto the last possible train available to get him home then tried to submit it as overtime :D
Bowling is fine, just with people you like and not the cunts you have to work with.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
I like my work colleagues, but they are people I only spend time with when I'm being paid. I don't socialise with them, nor do I particularly want to and I definitely don't want to see the annoying one drunk.
Like I was saying, kudos to him for managing to employ a bunch of people who aren't cunts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
It was alright. Modern arcades are yet another thing that has gone to shit, but it was enough to kill a couple of hours.
Absolutely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
The ticket system has completely fucked it.
No actual games, just ways to earn tickets for overpriced tat.
Yeah, there are no proper videogames, just 30 second minigames. The only decent one was guitar hero (I think? the one with the guitar). There was a time when you could have played Turtles in Time, Street Figher, Off-Road, Cruisin' USA, Metal Slug, etc, etc.
The likes of that is what's wrong with people now.
Maybe in taco town.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Not in taco town, but there is a retro arcade that does have all those games in the neighborhood next to it.
I don't think this is correct. Legally staff have a right to be paid accrued annual leave that is not used when they leave the company.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
We have always paid staff accrued AL when they are leaving. And not because we want to.
It is correct y u so dumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dquincy
There are a couple of retro arcades near me that allow you to pay an entry fee then it's all free play on everything, classic machines, modern machines, consoles, pc games. They have adults only sessions, think a friday night is about £20. I went to a special event there once and killed John Romero in a Quake 2 deathmatch :cool:
At the very least, the one local to me has a bank of Daytona and Mario Kart cabs. The rest of the floor is UFO catchers. If I want a proper arcade, I have to go back to San Francisco for the Mechanique Museum or whatever it's called.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Daytona USA. :cool:
Today they had something called Cruisin' Blast, but it was a very sad imitation of the quite excellent Cruisin' USA/World.
I've been to the retro arcade mentioned earlier a couple of times for the fighting games tournaments, but their schedule doesn't really work for me, otherwise I would be there more often.
"In England, the legal position is quite clear:Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Employees are legally entitled to be paid for any untaken annual leave when they leave their job. This is based on the Working Time Regulations 1998 and subsequent amendments. "
You're arguing about something else entirely. I'm not talking about when you leave, I'm talking about not using your holidays before the end of the year.
Accepted a new job yesterday, starting in Jan. It pays £700 a month less but at least I can make up that and more with commission.
It's a hell of a challenge but if it comes off I could do really well.
Also got invited to their Christmas party which is today. Nice people.
Congrats MJ you da man.
Congrats MJ you da man
:lol: sad bastard.
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
Well done MJ. I hope you didn't make a twat of yourself at the Christmas party.
Was it all a bit tragic from magic?
Was that post made from within the party? :D
I wonder if the chairs had padded feet.
No I was lying in my hotel bedroom waiting for the porn channels to start at midnight.
Stone age wanking.
The nostalgia :drool:
This was in the context of Magic leaving his job. @Magic Apologise.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
I didn't leave I got made redundant.
Pretty sure leaving is a condition of your redundancy m8.
I've landed (well, been dropped into) a wider ranging role within the company which has me involved in all of our underground jobs (tunnels, mines, hydro, utilities etc.) in the UK that aren't joint ventures.
It's come at a good time for me because I've been working mainly on a single project pretty much for six years now but that is slowing down massively now so it's naturally the right time to get my teeth into something else. Unfortunately it means monthly trips to the Big Smoke to converse with the big cheeses.
Congrats, Ben, you da man.
Good stuff, nothing wrong with the odd large fromage.
Re: Jimmy on yoof of today in the Health thread (wtf).
One of my team decided a few weeks back to reply to my text of "are you ok?" with a "sorry I had a house party at my house and I've just woken up, should I rearrange our 1-1?" as if that's normal behaviour. How he thinks that's ok to do in the first place is beyond me and now he's going to have an official warning on his file. I find the brazenness of it just baffling, we pay you to work, you have a lot of flexibility, what are you doing with yourself?
I think that the psychological link between work and 'a living' must have been broken somehow, but honestly I'm not sure how/when this occurred. Maybe Ben is right re. housing costs / people still living with parents, but then that's Germany and things may be different.
He's not German so it could be a factor.
Would he be in trouble if he just said he had the shits?
Who was it? I'm guessing Samadini.
To complain about the other end of the spectrum - these fucking Yanks don't know how to wind down for Christmas. I log off at the end of tomorrow for two weeks, stop pestering me you cunts.
They'll be seething when you're not working on the 26th.
It's Thanksgiving and that's your lot with them.
If it’s the first time it’s happened then it’s a bit jobsworth from youQuote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Most of the team here are off for about two weeks over Christmas (using our annual leave) and they have a bit of a meltdown about it every year. We didn't even have any customers the last two years. We have a few this year but they're still in early onboarding stages and one of them has already said they're off for like two weeks anyway so fucking chill out lads.
I need a new job in the new year.
Every cunt in the country has decided they want me this week, though I'm finished at midday tomorrow so fuck 90% of them.
My last court hearing before Christmas today. Asking for outright possession within 7 days. Merry Christmas.
Shame for his neighbours that it won't actually happen until New Year.
I've had a ridiculous amount of chancers trying to get deals done before the weekend. I'm working Monday and Tuesday as well so I'll go at my own pace thanks, wankers.
'Can you deliver before 9am tomorrow morning to Leiria in Portugal?' That'll be a no, Joao.
:cab:Quote:
Originally Posted by Waffdon
Keeks is just mad he wasn't invited to the party.
How many languages are you competent in now Jim?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
English, French, Spanish, German in decreasing order of proficiency. I can read Italian and Portguese but can't produce them myself. I've started learning Russian as well, just to put the wind up my lazy Russian colleague.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
I'm not native in any of them sadly. As Le Carre wrote of Toby Esterhase, 'He spoke no language perfectly, but he spoke them all' is the most useful skillset in my particular role.
Yas Queen.
Impressive stuff. How did you learn all these? Presumably not just from trips with the boss or taking them at GCSE level.
Last studied them at A level, so 18 years ago. I'd love to say I've worked hard at them since then, but to be honest it's just pure natural talent. We all have something we can just do easily, and that's mine.
Repetition helps, sending 30 odd emails a day at least in frog and spic.
Not really. You know if you're boozing at 5am that you're meant to be working later so better to just call in sick rather than have me chase after you. I'm not your dad, if you can't handle your personal time then you need to stop boozing during the office week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waffdon
We once had someone ring in sick because the wind had been bad in the night and kept her up blowing a fence.
My daughter is on the mend, no pox either. She did, rather kindly, pass whatever she had on to me. I feel dreadful.
My brother in law watches everything with subtitles, apparently tv is being geared towards narrative stories due to people scrolling when watching so they don't lose track. I mocked my brother in law but he is immune to mockery unfortunately.
Have you tried holding up placards with the mockery written on them?
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
:lol:
Someone asked to meet for my input into gambling harms work.
I replied saying sure but I've only ever attending one event for it, not much input to give.
She replied asking if a certain afternoon was good.
I said yeah I'm free except 1-2 as I've another meeting them.
Meeting invite received. 1pm. And she's called it an ambling catch up like we're going for a walk. :facepalm:
Either they didn't read or didn't process the word "except" - it's not that uncommon that I get a meeting request for the specific time I identified as me being unavailable.
“I just have the commissioners meeting 1-2 on that afternoon, and don’t have the school run, so any other time is fine.”Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
She'll have just skimmed and seen 1-2pm. It has happened enough times for me to make sure I list times I'm free, rather than times I'm not.
I assume you’ll be bringing your pro gambling pictures of your kitchen, car and drive way to the meeting :lol:
I'm hoping my watch is back from servicing.
I'm currently in a classic shambles situation with my new role. I'm starting it on 2 January, but until just now I hadn't been told what the package was. I've now been told what the package is, and it's actually better than I thought it would be, so that's good news. What isn't good news is that the South Africans haven't signed off on it yet - because they only got round to sending it to them this morning, and the South Africans have all buggered off on holiday now - so they're going to announce me in the new role on 2 January without me having signed a contract or been given official paperwork for it.
Such a great company. I told my boss it was a shambles and he agreed, but we're all basically forced into going ahead with it. Having the announcement actually gives me more leverage in the event of things going wrong, so I'm quite happy for them to carry on with that, it's just funny how they can't get anything right ever.
Not back till Monday but the dread is kicking in already. Knowing this is the last day of actual holiday is prompting it, I guess.
I'm not sure I can do another 30 years or so of this.
I was actually glad to go back this week to kick off with a two dayer.
I've been back for 2 days but we've had major system issues so it's been about as soft a landing as could be.
Yeah, we got a free hour when ours went down yesterday. The only thing that bothered me was how quiet the office was.
We have a new hire in, 29 so not really Gen Z. My boss wants rid of her already as she asked to work flexible hours on her first day and 'questioned his decision making'. I urged him to see how she settles in, but Jesus Christ, it seems impossible to hire anyone useful these days.
Can't believe it's back again FFS, it's been barely a day. I'm basically going to have to use my holidays on paternity leave (Germany's is shit) but at least it means I'll be away again by April latest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Presumably they aren't paying well enough to get useful people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
There are no useful people.
Is it the occupation you dread, or the company that you're in?Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Gen Z staff do seem to have the most self entitlement compared to other generations. It can be infuriating.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The company. Just the Americans in it at that, the local office is grand. But it's a very small company and we have too much interaction with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dquincy
I was already looking before Christmas and will be looking again from next week (hopefully with a January uptick in hiring activity) but there's still a reasonable chance this company could take off so it might be worth sticking around despite the pain.
Feeling the back to work dread. Haven’t even got a TD day on Monday to ease back in - just straight back into trying to remember how to teach. Scandalous.
It's mad how many people have this back to work anxiety (including me and I own part of the company).
I've started my new job and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
I am the head of a new division (Network Services) with one member of staff (me) for a small CCTV/Fire/Security company lol. I am responsible for strategy, growth, profit & loss, recruitment, sales but more worryingly it also looks like I'm responsible for design, implementation, installation and support as well.
I am remote, the office is 100 miles away.
As far as I can make out, they think this is a great opportunity to make loads of money and want me to do it all for them. If it was that easy, I'd have just done it myself.
Please send help. I give it 6 months before I am fired or quit.
I'd start with design and go from there.
I meant design of solutions. I'm kind of chicken and egging it here.
How am I supposed to sell without anything to sell? The best vision I currently have is to hop on the back of the other solutions and try and get involved in some way. Unfortunately Networks and associated services isn't box shifting it mostly is professional services and I don't have any professionals.
Might just fall back on reselling Telco services in the meantime as that's just contract based.
Sounds like you have all the power you need to pivot the whole company into an inclusive restaurant review company.
I guess I could just recruit a bunch of trans students for minimum wage and see where that goes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
But seriously...what do I do? Is there some sort of template I can follow? So far all I've done is Windows Updates, messed around with visuals in Windows 11 and argued with their IT company. It's been 3 hours. #productivity
My first step would be to sit down with your manager to try to get some kind of direction. A bit late in the day, but you're going nowhere without understanding what they actually want.
My manager is the owner, and he's very much just like 'go do your thing, be patient'.
He wants a profitable division by the end of the year. So that's about 300k worth of business @ 30% margin, on the basis I don't get to hire anyone.
I think I should just focus on actually creating a product/service, getting suppliers on board and scoping out good recruits rather than trying to sell anything at the moment.
Anyone who is capable of achieving what they're asking would be getting investment and starting up themselves.
Basically you've joined a sinking business and the owner has no idea how to turn it around so you're hismagicTragic bean.
Exactly. I mean, I probably am but it just doesn't interest me enough to slog it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Not at all, they've had amazing growth since they started up in 2020. Now employ 15 staff and turnover around £3m, admittedly 2 of that is from a single contract.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
This is the guy's 3rd business and he's always been in this industry so he knows his stuff.
Maybe I'm overcomplicating it, this is only my second day after all.
Christ, and you lot have the audacity to go on about public sector incompetence.
Private sector is wild. It's basically all luck and being a cunt to succeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomlegend
I was listening to a podcast about Bernie Ecclestone the other day. Been an absolute duplicitous cunt for 95 years and counting, but in so doing has made both himself, his family(s) and innumerable thousands of other people over many decades incredibly wealthy and enhanced the lives of many more with the sport he moulded.
Hero or villain? I tend towards the former. Sorry, civil servants.
I have the misfortune of speaking to many business owners in my profession, and without exception, they are all cunts.
I've applied for a position at MUFG. One step closer to leaving this shithole.
In your profession? It's your first day mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Just pepper the D&B fit out contractors with BD emails until they agree to meet you. Do the same with commercial tenants. Also get a list of extg clients to understand if the majority are from a certain sector. If there is a dominant sector, then reach to companies within the same sector with BD proposals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
What type of role?Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
I had my promotion announced yesterday and some of the reactions were pretty funny. The Aussie (our perennial number one salesman) messaged from Brisbane or wherever he is with the words: 'Some title you've got there, but I always had you down as a silent achiever'. Erm, thanks? The boss (he of the former bungs and Spanish residency) sent me a one word message 'Congrats' and then phoned me and didn't mention it at all, which to be fair was funny as fuck, so fair play. Meanwhile the Arab, currently holed up in Riyadh, was slightly more effusive, texting me with the promise of 'a gift of your choice up to the value of £150' as congratulations. I told him that this would not be necessary and so avoided cringeing myself to death, but it was nice nonetheless to be subject to a LIV Golf style buyout attempt.
The Arab :cool:
Ops.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Just had an office debate about whether the moon landings were real. The 'yes they were real' side, led by me, lost the final vote 5-2.
The human race is finished.
Which way did the Arab vote?
The Arab is in Saudi but he probably thinks Mossad faked it.
Did you factor in the contrary troll vote?
Tell you what, my first two weeks of managing a team has opened my eyes a bit. All these people ever want to do is work from home or go off sick, fucking constantly. Managing is basically trying to make sure that they do those things one at a time where possible.
'Oh, the radiator's broken in my house, someone's coming to fix it, I need to work from home'. How about no?
I must be an absolute dream to manage.
When you get the right people management is really rewarding and I get a genuine kick out of it. When you don't (or more likely you inherit those that aren't), well, it's as you say.
Nobody wants to work any more.
Did they ever?
Wouldn't be me.
The owner of my new company said that today (if we didn't have to work we wouldn't) and it was quite refreshing to hear. Which is sad.
We wouldn't necessarily choose to work in a 'contractually obliged to do x' fashion, but once one is indeed contractually obliged to do x, one should do x rather than trying to get away with it constantly.
I mean, we all only work because we need money, right? Why here has a job that they would do for free? Of course nobody WANTS to work.
Agreed. Some people want to get paid but not hold their end of the bargain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
"But you'd be bored in the house!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
That's literally what these people think we'd do. Just sit around doing absolutely nothing like mindless idiots.
Oh wait...
Yeah but once you're there then you need to be a professional and put the effort in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
I wouldn't work in the job I do now, but I would do something. Be it voluntary or just stocking shelves. My wifes grandad once said he didn't get old until he retired and I think he's probably right. Use it or lose it, as the saying goes.
Many would, but they would probably choose a different job to do, if money was not a constraint. Maybe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
I had a few months off last year in between jobs and for a period of that I wasn't doing anything. It got boring very quickly, my sleep patterns were shot to shit, I could feel my brain bleeding out of my ears and I realised that work gives me both a purpose and a routine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
It made me realise that if I'm lucky enough to retire reasonably early (or win a lottery I don't really play) I am going to need to do something of a working nature in order to keep me functioning. Not sure what yet, but I know it's needed.
My dream is to have (win) enough money that I could work in a hardware shop behind the counter. Or drive the Tesco delivery van.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
People having no idea how to cultivate the time they spend not working is a huge societal failure. There are a million different things you can do that are enriching to your life and/or others, but obviously it's going to be hard to suddenly get into tapdancing when you've been down the mine for fifty years.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think it's perhaps a different problem for me personally in that if I don't have a period of my day, week or month where I'm doing something that isn't just wholeheartedly enjoying myself I find the times where I am doing the latter less enjoyable. Weird, I know.Quote:
Originally Posted by -james-
As it stands, I'm never bored in the free time I have and I enjoy almost every second of it and really want to keep that going. As Spikey suggested, volunteering may be the answer.
When I had a few months off between jobs it was excellent. Rode my bike a ton, played football, read a bunch, played videogames, studied some French, improved my CFD skills. I would be very happy not working, but then I've been barely working for a while now (until recently) and have two kids, which can easily suck any free second.
I lost purpose after I was made redundant (in fact it had been lost for a while) and I totally get this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
It's not work I'm looking for but something to give me purpose. If I could get that without WORKING then I would.
But I need money to live.
If I didn't have to work I'd not miss it in the slightest and can't understand the notion "I'd do something" when meaning "going to work"
We once had a training thing at work where the chair of governors announced that we're all at school because we love it and nobody is there for the money, my "I'm here for the money and the 6 weeks off" didn't go down well.
In the same way as I hate it when corporate leaders describe the company you work for as “family”.
Pay me my salary. If I didn’t need that salary, I wouldn’t be here.
My retirement will hopefully allow me to get a workshop away from the house where I can build and fix shit.
Don't forget to record yourself while fixing shit and to send the videos to Giggles.
Yes I think if you have enough hobbies you don't need work for a purpose. It annoys me at work when you get some fannies bleating about needing more thanks for doing their job. My salary going into my bank every 4 weeks is all the thanks I need.
If I retired with shit tons of money, then obviously the world's your oyster. I'm not so sure about if I retired with just enough money. I think I'd end up going out picking up litter or something.
If money was no object I'd be doing similar to Ben's idea. Big workshop with a little brewery in the corner.
Writing prose and refining THE COMPUTER, between cricket engagements, obviously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The other thing to bear in mind is there is loads of cheap shit aimed at pensioners. My mum retired she's busier than when she was at work, always out doing some coffee club or exercise class, crown green bowls or some gym program that costs a quid.
The main worry with retirement is affordability, but you just cut your cloth. My in laws are dithering about retiring despite nearly being 70 and fairly well off because my mother in law spends money like Brewster, always blowing a few grand on some shit she doesnt need and complaining about money afterwards. They were saying the other day their monthly household income would 'only' be £2600 when they retired, not bad for mortgage free and no real pension beyond standard to speak of.
My mum has been retired for about 10 years now and she spends more than when she was working - and that includes the fact that the mortgage is now paid off. She doesn't really have any hobbies other than mooching at shops and buying tat.
Yeah, to equate that to Lofty's example, you could blow through £2,600 between two of you, even with no mortgage, pretty damn easily.
My wife's parents are spending their retirement trying to complete every country walk in Essex. It's both free and probably more interesting than spaffing your life's work on Mark's and Spencers coffee and cardigans. Although they do a fair bit of that too.
Of course, things still need replacing, transport etcQuote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
Not only have the Japs rejected to interview me, but when I've pressed for further feedback, they've refused to elaborate. "Not quite the right fit." Does this mean I'm not yellow enough?
Yes, I can see how it might not be the right fit.
They mean it literally, they haven't got a headband in your size.
If I won the euromillions I'd still do my current job but go part time (60%).
I'd also buy a shop in Cambridge and make chocolates or bake stuff to sell, but only when I could arsed and not care if it lost loads of money.
Look at him, leeching off the taxpayer even if he doesn't need the money.
I'll take some chocolates.
The tax payer more than gets their value out of me.
Doubt it, children don't pay tax. Leeching little fucks.
I'd imagine the parents would assign some value to them not being dead though.
I'd travel more with the free time and the money. Life is for seeing things.
Worst nightmare.
The Gen Z guy at work (only 10 minutes late today, fair play) has just been explaining that he's subject to a life ban by Sony from Playstation and all its games/products, for 'trolling'. What? He was happy to tell us about this, but won't reveal any details. I had no idea this could happen.
I've only heard of that happening where people have hacked systems and leaked games that are in testing / development.
Potentially he made some kind of mod that was damaging for other players or something, too.
This is either, he's used an exploit/glitch in a game to benefit from it/make other people lose or, this is the weird phenomenon of people losing games and deciding they need to message their opponent afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
One of your big games is usually involved in this(CoD, FIFA, Online fighting game of choice). I'd bet on the latter. Now I'm not shit hot on FIFA, but even I would receive many messages from people after I had won telling me how shit I am, or how they actually deserved to win. To get a lifetime ban he must have done this a lot.
I think a lot of that generation would benefit from putting the controller down and going outside.
Phones too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
Probably true for most of us, but yeah, the Zoomers have been uniquely fucked by modern technology.
Gen A will probably be a bit better off because parents are more awake to the pro's and cons. My kids are on their tablets / Switch less than I was on my PC and PlayStation as a kid.
How do you even enforce a ban like that?
With great difficulty. I imagine they ban the account and the IP address, but there's easy enough work arounds for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
To get a life ban for 'trolling' he must have been sending pure hatred to people over DM. I'd mark his card as an unhinged and treat him accordingly going forward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Aye exactly. Then is it address based? But again probably easy to circumvent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Imagine your job was to implement blocking people who are probably insufferable and think they are better than you. Eurgh.
Wasn't there a good steam exploit recently where you could get access to loads of stuff in the 'deleted' back catalog because they never actually removed the stuff from wherever it lives - like loads of limited edition items etc for spastics that pay fortunes for those sort of things [alongside beta/developer copies of games, games taken down for sale etc]? Pretty sure doing that only came with a 15/20 year ban so a life ban sounds a good effort. Congratulate him.
My place just renamed the HR department to Human Element department. I would have already started looking for a different job, but my manager also thinks it's stupid and it's just the parent company (which handles administration stuff for us too) that wants to look progressive or whatever the fuck that is.
This stuff almost always means a company has too many middle managers that are looking for shit to do to justify them being there.
I've been asked to go and be an Assessor (capital a) for a whole week next month, whittling down 50 potential graduates to 20.
I imagine these events are tremendous fun.
My favourite is 'talent acquisition'. Very brothely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adramelch
Since when are lawyers referred to as 'the talent'?
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Adramelch
I love stuff like this. Like when OVO called mass redundancies after buying the SSE retail arm "harmonisation".
"New customer acquisition". So sales, then.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
We don't have customer services, we have customer ambassadors.
Costumer success is another one.
So you mean what I've bought I didn't understand, is going to be shit or won't work for what I need? Great.
HR = people and culture.
Right then.
So outsourcing to India. I guess that’s our culture now then?
Costumer success sounds like a consultancy firm for fancy dress parties.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Sorry to say that Gen Z got a second warning yesterday for walking under a working forklift with his headphones in, and just hasn't turned up today. Goodnight sweet prince.
I feel a bit sorry for him (and for the thousands like him) as he clearly is fundamentally not capable of being in a work environment, even though he's more than capable of doing the job and even progressing.
Are you now the youngest member of staff?
I think I might actually be. All the people I manage are older than me.
The Arab is about the same as me actually, not sure who edges it. He's been threatening to buy me a watch to celebrate my promotion. I've informed him that this would be the most inappropriate and cringeworthy thing imaginable, and also that I don't wear watches, but this hasn't deterred him yet.
I am told by my elite watch wearing acquaintances that the Arabs are funny about watches, in that they have a tradition whereby you essentially swap watches, I think the patter is "may I take a look at your watch" and then you never see it again. Can usually work pretty well if you are dealing with a Sheikh apparently, but you have to be mindful. Don't think I'd get away with bowling in with my miami blue F-91, but I think you can watch up if you have some sort of low tier fancy watch. This may be entirely apocryphal as it's second hand off a super rich dude, who kick started his fortune by being gifted a 747 by a Saudi, apparently.
Never pegged Jim as a watchless neanderthal to be honest.
I'm a very utilitarian person. Almost no interest in style whatsoever beyond keeping up basic appearances (any further and you end up dressing like Dominic Cummings). Substance only.
So my plan to bring my engineers across and keep my customers is kind of falling apart.
The previously full-time 67 year old now wants 2 days per week and my other full-time 60 year old is interviewing elsewhere.
L.O.L.
Exactly why the £20 Casio design classic digital watch persists.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
That one is as much of an accessory as the others, just for the 'look how little I care' crowd.
You can mostly tell the time by looking at the sun / the slightly lighter part of the grey English sky blocking the sun. Any precision required look at your phone. No one needs a watch.
Are you a tan trousers, button down shirt, navy jumper every day type?
Wouldn't be seen dead in tan trousers (black or navy), but otherwise, yes.
Ah yes. Love for 'khakis' is more of an American thing.
At this point, anyone not wearing polyester polos all day is good in my book.
Love my tan troos.
Alright Kramer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Maybe that's what the Gen Z lad does, which is why he is consistently late. Can't expect him to be more accurate than within the hour.
Kramer was Gen Z before Gen Z were even born. I'm more like 50% George, 50% J. Peterman.
Not dressed like that.
The pricier the watch, the smaller the cock.
Baz taking shots.
Our HR department has rebranded as People Operations. :harold:
I'm old enough to remember when everything was rebranded from Personnel (but sir, that's for assholes) to HR. Funny how that didn't seem to do the trick.
My missus has had an issue come up at work and HR or 'People Services' as the National Trust call them have been fucking useless. Constantly referring her back to the manager who has created the issue in the first instance rather than wanting to resolve the issue. Which has ended up with her filing a grievance/complaint, if they had gotten involved in the first place and put the manager in their place this would never have happened but they almost always seem to have no interest in getting involved in these processes for which they are fucking paid.
You only end up working in HR in the first place if you're a useless coward with no interest in achieving anything in your life, so there's no reason to expect anything different.
As an aside to that I have also bollocked into my missus for not joining the union which I told her to do when she first started working there. If she had done none of this would have happened in the first place because the union would have just lolled her manager out of the building with what she is trying to do.
Our company's been fucked since this morning with the entire IT system down, which basically means we can't do any business at all. Second time it's happened this month. The IT head (the Arab's brother) last promised an update at 10.30 but appears now to have gone into hiding. He should probably be sacked for how shit and costly our system failures are, but they know if he goes then the Arab and the Arab's dad will respond emotionally (like Arabs do) and walk too, which they can't afford, so shit IT is pretty much baked into our future.
I suggested (somewhat tongue in cheek) that given we have been down for 10 business hours this month, the sales budgets should be adjusted down commensurately. The MD looked at me as if I was some kind of demon. Can't have accountability for anyone other than sales, obviously, that wouldn't be fair.
Jim you are in management now. Just tell the sales team to sell harder.
Ah, not wanting to upset someone utterly useless in a business for fear of the wider consequences it may have.
One of my personal faves that.
We're still off now so it's a full day of business lost. I have 19 unfulfilled orders and 56 enquiries unanswered, and that's just me, there are 15 others sales people. Almost past the point of annoyance now and towards self-schadenfreude. I saw the clown wandering around with a milkshake at lunchtime as well. There should be a hard no-milkshakes policy for anyone responsible for a catastrophic business disaster.
The Arabs. :cool:
Can't you take the orders by hand or something?
We managed to get about 3 small orders out by searching through the paper archives for old files from 5 years ago (which is when we stopped keeping paper archives) which told us what the warehouse locations of certain items were in those days, we've seen if any of those items tally with what's been ordered today and then hoped that they are still being kept in the same warehouse locations, which in most cases they aren't.
Kind of like being in a Soviet republic, but without the reassurance that the Party will house you for life.
Remind me where Arab Senior's power come from. Is he a salesman with tons of Arab clients?
The Arab's dad controls the markets of Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, which are probably 3 of our 8 biggest markets (especially Egypt and Algeria), and over there business is done entirely on personal loyalty and backhanders rather than any kind of rationale or logic. For instance, our biggest customer in Egypt buys from us despite getting better prices from our competitors, because the Arab's dad did him a favour / laundered some money for him 20 years ago. So if he left for one of our competitors and told his loyal customers to go with him, they would.
This results in comical scenarios like when a couple of years ago the South Africans tried to tamper with his contract to make it more company-friendly, he told them to fuck off, and needless to say his contract remains as was to this day.
Same for the Arab himself in Iraq, UAE and to a lesser extent in Saudi, which are also important markets.
Time to have a pop at IT again.
Thank you for contacting us, my name is [name of bloke I've known for 7 years] and it will be my pleasure to assist you.
The severity of ticket has been set to: Triage
If you would like to speak to me directly, please feel free to reach out at any time.
He might as well have set the ticket severity to Mustard, or Diplodocus.
:harold:
They are donning you. Time to stroll in and crack some skulls.
When I first started here I had issues accessing most of the stuff I needed because the system thought I didn't have the correct authorization. Contacted IT and some Indian don fixed it in about three minutes. Then a few weeks later it happened again and it took three weeks and like ten people at increasing levels of the hierarchy to get involved for it to be resolved.
Our company has a massive divide in IT still. When you’re actually working on a functioning construction site, you just walk into the IT office (or at worst pick up the phone) and it’s sorted there and then.
Head office has the classic corporate ticketing bullshit.
This went out to all staff about 20 minutes after my (correctly submitted) ticket:
These cunts just can't stand the idea of having to do anything not conceived in a meeting 2 months ago. Time for direct action / terrorism.Quote:
Dear All
All issues reported to IT must be done through a ticket.
A ticket must include the following:
1. Screenshot of the error
2. A description of the error
3. How long the error has persisted.
Any ticket without those requirements will be immediately closed.
Teams or Phone are not an appropriate ways to report system issues and outages and will not be actioned.
They need to do reports on metrics so they can see how many they can lay off without imploding the company.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
I'm right on board with the screenshot thing, and if it comes in the form of a jpg pasted into a Word doc they should be immediately fired.
We had something like that recently. Taking a screenshot of a PDF, pasting it in a Word doc and then forwarding that to head office to be scanned. I see that and think, "Girls, just select Print to PDF and pick the page you're after."
@Giggles you'll be delighted to hear that my employers dropped the bombshell today, powerman 5000 style, and have advised that the entire organisation will be moving towards ending hybrid working arrangements.
We are hoping our department will get some sort of exception, as we do bullshit hours, but I doubt it. I am one of the exceptions that proves the rule cus my performance is (and has reluctantly been confirmed by management as such) slightly better at home than in the office, but sadly as much as I take the piss out of G's hobbyhorseism about WFH, it's absolutely the case that a solid majority of my colleagues are lazy bastards at home so it was always inevitable.
Aye, I have to admit Giggles was right on that one.
My objection was never that @Giggles said WFH was bad, more the way he said that literally every single person who WsFh is a workshy lazy bastard who does literally nothing, I think it works with certain people/industries/contexts, but if people are already lazy and the systems allow them to be lazy, then they will absolutely take the piss with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
It's like Souness and Pogba, he's fundamentally right but...
Yeah, he overestimates how many people will skive. In our case, it was made very easy by a lack of timekeeping software/timesheets at the new office. Even then, we had very few piss takers.
Ours is the other way round, all our work is deadline based so if you fuck up that by not doing your work then you are out. Can't really sit about doing nothing. Yesterday I did 10 hours grinding out a full plan to get it finished: I never did 10 hours going into the office, I would have spent the best part of 2 hours commuting there and back.
Ironically the biggest fuck up in living memory at our spot has just been overseen by the guys on the other part of our team that rarely WFH :D
I spent all yesterday morning (and Tuesday afternoon) unpicking an eight-month catastrophe. Took about 8 hours, half of which was just getting the info I could feed back to the surgery. It's more of a team effort than a couple of idiots. DWP, the old company, the new one and some ... astonishing human error from a couple of my colleagues.
I'm hoping that's the end of it but I'm certain this will happen again. :D
I preferred the abuse, it sits better with me.
My boss has forced me to go to one of those think-wank events today called something like 'Wanking and Growth: AI and Delivery in a Strategic Wank Sock'. Local bigwigs and that. Want to shoot him in the face.
I'm still in bed.
God this was so shit. Like some kind of bad dream. LinkedIn Live. It's all just people saying words.
Vision.
Partnerships.
There we are, I'm a business expert. Give me a book deal.
We were asked what would happen if our business disappeared. I said 'Our customers would be ripped off by the competition.' He almost gasped. 'So frank! I love that level of frankness.' This is all in a Canadian accent, obviously. Send me to Switzerland, Dignitas calls.
Very boot licky reply that, Jim. Gross.
EDIT: Unless it was extreme sarcasm that went unnoticed.
Also, they just kept saying AI. Constantly. What does it even mean? It doesn't mean anything. 'AI tools'. What does that look like? What is one? I don't have any.
I have a full day of it in Huddersfield on Monday and it's irked me no end.
Not very synergistic of you, Jim.
My condolences.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
It means everything that has a bit of code in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
That's the business people whenever they have to talk about anything technical tbh.
I've got involved in some warfare involving the Arab recently. We hired an Algerian young lady (I sound like a perve using that phrase, but it's a fact) to bolster the team and add some extra languages, she speaks Turkish as well as Arabic and French. I'm her manager, but most of her work is for the Arab, an arrangement that was made deliberately so that he didn't end up with any line management responsibilities. This was borne out within a fortnight, as he declared her 'too ambitious' and refused to give her any more work to do. He caught her outside and told her: 'I've already asked for one assistant - that's you. Don't make me ask for another one.'
She reported this (and his general carry-on) to me, and me in turn to the director, who sort of shrugged. I asked what the Arab would have to do to incur disciplinary measures. He shrugged again. £1 million of business in Iraq > any behavioural issues. So there we are. I had to go and sweet talk the Arab (who still loves me) to get him to start sending her work again.
Now the Arab's super-illness which he brought back from Kurdistan has taken out basically the whole office. We had five out today and I'm now shivering under a duvet writing this because I'm too feverish to fall asleep. He refused to go and see a doctor with his mega-severe version of it because 'doesn't trust UK medicine' (i.e. he's a stupid conspiracy theorist).
It will come to a sticky end for him, the question is how.
I wouldn't pick up that fight unless you fancy going back to Korea.
What did you choose as your gift?
I chose for him not to get me a gift, so he got me a $100 bottle of cologne. He then complained when I wasn't wearing it the next day. I'll probably put it in a raffle for the cricket club.
Oh cool, he's brought MERS25 into the country.
'young Algerian lady' would sound way less pervy.
Does sort of invite 'It's a man actually, Derek' the way I wrote it.
I think The Arab wants to shag you and won't take no for an answer.
Decided today that I may have to resign my Head of Year position. The demands are excessive for the time and remuneration and through line management it has become clear that the Head is not interested in hearing it. So I've written a letter to outline the issues in detail, welcoming the opportunity to meet and hear how the points will be addressed, or else to take it as my resignation of that post.
I fully expect him to 'call my bluff' and just accept my resignation, and I'm ok with that. I will happily go back to being full time in the classroom. The workload isn't less that way, per se, but it is different and nowhere near as demanding or high stakes. For the 3.5 hrs a week I get to do the HoY role, I'll likely pick up a Y7, Y8 class and maybe get another hour at A-Level. I can live with that.
I’ve been asked to go into the basement of the building where my old office used to be, cos there’s some cabinets with paperwork in that belonged to the woman who did my job before I started. Turns out they say ‘to destroy in 2022’ and the retention policy is 7 years, so they’re from 3 years before I started.
I had to visit the room they’re in a few weeks ago where they three people pointed out the 15 locked cabinets (there are actually 13) and I confirmed they were indeed cabinets and the paper stuck to them said the paperwork inside can be destroyed. The service they apparently related to has been outsourced since 2017 and everything is now stored digitally.
I was told it was my job to open the cabinets, move whatever’s inside them into boxes, then arrange for confidential waste to collect and destroy them.
This has all taken place over the course of a month. Begrudgingly I ordered 30 boxes and am currently waiting outside the buildings main doors for someone to let me in.
I’ve been reliably informed that all basement rooms have a rat problem. Great!
"My job is asking me to do work"
I make spreadsheets, not empty old rat infested cabinets.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Admin covers a variety of tasks.
I’m not admin. :dc:
Ratman.
Ratmin
The old man (who used to pay me bungs) has finally been SACKED this morning, because we found out (at the age of 75) he's just started a new contract with an Italian company.
Now I have to compete with him in the market.
I must have missed the bungs part. What form did they take?
He used to give me, under the table, £100-200 out of his commission at the end of the month, to recognise the fact that I was doing pretty much all his work for him. I don't think there was anything technically wrong with it, as it was his money to do with as he pleased, but it did feel incredibly seedy.
He did have a heart then. Sort of fair play to him.
Good luck. Make sure to double lock your door every night.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I hope he's got an alternative universe Jimmy translating for him on every deal.
Up the ladder for Jimmy, and I'm glad to see it.
One of the lads in our product development team (Ukrainian) just got the boot after it was discovered he was taking pictures of parts in our warehouse and then offering them for sale on his own website.
How stupid do you have to be?
Depends how long he’s been doing it?
Yeah, I need to know how much he made before choosing the right smiley. Have to appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, at least.
The website started in February, so about five minutes.
@Pepe you'll be looking for this: :lol:
Did you catch him?
I'm struggling to understand this, was he just nicking the parts from the warehouse that were then being sold on through his website?
Turns out it's not even the funniest thing to happen at the company today. They got in some South African builders (I know) because the South African finance director was concerned that the upstairs kitchen was too large and the space could be better used making his office bigger. So the builders have come in, managed to drill through the plumbing, and now both the Arab's and the Russian's offices have been flooded by cascades of brown water from the ceiling.
Not a metaphor for anything, not at all.
Presumably this was the caper, not sure it got as far as actually coming to pass before IT nicked him. Either that or he was going to use his knowledge of our suppliers to buy the stuff himself and just use our bits as marketing fluff.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
Are you working in a sitcom? Is there a wall missing in your office where a studio audience might be?
You couldn't make it up.
I was planning :harold:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
I was disappointed to not be attending the Harm Reduction International Conference in Bogota, Colombia this week. But I've just clocked it's 18 degrees there and 25 here, so lol.
Might push for a 2027 ticket, regardless of where it's at.
When I was in Bogota, my man told me that it's always the same climate there, regardless of season. Blew my tiny British mind.
Mexico City is the same.
I'm told the Canaries is the same, but I went once and it was 18c and cloudy all week. So now I trust nobody.
Resigned today for a job at a great British institution sponsored by Barclays.
Will the new position bring a new nationality with it?
Korean.