Excerpt the p is kind of silent. Obviously the Americans say it in their centuries-long, doomed attempt to make English a phonetic language.
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Excerpt the p is kind of silent. Obviously the Americans say it in their centuries-long, doomed attempt to make English a phonetic language.
It’s like Jimmy said, it’s there and it’s not quite silent but you don’t put any emphasis on it. Very close to being silent.
I still refuse to acknowledge the r in February.
You've just acknowledged it.
Boom roasted
News to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
A colleague of mine got her identity stolen. Someone called her and left a message saying that blood was found on a car she had rented, and that she needed to call back the detective so that he could clear her. So she decided to call back, and admits that she found it suspicious that the detective, who had a very American name, had a thick Indian accent, but since she didn't want to make any assumptions, she proceeded to give him all her information: social security number, address, credit card(s) info, the works. Only after she was transferred to another detective, also with an Indian accent, did she decide that maybe something fishy was going on.
Let's not forget, this is someone with a PhD, who has been working as a professor for over ten years. :lol:
If the original message was left by someone with a thick accent too then she's a fucking balloon.
It was and she is.
Wow lol
When was the last time she rented a car too?
She did rent a car a month or so ago, after crashing and totaling hers.
"Feb-u-ay"?Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Career suicide today.
Told the VP of HR that their “target To have x% of senior positions held by women/minority” was causing external and internal people to believe there’s positive discrimination occurring within the company.
Told him that his message of “we need to make bold decisions” to get there is clumsy wording that absolutely suggests they’re going to hire a candidate based on gender rather than merit.
Apparently the solution to years of positively discriminating against women will be solved by a short term positive discrimination against men to get a better balance to meet a metric that someone has set.
Good one. And now you’ve undermined the white male population and women/diverse applicants will/do doubt whether they got the job on merit.
Well at least you wont have to use any more helicopters.
"Can't believe they're now discriminating in a way that doesn't benefit me. :("
Positive discrimination is a fact of life now in any kind of organisation with a public profile. This isn't 1998. It's worth far more to them to have agreeable statistics than it is to have the marginally 'best' person in junior and middling jobs.
I'm stuck on the phones for two weeks because somebody's cat has died and they're taking the full bereavement leave for it.
That sort of thing is absolute nonsense.
That’d be me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
Two weeks bereavement for a fucking cat?
Came home from work to a letter about my tax code and it had car allowance on. I’ve not had a company car since I quit my last job in September 2018. Rang up and I’ve been overpaying. Hello “at least” £1000 rebate! The man was like “I dinnay nae how ye no noticed” :)
What’s a typical annual pay rise these days?
Got my pay review letter today and it’s a c. 5% rise which seems pretty good.
Bonus this year is pretty :drool:
Baz you going to use that rebate money to collect stickers with sincere?
Unfortunately blurted it out to the missus without thinking so will probably drop most (read: all) of it on paying off our holiday. Tbf I don’t mind that cos it’s not like I’ve missed it but it should mean from now on my monthly pay packet will be a little bit fatter. What this also means is I’ll probably get back into the horses :drool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Foe
Equestrian is lame. Just collect the stickers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Just tell her it wasn’t as much as you originally thought.
I've invested into Garden Soccer, love.
Inflation rate is 2.48% according to my random Google searchQuote:
Originally Posted by Foe
Finished the week on a high. My last call was a claimant going, "I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" refusing to take the call. This is after someone else in the household passed her over to speak to me. After I told her who I was, where I was calling from and what it was about. :moop:
I had to spend all yesterday looking after some French people. God, French people are a nightmare. I'm the only French speaker at the company, including both my age 65+ managers who run the show and try to tempt them into a relationship, so I have to spend all day translating the awful jokes and the anecdotes that go nowhere, line by line. It starts badly as the boss asks them 'So, how much do you think you will do with us in 2020?' We're thinking 30,000 would be a good start. 50 maybe if they really get going.
'Six cent mille euros,' he says, without blinking. Six hundred thousand. Yeah, sure, Jean-Baptiste, fucking sure. We don't do that with the fucking Saudis, and you're saying your tinpot shed venture in Picardie is going to do half a million in the first year? Definitely believe you, mate.
We take them for lunch to this nice Italian place. One of them orders carbonara and doesn't eat it. The other one orders lasagne and barely touches it. What do you want, for God's sake?
Then the guy buys some stuff and I have to get him to sign the paperwork. I go out back to put the stuff in his car, come back to the office with the paperwork and he's nowhere to be seen. 'Where would a Frenchman run off to?' I ask myself, and sure enough he's outside having a fag, and has also grown a mysterious leather jacket that he hadn't had all day. I ask him to sign the paperwork and he says 'why?'. Turns out he was hoping to pay cash and then just take his pistons and gaskets and pumps back through the tunnel hidden under some blankets. Yeah, mate, great plan. How many Citroen C5s will you need to do half a million Euros on the year doing that.
Sounds like a pretty slick businessman.
A rarely spotted work anecdote from Jim there. A sad decline since the Korean days.
Nowhere near as much material in this racket, even though on the face of it there should be. The difference is that Koreans are mental and Europeans are pretty boring.
I fly on Monday to Inverness (overnight), Dounreay, Thurso (overnight), Wick, and then fly back from Inverness. I've had a look at the takeaways in Thurso to see where does a pizza crunch, but I might have to settle on some fried chocolate if I want to sample the local culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
You'll be able to get a pizza crunch in Inverness no problem.
The real prize will be getting a munchy box, then if you really want to immerse yourself getting a fried breakfast munchy box the next morning.
I was working on that assumption, but our Inverness hotel is miles on the edge of town so that sinks that. It didn't occur to me until I sat looking at the map that Inverness itself is the middle of nowhere and that the Kessock Bridge is basically the end of civilisation.
Stick the postcode of your hotel into JustEat and you'll find at least one place you can get to. Thurso is big enough to have at least a few decent takeaways too. There's no group of ten thousand Scottish people anywhere who exist without a chippy.
I think Thurso is just hotels and takeaways.
My mate's wife is from Thurso. Prepare yourself for the accent.
https://youtu.be/Ein57OSrqoA
Inverness :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
The airport at Inverness is quite something.
I'm sure there's one round me that does a munchy box with a half pizza crunch in it, Lewis, so you may hit the jackpot.
I've been to Thurso. It is AMAZING. There is also a great account of it in Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a Small Island' which holds very true to when I visited years later.
"Pizza crunch" sounds fun.
Yeah, can someone explain it?
It's a pizza dipped in batter and deep fried. Usually sold in quarters.
Going to visit a school with a view to apply for a position as second in department there; the current deputy used to be one of the assistant heads at my current school and after emailing the head's PA about the visit, the deputy emailed me back to arrange it all, so will be nice to have a familiar face there.
For now though, half term, and I sure as shit need it.
Well, it may have taken nearly three weeks but tomorrow I start my new job and I couldn't have hoped for much better. Hours are 9.30am til 6.30pm so not far off a 9to5, daily specials, relatively easy menu and only around 50 covers a day which should be easy enough. Nothing frozen, everything made on site as it's predominantly home made and other than the two days off when someone covers me, I'll be the only chef in the kitchen. :drool:
I don't have to move away from home and whilst I'll have extra responsibilities in the way of health and safety paperwork type stuff, it's way more than I could have asked for as I only applied as the advert asked for a minimum of two years experience, passionate chef, being creative with daily specials and what not. Slightly nervous as I wasn't aware of what I was getting into prior to the interview which ended up being close to an hour of non-stop conversation before being let loose in the kitchen so I did a pan-fried sea bass with lemon sauce and crushed potato then to my surprise the lass doing my interview said she wasn't expecting that then explained what sort of food they usually had under the last chef so I said I'd bring it down a touch if needed, more home cooked type foods than anything which is probably going to be easier, things like lasagne, pastas, a few vegan/veggie options etc. I have a month working with the reduced menu that is already on and then from April it's down to me. I explained I had very little experience as far as costing etc goes but she's willing to help. I thanked her not expecting to hear back but then they got back in touch and finished off the conversation with "sometimes it's about getting the right person and attitude and willingness to learn which is more important."
Buzzing. :D
I've been called up for jury service. The maximum allowances for loss of earnings are about half of my wage. I know some employers will pay you something but there's more chance of Double Gloucester pyramids falling from the sky than of my lot paying me a single penny for two weeks.
To think people moan about the BBC licence fee. At least you're getting something for that.
My Mrs got the letter for service the other day too but she can probably get out of it.
I thought you just got paid your normal salary, what a joke.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Yep, it's £64.95 a day maximum and that's only if they keep you there over four hours. If not it goes down to £32 something.
£5.71 lunch allowance too, I love the specificity.
Here you get nothing except lunch provided from the court service end of things but your employer is legally bound to allow you to attend and pay you as if you were in work. If you're self employed you will most likely get an exemption from it altogether.
Here, the employer is legally bound to give me leave but doesn't have to pay a penny. If he doesn't pay me (going to ask this morning), I will have to get him to sign a form saying so which will make me eligible to claim loss of earnings allowance (itself involving several more forms). I'll then pay everything up front while I'm doing it and get a reimbursement about 2-4 weeks later.
I looked into it a few years ago for some reason and couldn't believe how shit it was. No wonder there are so miscarriages of justice when the jury are probably desperate to get home and stop losing money.
I'd take jury duty over this week of work. It's half term, the office is quiet and there is no conversation.
My office has conversation, but it's all about Marvel films and phone upgrades. How do people live having this few interests?
Do you enjoy your job shinners?
Sounds pretty monotonous.
Any word back from your employer Jim?
I like to think I can talk at least a little about a wide range of things but most people in our office seem to only talk about football or serial killer podcasts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Or occasionally, if they really want to bore the tits off me, politics.
At least the pathological liar in here has the decency to make up entertaining yarns about how he bumped into his now-lesbian ex-girlfriend who couldn't keep her hands off him.
The deep-fried Mars Bar was decent, but the Creme Egg was a shocker. It just turned into bird shit.
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having a deep fried creme egg. You've gone off piste with that nonsense. Get a portion of deep fried Maltesers.
It was on ITV News a couple of years ago someone having a deep fried creme egg and then he bit into it. No, no, no. You don't even have to be a foodie to know that that is repulsive.
Only a Scotch could unironically post this.Quote:
Originally Posted by John
I should have got the Crunchie but the Creme Egg is seasonal so... There was a diabetes collection tin on the counter as well.
I'm not a fan of Creme egg at all.
I wouldn't mind trying to make them in all honesty. I'd like to think in time I'll start making sweet/deserts again as I used to enjoy that as a youngster. I used to work with a chef who was an actual chocolatier(?) on the side and some of the stuff he did was madness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
Good thing I'm a Brit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Disco
Kinda. The job is piss but if there's no craic then it drags. I'm opposite two boomers that live with their earphones on so it largely depends on who else is in. Sometimes you get some fun drama from a phone call (like claimants who've been waiting six months to be seen) which makes the day go quicker. It's piss and that's usually enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foe
There’s far better out there (Cadbury caramel, Galaxy, Reeses) so they’re not worth nothing with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
I would not have had you down as a Reese's fan.
The big cups and white cups are my ultimate sweets. What’s not to like about peanut butter?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
Do yourself a solid, Giggles.
Worth every penny.
Those packets of mini cream eggs are the absolute business. Makes them so much better to eat and easy to smash the entire bag and then feel horrendous from all the sugar. :drool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
Found out the reason I was papped for that job was because I am not chartered.
Professional accreditation is such a waste of time, and yet now it’s not. Annoying.
My company is in transition AGAIN though and more job cuts loom. Thankfully I’m above average for my level (lol) so it won’t affect me, but it’s bloody annoying. CEO is pretty deluded too by all accounts which I hadn’t realised until now.
Have you read the secret barrister? This barely registers compared to some of the abject bullshit he talks about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Guys, when you hear the phrase 'reducing footprint', what does that make you think of? :uhoh:
If you’re in a big industrial company - emissions/carbon.
If you’re in a call centre, p45.
Trying to persuade people to use the self-service machines in my new branch is proving tricky. One day I cheerfully walked up to an elderly lady queuing for the counter, said "hello! what do y..." "NO". Practically screamed in my face. Sorry mate.
I know as a big lefty loser it seems like I should be advocating people refusing to use the self-serve machines to SAVE OUR JOBS, but it really doesn't work like that. The bank reckons each transaction done at a till costs x, and each one done at a self-serve costs about 1/2x. When branch closure decisions are generally made on a profit vs cost analysis, it's pretty obvious that it's gonna be counterproductive for them to insist on it.
Plus, if we're spending our day withdrawing 200 quid for customers over the counter, we're obviously not free to flog life insurance etc. Like, I'm not defending the ethics behind the policies, but it's the reality of it. It's amazing how many people seem to think busy branch = profitable branch.
I've never hear of 'reducing footprint' used outside of eco-wankery.
Old people absolutely seethe with howling fury when you ask them to try anything new. It's just a fact of life.
Not just old people actually. People whose lives/jobs haven't required any form of progress. A lot of my customers (engine rebuilders) are like this. Some of them throw proper tantrums and cry with abject frustration when you ask them to check their emails for an invoice we've sent, or whatever. Didn't need computers thirty years ago, why do we need them now?
I could consider both an option, then. We're in a half-empty building with fuck all work. Empty seats cost money, apparently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foe
Someone at works been signed off with cancer. The atmosphere in the office actually felt better after it was announced. :cab:
Went for an informal type of chat at a school where they’re advertising for a second in department. Used to work with the deputy so had a catch up with her and then met the head of history who seemed sound. Big school, surplus budget = they can actually afford stuff. I badly want to work there now. More money, slightly longer commute but not by much. Certain I can get an interview but just as certain I’ll stuff it up.
Holy shit, I nearly did double my wage afterall. Total taxable to date is 53000, from 35000 when I left engineering. So based on this month it looks like I'll finish on 58000.
Not bad for first full FY in sales.
'If this doesn't win her back...'
Wait don't tell me Magic and his new girl split
No course not. She met the kiddo too.
He's going to propose next week.Quote:
Originally Posted by bruhnaldo
Interview week Friday. No details yet on what the day looks like, what I'll have to teach about, but I can start prepping at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by mo
A few of us are having our positions upgraded at work (from their current joke level to merely being conventionally under-valued), which means having to re-apply and interview for these 'new' jobs. That ought to be a formality, but I've thrown some excitement into the mix by moaning like shit about the whole process. See you in the re-deployment pool.
Maybe they'll punt you back to the north of Scotland on a one-way ticket. Arctic defense.
Compensation day today and I'm at giggles normally assumed level of smugness. It's been a good day.
Post numbers or gtfo.
I offered to move up there for a few months and sort it all out for 'oil rig money', but they reckon they've got a handle on it (which they reckoned two years ago and yet...).Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
We’re hiring another new person and an apprentice. We didn’t even need the last prick they hired.
Actually, that’s just reminded me that the little ferret is off on holidays tomorrow so I can leave my headphones in the car :)
As you all know I'm a Graphic Designer but this week I was asked to 'look up and report back' someone that is protesting us 'because you're good at that internet stuff'.
In less than 10 minutes, I found out he was on a Sex Offenders list, had his mugshot, criminal record and an article from the 80s about his campaign advocating for branding people who had HIV/AIDS.
Productive day.
We're starting to finally get some new directives w/r/t coronavirus. Now we can all only enter through one (1) entrance of the hospital. Patients, visitors, employees....
Tomorrow is going to be a shit show!
I do this sometimes and it really is satisfying to basically have the power of "yea buddy I can basically be on your fuckin' doorstep tomorrow and you'd have no idea who I am whilst you're post stupid shit on the internet because you think you're anonymous."Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
30% bump.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
If you weren’t feeling smug at that one there would be something wrong with you. Nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Congrats. Those don't come around too often.
Legend. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
It's genuinely crazy. I'm not sure how the boss managed it but he's a legend for doing so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
Your knees must be sore though.
Nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Did @Raoul Duke move to Amsterdam yet? I want to hear how that's going.
What are you up to these days, @Boydy? Have you sold yourself as well to corporate slavery?
Software development. It's not too corporate-y thankfully.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
Waiting on Corona I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
I thought he'd be more of a Pimms man.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
Well it’s no Kiko (congrats mate) but 12% raise and ~12% bonus confirmed this afternoon.
I’m for the showdown next week. It’s pay rise or gone.
Congrats Danny - good luck Giggs.
Mine is more about the whole structure and roles within it. It would be a long boring story to get into it here but my gut feeling is the only good outcome is me finding something else.
Our systems are going down tomorrow for the whole weekend. We've been allowed an early start but that still leaves 2.5 hours of nowt.
Not yet - still working my notice period. Move over in early May.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Legend. Didn’t realize you were a developer. I thought you read Political Science not Computer Science.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
History originally. Then did a masters conversion in software development after not having any luck trying to get funding for a phd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
Although originally originally (when I was 18) I started a degree in computer science and dropped out. So I've come full circle now, really.
What are you up to these days?
Corporate slavery for the most part after dabbling in startups - I’m in corporate strategy (focusing on financial services) at a consultancy. Currently on a secondment in NYC with a global NGO, though, which has been a nice change of pace from the consulting grind.
Finished at 4pm. What generosity. Even helped out during the office move. My old manager's desk is a bombsite.
Took the Y2 football team to a tournament at the Liverpool Academy today. First time I've been, it's pretty impressive, was really well run too, we got through the group stage, winning the opening game 8-0 and lost in the semi final.
Bumped into Yasser Larouci, who was happy to say hello to the kids, they also thought Remi Savage was Mo Salah for a bit.
Wasn't a bad afternoon though, one of those that makes you realise how odd my job can be.
I had to Google Yasser Larouci there to be sure you hadn't just taken pride in some random, unfamous man taking an interest in a group of children.
Also sounds like The Kids were veering into They All Look The Same To Me territory.
Year 2s are notoriously racist. Year 3s are ok but 4s are proper cunts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
Interview Monday. Would mean a year in Oregon but the Mrs is on board of all goes well.
That's pretty awesome. What line of work are you? Sorry if you've said before.
Proper patronising pat on the head that. Don't tell him, Giggles.
:D
I’ll be doing fuck all once the virus gets me anyway.
I've just accepted another job, hand my notice in on April Fools Day (lol), go on holiday for 2 weeks, probably be on gardening leave for the other 2 and then start on May 1st.
I get 6 months guaranteed commission to get me up and running, and a better basic wage, and an established territory. That should see me through the Corona period. :drool:
My other choice was facing still being with this shit company, having a terrible basic, having reduced commission for not hitting one of my targets (despite getting 200% on the other one, with no bonuses), and not being able to sell because of Corona.
Done pretty well there I think. All within 9 days of approaching the new company.
Edit: well done Magic :thbup:
I was on interview today for a Second in Department job - got cut before the final interview (reduced from 4 to 2) but the two they kept were Heads of Department looking to step down, so think I would have to be fairly hot shit to have beaten either of them to the post. Annoying but got some feedback to reflect on.
Question now is, do I go for another job; it's Head of History and a job I interviewed for last year. Got the feeling at the time that something was a bit off there and the fact they're advertising again raises some questions (plus if I didn't get it again that would suck). I guess I'm not desperate to leave my current place and money isn't an issue, but I wouldn't mind a change of scene.
I did the job of two women today. Do not like.
Good job mouthwash isn't being hoarded.
:lol:
Glad to be out there for a fortnight. Fuck the office cough.
And sudocrem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Checking in with the emails. We're anticipating more guidelines to come which will probably push our remaining workload off a cliff.
We've switched fromLotusIBM Notes to Outlook and it's slowed my productivity ridiculously. Gonna take some getting used to.
90% of the office working from home, but not me. And they’re closing the canteen from tomorrow do sandwiches only. Fuck.
Still not had my official job offer letter from my new company yet. :uhoh:
Luckily I bagged a new job just before this all kicked off. Pay rise to work at home training. :drool:
The BA refund equates to a month's wages. Six weeks off :cool: That's how it'll work, I'm sure.
I thought I'd nailed the timing but looks like it's too late. Think they'll redact the offer based on coronavirus?Quote:
Originally Posted by Offshore Toon
It would be poor form if they redact and surely a sign that they'd be unlikely to look after you in the future anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
There’s thousands of jobs going wallop, I’d say it’s highly likely.
Indeed, but it's not those massively at risk industries. Even on our acceptance call they were totally fine with my start date being 01.05.20, with a further 6-8 weeks of internal getting up to speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
As predicted, we've been told to work from home all week after today's test run. :joy:
Face to face consultations are all being cancelled for three months. That's a lot of phonecalls.
Spent all day preparing a three minute video. :face:
WFH time for me from this week.
Good job I'm not moving country to work for a travel company any time soon :uhoh:
WFH here too so I spent the afternoon grouting the tile we laid this weekend
My dual tv arrangement is going to pay dividends tomorrow as I work from home.
Got a couple of extremely long hdmi cables too. Perfect
My current engagement could be done 100% remotely, so unfortunately I don't get to doss around. :(
I'm going to contact new company and say my early April holiday has been cancelled, and my deals are unlikely to close before March 31st. On that basis I'd be willing to hand my notice in now and start mid-April instead of May 1st.
I'm so fucking terrified this is going to fall through.
Had an absolute mare.
We manage social media for a few of our clients, or at least help set them up. One common thing we do is to use Zapier.com to automatically take posts from one platform, tidy them, and then post them on another. It just saves the client effort and means they can choose a single platform and just manage engagement on the others.
For one client, they post on instagram and we setup Zapier to strip the hashtags and copy the post to Twitter.
For some unknown reason, today Zapier has decided to spam their Twitter feed with 8 historical posts from my own personal Instagram account. We have no idea why - my Instagram account was linked to Zapier ages ago when we were testing it. Now, we have the Twitter feed of a global car parts manufacturer filled with photos of me, my wife, my dog and son. And we can't even remove them because they changed their login details at some point in the last month without telling us. Plus, they're not answering the phone.
Fucking cringe. Hopefully they see the funny side.
:D
Lol
Those with underlying health problems are being sent home from work. I've been told by my manager I can cancel next week's leave if I want. I'm asthmatic. I'm staying put.
Superb. Was there anything genuinely lol-worthy among them?Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
:lol:
That's a post of the year contender. :D
There's nothing too bad. The worst is a drunken group photo of me and my friends in a pub. The posts have started getting comments and retweets now. Oh God. It's a good job they've only got a few thousand followers.
I know you probably want privacy but please give us a link/obscured screenshot.
:D
Links?
Yeah show us at least that pub one.
Finally got hold of someone, and fortunately they had a good lol about it. They've deleted the posts now.
Photos of my slick bald head will be staying off the forum.
Still not had my acceptance through, and I am a fucking mess with anxiety. Help.
Just ring them papa.
:nono:Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Have you given your notice?Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Fuck no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
What's the stress then? Just carry on as normal and look for a new job when this dies down.
Because it was my dream job, and I fucking hate it here.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Well at least you've not shot yourself in the foot.
If it doesn't happen you'll find something else.
Amazon are looking for drivers.
:D
Your DREAM job?
How much does scaling have we done on our dreams at this point?
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Vercetti
Thank you, back to earth.
He might have been offered a job as an astronaut cowboy who plays up front for Leeds, you don’t know!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
Or he's disguised himself as a nanny to look after his kid.
He probably gets to wear high heels with an endless supply of kittens.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike
He's going to be a fluffer.
That bionic jaw will come in handy.
Makes me wonder what staff levels are like now that a) they've sent the pre-existing's home and b) asked me to come back early from leave. The civil service is built off the back of overweight workers. There's probably 4 people in. 3 of them managers.
I got a phone call from another company I asked about a job two weeks ago asking why I hadn't sent them across my CV.
Going to re-do it today and send it over. Forgetting the offer now, weird as we're all pretending it didn't ever happen.
Have you actually called them and spoke to anyone about it?
No mate, don't feel it's my place to.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
You don't feel it's your place to ask what's happening with a job offer they've made you?
Not under these circumstances. It's not like I've not got a safe job already and with my commission for next month too I'm pretty sorted until May. As much as I want to hand my notice in and run, I'm not going to grovel especially if it's not being offered because of uncertainty. If it's not being offered because the Comms industry is *insanely* busy, then that's ok too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
I got this. Chill.
I bet they've hired the kickboxer instead.
Magic - sounds daft but similar happened to me last year. Have you check your spam inbox?
Yep, I found an e-mail from my daughter in there with the subject 'Naughty Daddy'. :D
It came through the post. :drool:
I've got email today promoting the company's livestreaming service of the Olympic Games. Lads. Stop.
Well if you'd told us you'd applied for a job in 1996 that would have made more sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Maybe CORONA delayed it. Typical I'd already reached out so now I look like a cunt. :cool:
Showing initiative is cuntish in... uhhh.... your country?
First time for everything.
Edit: Fuck off mongo.
I don't even know what post he possibly could be talking about.
What, since you told us to chill less than 5 hours ago? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Magic
They've advised (on the back of me saying I could start earlier as my holiday has been delayed):
To ensure we are properly set up to support you for onboarding and training “online” should the situation revert to total lockdown lets leave it at the original date of May 1st.
So my notice gets handed in on the 1st of April. :)
I read that as: let's give ourselves as much time as possible to determine whether we need to rescind the offer.
Yeah, they'll really take that seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
I mean maybe don't fuck off your employment until post-pandemic
Yeah, same. Be careful, Magic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
What's the minimum amount of notice you can give? A week? Stick to whatever the minimum is while monitoring the situation.
I don't know your employer, but they'd likely happily bin you (read: anyone) off at a moment's notice if needs must, so no sense offering them much more than they'd offer you.
A month, probably. I assume that's why he said 1st April he's handing it in.
Especially the way things are now. Wouldn’t put it past any company at the best of times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
In fact, I'd be asking them what their plans for dealing with this are.
Wasn't that assuming he was on vacation the last two weeks of April? What does your contract say, Magic?Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Yeah but that'll be included in his notice period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
He won’t, but he will. It’s brilliant! I’m fucked! LifeQuote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Is over! Rolling in cash lads, top of the world... etc, etc.
All in the space of around 43 minutes.
:D
Hahaha.
This move will TRIPLE his wages too.
This company is thrice the size of mine and much better placed financially.
I probably wouldn't have any employment to fuck off after 3 months of no sales here.
Yep it's 4 weeks, of which I'd be on gardening leave. My current company will fold before the new one, so fuck it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Just took a look to see what the new rota for the skeleton crew will be like. 20 people in a week out of a workforce of 120. Hell.
We’re busier than we’ve been with builds in ages this week, it’s mad. Going to try a few bits and pieces to drum up some more work tomorrow while places are quiet.
Our head put together a three team rota for staff to be in school - two out of the three teams in each day. One leading sessions with the kids, the other working elsewhere and covering break and lunch duties. Thought I was going to have to point out how calamitous this would be, but thankfully one of my colleagues came up with a safer system and is sending it to them today. To top it all, Rumour is they’ve been threatening not to pay people who choose not to come in, the shits.
I'm still at work for the foreseeable, on massively reduced opening hours. The old customers are just fucking unbelievable. There's this bloke in his 80s who come in EVERY WEEK to get £50 of 50ps and £60 of pound coins. Doesn't run a business, just "likes to have change". HE CAME IN TODAY. I was like, mate, what do you actually NEED these coins for?
"...I just...me and my family LIKE having coins..."
"it's just...we're only really letting people come in to do ESSENTIAL banking..."
"...WELL I'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS, HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR POLICIES?????"
Quite honestly, I was on the verge of crying with frustration. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you mate?
I've had PLENTY of people tell me they don't trust internet banking/mobile banking/direct debits/etc. THIS MONDAY a bloke said "...well, I just prefer to pay my bills in cash". WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU CUNTS?
Customer service 101.
For the old dude, it's a classic money laundering scam. Easy to redistribute his illicit drug money via a suitcase of 50p coins than with his £50. Take him in for questioning next time.
Notice handing in on Wed.
:uhoh:
For the job they told you that you might not have, yes?
Chill, mate, he's GOT THIS.Quote:
Originally Posted by bruhnaldo
Give it 30 minutes until he's having a wobble then chip in. :thbup:
Final payslip through. £57000. Didn't double my wage but close. Oh well.
Have I missed something?
In about a day you could miss a whole lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
Double post because it's good enough for both threads.
https://i.imgur.com/1RCLUem.png
I just watched Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior, myself.
Still, probably, the greatest thing to ever happen in Canada.
I'm being furloughed as of 1st April lol.
This is fucking mental, what do I do now? Also my commission is backdated, will it still get paid even though I've been furloughed?
That'll be up to the company policy, I assume. Presumably the furloughing only touches salary.
It's a tricky one, but I'd say you should still get any commission you'd already earned. But if there's any ongoing, monthly commission you get as a result of ongoing contracts, you won't get that.
I bet you'll only get 80% as well, given what cunts your company appear to be.
Its 80% of basic salary.
Assume anything you earned before should be fine though.
Errr... Didn't you take a pay cut so that you could have an improved commission package Magic?
Yeah, I meant they won't top his salary up to 100% from their own pockets, rather than him only getting 80% of any owed commission.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
I thought you had a new job anyway?
B2B Sales teams are being furloughed everywhere. Noone is buying anything for the foreseeable future.
We have a new starter due at my place. Her start date has been put on ice indefinitely. I can't see anywhere, bar supermarkets, Emergency services, etc. Trying to press ahead with new starters for now.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
My wife is meant to start her new teaching job in a few weeks. Fortunately, she's already signed the contract, and she's been told she'll be paid but doesn't need to go in until further notice.
My only saving grace is they'd pencilled me in for a 3 month training period which can be delivered remotely. Other than that I can start contacting potential partners, as I'm not direct sales but channel based.
So from May to August I was expected to do nothing but be internal. It might actually work out better this way? Who knows. I am phoning my new boss today to see what the score is, as once I hand in my notice I'm committed.
Our new sales guy (supposed to be starting on 15th April) has bottled it and chosen to stay where he is. The MD said if you don't start before 28th Feb you aren't entitled to Furlough pay.
Fuck my life.
Why does that affect you?
If moves to new Employer maybe? No idea.
Yes, so I thought I may have to start and be furloughed immediately, but not the case. So my new firm would have to incur my full wage (only for 3 months right enough).Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
And lol, as I type this, one of our senior network engineers has announced his last day will be the 10th of April. :drool:
Ah right. Yeah, you can only be furloughed if you were at your employer by March 1. That isn't the MD deciding, that's in the Government guidelines.
How do you pronounce furloughed?
I’ve been calling it Paul Furlong’d.
Aye got that. I'm asking our network engineer and he's not bothered a fuck by it. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
fur-lowedQuote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Has that always been a thing or is it a new word for the situation like Brexit?
I’m presuming it’s always existed but a strange one for every outlet to latch onto when there’s probably a far simpler way to saying whatever it means.
EDIT: I’d pronounce fur-locked but it would only get said that way here.
First time I saw it used was at my last place but apparently it's pretty common in Banking. Usually used when they put contractors into a forced absence (end of year cost saving).
It's common in prison.
Usually to let prisoners leave to attend a funeral.
/ˈfərlō/
Oil price is looking a bit ropey :uhoh:
Apparently it's an American term.
So stop using it!
I've got a call today with my prospective employer to discuss my onboarding and other things like furlough, holidays, car, laptop, etc, before submission of my notice tomorrow. :drool:
Trust me to be put on furlough as the same day as being put on gardening leave, FFS.
Glorious phone call earlier. Notice being handed in tomorrow. :drool:
This appears to have been approved, despite telling them I'd rather not have it if it meant suiting up and shaking Mr McMahon's hand, so I've obviously double-swerved the lot of them. #governmentexpertQuote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Your speech is already written, right?
This is hardly the time for the government to be shedding its top experts.
What sort of reward are we talking here? Significant enough that you’re surprised it was approved?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Energy companies culling contractors all over the shop. Being staff :cool:
Social distancing at work now seems to extend to the rather sensible notion you should move desks. For us that means dragging all our desktop units with us. :moop: We used to be able to work everywhere in the office. Now we're tied to machinery.
It was only a few hundred quid (after tax/student loan increase), which was why I felt able to act the big man over it. I would probably have wound it in if it was worthwhile.
Yeah that’s not bad man, congrats. Buy a house in hull with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Post-LOCKDOWN TTH Meet fund.
Handed in my notice over video call. Embarrassing tbh, MD told me he didn't understand why I was moving, my new company is shit, would never expect any of his guys to end up there etc. Guess that makes me even more confident I've made the right move.
:)
You know shit's serious when the NHS are offering secondments to our staff.
Been told today that I won’t be getting redeployed. I’ve plenty of work to do until the second week of April and then I’m full embracing the piss-take territory a lot of my colleagues have been flouncing in for these past few weeks.
How was working in the office Jim?
Or did you manage to convince you knob of an MD otherwise?
No, I'm still there, now every day again. So many people have been furloughed that it feels a bit safer now, it's four people in a 20 man office setup. Would still rather be at home but if this is what it takes to have an income then so be it.
'Born survivor', as one of my mates rather presumptuously put it.
With the India lockdown a chunk of our skeleton crew are being drafted in to sub for the offshore guys on another contract. I'm sure that's just what you need when claims are at a high. :moop:
One of our headteachers (yeah we have two, don't ask) has announced he's off for pastures new today. I guess there is no ideal time to announce this but in a time of massive uncertainty in schools, not knowing what our leadership model looks like is another straw removed from the game of life that is Kerplunk.
My work is now saying my 'OFFICIAL CONTRACT' I signed when I joined 6 years ago says I only need to give 1 weeks' notice, not 1 month like the HR online dashboard (which was an admin error). It was changed to 1 month in 2015 and they didn't issue me a re-vised contract.
Now they say my end date is 8th of April, and after that I can't use the car and I won't be paid (even though my wage is being paid by HMRC). I asked if they couldn't just say I handed in my notice on the 23rd so I still get furlough and they refused.
WOW.
Surely a week is the minimum notice period, not the maximum? When I left my last job I handed it in earlier than I needed to just so it was absolutely clear that I was definitely fucking off and when it was happening.
It just says 'If you wish to terminate your employment you must give 1 weeks' notice in writing'.
Also my restrictive covenant says:
- You shall not, after termination of your employment, use the name of the company or any group company in any advertising or promotional material
- You shall not, for a period of 3 months after the date of termination of your employment, howsoever occasioned, including breach by the company, either directly or indirectly, in relation to any like or similar business to that carried out by the company:
- Within a 10 mile radius of your normal place of work be employed or engaged in the service of any employer or person or persons concerned with any like or similar business to that carried out by the company, or
- You will not set up, whether alone or in partnership or as a director of a limited company any like or similar business within a radius of 10 mile of any company locations at which you have been employed within the last 12 months without the written consent of the company, or
- Canvass or solicit, deal with or entice away from the company any customer or supplier of the company or any group company with whom you have had contact or dealings within the 12 month period prior to the termination of your employment, or
- Approach any employee of the company or any group company with whom you have had contact or dealings within the 12 months period prior to termination of your employment, with a view to enticing them away or employing them
Does the bit that says 3 months not invalidate the bits that say 12 months? :cab:
In fairness, you’re leaving. I wouldn’t expect anything from any company you’re leaving.
I'm not, the government is paying my wage. This is pure 100% sour grapes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
So they're fucking you over and you'll have no pay for three weeks of April?
To use the car and all or to even keep you on the books longer than they want to. Why would they bother doing anything when you’re off?
They're obviously going to bin you off ASAP.
This is why you should never be loyal to an employer - they will happily piss on your shoes and tell you it's raining when it suits them
Yes, even though they aren't even paying my wages for that period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
@Shindig can you sort out some sweet Universal Credit for my man?
Nope. I don't work UC.
What can you hook him up with?
Baz's affiliate links.
I don't know what you expected Magic. Obviously the discrepancy between a month and a week is annoying, but your employers have always sounded like cunts. Based on your MD's reaction, they're quite obviously not going to help you out, even if it's no skin off their nose.
If they changed the contract in 2015 why is that not valid?
The only real option here is to fuck shit up as much as possible before you leave. Put some key customers noses out of joint, cancel some sales, don't renew any existing deals coming to an end.
DAMAGE MAXIMISATION.
Because he wasn't issued with an updated contract, from the sounds of it.
Yep. And the ONE MONTH 'mistake' in my HR portal isn't valid. So is the entire HR portal invalid then? Why didn't they issue me with a new contract? I've had three different jobs...Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Yes damage maximisation. I'm touting our downstream dealers now to become re-sellers at my new place. And I'm letting my key accounts know I'm leaving. :)
Mad Men tactics.
If they admit a contract existed at a certain date, does it matter whether or not you were issued with it? Sounds like clear bad faith to me, but I guess they think you won't sue them for three weeks' pay.
LOL our MD is contacting my downstream channel and trying to find out what we were working on, then telling them at the end I'm leaving and I'll be on gardening leave from Monday...I know this because they are telling me. What a foolish man. :)
It's one of those that you could easily argue, but it's a bit of a grey area I'd say. Plus, we don't know the circumstances - how did the contract exist? Was it for all other people at his level? Did a manager mention the new notice period verbally?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Either way, the fact that he wasn't issued with a new contract shows what a shambles they are as a company.
Another week off. They're wanting to ramp up bringing people back though now that we're getting people poached for the other side of the building.
Our CEO suggested some sort of online social distslancing get-together the other day. He's booked it for this evening (afternoon their time as him and three others are US-based). I wasn't particularly keen on the idea but then he said it would have a 'gameshow format' and I thought maybe a quiz and that'd be fine as I love a good quiz. He's sent through some scorecard thing with 'best drink', 'best drink presentation' and 'best joke' so now I'm expecting some lame 'ice-breaker' style bullshit.
Fuck's sake.
Companies should just leave people alone once they’re doing their work.
Before we started working from home our manager floated the idea of 'lunch time group skype calls'. We lol'd at the time, but apparently not enough for her to get that it was a big no.
She tried to get it going twice at first. Nobody answered, so we received a shirty email later in the day about keeping morale up within the team and helping to prevent loneliness. Then 2 people replied asking why that couldn't be done during working hours and she's dropped it all together now. Loneliness. :cool:
We had some sitcom-esque antics yesterday. Our owner, having furloughed about 50% of the workforce in 24 hours, then sent out an email out to the surviving staff that he and the two other directors with stakes in the company would be taking 20% salary cuts (not likely to get the bailiffs sniffing, but whatever).
Hours later, the chief exec of the Houston branch replies to all on that email and pompously declares 'I, too, will be...'. 15 more minutes elapse, and another email comes in. This time it's the US sales director also volunteering for a 20% pay cut. By this time our MD has come into the now near-empty office shrieking a pained cry asking what is going on and why all these people are volunteering pay cuts all of a sudden. Literally as he's speaking, another email pops in - the director in Miami has taken a pay cut, too, leaving our humble MD as the last one not to have done so.
A couple of people start lolling at him, and he stomps off back to his office with the parting shot 'I'm not rich, you know. I've got a family to feed'. As of now he still hasn't joined them. I hope he doesn't, to be fair, the yanks are all idiots for doing it.
Working from home extended until mid may.
Also, our yearly pay rises deferred by a few months which is annoying but understandable.
Someone on yammer (eurgh) offered to return her bonus (pre tax) to the company. Just a regular employee too. Moron.
Fell asleep and missed the start of it so didn't bother joining.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
“Not a team player”.
That Jimmy story has tickled me.
And on the topic of non-work related shit, godbless the geezer in my team who does a weekly quiz on whatsapp to keep some sort of connections going. I miss the non-work related chat in the office which is not something I ever thought I'd say.
They're finally allowing us to take gear home and work. I might ask to go for that instead of sitting around waiting to be put on the rota.
I've been let go. :facepalm:
Shit. What were you doing? Were you let go because of the coronavirus and lockdown? Could they not furlough people?Quote:
Originally Posted by Manc
I emailed his boss to say he was an associate of Waff.
Facilities management. Last in first out.
Sorry bub.
I've got a date for coming back into work. Not next week but the week after. YAY! I've decided not to do the working from home stuff because I've got very little faith in the stuff working. Back in on payday. :cool:
My work have announced some furloughing and temporary pay reductions for three months but nothing that affects me. The highest earners are taking the bigger salary hit.
My wife is now in furlough which is pretty cool as they're topping up her salary.
Had to have a chat with my boss the other day around what we should do with the contractors. Seems a few are being binned.
My furlough pay is based on my average pay over the last 12 weeks rather than my basic salary which is a relief.
My lot are already talking about bringing a couple back off furlough because demand is at 50% of normal, and not the 20% they anticipated. I lolled.
It's weird, we've had a surge of leads come through over the past week, which is the last thing I anticipated. If even a few of them lead to something, I'll probably need to get people back by May.
I thought you said your lot were working from home?Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
The way this scheme works, the most efficient way to go about it from a CEO's point of view is to furlough absolutely everyone you possibly can, and then you can bring them back later if it proves you need them. Probably can file that reality under 'unintended consequences', but that's how it will work for most companies.
Presumably that's how Daniel Levy, Liverpool etc got caught in a PR storm, as they just made sense of the scheme that way and didn't see the bigger picture (as bottom line men often don't).
The few of us that are still working are. The others are furloughed (on full pay, I might add #clapforSvN)Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Ah right, fair enough. Decent of you to do it on full pay.
:clap:
Edit: Forgot that was a real smiley on here and now it just looks really sarcastic. :D
Nice to see you making use of that loan WE gave you.
I was thinking of using the £10k grant to buy a full size snooker table and putting it on Twitter with the #thanksHMRC hashtag.
The clap emoji (or the Sir Henry Winter clap, as it should be known) should be taxed at 100%.
I've got a potential whole load of ballache with regards to moving to Amsterdam. Firstly due to the pure logistics of it all and second in relation to the tax set-up (they have a 30% tax rate for foreign hires). I think it looks ok, but won't know until it's confirmed.
I think I'll be working remote here for some part of it and then look to move over once we're allowed to move..before inevitably getting locked down in NL once WAVE TWO happens :moop:
We're getting so much free food in paeds atm, and doing less work than we've ever done.
We got delivered a load of Thai food and dominos during my last shift. Today we've got about 50 Easter eggs, cream eggs, packets of cookies and they've just turned up with a lorry load of kettle chips.
Well I wont be clapping for you fat slags tonight.
"I'll make sure the kids get those."
Bet Randrew wouldn't eat Easter Egg chocolate anyway.
Not unless it was at least 73% cacao picked by a 12 year old slave from Ecuador.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
TrufaxQuote:
Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry
Do they send you a picture of the kid each month?
You're mixing him up with Magic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
I did wonder what the fuck he was going on about.
I have never known work be as stressful as this. Demand for our parts is basically unchanged (maybe slightly down, but not hugely) and we're running on like 1/4 of the staff. Those of us still here are getting absolutely battered and quite fraught. The phone never stops ringing and customers expect the same service as normal (impossible). Some French cunt, sorry, some Frenchman was just on the phone crying about delivery times being a day slower on average at the moment. Yes, mate, they fucking are.
My furloughed team members have a whatsapp group going, half of which is complaining about being bored, and half of which is asking me what's going on and looking for hints they'll be brought back soon (they won't be). I haven't got a clue what to say to them.
Meanwhile David fucking Brent keeps coming into the office for what he imagines to be morale-boosting pep talks about how he watched Walking Dead last night and his wife cut a tree down without asking him. Just fuck off mate.
Stop meeting demand Jim. Leave the phone ringing, let your processing time drop, etc. You're being taken for a cunt. There's no reason you can't have the full token of office staff working from home aside from 'the fee' for call forwarding. Force his hand.
Yeah, it’s a mare. Don’t drive yourself to shit storm to protect company margins.
If the system has to start failing for them to realise there’s an issue you have to let it fail if reporting it isn’t working.
This isn’t the time for work to be giving you a mental health issue.
Take a step back. Call your MD a cunt and work at your usual pace.
Got my exit interview today. I don't want to speak to them. They cut my mobile off even though they knew I had no personal one.
If you don't need the reference then don't show. Let them think you will though, obviously.
I was extra nice and said they were amazing. This will lull them in to a false sense of security. :drool:
You bottled it you mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Good feedback. That's them told.
Why would I help them sort their problems? This is far more insidious.
I had an interview for a role in Frankfurt yesterday. Think it went reasonably well. Find out next week if I'm in for a second interview.
You don't. You just call them a sack of shit and don't go into the hows and why's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
If you haven't realised that Magic is a massive pussy by now, then you never will.
"lull them into a false sense of security. :drool:"
"far more insidious."
:D
Calm down man, you're not exactly bringing down a megacorp here.
Didn't even tell them I still have a notepad I got out of the stationary cupboard before I left the office last. 1-0 to Magic, methinks!
I take the wins where I can.
This is a capital, bold, underlined L.
"In my last ever contact with them after they took my car and cut off my phone I told them they're great".
I feel for them at this trying time.
Yeah but he was lying - he really thought they were mean, so needless to say he's had the last laugh.
What a donning you provided, Magic. True man of the people.
My boss thinks Whatsapp is called 'What's Up'. Just properly pissed myself laughing at that, I think out of sheer emotional release.
:D
Thinking about Magic getting on the bus (they took his car off him) crying and then going home to literally get bummed off his girlfriend makes me laugh.
I can't even understand in what way Magic thinks he won.
If work is that bad you’d rather just save yourself the effort and distress of telling them and instead just think sod it and leave “on good terms” because you’re completely done with the company and never want to think about your time working there ever again.
At least take a shit in the kettle and stick it on before you walk out the door
He probably gave them all passive aggressive blowjobs on the way out. Teach them to mess with The Custard.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/f...ed-to-19-march
I now qualify for this. Likelihood of my employers rehiring+furloughing me in the midst of an appeal to terminate my previous contract? :moop:
I naively was completely honest on the exit interview from my first job out of uni. It ended up with my boss losing her rag and screaming that she "wanted me out". A week later she gave me a lovely card signed by all the staff. Yeah, she was a bit odd.
My last job never even did my exit interview. I assume they knew exactly what my answer was going to be but didn't much fancy hearing me actually say it.
The Koreans didn't give me an exit interview. I would have told them all about the benefits of herd immunity and how contact tracing was a bad idea.
And then left the interview five minutes early.
I’ve never had one and am on my 5th job. :cab:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
I won.
You donned 'em, mate. :console:
I mean, you can't really lose unless your new job is completely shite.
Starting a three month contract on Monday. The plan is to eventually work from home, but in the short-term I'm excited to find out how offices are organising use of toilet and kitchen space.
1. Block out the middle urinal.
2. 1 in 1 out kitchen policy.
Probably. I really, really hope I can find an excuse to get some lunch in town. Probably end up having to bring my own bait and find a corner.
I'm just not using the kitchen, and I'm going to a toilet on the other side of the building which nobody else is currently using. I bring in 4 litres of water a day to get me through.
Is that to bathe in?
It's to spray people who come near him.
If the Cooplands van is still turning up at lunchtime, I'll be so fucking chuffed.
The van at ours is still coming. His dixie land siren sounds a little melancholy, if truth be told.
Ours just honks madly. If I hear it, I'll be straight down.
It's only Monday, but I am already a completely spent force.
At the start of this, work was OK - whether all in the office or on rotation, our team had a good togetherness. Since they all got furloughed on 1 April, it just feels like a solitary treadmill, day after day, each day busier than the last, with the only thing to work towards being the chance to go home and sit on the sofa for two days at the weekend.
I still don't know if this is better or worse than being furloughed either. The mortgage says better.
That sounds pretty grim.
Seriously, take heed of the previous advice.
Knocking your pan in so you’re struggling personally is not the solution. Do what you can, accept defeat on some aspects and keep yourself healthy.
What you’re describing is shit from the company but you play a part too. You need to say no. Otherwise you’ll end off with stress related illnesses.
My work was brutal the last 4 weeks, the last two in particular I was also covering my boss and it was torture. Decided this week will be a significantly lighter week. Ignoring non urgent calls and requests to stick within my working hours and have a “low stress” week.
In sales it's a choice of either doing the job or not. Logic suggests I need the company to do as well as possible at this point, so I try as hard as I can. In this situation I don't think I can just turn up and go through the motions. It's also better to have something to get stuck into than not.
The problem is more the isolation and feeling that there is absolutely no end in sight. By the time everyone comes back I will be fucking knackered.
I can tell that the very few other people here (1 purchasing lady, 1 shipping lady) are feeling it as well. My line manager is working from home and the MD is in the office. Other than that it's a mausoleum, albeit a pretty profitable one.
You can do your job without killing yourself surely? Work at your normal pace. If customers fall through the cracks because there's nobody else there then so be it. I'd be laughing my arse off if I was sat at home being furloughed whilst you ran yourself into the ground for a few extra hundred quid.
Bear in mind that if things are ticking along fine with a skeleton staff, they'll probably never bother bringing the others back.
The fucker is probably already looking at Yachts.
It's a difficult one to predict. The way we do business, we sell to two types of customer: people whose engines are carked and need them back up ASAP, and people who stock parts for resale. The latter are the profitable side of it and it's they who are down in terms of revenue (I suspect, but in this company there is zero chance that anyone would ever let me see any relevant figures. I keep my own figures, but that only covers my personal territories). The wheel kickers are still all up and running and their engines are still breaking down, which keeps our workload high but means that our staffing costs are probably a lot more acute than they might have been.
We are normally a 50 person operation and currently only 20 of those are working, 14 of them in the warehouse. I don't think they can downscale THAT much, even if a couple of the more useless corpses do fall by the wayside.
End of the day though, you need to look after you. That’s the reason for going to work on a fundamental level. Unless you’re paid enough to mitigate the health issues stress can cause (and for me, that figure is well into six figures which would mean a very early retirement) then it’s not worth it.
How’s your eating? Reckon couple shite diet and your working conditions and it’s tatties.
Also, the oil price is very much :cry:
Don't look now.
We're probably about a third full. I've already had to move a desk over which is fine. It's so bloody dull, though. Durham is silent now and the roads are so quiet the roadworks at Neville's Cross are a quaint inconvenience. Was a bit miffed to immediately be put on the phones but the normal work has slowed down. I don't think I realised how important it is to send people in for assessments. It slows right down to a trickle when it's just telephone assessments. They're quick calls, too which I don't mind.
Still, walking around town is some last man on earth shit. I can't recall seeing a bus carrying any passengers and there is no rail services. And life without Greggs is .... like, I'm saving money but eating the most boring shit I can grab.
Social distancing in an office is alright, you know. Definitely better than normal. There was nothing I did today that required me to be in an office, though, and I bet you it's the same tomorrow. I'll be back working from home by next week I reckon.
My MD managed a new low for fucking vapid people skills this afternoon.
He was through for another one of his 'friendly' chats with me and the shipping manager, and we were talking about how things were still surprisingly busy and my markets had already taken £100,000 this month despite everything (we normally look for 150-200k in a month, so given covid and the fact that everyone is furloughed, it's going pretty well).
'Problem is,' he says, '(Jim) can sit there all day, make 20 deals and take £100,000 all he likes, but that's not where the company margin is. Now, when I do a big job for the Saudis...'
I don't think he meant it to come across like that, and it's undoubtedly true, I just think he has the people skills of a cup-a-soup. It's honestly not what you should be saying to your staff, ever, but especially not when you need them motivated.
Still think knocking your pan in to the detriment of your health is worthwhile?
I’m getting tired of working from home. Sitting at a dining room chair is brutal. Going to speak to my boss about a desk and computer chair.
There'll probably be a fair few becoming free soon, so you should be in luck
I got the 'Hey, you can work from home, you know?" email today as well. I've not got the setup for it plus I'd diminish my role a bit. I've never loved working on the phones but I can tolerate the covid-related phone bollocks. Plus it has a direct influence on the other work we do, now that those are almost all the assessments we'll get to carry out.
I am lucky I had a set up at home that was probably better than most people I work with. Some of them had to take a single monitor home to hook up to their laptop. No chance I would be able to do that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foe
In my three days working from home, I could do about five hours on a dining chair but then had to retreat to the sofa. Office chairs are underrated things.
Was very close to working from home again today. The people I'm reporting into told me I could work from home if I wanted to, so I went to my client manager and we agreed it would be best to work from home. I then okayed it with another person I'm working with, and we were all set. Just had to run it past one person that I'd never heard of who has blocked it 'until I get to grips with the role'. A role I'm more than qualified to do and I'm only helping them because of corona. Eeeediyat. But tbh I don't mind the office. Music is worse, but I eat less.
About a year ago, the chair in my home office broke on a Thursday, and I did a single day working on a shit plastic chair on Friday, before my new one arrived Saturday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
It knackered my back up for months. It's still not 100% now, but it's a lot better since I spent a fortune on a new mattress.
I've got this from Ikea and it's pretty great for the price.
If I was ever going to spend a significant amount of time working from home, I reckon I'd go johnny big balls and put several hundred quid into one. Must be worth it in the long run.
CBA working now. Got invoices coming out my arse. Not being able to print anything is making things very hard and having to do all my work on my small laptop screen is a pain!
Two people from my team are being redeployed so I should be grateful, I guess, but it’s very annoying atm.
Could you not take your office PC home? Even our company, with its 1970s working practices, arranged for people to take extra screens home or in one case even their whole setup.
My team whatsapp group, which had been quite active in the initial stages of the furlough era, has now been completely silent for ten days. It's so awkward. I can't really reignite the chat as they're probably all bitter that I was the one kept on.
Turned the sound off for notifications on Teams.
https://d50b62f6164e0c4a0279-1157055...d94a468175.jpg
We've not got the full details yet but my work are apparently going to rotate who's on furlough, which I actually think is pretty fair so long as there are no other implications of that (I can't see any on the Government website but it may be me being dim.) Basically so that a) nobody's getting out of touch with not being at work for potentially months on end and b) so it doesn't feel like the furloughed staff are basically just being set up for redundancy. No idea if it's likely to affect me but I wouldn't feel so bad about it now. Assuming their reassurances count for anything of course.
Pretty sure they're allowed to do it as long as each period is minimum three weeks.
Yeah that was my understanding and despite some random articles saying it's a no go I couldn't find anything on the government website to contradict it.
Surely they're the lucky ones? Getting months off at 80% pay is a pretty sweet deal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Probably could have but the buildings now shutdown.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I could plug it into my own monitor but I begrudge it. Will probably end up doing it, depending on how long this lasts.
I've heard absolutely nothing from my new employers about the strategy for onboarding me. I start on the 1st.:harold:
They obviously don't think so based on what they were saying. In particular one of the guys who's been here longer than me sounded very miffed about the fact that he went and I stayed.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
It's probably one of those situations where each party think they have it worse, but I'm pretty sure I actually do.
One day I'm going balls deep on an office chair, specifically a Herman Miller and probably the Aeron Precision: https://www.wellworking.co.uk/chairs...FSYTwwodAgYA_Q :drool:
The rule holds firm: spend on quality for shoes/sofas/chairs and beds - you're always in one of those things and it will fuck up your shit if you cheap out on something dreadful.
Work on your core and save the money. My 8-pack has no problems with these badboys:
https://www.oakfurnituresuperstore.c...or:448;seats:2
Indeed, I'm living a pretty good life right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
8 pack :happycry:Quote:
Originally Posted by Don
*nice weather summer months off...Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
As soon as I get a week off, or even 2 days off, I am going to the hottest legally travellable place at that time and lying near a body of water all fucking day.
100%. All I hear about is how I’m lucky I’m working and have something to do. Working on a laptop instead of a dual monitor set up in your bedroom is fucking awful.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Gimme dat 80% pay. I’d still save more than I miss out on with no travel, paying for lunch and getting pissed every weekend.
Isn't it up to 2500 in the UK though? So if you earn over 37,500 you're actually going to be receiving less than 80% pay. I'm sure there's plenty of families in that situation where they're pretty fucked and they'd much rather be working.
Aye but I’m a lazy shit not earning that money. Fuck ‘em
Yeah, £2500 max. I think that's why they've bought in the mortgage and loan breaks etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh
I'm getting £490 take home per week, if that was the sole income for a family it wouldnt go far if you had loads of outgoing or debt.
The civil service position is that you can have a shit chair until you're crippled by it, and then they'll shell out about four grand for a special needs support chair and one of them jazzy standing desks. Where I work used to have an actual midget (before my time), and his lol little midget chair is still floating around the office. I used it for a day a while back, and because you have to support yourself on it rather than sludge into it, it would probably do people some good to use them.
I get 0% until the wankers change the dates on the JRS, just to rub salt in the wounds, I've discovered I won't even get UC until June as the payment I got on March 27th (all £440 of it!) means I've earned too much for UC.
Or in simple terms, I have £10.85 in the bank and about £60 on me and this has to last until June 9th. :D
Get fucked, Rishi.
I'm hoping it will change as we are putting a lot of pressure on the treasury to sort it but the crafty bastards will no doubt make another change that makes zero change, some suggest as many as 400,000 to 500,000 in hospitality alone in the same position as me but some can't claim UC as partners still work etc. It doesn't help that the season literally starts from March to October so that's a lot of lost earnings.
Add in that the public were told to stay away, then add in that we were closed down before lock down was even a thing, then add in that I'd worked nearly three weeks for new employer before the Job Retention Scheme was even a thing. Then add a small dose of Rishi saying he can't include everyone because fraud, hence the RTI date....let's forget the emails with employer, the signed contract, the wage slip and the fact it shows on my government tax thing...what more proof could one need?
I'm at the point where I just think pfft, whatever but a career in crime might be the next step. Mellin v2.
I hear Amazon is hiring delivery drivers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
They've already changed it, why are you so sure they'll change it again? With the scheme now being live, I'll be surprised if they do backtrack and change the date again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
If they change the date to be after the scheme was announced, it's going to open up a huge opportunity for fraud. I can't see it happening.
Because the change was bullshit and barely actually changed anything, only a small percentage benefited from it. Essentially anyone who started work after February 28th and got paid before 19th will be OK so if you were paid weekly you'd be fine but those paid monthly (pretty much most) are excluded.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
I am semi confident it will change or something else will be offered based purely on where we were when it started to where we are now. The first change wouldn't have happened had we not been campaigning for it, which is why so many of us know that the change was no change at all. Now we've had numerous MP's write to Rishi detailing why it's wrong, media have now been sniffing and the last week in particular we've seen a huge increase there as more and more find out that they aren't actually eligible. Thousands upon thousands of us have enough proof to show it's not fraud, signed contracts, payslips, correspondence etc. Hell, in my case I'm still living in staff accommodation as of right now.
I don't know about it being bullshit, they estimate that it allowed an extra 200,000 people to claim, which feels significant to me. I hope for your sake they change it, but I'm doubtful.
The 200,000 has already been proven not to be true as far as I recall and merely clarifies the rules as opposed to changing them. Technically I and many others like me are included in that 200,000 number but it simply isn't true as employers can't furlough me, last employer won't because they feel iffy about it (that was Rishi Sunak's suggestion...which sounds pretty fraudulent to me, the fucking irony! lol)Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
I am optimistic by nature and for some reason we've attracted a good number of actual employers into the group recently, even my own asked only today to be added so I sense something might be brewing.
I hope for my sake it is too or I might have to ask for a whip around come May. :D
I'll settle for London at this rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Today was horrible at work. We have nothing and it drags more than usual.
But a paddling pool.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
You were frothing at the mouth to get back to work and now you’re complaining it’s quiet?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
I’m telling you these furlough folks are winning here (those getting 80% of their normal pay, not those who are on substantially more and getting fucked).
I was in three different teams calls for 6/8 of my working hours today. Brutal.
Reckon I’m average a packet of chocolate digestives every 2 days.
I've broken into a packet of Hobnobs. They'll not survive the rest of the week.
Standard McVities Hobnobs, home made honey comb then smother in white chocolate.
Do it, Shinners. It's a completely different spin.
Yep, Shinners has always struck me as the sort of man who could make his own honeycomb but just didn't for whatever reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
If only there was a website you could use where you could ask it a question and it provided an answer. "How do you make honeycomb?" That would be awesome.
https://www.honeycomb.net/
Well they were no help at all.
Unless you're a bee nobody is making homemade honeycomb.
Isn't it bees that make honeycomb? Or is the sugary shite inside a Crunchie also called that? I hardly eat sweet stuff.
Yep. Not a huge fan.
I tried to make honeycomb once. It's harder that you'd think. The cooking time difference between not done and burnt is about 0.0003 seconds.
This. The wife is on furlough and getting work topping up the remainder. She has had to become a 60s housewife but it's better than working.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foe
Yesterday was hellish for work, about 5 hours sat on calls. Fries your brain /5GMAST
MD has been in the office this morning commenting how with 12 warehouse workers instead of 25, the figures suggest we are 'much more productive per person'.
And so it begins.
You should mention that also things are running smoothly with only 50% of the management team in too :sherlock:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Didn't the same thing happen after the banking crisis when all the big banks realised they made record profits after sacking half of their time-waster workforce? Or was that just on the back of having access to vast amounts of essentially free money to mark up and move on? Either way, they went back to rehiring eventually.
Our place has a weird obsession with chasing turnover/relative size in the marketplace as opposed to overall margin, so that will need more people to re-establish - although it does help that several of our biggest competitors are Italian, and also useless, if indeed those two things are to be treated separately.
Your deteriorating mental welfare has really lead to some tremendous writing :D
If this is to be the future of leisure time then I can think of better uses for a hose pipe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROxaZEvi1D4
Too right.
I can’t think of anything better. Maybe less neighbours.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I've pulled the trigger on working from home. The bosses seem to be really pushing for it, probably to prevent illness tearing through the office. Something tells me that'll be my life for the rest of the year.
My wife was told today unless something drastic happens they think she will be working from home for the rest of the year.
Going to be a shock when she has to start getting up at 6 for a commute to London after 9+ months of getting up at 8.45 to start at 9.
I'd be surprised if there isn't a permanent widespread move towards significantly more working from home now (there would have been anyway, but much more gradual).
I think in the short-term post corona it’ll have the opposite effect. It’s pretty horrendous and most people will be glad to just go somewhereQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Indeed, got to be good for the country as a whole. Spread the money/wages around the country rather than just places close to London.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I’m an employee rep and I reached out to my organisation for feedback and there’s an overwhelming desire to keep flexible working in some form. It’s horrible for me because the programs use are slower than sin away from the office and I need to work collaboratively more than MS teams can provide.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I think there will be a shift.
It's fine for those that don't want their role to change. Like the guys wanting to retire in a couple of years. I'm not sure how I'd take to it as a permanent fixture but I'd probably look elsewhere if it got too dull. Unless this disease never leaves.
I'm really thinking from a business point of view rather than anything else, but you could be right.Quote:
Originally Posted by mugbull
Yeah there’s a balance. There will be business who might push it to reduce rent, and employees who push it for flexibility and cost savings (also, some selfishly so they can slack).Quote:
Originally Posted by Shindig
However there’s plenty who won’t want it. Those who live alone for example, could become a complete recluse.
I’d be surprised if we didn’t end up with some functions having flexibility to work from home part time, maybe even just every Friday or something.
The conditions will never be better for canning high-speed rail, so hopefully that gets put back up for review.
My mate works IT for a big company and has been instructed to work from home until next year. I am with Jim on furlough, it's all gravy now but every day this goes on the chances of their jobs existing after diminish, particularly if the employers trying to weather the economic shit storm that follows work out they don't need them. I'd rather fry my brain with spreadsheets every day til it is over than toss it off for 12 weeks then see my career drift down the shitter in the worst jobs market in 200+ years.
Exactly that and well put.
It's a slog but at least I know where I am. When this started and I became the Chosen One, my boss said 'You do still want to be working, don't you?' 'No' is never the correct answer to that question, unless you're seventy.
We've started the discussion on "workforce of the future" internally which is all about can we move towards a more work from home friendly model. We really don't have the collaborative tool set at the moment to do it and I want them to actually give me a work laptop rather than weather mine. I'm loving wfh.
Back in next week. Apparently the number of kids coming in is way up, I’m in 5 days. The head said he’ll try to keep it so you’re down for a week then off for 3 but if numbers keep going up might not be able too. Apparently they’re more challenging children in now too.
Be good to have a more normal week though, see people and stuff.
Today is a terrible day at the office and really the only choice left is who to murder first: my boss; my largest German customer, Torsten von Boring; or a high street full of people. Probably not the latter, as there fucking isn't one available, so Torsten's getting the cruise missile straight into his meaty bockwurst.
Is this a threat or a come-on?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I start my new job on Friday and I haven't heard a thing. :D
Send them an email saying 'Just to confirm, I am ready to start on Friday as per xxx, please let me know anything I will need to know in advance. Look forward to commencing.'
Hurt my back doing that Joe Wicks workout. Moaned all morning but managed to play tennis this afternoon. They have new work for the kids too, they do an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, so was nice to do something normal at work too.
Woah woah woah. That’s way too proactive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Jimmy actually spelling it out for him
Heh. Reminds of me of our India dev today who is learning how to code a chatbot. My London guy said the answers for the questions are on confluence so just bring them into the tool for the q&a. Sent me feedback today saying the India guy is learning well but "needs to improve on attention to detail".Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The bot had been programmed
"For Outside business interests, a message should be sent to the relevant compliance officer. [PLEASE CHECK ON WORDING WITH JUDITH]"
Nailed it.
It's too needy. I am drafting an e-mail to send them on my first day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
"Hello?"
It's not needy, it's professional. This isn't dating. They've probably forgotten you exist and need reminding.
"too needy" holy fuck
Too needy. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Magic
You're such a cuck. You'll be watching your new mrs getting seen to from the wardrobe in no time.
He'll be wanting to tread carefully. He's already caused the liquidation of one company this month with his devastating put downs.
Y'know, I think I'd like working in the same office as Magic but not the same team. Our anxiety steampot went off on one before because we've been told we can have tomorrow off. There's not much work in, there's a big push for social distancing so I'll take a bonus day off. He turns to me and says, "I don't know what to make of this news." and then starts moaning and asking around for second opinions like we're being sacked.
Reminds me of one of my guys. When I told him he was being furloughed (on full pay, I might add) he said he'd have to speak to his wife before he would agree to it. I don't know why he thought he had a say in it.
Can we also take a minute to lol at Magic driving his company car all the way back to his former employer and then getting a hire car to drive home?
On a Sunday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
As if they hadn’t enough of a laugh after the exit interview. A slug has more of a spine.
It's all an act, don't you see? Magic was, is, and will always be, the ultimate embodiment of modern culture.
Wait until I post what they sent me back home in...:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
I’m going to guess at it having a sliding door.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
A company branded Fiat 500.
Correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggles
I'm just going to phone them today from my partner's mobile. No emails.
Why not from your mobile?
The Vodafone shop isn't open during lockdown.
His work took it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
I thought it was so they couldn't screen his call and not answer :D
This was where I went too.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
"No emails, I'm not leaving a trail!"
Probably because before it happened to them, approximately zero per cent of people understood the furlough scheme.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
Probably. I did try and explain it, why it was happening, and that their job wasn't at risk (quite the contrary), and everyone else seemed to understand. I still found his response amusing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Our bloke at work had his meltdown after we'd already had an early finish on Friday because of ... lack of work.
They called me. :cool:
What on?Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
It's always nice when your local MP listens.
Dear smiffy
Thank you for your email about the new starter furlough issues.
I signed EDM 377 last week and have been consistently clear in my support for people caught in the Chancellor's furlough trap. I have written to the Chancellor about this issue and continue to call for a fair system that guarantees people's livelihoods.
I have also written to the Chancellor about this matter, and you can read my letter here.
If there is any specific advice that you need regarding your benefit entitlement please feel free to contact my office on ---. I would like to offer my best wishes at this challenging time.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Tami
That was nice.
Anneliese Dodds sent a letter today undersigned by 36 MP's, Jeremy Corbyn amongst them, Jeremy Vine highlighted our campaign, Carol Vordoman has highlighted it. We're gaining traction.
I'm not going to lie chaps, this has been one of the hardest periods of my life. I've been to some shitty places before but I have never had everything taken away from me overnight. I have literally been eating every other day since the 19th April because I was running out of food and not a single penny to my name.
The stress has been insurmountable I've got to be honest. Fuck Covid, I've been having an invisible fight with the Chancellor more than anything during this pandemic because there's hundreds of thousands of us in my position.
I don't want to get too ahead of myself because yesterday's Economy update just floored me but today has been the best day in a while.
I feel blessed thanks to someone (you know who you are) and now I continue fighting for myself and for the masses amount of people who have been royally screwed over by this scheme.
Hope you don't mind me posting in here. Just, you know, it's hard and I've kept it in too long. I daren't tell my family the situation that I've found myself in because it would put undue stress on them too. I'll remember these days for as long as I live.
My shit company couldn't manage to divert my mobile properly so I can still receive calls.Quote:
Originally Posted by John
I did say name me in the post but anyway, you're welcome mate.
Skipped Joe Wicks today so no further back injuries. Played tennis and badminton for most of the day, along with making sure a lad with some behavioural issues behaved. It’s meant to rain tomorrow, which would suck so much as being able to just go out has been so useful.
It’s fun, I miss my actual job though. They’re apparently upping the amount of work they’re making the kids do before all the fun stuff though.
I was on a site yesterday til 7, which meant I wasn't home til nearly 9 last night, and they've rang me this morning at 7:16 the cheeky cunts. I think I could do with some self isolation.
What I had:
Toggle Spoiler
What they gave me:
Toggle Spoiler
What I am temporarily driving:
Toggle Spoiler
They've still not picked THE BUCKET up, so it's costing my company money every day it hides down the street from my house. Passive aggressive. :drool:
Anyway my new company phoned me yesterday, told me they'd been working on a new remote onboarding 3 week plan for me over the past couple of weeks. I'm getting my lappy and mobi today, for starting on Monday. This will be weird as fuck.
The guys are dead nice, had a barrage of emails and calls yesterday to sort out my personal mobile number as well (which my old company had diverted) and they've organised a dual SIM phone for me. They seem like a really great bunch. :)
Fuck my old place to the ground.
A mobile phone, you say? Like, a telephone, but you can take it around with you and answer it while not at your office desk?
I guess it seems like a big deal to me because I'd resigned myself to UNIVERSAL CREDIT and SUICIDE.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I think he's more mocking his own situation.
I can't as my speciality is fixed line telephony, so he may mock but it will never cease.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
No I meant that I thought Jimmy was referring to him being forced to work in the office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
Out of interest how are they doing three weeks of onboarding from home or have they not ironed that all out yet?
Webinars (including partner training ones), screen sharing, and mostly going over T&Cs and processes, plus the internal systems. I don't need any other onboarding in terms of industry or products which is such a massive advantage especially at this time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
It'll be extremely weird to be part of a team I've never met. Can't wait to get down there. Plus I don't have a company car until this is over. :eyemouth:
We were discussing this at work because our switch to WFH has (for the wider department we're in, at least) been very successful and we wouldn't be at all surprised if they look to make this the norm with smaller offices dotted about rather than paying whatever small fortune it is for an office in the middle of Glasgow. New starters were one of the main things we brought up because it'd be really hard to properly integrate into the team if you're only ever speaking to them on Teams or whatever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
The MD has just announced we will not be changing the furlough situation for 'the foreseeable future'. He says business is at '50-60%', though I know my territories are at 83% as of yesterday so I am clearly a fucking underpaid legend.
We got told last week that the first furlough rotation is happening in a couple of weeks so I guess the plan is to do it in 4 week blocks until things hopefully start improving again.
I hope you are pressing this home and dropping some serious hints about seeking a pay rise or a new position?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Not just now while we're locked in limbo, but once things ease up I will be making reference to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
What do you reckon? £50 Amazon voucher? It's what my lot would do.
I saw my pay was £38 higher than usual this month and wondered if El Presidente had chucked in a pack of toilet rolls each for keeping the ship afloat, but in fact it just seems to be some kind of tax change or variation that I can't be bothered to look up.
The woman I don’t like has been redeployed and now has people ringing her personal mobile asking boring council stuff like when are bins being collected and reports of broken alleygate locks. :drool:
Meanwhile I’ve watched Monsters Inc and Monsters University so far today.
I am wilting here. Mornings are OK but every afternoon the pressure just piles on relentlessly. Desperate customers, my 4 bosses all being different types of cunt simultaneously, absolutely no way of relieving the onslaught other than coming on here and venting. I need about 8 hours sleep at the moment when it would normally be 6.
The worst part is because I am the only one left to take phone calls (I would normally take like 20% of our incoming phone calls), any time I try to get anything meaningful done the phone rings 3 times in a row and it's fucked. Sometimes the phone will ring again while I'm still on to a customer, and it just rings into oblivion because there's no one left to handle it.
The same advice I have given twice previously applies. You need to do less. Much less.
If it's made you up your sleep from what was no doubt an insufficient 6 hours to a far more recommended 8 hours, I suggest you buy them a gift. They may well have saved you from a host of negative outcomes if you maintain it.
One of my 4 bosses (the one who loves my work, because it makes him commission) has promised me a 'restaurant blowout' when this is over, a nice gesture albeit one I don't expect to see redeemed this side of 2035.
I'm always so desperately in love with my co-workers but this one, however, is married with children.
But by God I tell you what if he fucked off with the kids :drool:
You’re a breakdown waiting to happen Jim if you try and keep this up. Tractor engines really don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things.
A pals company thinks the normal workforce returning to work will be a 2021 activity..
You got any decent noise cancelling headphones? Then you can just let the phone ring out when you’re trying to get something done.
What do you want me to do, quit and have no income? Or just sit there not doing work to be chased up on it an hour later?
In sales you can't really let things slide, it's not like project work. Either you get the deal or you don't. And it moves so, so fast in this industry. If you don't quote someone within a couple of hours they scream and cry until you do, as machine down costs them hundreds/thousands a day and we are often their only way out.
They transfer that desperation onto you, which in normal times is ok as there's a team around me and we all back each other up. Now it's only me, things are rather more stressful.
Can they not bring someone else back off furlough?
They're not going to, at least not before June.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
...because you’re running yourself into the ground trying to keep up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
You’re in a difficult spot absolutely, the point we are trying to bang home is you’re letting it bring down yourself and affect your mental health. Which is absolutely not the right thing to do. If you slow it down and work at a sustainable level and sales slip because of it (because there’s not enough support) the business will listen, or suffer for it.
What happens if you get sick? The company will need another solution. Keep banging the door about call divert and working from home.
Look after yourself. Vent all you need here, but the advice we are giving you isn’t likely to change.
Ps hope you have good snacks.
I’m back to being super fat again. Going to have to take up running. :(
This isn't your problem, it's your manager's. If you don't have enough bandwidth to address all the incoming sales then they will make less money - you need to be specific in a) your complaint and b) have a suggested solution to resolve it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Anyone in their position with half a brain would bring someone back from furlough and help lighten the load. Capacity planning is a fundamental management task.
Jim, I say this with love, but do you ever wonder if your managers take the piss because, well, because of this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
You are far too eager to please. Fuck the deal, fuck the sale, fuck the lost revenue. Your boss said it himself. They're running at 60% capacity. You said earlier that you normally shoulder 20%. You should have 2 coworkers in.
He's. Taking. The. Piss.
Another way of putting it is that I have a work ethic and that is maybe part of the reason why I am still earning a full salary and don't potentially have the axe hanging over me, like my furloughed colleagues do. There isn't a lot I can do about whether they bring furloughed colleagues back. If they paid me more to do this I'd be ok, but when the company has 25 people on furlough and are not sanctioning warehouse overtime because of that (even when it's in their interests to do so) then it's literally pointless bringing that up.
I've accepted the situation as the best way I have of paying the mortgage while a pandemic is on, but it is still knackering as fuck.
This. It's the ideal time to raise a concern Jim. You're grafting so you should be shouting about it and laying the ground work on your rise. Don't let them weasel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
Oh, I tell him every day that I am mental busy and it's hard to get everything done etc. That's very different to telling him how to do his job on the management side.
Every one of you up to now who has let this slide; we need to have words.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
I've started using 'capacity' just because other people do and it's got less repercussions than 'i'm busy, fuck off'
There's a bloke at work that 'touches base' left right and centre. I want to cut his face off.
Willy Loman over here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Was it on this board or the previous one we had a thread for all those hateful management phrases? 'Let's run that up the flagpole and see who salutes' should see you publicly hanged.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
That's just blue sky thinking.
"Backcomb the living shit out of this hairball" :D
I didn't have an opinion on Dominic Calvert Lewin before but that run of form before Corona and this from the other day and now he's firmly in 'Top Lad' territory.
He was having way too much fun with that. Rumours are going round India wants more bodies from us because of their lockdown. That would leave about 3 people in the office at this rate. It'd be another line on the CV, I suppose.
I don't know so I dunno if it's recent enough for me to have said that we started making them up to mock a manager at my old work (he loved a bit of "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" and "teamwork makes the dream work".) It was fun until he started using them.Quote:
Originally Posted by John
It's all well and good telling him you think the team should throw some ideas around in the think-wok and fry up some solutions but then the dickhead went "Yes! Brilliant! Exactly that!"
I don't think anything will disgust me more than seeing, "Get your nom on." in an email relating to a buffet. Management wasn't responsible for that one, thankfully.
One more for the thought fridge.
Let's circle back Let's circle back Let's circle back
I was rota'd in to work yesterday - 12 kids in school, half were absolute arseholes. Makes you wonder what these key worker parents are like. Then had a two hour meeting in the evening with my boss to determine this years GCSE History grades for our cohort. 75 kids discussed in a fair amount of detail. Ranking is quite hard though because you have to decide on their final grade and then across three classes (one for each of us and one shared) rank them in order - so these seven kids get a five, then you have to decide most to least likely to have achieved that. Difficult when you don't know each other's class. But aside from any SLT interference, it's done.
Just taken five to count up how many emails I have sent so far this week. 265 :cool:
Managed 86 on Monday, that is one every 5.87 minutes.
And this is how Jimmy goes crazy, treating this as a high score to be beaten.
You can set up a filter in outlook to count it for you. I have one for mails in - today's been relatively quiet with 150.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Can't you just highlight the mail from this week and it'll say "x items" or something?
Or just, not count them.
I will try and do that. I receive around 200 a day although 95% of them are external which makes it feel like about a thousand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
How?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
This is Jimmy at work by the end of May.
Don't worry, today I have discovered the chink in the froggy customers' armour: the Labour Day bank holiday. Been sat around here reading up on 90s football for hours.
Were you doing that anyway or has the thought of Euro 96 inspired you?
The latter, although it's a topic to be returned to on a regular basis.
Wife is keen on emigrating to Canada, a mate of mine did similar last year and now lives in a fucking mansion compared to the average UK house and I know he isn't making a mint. I would be up for it but the only person I know in my industry contracting over there is massive mates with my boss so can't really ask. Been searching about on some sites but not seen much relevant to my current job.
Mon then, Lofty mate. I’ll take you to the local amusement park.
Supposedly I qualify on points even without a job offer and both of our jobs are listed on the 2020 skills shortage list but finding relevant vacancies is a ballache.
You’re a locomotive engineer, yeah?
Engineer? I thought he just collected tickets.
I was a Train Conductor, which is a different job in the UK than over there. That said it isn't just selling tickets, you have operational responsibilities and have to pass regular knowledge and safety tests to remain 'competent'.
Now I am a planning manager responsible for crew movements.
Locomotive Staff Logistics Engineer.
What's your opinion on Wifi Extenders, Lofty?
Haven't a clue?
He's no Engineer.
I once resolved a train engine failure owing to an air pressure fault with a pen, averting a cancellation.
Wasn't Smiffy able to move to Canada without any problems? They must let everybody in.
Smiffy probably got in on a tourist visa, shat the job after 2 days and then moved back to Wales.
Dav lived there for a bit.
You can move without a job but I wouldn't, obviously.
I think Dav was there for a while. I was hoping to move there a while back and asked him about it. My takeaway from our chat was that they absolutely drown you in paperwork and if you miss a beat, you're out.
My cousin, who's entire work history in the 5 years since he turned 18 has been working part time at Tesco, moved there recently on a two year visa.
What does your mate do out there and where is he?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
Moved from BAE Barrow to Halifax Nova Scotia, last check think he was a draughtsman.
Come to Montreal Lofty :cool:
This is on an island in the middle of the river
https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1
Isn't Montreal one of the more expensive areas?
Nah. Toronto and Vancouver are where house prices have skyrocketed. Montreal is doing alright.
How much is a gaff over there. 3 bed, outskirts of a city, somewhere you won't get stabbed / shot?
What would be the point of moving to Montreal to work with trains? Just go to fucking France if that's your bag. Train Big Speed and all.
Jimmy I love ya, but you conflating allowing to be manipulated by your employers with "work ethic" comes from the same malfunctioning part of your brain that makes you vote Tory. Although I am happy to admit that me conflating being a lazy, ineffectual member of staff with sticking it to the man probably probably comes from the same malfunctioning part of my brain that makes me vote Labour. Eh, what you gonna do.
Its probably one of those questions you're better off not knowing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Saw a youtube video yesterday of some guy buying a €500,000 house in Texas and it was a mansion, lucky to get four decent bedrooms around here and they would had a swimming pool, triple garage, bar built into the swimming pool and every room was huge.
Free healthcare and less Covid. And America's close.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
He wouldn't be entitled to free Healthcare. I know where he is though.
I've always wanted to move somewhere else. Our house prices and cost of living are a joke. The mrs is too tied to her family though, so I don't think it'll ever happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
My God I love my new job already and I'm less than an hour in. MILES better than my previous joke of a company.
I made the mistake of doing that when I bought my first house. I looked within 10 miles of where my sister lived in Australia and could've got a fucking mansion with pool, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
You’d have to live in Australia though. That’s not a slight on Oz, I more mean that it’s all good saying about leaving home but a lot harder to do it. I know I definitely couldn’t live in another country again.
Why would I want to live in France? I'd be happy to move to Australia but she fears the 'killer Aussie animals' stereotype too much.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
It was more of a snide comment about Le Québécois than anything else.
Quebec truly the worst of all worlds, apart from the Bayou that is, and Pondicherry, Jesus.
Wait till she finds out about the camel's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
I’d love to move to Texas. Demoralising seeing the amount of house you get compared to here.
Just have to accept a hurricane may come and knock it over or flood it.
Yeah, wooden houses and endless land. My friend in Los Angeles pays London rent for a shithole surrounded by homeless people.
Arsed with LA and New York.
Live in the south and avoid Florida and you could live like a king.
Those massive houses might look tempting from afar, but trust me, they are always in disgusting suburbs and you definitely don't want to be living in those places.
Yeah, I mean it works on a smaller scale within the UK. You can get a bigger house for less money in Northern Ireland than you can in England but I don't see you all wanting to move here.
Massive houses are overrated anyway. You will sit on the same couch every single evening regardless.
There's a reason why houses are worth a lot in certain areas and less in others. Good old market forces, dontcha love'em.
I would like a pool table though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Having a giant house sounds great until you realise how much cleaning you'd have to do
*employ an ethnic minority to do
Or that.
I thought that too. I have used it probably less than 20 times in the 5 years we have had the house. Thank god I bought a second hand one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
A pool table would be brilliant.
My territories got placed number 1 for sales in April :D
Normally we're sat in about 7th behind the people who do the Middle East, the South American mining sector, the south east Asian fishing boat sector etc etc.
In other news, the boss just came in and said it'll be end of June before the furloughed people return. Happy days.
He's basically milking the scheme for as long as possible, then. You better hope it doesn't get extended.
Surely it can't be extended? The country will go bankrupt. Although I guess it's that or a shit ton of people get laid off on 1 July.
They've already extended it once for some reason, it wouldn't surprise me if they do it again.
My lot Furloughed a load of people today. They're paying the extra 20% as well. I'm not included. :moop:
That's how those things go. It is easier to just head to your local pub whenever you want to play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny
I employ a white woman to do mine. Am I doing it wrong?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
You should be applying a Phillipino to complete the circle of life.
As if pubs have pool tables in them these days. Take that pool table out and you can pack in another two or three tables and an extra 15-20 people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
We had our best profits for March April in 5 years but it would be the next three that would want to be worried about.
I haven’t seen a pub with one in years. The cues are too good a weapon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Is this an Irish thing? Every pub in Swansea had at least one pool table and they were legally obligated to serve drinks in plastic glasses in case a fight broke out most days of the week.
They just seemed to die out more than being a rule or anything. You’d see the odd one in a proper pub in the country but any built up areas would rather have the floor space too.
That was every weekend for me from the age of 16 to around 24. Pool on Friday and Saturday night in the pub, winner stays on among around 20 of us. We always used to be raging when he moved it away on a Sunday evening to clear the dance floor for the country and western band.
I've just done a 40 minute telephone interview with a news paper regarding the new starter bollocks. My anxiety levels went through the roof. :moop:
Imagine how the poor fucker on the other end of the line must be feeling.
40 minutes? Jaysus. Are you the only one being quoted in the story?
If you're actually pushing this forward Tim, I work in communications and I can provide some of our dos/donts when doing those sort of interviews. Really they're only looking for like 2-3 sentences to illustrate the point they already want to make so it's about hitting those. Happy to talk it through with you on another format.
I just spoken honestly about the situation as to how it affects me and others plus what could have been done, what could still be done to ensure many more are eligible etc.
I've never done anything like it but I've been at this for a solid month now. It's gone beyond getting furlough now, it's more the principle of the matter as it's just not right. Not just for me personally but for so many others. Every day the stories get worse, it's quite upsetting tbh so any advice is welcome advice.
He’s not wrong there, most of the pubs still have a pool table in around here, in awful, shoddy condition normally.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Only legally obligated to use plastic on match days though, so ample opportunity for glassing available.
Today I discovered I can really sabotage my productivity by downloading something through steam or PSN whilst working.
One in the house would be class though.
Especially in this day and age of no pubs.
I reckon with music or sport on the telly or something I could kill hours if I had my own pool or snooker table.
You’d probably really need to be single. Though the table would most likely take care of that anyway.
Yeah, that's the thing. It's always the dream, but if you ever even have a sniff at it there's a whole host of reasons why it isn't happening.
Until you go for one of those dining table flip jobs, to presumably take your weight when you decide to hang yourself.
I toyed with the idea of putting a dart board up again but I’ve a savage board setup in my Da’s attic and I should probably get that (whenever that happens) before buying.
Plus my brewing stuff is in the dartboard spot now.
No-one likes the better at pool than everyone else guy though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
'Oh Ian, potted 9 in a row again, good game'
That’s the only real way to get better.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
My boss has been in for the last half hour telling us how MENTAL Tiger King is.
He really does stray into Brent territory sometimes.
We have a wfh system in place, where I work 8.30/9-12 Mon-Fri, my wife works 1-5 Mon, Tue and Thurs. She's teaching music lessons over Zoom, which is handy as that keeps money coming in. Whoever isn't working has the kids, obviously, and as I know my wife is teaching most of the time I wouldn't dare dream of just walking in to get something and manage to keep our 3 year old from walking in constantly, but this doesn't seem to be a courtesy she can return me. Presumably she thinks it's ok as I'm not 'live' teaching constantly but even when I am in Teams meetings (and I tell her) she will still come in. It's doing my head in a little bit and I might have to say something, but in the nicest way imaginable because I think lockdown is making us (and the kids) a bit cranky and that shit will escalate quickly.
No locks in your place?
You have locks in your place other than on the bathroom?
Once you have small kids locks are a bit of a liability, as well as being weird.
I don’t even have a lock on my bathroom.
Same. Its obvious if someone is in the bathroom anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
When we moved into our house one of the bedrooms had a lock on the door but you could only lock the door from the outside. Like they were locking a child in the room. Nasty stuff.
https://cdn.homedit.com/wp-content/u...r-bathroom.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Andy
I don't know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kikó
As others have said, only lock is in the bathroom. Considering a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign instead. Or a tie on the door handle.
I've seen well to dos on twitter who put flashing bike lights on the door as their other halves don't pay attention to signs.
One of our joint managing directors has just been fired :drool:
Absolute juice central.
Is that the useless one?
They are both useless, but no, this is the massively corrupt Indian one. The David Brent one lives on.
It was a cracking announcement email too. 'Please note that xxx is no longer employed by the company.' Ends.
Have you found out why?
No, but he has a long history of being a naughty boy (including a stint in prison for fraud) so would imagine some continuation of that.
He will live long in my heart for, at the company conference last autumn, beginning his speech with: 'Women do not make reliable employees, some say, but I have seen differently at this company' in a room containing at least 20 women. Nearly shat myself there and then.
The remaining MD came in this morning, told me how well I was doing and to expect to be 'rewarded' at the end of the year. Fucking believe that when I see it. Or maybe he'll give me one of the free company baseball caps.
Put it in an email and make sure they respond so it’s captured in writing.
Also, document in the email exactly what you’ve been doing above and beyond.
Did you get a sense of satisfaction? Or are you still stressed to high heaven beyond caring?
Don't give a fuck, as I am well aware of what I'm achieving, and he isn't the one who decides such things anyway, though he could probably recommend it to the chairman.
I would get laughed out of town if I put that in an email. Remember this is a company employing 50/60 people but which doesn't have an HR function. It's cowboy central. Most of the tension in management seems to be this guy trying to modernise things as MD, while being pushed back by the 81 year old chairman who says 'Well we didn't do this in 1965, so why should we change now?'
Are you on commission, Jim?
Maybe you'll get the new MD spot.
In one of my previous jobs I worked for a fairly large insurance broker which was very much like this. No HR department nowhere for staff to go when they have an issue with management. When I started they had around staff it's now up to around 1000 if not a bit bigger and they still have no HR department my missus still works there and it will never change. Because they have made a success of the business over the past 20 years then the way they do things is the best. For example they only promote managers from within so no new ideas ever come into the company but they don't see that as an issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
lol, no. I have a field manager (one of my 4 separate bosses) who is. He is my biggest ally and always goes into bat for me with the big dogs, which is probably why I'm still here and not on furlough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
I won't get a promotion any time soon but I do have my eye on maybe getting my own office, as there should be one coming up vacant pretty soon and I'm the only fucker here.
I have to say wall-to-wall video calls is absolutely draining...I didn't appreciate how horrific remote onboarding would be. Fuck this.
You're getting a tractor. That short week got even better. Early finish today and off on Monday. Despite the government's lockdown announcement, we're sticking with working from home for the time being.
Jimmy on tour
https://i.ibb.co/PmJr7Md/20200510-145705.jpg
About right apart from the part where it insinuates I'm a key worker.
Cars have keys.
I don't deal with cars. I do however deal with crankshafts and they have keys, so you're spot on I guess. I'm basically one of those dead nurses, except I'm still alive and no one has chalked anything about me on the pavement.
I hope you’re out lapping it up when they clap for you.
And you're not getting free takeaways.
Everyone around here has 'Thank you bin men :)' and so on chalked on their front drive by bored children, but do those children stop to think what would happen if there wasn't a ready supply of spare parts for those bin lorries' engines? Ungrateful little shits, and the parents are worse.
where are you lookingQuote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
To be honest I was more looking at what was available and working around that, British Columbia sounds nice but my mate lives in Halifax, NS and that also appeals. I think if we did move it would be for the bigger house, more country style living than metropolitan lifestyle so likely feature me commuting in from wherever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Panda Bear
if you're looking at BC and want a house without dying from international speculation, you should look at these three: Langley, Abbotsford, and Chilliwack. you're close enough to drive in to Vancouver whenever you want. if you don't want to drive and rely on metro lines instead, you'd have to go to Coquitlam or Surrey. Coquitlam is right by water, tho, so that's a bonus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
https://cdn.thecrazytourist.com/wp-c..._489233848.jpg
if Vancouver/the ocean isn't that important to you, I believe CP Rail runs through Kamloops (I'm assuming you need a rail job), which is some hillock in the Okanagan Valley that's pretty gorgeous.
https://images.glaciermedia.ca/polop...n-kamloops.jpg
Halifax is a gorgeous, old-for-Canada city (although technically it is now a county that includes Dartmouth and Bedford). the Maritimes are well known for how relaxed and chill they are, and you'd be right by the water.
you can also try out Moncton in New Brunswick. three hour drive from Halifax. Moncton will be even cheaper. the knocks against the Maritimes are 1) their depressed economy and 2) Atlantic snow, so a snowstorm can sometimes hit for 2-3 feet.
https://downtownmoncton.com/wp-conte...owntown-34.jpg
if you're willing to put up with a disgusting winter in exchange for a glorious summer full of boating and fishing, you could also check out Kenora in Ontario, which is two hours east of Winnipeg (the nearest big city).
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/RWXA0D/aer...ada-RWXA0D.jpg
Ah, Halifax. Once home of the world's largest man-made explosion.
Entering the last rotation around my law firm before (hopefully) qualifying in September and just found out that my final 4 months will be in the department I want to qualify into. Phew.
Should know by end of the month whether they'll be keeping me on from September but so far so good.
Are you working from home?
MC?
@mo @ScousePig
Have you teachers been told when you’re expected to be back?
My wife (teaches year 6) has just been told she’s back full time from June 1st, and the school will be completely closed to kids and staff the week prior while it is “deep cleaned.” It’s outrageous they’re actually going ahead with it.
Childcare is gonna be a problem. I’ll probably end up doing my work in the evenings and just looking after my daughter through the day. Obviously not ideal!
Does she not go to nursery yet? We're facing the prospect of my wife (primary TA) having to go back to work sooner than me (secondary teacher), but we have the option of childminder/nursery at least, although not sure how to feel about that as from what I've read it seems fairly evenly split between people saying kids spread it/kids aren't affected.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
We've not had anything about a return to work date, but an email from the head today to say their seeking clarification on the situation with Y10s and 12s.
Unfortunately I think the unions trying to protect school staff are going to get swallowed up by the right wing media and it'll become 'lazy selfish teachers refuse to work like our NHS heroes'. It's already underway.
Take that, Mike.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Today it sounded like our company chairman (an 81 year old man in self quarantine) is pushing for those working from home to return to the office asap. Not sure what part of the government guidelines he has been reading.
The arrogance of rich men is breathtaking sometimes.
The state of recommending fucking Kenora, Ontario as a reasonable place to live. :D
You okay, Panda?
Northern Ontario is the fucking pits. I spent 3 months in Sudbury (that's only an hour flight form Toronto) on a client engagement and wanted to hang myself, and that was only M-Th.
I have a work call on Teams every morning at 9:15. They’d only booked them all the way until this week, presumably hoping everything would be back to normal by now, so the questions gone out whether they ought to be less frequent. Looks like they’re only gonna be twice a week from now on.
Moar skiving :drool:
Our daily Teams call is the guaranteed skive.
This morning we were looking at z-list celebrities on Cameo.
That’d just piss me off. They’re my colleagues not my mates.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
If work isn’t discussed, why am I wasting my time? I can realistically do my work in 2 hours everyday, but sometimes have to spend another hour making small talk with them. I tend to just minimise it and work away, with the camera and mic off, but I’m there and officially at work and can’t get told off.
Sounds like a positive working atmosphere.
Baz has a proper Jekyll and Hyde situation going on between arch banterlord and miserable shite who has a tantrum about desk moves.
There are days on our call where I don't get involved much because I'm not in the mood but it's basically time set aside for sanctioned skiving.
The Chairman has apparently relented on bringing back people from working from home, after it was pointed out to him that if the 2 remaining people in each department both gave each other CV the company wouldn't be able to function, but he still had a massive tantrum about it. Such an entitled tossbag.
He sounds like a sitcom character that, on screen, would seem like a caricature.
He is a self-made rich man, and in my limited experience they tend to be the most arrogant people on earth, genuinely believing that the fact they have made money and employ people puts them above the law.
He's also 81 and self-quarantining in his palace in Virginia Water, so lol.
Thanks for the indepth guide! The water would be nice but not essential. The wife prefers rural areas with woodland as that is where she grew up. Travelling on the metro would be decent especially if I could get a job with them as it would eliminate one cost, I have been commuting to work for free for nearly 15 years so would be a bonus to avoid paying now. All comes to down to the right jobs opening up though which I can't see at the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Panda Bear
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian
Yeah, I've been working from home for 8 weeks now and quite enjoyed it tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Magic circle? If so then nah, not my bag. Working for a national firm in Cambridge and it's been a really nice place to work for the past two years so I'm happy with my non-London decision. Saying that, I imagine my partner will want to move back to Kent one day though so I'd probably switch to our London office if/when that happens.
Fair play, thought you might have ended up following that well trodden path.Quote:
Originally Posted by AyDee
it's gorgeous in the summer!! they could live in a cabin on a lake island and boat to town in the summer or drive on the ice roads in the winter!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
:D
(my wife's from there)
The proximity to the thriving metropolis of Winnipeg must also be seen as an absolute win.
Winnipeg is mad cute, you haterQuote:
Originally Posted by Luca
Describing a city as cute sounds like the words of a deviant.
Just had our daily Teams call there and one of the guys who is a notorious bullshitter was sitting in a normal but slightly different room to what he normally is. Didn't think anything of it until he lifted his arm to grab a drink or something and it flickered like mad as the Teams custom background thing does.
Had a closer look and he was obviously using the Teams background function just to be in a slightly nicer room. If you're going to pretend your house is nicer than it is have a bit of ambition, man.
I'm so bored of getting 150 emails a week from KS3 kids with their work (some of which is brilliant, some of which is laughably shit, like no effort has been made whatsoever) and just giving the same old response thanking them for sending it and their effort. Just counting my lucky stars that out of the thirteen classes that I teach, only around half are bothering.
I've got to host an 'online lesson' in a bit with my year 12 class who are so apathetic it is painful. One's dropped off the face of the planet, one's doing really well and the other two are so lazy it's unreal. They can't even be arsed to get out of bed for 11am (when I normally do my lessons).
I need a change of school and to be back in the classroom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ian
How does “secondment” work? Been sent a “secondment opportunity” basically doing the same job in the same building, but for a different employer (ikr :cab:) who happen to pay a fair bit more for the same roles at my place.
Their staff member “has taken a different 12 month secondment position” leaving this one open. It’s for an initial 3 month period, with the possibility for further extension. Presumably to test you’re not useless before committing to the full 12 months.
How is that different from the standard “temporary contract” stuff? Can I expect to just waltz back into my current job after the 12 months is up? If not, why do people risk their current job to go do something else (or EXACTLY THE SAME, in my case) only to lose their actual job when the person whose seat you’ve kept warm returns?
My idea is I’d be so good they’d keep me on and I’d basically be giving myself a payrise, but obviously that might not happen.
It's as you say. You 'temp' in a role, then return to your original post upon completion.
Although quite often Secondments get made permanent.
What if my current bosses are like ‘nah’ though?
They could theoretically make you redundant.
All the sorts of question you should ask your employer.
Also, does it open opportunity at the other company. What guarantees do you have at your own place?
I’d be a bit hesitant outing yourself into no mans land in the current climate. You either want to be on the good books and critical to your current organisation or the other one. If you’re expendable at both it’s fucked.
You basically continue to be employed by your current employers, and they are lending you out to the other mob (and probably pocketing the sweet sweet agency monies themselves) so you still have a job at the end but you probably don't see the payrise unless you go permanent at the new place. No?
Oh right. No payrise during the secondment = no thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by niko_cee
Also I currently work for the local council and it would just be switching to the NHS/CCG, rather than actual companies, and they are supposedly a partnership but they’re not really.
I initially got told that we would survive the lockdown and that I would still have a job to go to but we got told otherwise over the weekend. Owners current stance is they plan on opening just one of the three restaurants as a trial run to see how things go. This year has been such a write off. :moop: I'm not sure if I am upset or just bitter but either way I feel so insecure as far as employment goes that I think I just need to bite the bullet on the head, sod off home and jump right back into care. At least it's guaranteed work and allows me to start earning properly again then maybe see what happens moving forward before I decide on my next step because quite simply my mind cannot hack this bollocks any more. FML.
FM and Spotify has been a saviour this weekend.
In your position I'd move back into care work and reassess once the hospitality industry is back on its feet.
Obviously not ideal but you just dont know how long you're going to be out of work and without the furlough scheme to help it's an impossible position.
I'd sell my arsehole on the streets before becoming a care worker. Especially in current climes.
Well you've got the technique down.
It's probably the easiest line of work given my experience and I do think I would enjoy it still. I really enjoy cooking still but not in this moment and I'm convince that even when such places to reopen it's not going to last. I just don't see how it can be done whilst distancing. Kitchen alone you're bumping and grinding so God knows what the front would be like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy
Not a great deal else I think I could jump straight into tbh and the only thing that concerns me most about going back into care is that going home means I'll be staying with my mother for a short time and that in itself brings issues but my sister had to move in during all this rubbish and she goes in and out of care homes all day every day so I'm sure we can make it work somehow. I can't survive on Universal Credit and already I reckon I have forfeited about £3,000 in earnings since end of March so as shit as it is, I think things will be a lot shitter if I don't start earning again soon. I don't have many bills but enough to cause me a few issues if left unpaid much longer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
I guarantee when I go home that absolute cunt Rishi Sunak will dish out the news I've been waiting for nearly two months.
My nights at Tesco were still the most enjoyable job I've held to date, can't you jump on that? The fucking honesty and autonomy of it all made me feel so alive :drool:
+1 for Tesco Night shift. Easiest job I ever had. Especially if you get a night shift at the Petrol Station. You post the odd Mars Bar through the hatch but other than that you can do what you want for £8 an hour plus that sweet, sweet anti-social hours weighting.
The only thing that stopped me enjoying the night shifts I've done is the sleep schedule.
I’d love to do nights again but I don’t think I’d be able for it any more. Monday to Friday is such a shit way to work.
Do they not let people into the shop?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Not after a certain time.
It was like that in Mexico too, I didn't imagine Britain would need it though.
It's only the Petrol Stations that do it. The 24 hour shops let people in whatever the time. For some reason, people just enjoy holding up Petrol Stations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoonsky
It gives them a place to park nearby for a swift getaway. And it's staffed by one person. And there's always cash on the premises.
Most of Europe has them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoonsky
A friend of mine has been living the tesco night shift dream for years now and said you can basically get your headphones in and just crack on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoonsky
I spent a decade of my life working shifts desperate to go 9-5 Monday to Friday and am happy enough. Even though I work more days a year this way I can plan my free time around others easier, plus the nature of my work means I never have an issue taking time off when I want it. On shifts it was a constant battle to get holidays approved, I remember once I applied for every saturday I had to work in March off and was approved for none.
We've had a fun few days at the office.
First of all, the 81 year old owner (quadruple bypass last July) decided on Monday he would bring an end to his shielding and start coming into the office every day again. Now, whilst he does own the building, this strikes me as fucking idiotic on a number of levels (50% of his workforce is furloughed with others working from home), and wasn't helped when he wandered around the very few places where there's anyone in and telling us we were all very lucky because there are people in the country who have no jobs and are struggling to eat. This may be true, but it is hardly motivating, and just sounds to me like laying the groundwork for freezing/cutting pay.
Next, the logistics lady basically has a breakdown as business has picked up and with her team furloughed, the workload is far too much for one person. She begs the MD to make the Chairman get one of her people back from furlough, working from home, so that things are more manageable. MD goes to Chairman, and the request is granted but not to work from home - the Chairman, you see, does not believe in working from home (government regulations be damned). So he tells logistics lady that she can only have someone back from furlough if they come into the office on full hours. This is a farcical condition, not least because the person in question is a single mother with childcare issues. So the request is ultimately turned down (or 'parked' as the MD helpfully put it), and logistics lady quite literally goes and cries in the ladies' for about half an hour while the Chairman goes back upstairs to stroke his white cat for the rest of the day.
I've learned a lot during this episode about the arrogance of rich men, particularly self-made rich men.
Awful pity she wasn’t set up to walk with no notice.
That's where the logistics lady needs to find a diplomatic way of saying 'not doing this will cost you a load of business you silly old cunt'.
What does he think he loses from having a staff member work from home?
She used that one up last week when he tried to bring all the workers from home back into the office en masse, finally relenting when it was pointed out that if one of them brought the virus then a whole department could go down and the company would basically cease to trade.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
It's a very simple problem really, old man used to one thing won't adapt or change his ways.
Sounds like he needs to be persuaded to retire.
That seems innocent enough until you say it in your accent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
I fucking love getting this sort of email (from a legitimate local company, as far as I can see) on a Friday:
I love the idea that someone must have been sitting at IBM, received such an email and thought 'Fuck! I knew we were missing something all this time!'Quote:
Hi Jimmy,
In these difficult times I thought you might be interested in taking a look at our ‘Marketing Continuity’ guide.
It explains how, even if you are operating with a smaller or remote team, we can continue to create a steady stream of qualified new business opportunities. Opportunities that we can also help nurture remotely via email or telephony.
The guide will outline the strategies we are currently using to maintain sales pipelines for clients as diverse as Boots, Dun & Bradstreet, VMware, Broadcom and IBM.
Please let me know if you would like a guide sent over to you.
Many thanks for your time,
Are you looking forward to your new business opportunities? Getting Carburettors onto the shelves at Boots would be some achievement.
Dunno but I assume 'sales pipelines' is something to do with the exhaust manifold.
Blazing row this morning between logistics lady and the MD, it was quite awkward to be sat there witnessing it.
The MD's position seemed to be that because someone is currently working from home, it means they should also expect to work the hours they would otherwise be commuting. An interesting take which I haven't heard before, I'll give him that.
However the end result is they are actually going to bring 1 person back from furlough on Monday, albeit not in a way that will have any impact on me.
That's incredible. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I don't think he actually meant it, or knew what he was saying, but as an emotional response it's telling.
It's genius :D
A friend of mine had a similar argument with his line manager about a decade ago. He was living about an hour away from work and used to get in at 8:30am to avoid school traffic (9am start). He eventually got fed up and moved a 5 minute walk away.
After a few days of turning up at 8:50am every morning, his manager took him aside and told him it wasn't on, and he needs to arrive at 8:30am as he had been for the last 6 months. The manager also said he was still "taking the piss" because he's saving 2 hours of his commute every day, and by rights he should actually be arriving even earlier due to the time saved.
Luckily an email to the MD had the manager apologising before the end of the day.
Does.... does he think people are being paid to commute?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Reminds me of the Windows XP days: "You should be logged on and ready to work at 0900" even though it took about 20 minutes to logon and run all the scripts.
Logistics lady was having a (justified) moan about never taking a lunch break during this period, often working well beyond hours, and her working-from-home colleague doing the same, as part of her continued campaign to get someone else back from furlough. (Yesterday we did over 100 sales jobs which is impossible for two people to ship, so about 25 went unshipped, in a time-critical industry).
For some reason that triggered MD into a fury: 'Well she's not commuting is she?! How about that?! An hour each way?! She can't say she's doing more hours!!!!'
All the funnier due to the ream of empty desks/chairs in the office as the fury echoed around.
Can you not bundle him in a box of tractor engines or whatever to the furthest possible destination?
I mean it's not like there'll be anybody there to witness it anyway.
Well ... you can't knock that kind of passion for the job at 80, I guess. :D
My place tried something like that. It started when one of the courts moved a hearing from Chelmsford to 9am at Cambridge. Upon asking how he'd get the extra travel time back, they said 'well, you start at 9 and it's at 9', implying that replacing his 12 minute normal commute with a 2-3 hour battle with rush hour should be take on the chin.
The plot has thickened this morning. Basically, all my team members were furlough from 1 April and their responsibilities divvied among the few people who are left - as the remaining junior I got all the mopping up stuff like answering every phone call, a few extra national markets, and doing all the admin that can only be done from the office. Other bits went to the manager working from home.
Today the MD phoned up one of my furloughed colleagues and asked him to come back in for a week from Monday, in order to relieve the pressure on me. You can claim furlough for minimum of 3 weeks in a month, so if he only did one week and then went back it would be fine. This furloughed colleague (according to MD's acccount) responded by having a massive whinge, asking why he had to come in and couldn't work from home, saying he was a 'stickler for rules' (not sure what that means) and eventually accepting in a huff, saying he had no choice.
I've no idea who's right and wrong, really, but am just chilling like a boss on the moral high ground. The whatsapp group is fucking quiet :cool:
We're on a Zoom call (why, when we pay for Teams, I couldn't say) for a Q&A with our CEO and senior managers, etc. and at the start they didn't realise that IMing the guy sharing his desktop would cause Teams messages to pop up for everybody in the meeting.
"Have you clocked the question from [person]???"
I'm guessing it was a shiter.
Our briefing today basically said we're at home for the forseeable. ~10% will return to the office in the UK but no one will have to if they're not comfortable.
Batted away my "well provide the equipment to wfh then and don't expect us to self supply" question though which is crap.
I had a VC with a company yesterday who said their boardroom has been open for social distancing meetings for weeks as their clients don't want to do business or sign contracts over the phone or video call.
So deals will be done in person. Interesting we might see the operations and engineering divisions of businesses pushed to the home. Lol at that when they are fucking bad enough working together in person...
Yeah we're not gonna be back in the office any time soon and even when it opens it sounds like they won't force anybody back. I think there'll be a big change for us and we'll be able to do as we please, within reason.
Back in full time for 5 of the next 7 weeks then done for the summer.
They’ve split people into groups, I’m with the key worker kids.
They’re allowing each of the 3 year groups in for 2 weeks each. Starting with Y6
At this point the plan is to have all the students come back to campus in August, but we'll see. I hope they do come back, because we need their money, but the FEAR FOR THEIR LIFE brigade is out there spamming emails of how we should just do it online. I understand their concerns, but I don't want to take a paycut to feel safe, so I say let them all in.
I was meant to be back in Monday, but it has been put back an extra week because 'the committee' doesn't want over a certain amount of people in the office. It seems unlikely that relevant guidance is going to change in that extra week to allow it, so they're either wasting a week or it's going to get rolled over and over (and we will all rotate in and out). I suspect they will have worked it out on people vs overall floor space, but I work in a separate office that most of the others can't access, so I can see it getting rolled over because they're going to be idiots about the entire thing.
Unless there's a secret corridor to your office that only you access, you'll be staying home. Our office has now opted to use side entrances but you still need to walk round to the main entrance turnstiles to gain access to the place. They're not really solving a problem.
Lol at anyone in the public sector at this point. I've been using the same doors, the same bogs, the same kitchen, the same corridors, the same equipment throughout the peak of the pandemic and I'll be using the same until depressed wages starve me to death. This is business.
I was on the phone to my parents yesterday and my mum was telling me there’s a white van following the lorry around so the driver and worker are separate.
Enjoy that climate activists.
Work was given 2 hours notice that they’ll be in charge of all the phone calls related to contracttracking andtracing. Thankfully I’m considered too vital in my usual duties to be one of the mugs speaking to people on the phone offering advice and whatever other shite they’ll be doing.
I’ve never loved invoices more. :arry:
That's a massive bullet dodged. That must be the only job worse than Shinners one.
Shinners is so enthusiastic about it too getting personally attached.
Commendable and yet absolutely baffling.
Arsed being someone phoning someone and asking them to lock themselves up for 14 day, mid summer.
When you put it like that it sounds like there's massive scope for scamming people you don't like.
What seems to have happened with us is that our parent unit however many miles away has come up with a space vs staff formula for its own building, which is one of those open-plan, New Labour spaces full of timewasters and useless women who can work from home, and then applied it across the board. The pass-the-responsibility meeting on that one must have been impressive.
Month's figures are in, my territories achieved 8% GROWTH on May 2019. It's like Greece winning the Euros, if this doesn't get recognition at the end of the year they can go fuck themselves.
Meanwhile, 81 year old chairman has flown to Milan :D
Didn't feel he was exposing himself to enough Coronavirus here?
Just been invited to participate in an eight minute moment of silence (for the 100,000 covid deaths + that lad who was killed by a cop) via Zoom. :cab:
Eight minutes?
Firstly that's a seriously long time to be silent, secondly why 8?
I don't know.
Maybe it is some sort of test.Quote:
Please join a moment of silence with [Dean of Engineering] No audio and no video. The meeting will last 8 minutes.
How does that constitute a 'meeting'?
Lol
His daughter lives there, it's his 82nd at some point in June and he wants to be with the family, or, to put it more accurately, he wants the family to be with him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
Absolute loon.
'No audio and no video' hahahaha.
That's done me in. What cunt thought that up and what is the point?
Team building? Fuck knows.
I feel like in any other situation this geezer would be a classic national hero, like the seventy-seven year old I work with who planned to commute in on his motorbike if they asked him to stay off the train.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
He's dying of natural causes. Heroic.
Someone in our warehouse was un-furloughed on Friday and came back in this morning.
Got to 10.45 before he was phoned by a contact tracer and told to self-isolate for 7 days :D
:D
The fact that part time furloughing is allowed in a month is going to be brilliant, and I'm delighted they brought the date forward.
One of my colleagues is back in this morning for 1 week (he will then be off for the rest of the month), which apparently is allowed under terms of the furlough. I haven't read them but presume our MD has if he's done that.
Lazy fucker still doesn't answer the phone.
Superb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Has the old man taken it predictably well? Or is he too busy necking Prosecco in Rome or wherever he went?
I was spot on with our methodology for bringing people back, it's just after one director is sufficiently (ie even vaguely) inconvenienced by covering their work.
And by covering I mean mostly ignoring.
I don't think the old man cares about warehouse people, they are scum beneath his level. With me, he knows who I am but doesn't always remember my name (the company is only like 50/60 people, so he probably should).
How easy would it be for this worker to have had his friend call him posing as a contact tracer and get a free extra week off?
If he tests positive has that they fucked the entire company onto isolation?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Probably quite easy. I just heard him go in and tell his boss.Quote:
Originally Posted by mugbull
That's superb. :D
The track and trace people send an isolation form for your employer and chances are he will just get sick pay.Quote:
Originally Posted by mugbull
Three weeks is the minimum time someone can furloughed, but there's no minimum time betweeen furlough periods. I brought back an admin person for 3 days to bring the books up to date and send out a few invoices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
We've had an absolute shambles this week.
One of my colleagues was brought back for a week (as above) to reduce the pressure on me. Obviously, once he was here the managers all liked that he was here (it's become evident in this period how much the lazy commission earning twats rely on us salarymen to actually do any work), and last night the decision was taken by MD in the office to keep him on for the rest of the month. MD informed me, and I said I was glad as having him around takes the pressure off me.
Fast forward to this morning, and the decision has been reversed. Yes, that's right, El Presidente has phoned in from his fucking villa and said that the furlough stays, thus completely undermining his own managing director and putting me back in the shit on my own. Oh well, I'm kind of used to it by now.
LOL so the leasing companies have rocketed the cost of HYBRIDs since April and the new tax laws came out as the demand is so high. That means you can pick up pretty sweet cars for a low monthly cost because nobody wants them due to such high BIK rates but the eco cars are expensive as fuck. So only senior management and directors, yes the highest paid guys, have it in their bands. Fucking RACKET.
I think next time you're changing company you should let us help you choose a prospective employer. You seem to have a knack for choosing nutters of one variety or another.
EDIT: Out the way, Magic.
DWP's approved our automation trials. :uhoh:
New school rota came out yesterday morning, giving me two days notice to organise child care. Twats.
Did you see in Scotland the summer holidays next year is when they're going to make up for lost days this year? We're taking to the streets lads.
In addition to this, they have decided that the two metre rule is an iron law, rather than just guidance, so we can only have so many people in in case two of us need the toilet (or want to use the kitchen, use the same corridor, etc.) at once and can't agree to take turns. Consequently, they will be rotating us in and out on certain days as not to exceed whatever formula they have to adhere to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
What happens when HMG change it to 1m in a couple of weeks' time?
They'll probably spend about six weeks adjusting the formula.
I think your experience of actually performing against the odds is going to be the story in a fair few places, apparently my wife's work is actually beating last year's figures despite the majority of the workforce being furloughed. Think that bodes ill for the furloughed though.
I like to imagine they've roped off safe walking paths around the whole office with a one-way system, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Open plan offices should make that easy, to be fair. Our team now only has four people in.
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-em...orking-at-home
Work have shared this link in the Teams chat. Does it mean I'll get some free money after all this? :drool:
:moop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
Social care workers being given £500 extra in Wales, tax relief for those working from home, furloughed workers being able to take second jobs, grants for businesses that didn't even earn as much as said grant......fml.
:moop:
I got £200 something off the job centre. That's a months wage apparently. Sickening.
Swish
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...graeber-reviewQuote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
Bring on UBI :nodd:
What happens (and I'm watching this unravel in real time in my workplace) is they realise that the fewer people you have, the more 'productivity' there is per person.
The most useless bloke in my team I really can't see getting back at the end of this. In a sense it's deserved, because he's fucking useless, but then why was he employed in the first place?
That bullshit is never happening. Not that any of us will ever see anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
This happened after the recession too, they'll be fucked for 5 years whilst the good employees boost business. More staff required to deliver the boom and thus the fuckwit army come back with a vengeance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Yep - easier to hide guff when you have more people. Necessary to hire to avoid burnout (Hello Jimmy!) but there is a balance between hiring well and filling your company with deadweight.
Bullshit jobs. In reality, most companies are overstaffed as they're still operating on pre-digital era principles. Technology has made everyone more efficient but there are more people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Plus human system trend towards entropy over time. I'm convinced the biggest cohesive organisational unit achievable is a football team, everything after that is bad noise and HR departments.
The way my work records how much you're doing makes things so easy. It's based entirely on the number of cases you've worked and the number of tasks carried out.
I had a long email exchange earlier, pretty much all 1 line jobs, and it's taken my tasks up to 50% of the total work completed for the day. I've been sat scratching my bollocks and twiddling my thumbs ever since. I just need to stop being in any way concise to make full use of this going forward.
I'd love that kind of structure.
The bell tolls. The most useless guy in my team has been made redundant.
I quite enjoyed the MD's method of communicating this: walking around the office repeating 'Yeah, so I've let X go' every few paces.
The measures put in at work were a lot less stupid than I imagined, so that is something. Apparently senior management is just completely deferring to the unions, knowing full well that they will just refuse anything and everything, and then acting as if they can't make any decisions. That sounds about right.
Odds of having a job in 2021 look a tad bleak, currently.
I know the feeling.
Rainy day fund is a must.
After 3 years with my company I've got a promotion (well, more a sidestep). Currently Assistant Team Leader dealing with escalations, dickheads etc. As of Monday I'm working IT/Back Office, doing timesheets, allocating work, paysheets, stock business emails and IT support.
No more customer facing bollocks, lets go.
Fuck me I have dealt with some cunts today. First of all there was some twat from Norfolk who claimed 'not to have the capacity' to place an online order. How did he find our number, in the fucking Yellow Pages? Then some French cunt, by which of course I mean a French person, phoned up and said that an order he placed two weeks ago was not an order, but the 'preview of an order' and he didn't understand why we'd invoiced him and delivered the goods. I said why didn't you tell us this when we sent the email confirmation two weeks ago. He said he had been 'out of office' for two weeks and not checked his emails. Come on, Jean-Pascal, not even the French are that fucking useless, you lying piece of shit.
Finally, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, some prick in Madrid cancelled a £1,000 order he had placed the previous day because of 'slow delivery time'. I mean, mate, the thing weighs 150kg, did you want us to send it strapped to a magic teleporting donkey?
The climate is so impossible now, people just won't spend money.
It's a tremendous thing DS. :drool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Soldier
Well done!
This wholesale thing is a piece of piss as well, provided your company has an excellent proposition.
I've done nothing and my commission this month is £1,900. My resellers place the orders themselves.
I may have said before that I think the most unreasonable customer I've even spoken to was a woman who was threatening to call the police on the Student Loans Company for STEALING HER PASSPORT. That she had posted to them with the full knowledge that it might not get processed for whatever timescale they were telling people at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I once had a customer kick off because, on a plate on their dining set, the supplier had molded a cock and balls onto it. Clear as day. They got a full refund and kept the item for a 'conversational' piece.
:D
That's excellent.
Was trying to think of others and I think all my best ones were on the phones for Student Loans Company. You got some proper mongos.
Also a big fan of the guy who Scottish Power cut off because he'd rigged his meter to power heatlamps for cannabis and got his mum to call up and sort it out for him.
There was also the woman who sent in images of her damaged furniture but also attached three images of her post breast surgery shots.
Luckily I do mostly B2B but the rare encounters with the general public do not make me want to meet any more of them. The combination of rude and thick as shit is the current trend in the UK.
I had someone say 'one fourth' rather than a quarter earlier and it struck me so odd that it left me completely unable to follow the rest of the sentence.
The best whacko I had was a bloke who had a fine for not having a TV Licence.
He refuses to pay the licence fee because he will not pay for what they're up to. The BBC, along with the Met Office have been EXPERIMENTING ON OUR WEATHER! Any BBC viewing is purely for research purposes.
It's worthwhile to note a lot of these nutter complaint sorts dialing it up are putting it on to take advantage of the systems. I know of sorts who have come back from holiday with a massive telephone bill and gone in so hard on the phone they ended up not only having their bills waived but also recompensated for their troubles :D
I was such a cunt. Furniture could've crushed some Mother's kid and I'd have only offered a fiver gift card.Quote:
Originally Posted by Don
Tremendous. Did he divulge what these experiments were?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
I wasn't too keen to follow him down the rabbit hole but there had been some flooding up north that year and they were behind it. Going to take it to court he was. He's probably been assassinated by nowQuote:
Originally Posted by Ian
"I suppose you think it's a coincidence that so-called climate change is happening right when Doctor Who has turned into a woman, do you?"
Man, I miss banking complaints. The ones that know just enough knowledge to be dangerous are the best. "No, my husband works at a bank and he says ..."
So close Shinners. So fucking close.
If I could replace all my posts with the John quote, I would.
I've just had an elderly lady on the phone telling me that she's 'always been promiscuous'. It in no way fits in with what she was telling me and I have no idea what she thinks promiscuous means but I hope she uses it lots.
I'd guess she was looking for 'parsimonious'.
One of the all time greats I had while customer facing was being challenged on the price of a half fare by a parent during the school holidays because 'it's only 50p at the swimming in the holidays!'.
Being challenged on price by tight arse, lying chancers is one of the ones I despise the most as a salesman, probably because I'm a non-tight person in any walk of life and I don't get their mindset at all.
'Yes, we have that in stock, price is £28.'
'Is that the best you can do?'
'Yes.'
'Seems a bit dear to me.'
'That's how much it is.'
'At Competitor X I can get that for £24.'
'Well, here you can get it for £28.'
'OK, I'll place the order.'
I wouldn't win too many awards for revolutionary mind-bending sales technique but it gets the job done.
Just tell them it will cost them more than £4 of their time to hang up and call someone else.
Used to get that at PC World Jim, people coming in having watched too much Dominic Littlewood that morning and trying all his tips, immediately asking to speak to the manager and asking for the best price when buying a low end single item purchase :D
The whole point of having a manager is that nobody should ever be able to speak to them. If anyone kicks off at me and demands escalation I just tell them to do one.
When I was briefly managing a team of evening call centre-y types I would take escalations from proper dickheads because I knew the guys actually knew what the fuck they were doing so it was fun to reiterate that to them but while having to be less friendly about it because my bonus wasn't affected by being nice to people on the phone.
That was always the thing that got me about escalations. If the manager calls a customer back, it's just to reiterate the words you've told them. In the jobs I've done, managers are so far removed from your job, they need your words to get them through a call they'd rather not make.
Yeah I was quite lucky in that instance in that I knew the job as well as the people taking them as I'd trained them but yeah, in most call centres unless you're just wanting to hear a different voice tell you the same thing (and that does pacify a daft amount of people) then it's often a total waste of time.
In one of the ones I was in you wrote down callback requests on a form, put them all in a box which then usually got binned at the end of the day.
The only time I've seen the punter get their way was when we had a bloke deputising when the other managers were all on a privilege day. I told him exactly what to say but he completely crumbled. I was livid.
A job has come up that I really want to go for, but the deadline for handing in my notice for the academic year was the end of May. So going to suck it up and ask the head tomorrow if he'll waive my notice period in the event I'm offered the job. Nothing to lose really as I was resigned to staying another year anyway, so if he says no it's no big deal.
Today is the start of 2 more weeks on my own as the furloughed people have been rotated back to their bedrooms until the end of June, and honestly, fuck this.
No more pronouncements from the MD mooching about the office?
There are rumblings that he's going to make use of part time furlough arrangements in July, but no, all I've heard from him today is how he should have taken 3 wood off the 16th tee on Saturday morning, with driver being an unnecessary risk given he was 1 up with water all down the right.
Sounds like he had a pretty rough weekend.
There's currently some DRAMA in the warehouse as one of the workers (white) was found to have posted some racist stuff on the Sky News website, and another worker (black) somehow found out and complained. The guy is now claiming his account was hacked. They're now trying to work out whether they can sack him or not.
They're now listing all the non-white employees and speculating on what their reactions might be if the guy isn't sacked. They really need to work on getting a thicker office door so I can't hear all this.
Chennai's gone into lockdown again so I'm sure those bodies that have been borrowed across the office aren't coming back. Wouldn't this be something if it had an effect on outsourcing abroad?
Any further developments by the end of the day?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
not to abuse my powers but if it worked i did your timestamp for you
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Straight out of The Office (US). You could see Michael and Dwight trying to figure out how the decision might be accepted by Stanley/Kelly/Oscar.
You can't timestamp when it's embedded, which is why I linked (I don't manually edit urls post 11pm).Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
I’ll look into that functionality. Seems weird it doesn’t react like every other site ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Better Off Ted had a great bit on this where the automatic doors wouldn't recognise black people so they did a cost benefit analysis on whether to remove the doors or fire all the black people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
You're doing that episode a disservice there. It's more complex than that, and I don't think it's ever suggested that they get rid of all the black employees. The joke underpinning it is that it's cheaper to hire a minimum wage white guy to follow each black employee around and activate the sensors for them than address the problem with the sensors.
They've stopped repairing the automatic door in the office on this basis as well. For the sake of two disabled members of staff, it's not worth it.
Alright Tory.
Massive flood in the server room at work. :drool:
Officially requested to work from home until 22nd July today, as that’s the start of the summer holidays. I don’t see why it won’t be approved.
Then even beyond then I reckon I’ll wfh on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyways, just because.
Also had to jump start my car again last night. Make sure you’re taking yours out for a regular spin (every 5 days is my minimum aim) if yours is just sitting there. :dc:
So I chickened out of that and asked about notice periods in a roundabout way and got my answer (‘no’, basically). Emailed the school I’m applying to and asked if they’d consider my application if I had a later start date and they said yes. Told my Head of Department and Head Teacher today I was going to apply, and coincidentally they announce this afternoon that the position of Second in Department is going to be advertised. I feel a bit conceited saying this but that’s a pretty big coincidence (they know I want to progress but the opportunities haven’t been there at my current school). So going to apply for both and see what happens.Quote:
Originally Posted by mo
Come on then Giggles. 'Co Laois'. How the hell do you say that?
You keep someone on a tight _______.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
My biggest German customer yesterday put in an urgent order for 78 of a particular type of dipstick - MUST BE WITH US TOMORROW. Now, we've never sold this dipstick, and can only locate 10 of them in the world (all in India). When I explained this, the woman in Bremen sounded like she was almost in tears of frustrated anger. 'WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR TOMORROW?'
Why would you need 78 of a certain dipstick TOMORROW? I just don't get it. Aren't dipsticks all the same anyway?
It's almost always that their customer has placed the order and nobody can be bothered to manage their expectations. For us it's the drippy wet ones that clearly won't give their customers a proper lead time.
If you ever find a customer who isn't 'drippy wet', please do send them my way. The hand-to-mouth type trading setups are the worst.
I love certain well-rehearsed conversation streams.
'Do you have this item?'
'No.'
'When will you have it?'
'Never.'
'But... our customer has a requirement.'
'Does he?'
'We need it delivered within three weeks for a tender contract.'
'Do you?'
'PLEASE GIVE AN UPDATE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE'
'There is no update. We still don't do it.'
The furlough dream is over for me. Back to work on the 23rd.
Customers sending WhatsApp messages :mad:
Fucking tell me about it. I have a guy in Zaragoza who'll send me a picture of an engine at 10pm on a weeknight and then complain at 9am that I never quoted him. Fuck off mate.
I’ve an out of office on my email and on my voice mail so these cunts are just waiting on a reply now because they don’t know I’m unavailable. If I even message back to just say I’m not in then they’ll latch and torment me for the rest of the day.
Are you using your personal phone for work? If so, you need a work phone pronto and it needs to go off if you're not working. Fuck that shit.
Work pays for my phone and I can use it as a personal one so it’s the only one I use and I don’t have to answer it out of hours or anything like that. It’s just really unprofessional to send a WhatsApp, he’ll lose hours before he realises I’m not working today or tomorrow.
Block them on whatsapp.
Not a bad should but wouldn’t they still think they’ve sent it?
Even if he's the only one doing it type out a text that looks like you're sending it to a bunch of folk saying you'll no longer be responding the Whatsapp messages, they should direct any messages / requests / whatever to whichever form of contact you prefer.
I'm not sure.
Edit: Ian's idea is good.
https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/sec...ked-by-someone
Any messages sent to a contact who has blocked you will always show one check mark (message sent), and never show a second check mark (message delivered).
Good to know. I have the blue ticks turned off completely but that would at least show someone it hasn’t sent. Might go through my list and block all customers on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
I might put Ian’s one in future out of office outlook replies and eventually they’d all get used to it anyway.
For now I’ve changed my ‘status’ to say I’m off and to call the office number.
So as you can imagine, as someone that organises an Internatioanl conference, COVID wasn't the best news.
It means my life has been hell for 8 weeks trying to get people to understand bad technology that they picked because they ignored anyone who knew anything. It's been 8:30 starts and 1am finishes for most of that time. Although sometimes I found gaps in the endless meetings and WFH meant I could get a nap in every once in a while. The opening is 10 days from now, same as it would be if COVID never happened.
Meanwhile, Trump, current president of the country our conference was in, has implemented an immigration executive order that would have torn up my and 95% of the staffs VISAs, 100% of our scholarship recipients and 50% of our fee-paying delegates.
I think COVID actually saved us from obilivion whereas now it's just possible bankruptcy.
Wild idea: Host it on the board.
:cry: Finally. 4th July.
What a pussy that I am actually crying with happiness.
Cunt rang me twice again this morning (despite me having an out of office phone message) and only rang the office this afternoon according to the Teams group. Imbecile has lost a whole day there :face:
We've been told today that most of us won't be returning to the office until early September at the earliest and by the sounds of it, it might not happen this year. Excellent.
Our lot have put in place procedures to make it really hard to pop back into the office.
First day back yesterday. No laptop, no emails, no phone calls. Grand.
Our office is pretty much back at full capacity. Owner knows the value of TEAM WORK so lol @ those sticking with WFH.
I am getting buttfucked by workload at the moment to the point that I've half given up. I went in to the MD's office to ask when the others are coming back because this is not sustainable. I found him having changed into his golf gear and about to set off for the course having booked a short notice half day. He said 'It's all a bit up in the air at the moment' and headed for the first tee. Great.
Another secondment opportunity has come up; this time as a data analyst for the local test and trace thingy.
Doing actual helpful work that would look good on my CV vs carry on doing the bare minimum and getting paid to sunbathe
Ehhh I’ll skip this one.
I bet your office is full of sales wankers who unironically say shit like "team work makes the dream work".Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
:sick:
Is there any way you can join him for a round? I'm picturing a Goldfinger scenario.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
It'll all be worth it when your sitcom about it hits the air.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
The Koreans wouldn't have left you in the lurch like this, Jim.
No, they wouldn't, bless their little hearts. They also would still have me on 1% annual rises negotiated by the no doubt tigerish trade union over there, so it's swings and roundabouts. And at least here you can talk to colleagues during the working day without it being the most awkward thing ever.
No the sales team are all remote obviously, but I'd expect nothing less from someone which such little understanding of capitalism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
How long have you been there? If it's > 1 yr then just find something else and leave
Permanent furlough for more. This is your new work load.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I was in the same position this time last week, I absolutely gave up and just let it all pile up. Sure enough once my boss realised I was ignoring the emails he was sending me and customers started bitching at him we had a little sit down where I refused to do the work of three people anymore and a temp (his daughter) started yesterday to cover most of the menial stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I'm kind of doing that now. Inbox is up to 51 at time of writing (normally try to end each day on <5). There's just no way of controlling it without someone else to answer the phone.
Mine were up at nearly 200 but that is across 5 or 6 inboxes, most of which were for departments I'm not even supposed to be working in.
Jimmy taking the knee. :cool:
I have hundreds and thousands of unread emails.
If it’s that important they’ll email again.
Who can see the slight flaw in that system?
Depends on his function within the organisation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
At least 90% of emails have no need to be sent anyway. People just filling in their day fabricating the illusion that they're busy.
Stop describing me you bastard.
In a buying/selling job, most emails are pretty necessary.
Chase-up phone calls, on the other hand...
Giggles might just be the great mind of our time.
One of the bints has decided to come back to work and implement social distancing like she’s just thought of it.
Just got called into the MD's office, he tells me the company are 'very appreciative of my efforts', but he can't guarantee there will be any bonus available at the end of the year so he's convinced the chairman to allow up to 10 days' holiday to be paid rather than taken.
Trying to work out if that's as good an offer as he says it is; having taken 1 day's holiday in 2020 thus far, I suspect the answer is no.
I'm sure I'm being stupid here. Are they saying they'll pay you extra for holidays you won't get to take?
Take all ten of them now and find out.
Yeah, take the ten days essentially at double pay and also book ten days of your actual holiday.
They're saying they'll pay me the time (so double I guess) instead of being able to take up to 10 days of my existing holiday (I have 16 left to take + 3 mandatory at Christmas).
So if I took them up on this I would have 6 days off available this year but a bit more money (payable in December).
I think I'd actually take the days off out of principle.
Yeah. Fuck that.
'You get no bonus this year, but at least you get less vacation days!'
Deal of the century.
He was offering it to me quite earnestly as a really generous deal, so good to know I'm not as gullible as I might be.
It never works out as much as you'd think, either.
Someone at my place did the same and came back to me asking if I'd made an error, as the extra pay was hardly anything.
Given I'll end the year with about 247 days of annual leave left over as will most others, you can see the sense behind it.
Can’t you carry it forward?
You can never carry anything forward here, it's use it or lose it. The chairman is from another era and just doesn't like the idea of anyone being off work, he also 'doesn't believe in' working from home even in the current circumstances.
I can only carry forward 10. Thankfully that's been eased due to COVID so I will be semi-retired next year.
Yeah, I have about forty days to use by next year. On fucking what?
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Not being at work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
I can do that at work.
We'll now you can do it at home for a bit of a change of scenery.
19 days left to take, sadly with the house needing doing and my holiday down the shitter any time off taken will be me doing DIY I imagine.
Drill yourself silly.
I've got 5 days left. I was thinking about booking them in but I've had so much time off already with furloughs and 4 day weeks. I can carry them over and then might sell them in February. Or book in a three week SUPERHOLIDAY somewhere in 2021.
I just heard one of the warehouse people come into the manager's office and ask to borrow money because he's skint. Is that a thing? Surely not. People really are useless.
People being skint is a thing, yes.
Yes people get advances on their wages all the time.
I've never heard of that and I've been in some skanky places. Shows what I know.
I've heard of it, but I've never known it happen.
Unprecedented times. I've not seen it happen.
One of my mates at the same company got it because he was needing a final push for his house deposit (so he got his annual wage upfront and just lived off commission).
Another pal needed an advance to save him from a payday loan. Happens much more often than you think.
For what it's worth I'd never engage it as it's embarrassing and hard to turn around.
That sounds like about the most stressful thing imaginable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
It gets worse as he had a no-pay month so had to take a 'loan' from the company which he's still paying back 13 months later. :eyemouth:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
I'm taking part in a web-seminar today with an MP but I have to use Zoom for the first time. Does anyone know how I can connect my microphone via Bluetooth on a laptop as talking into the laptop itself sounds distorted and crackled?
If your laptop has built in bluetooth use that, if it doesn't you'll need a dongle for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
Failing that just use your smartphone as that'll have bluetooth and you don't need a massive screen for a VC.
Also you can dial in as well and just use the laptop for video only.
Oh, there's an app for the phone?!
Or maybe he just doesn't get paid much and got hit by an unexpected bill?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Yeah they have apps. Work fine for this stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
I've figured it out with the app. Thanks, guys.
My question is going to be:
It's been selected out of a fair few hundred as we only get to ask ten. OOF! Bring it on.Quote:
The hospitality industry is the sector with the most new starters excluded from Rishi Sunak's schemes with HospitalityUK placing the number at nearly 500,000 but there is estimated to be between 1.6 to over 2M excluded from the Job Retention Scheme, I am but one of them. March was the last wage I earned, April I received nothing from the Universal Credit because my payment from the job HMRC couldn't prove was mine wiped all of out it. Since May I have received just short of £400 a month thus leaving me nearly £4,000 in debt. With accommodation refunds over £35K and £25K winter debt, my employer was able to furlough some staff but not others due to the RTI cut off but then she was refused the CBILS loan after a four week wait and she did not qualify for any grant as the rates are over £51K. As a result she has had to personally borrow over £107,000K to be able to reopen so together we can contribute to the economy whilst retaining jobs that many are going to lose. The schemes are great, we know this, they have helped many out, including some of my team mates but why have they not helped me or my employer?
Good luck.
:thbup:
"And that's all we have time for today".
He's a known idiot, but my point was more that I'd assumed companies would never agree to such a thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raoul Duke
Of course they would, it means they've got them by the balls.
:moop: I couldn't connect my mic so the host asked my question.
BBC News at 6pm and 10pm if anyone wants to see the sort of stuff I've moaned about.
Work would be the last place I’d ever go looking for a sun for exactly the reason SvN said. You’d be better off with some lad after your knees.
Tim, tip for the future, get a hands free headphone/mic combo for your phone. At this point they're better than a laptop mic/cam set-up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
I will do, thanks. I only have a basic smart phone (Huawei P something) but I assume any would be fine?Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Finally start working again tomorrow so I can start making some plans. It's a horrible thought that just two weeks is all I need to obliterate the income I've had since March. :moop: However, I've enjoyed this kind of. It definitely makes me want to get more involved even once I've got the desired result.
We're trying to set up a cross party group now and the questions to MP's are going to be a regular thing. Another has been arranged for next Monday so I'll try and order one off Amazon if you fancy linking me to a sufficient one.
The camera will be better and it's just a matter of getting a decent bluetooth headset. I'm not your man for that @Giggles or someone will know better on that front.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
Recommend getting one of these tripods for 20 quid as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Phone+t...tag=gearjuk-21
and then you've got a remote recording studio for about 50 quid.
Last reccomendation would be finding a set-up in a room with lots of fabric. Maybe a living room that has couches and carpet in it? Do that and close the curtains and you'll get less echo.
Huawei? Get the fuck out of my country.
5G superspreading cunt.
Cheers, @phonics.
I finally got to work today and it was amazing. OK it wasn't any cooking but deep cleaning a kitchen and reorganising everything was awesome. Today has been awesome too tbh as the campaign I'm part of has hit the money load. :cool: A meeting is being set up shadow chancellor of exchequer so hopefully if things move fast we might get some news on the 8th when Sunak makes his announcements but if not then we're further ahead than we were. It will happen eventually.
MD just came into the office and told us the Saudis have dumped a million dollar order on us (our total stock at any one time is worth about 4 million). Fucking love the Saudis, always have done, you could quote them fresh air at a million bob a square inch and they'd say 'delivery within three months please'. You'd better pay me a bonus now you piece of shit.
No but you can have an extra 3 days less holiday.
What happens if I go into negative holiday from all these generous deductions? Do I have to start coming in at night? I mean, it would be an honour.
Just for God's sake don't win Employee of the Month.
I mean, you didn't technically make the sale... :baz:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Prepped half the new menu today and had meeting about how we'll go about things. Later in the evening, I only got to ask Keir Starmer directly about what's happened over the last few months with being ineligible for all schemes etc.
Lots of MP's agreeing to join the APPG now too...i really think it's going to happen. Woo!
That's Sir to you.
What is going to happen exactly?Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
There's going to be a menu and people will order food off of it. Are you fucking thick or something?
Kier Starmer will be making a soufflé, if I've followed correctly :sherlock:
3M+ employees and employers to get the support they should have had in March and I'm going to get fucked on the weekend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boydy
Not unless you can get the Rashford onside
Let's not just throw out that 3m figure without informing the good people whose money you're asking for what that total includes.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbleB1RX...g&name=900x900
I don't know who from that first group thought it'd be good to get the others aboard but let's just say I'll wank a tremendous amount when Rishi spits in their faces and that's nothing against your lot.
Are all not tax payers?
On one hand you've got govt saying build, build, build whilst simultaneously destroying many businesses and the extra job losses that comes with it.
3M+ is easiest way but reality is probably over 5M as new starters was a huge number.
Example. If my employer didn't take personal loan out then everyone would have lost their jobs. There is enough redundancies on the way as it is.
All the campaign groups have differing figures but hm treasury report last week highlighted a lot with recommendations. I'll be happy when such a large % of the countries work force gets supported.
Is this actually happening?Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
Yeah it is. Unless you mean getting fucked on the weekend and yes, that's also happening.
Even the treasury released a report confirming it as well as suggestions on how to fix it. It's wrong, so wrong. Forget my furlough stuff, it's gone way beyond that. I didn't realise it wasn't just new starters who got screwed. It was so many more.
EDIT: Check out the comments, SVN. It's bang out of order.
Morbid fucker.
What comments are you referring to?
It will be interesting to see what support they offer to those that weren't elligible for any of the current schemes.
On the Tweet. Or if you use Twitter, type in the hashtag #who are pretty much representing all those affected be it new starters, self employed, directors and so on.
As I said, if my employer never took out a £107,000 personal loan then nearly 100 of us would have lost our jobs regardless of being furloughed or not and truthfully for me personally, that would have been it.
Out of interest (and not intended as a dig), did you look for other work? One of my friends was furloughed and rather than sit at home, he went and got a job as an Amazon delivery driver and has been raking it in.
For me personally, kind of. I was heading home back to Wales so I could do just that, I planned on jumping back in care but then I collapsed in Truro and ended up in hospital then back to where I came.Quote:
Originally Posted by SvN
I would have looked for work from day one but I was struggling to even buy food. The biggest problem for me personally as far as work goes wasn't so much that I couldn't but where I am in the country. I live in a place called St Mawes and lockdown meant the ferry closed, the National Express closed and the train was £200 for a one way ticket. When I say I'm stranded, I really was stranded where I am.
If I had gone home then chances are I'd have got a former employer to hire me back and I wouldn't even be part of this furlough business. I'm no work shy individual, I'll do whatever. I signed up to UC and they offered picking jobs on fields as we were short staffed for them and I'd have done that but I couldn't get to any of them nor did they offer accommodation.
I did have an interview for the track and trace app but I wasn't selected in the end. I could have worked from home doing that.
I thought you couldn't get another job if you were furloughed?
Oh, no, you could and many did. You just couldn't work for current employer.
A lot of people have done very well out of the schemes and that's good, I'm glad for them but when 3M+ haven't and for many it's a case of debt, losing homes, businesses, jobs....it's a hard pill to swallow.
Another example. We hired a 17 year old in my place of work, first job, first time in full time in paid employment and started 10 days before me....got secured by being furloughed. Me, 35, 19 years of solid taxes etc, worked for employer before, had contract, wage slip, everything but I got nothing.
My bills didn't stop, just my income.
Nope, you can. You just need to check that your current employer is okay with it (in case they you were doing work for a competitor, for example).Quote:
Originally Posted by Magic
My work have been refusing to pay some invoices cos they would leave us about £600k in the red. Had a meeting today where they were all bigging themselves up beforehand “WE WILL NOT PAY THEM!” “The data cannot be correct.” “They’re pulling a fast one.” etc.
Cue meeting, everyone’s sheepish af and it seems that they’re gonna have to pay and who the hell knows how. :lol:
Thankfully it all spans from before I started but dayum someone messed up royally when setting this contract up.
Email has come through, current plan is no office until 1st Jan.
Most people wouldn't find their impending unemployment funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Baz
I’m safe as houses, don’t worry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
One of my side (I’d say bois but it’s three women, and I’m not bruh enough to say gals) grew some balls at the end and batted back a bit but jeez we’re done for. I’ve been saying for ages that something was up but it fell on deaf ears for too long and now people have took it seriously it’s too late. Serves em right. My line manager agrees and feels exactly the same about other issues she’s raised, that she’s all but given up even trying to point out mistakes in contract discussions.
The whole place needs a cull really. Prehistoric mentality ruining what could otherwise be successful.
First to go will be the woman who stole my desk, obvs.
Have you been handing out blowies?
Craig Bellamy asked for an advance on his wages once I'm sure of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Today's the today and I'm so far behind as far as being prepared for it as some suppliers still haven't got to us.
This is not going to end well.
Today is indeed today.
Enjoy yourself.
Tooo-day is gonna be the day
Cracking at the first sign of work. That's our Tim. :)
That was madness. Absolute madness.
Unfortunately found myself being let go at the end of my (extended) probation period at the job I started just under a year ago. Even more irritating is the fact the probation was extended as I took 3 days to care for a dependent (my daughter) and the extension was automatic if that was the case. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but it's come back to bite me.
I had the end of probation meeting and it felt like no matter what I said, their minds were made up that I was going. The managers brought up some performance issues - one was understandable as I hadn't done something in time, but I had rebuttals for the majority and was even able to send reports/documents as proof when the meeting was briefly adjourned, which definitely surprised them. Made no difference though and that was that.
So now it's back to the drawing board. I should be able to find something (hopefully soon), but either way it's going to be a few weeks or months eating into the savings that we've been putting aside for a house.
What was the job in? I'm guessing it was a COVID related redundancy.
Actually, it was food packaging which you'd think would be pretty safe from anything. They did let someone else go in a similar but higher role to mine a few months ago, and she'd been there for 10+ years, so it could be some restructuring of the departments.
Thr trivia thread. :drool:
Any bosses will use any excuse at this point. 'Uncertainty'
Just found out both the managers in the office here are leaving.
Pretty gutted as they're both extremely sound.
I need to stop dialing into company webcasts. Every time I do I have less confidence about having a job at the end of the year.
Brutal.
My brother in law's just got the axe from his banking job. He said earlier in the year he expected to be gone by April. Meanwhile our work's ballooned up and they're asking the HP's if they want to work overtime. Hopefully that trickles down to some overtime for us.
We're bringing everybody back off furlough and have apparently beaten the revised target for the quarter so all the people who were 'asked' to take a temporary 10% paycut are getting their money back.
152 have joined now. :drool: It's tomorrow morning but I'm going to do it via my phone as I haven't got round to getting a headset.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smjffy
Today has been quite a quiet one compared to Saturday which was nice. It's surprising how broken I feel after just a few days, it's as though my joints don't know which direction to go.