The All New Jobs Thread

[Lewis]

I agree that lecturing at a University is easy, very easy indeed, but I would like to see most of those quite excellent teachers try to explain the Navier-Stokes equation to a group of students. Most of them could not, since must of them couldn't even get a degree in Engineering.

As for 'controlling the room,' I agree that is not for everyone and it sucks that it is just made harder by idiot administrators.

You could replace ninety per cent of academics with pretty much anyone with a relevant PhD, which, as I used to point out to my supervisor whenever she was complaining and striking, is why their terms and conditions will always be a bit worse than they think they deserve, because there are lots and lots of PhDs for every academic position. At the same time, producing all of those surplus post-graduate qualifications is what keeps the majority of them in work, so they end up being boxed in between their current middling terms or better conditions for the half of them that keep their jobs in a drastically reduced university sector. For all the complaints you read about the big professors on massive salaries and everyone else not, it seems like the natural result of that system.

[Lewis]

I'd pay good money to see Lewis try and teach some year 9 set 5 class.

Writing my name on the board, '...and I am the six-time "Beee-st Poooo-ster". Got it?'

[Dquincy]

That’s a lot of TTH’ers with teachers as their partners.

I think Scotland will accept the new offer that’s due to come in - 7% backdated a year, 4.5.% from January to August this year and further 2% from next year I think.

My wife teaches me all sorts of things.

[Manc]

No means no etc.

[Dquincy]

Can't say no if she's asleep.

[Dquincy]

Without knowing your salary and commute time it's hard to compare jobs.

But someone as qualified as a teacher would be can get far better terms elsewhere

All very good points. Fairs.

[Pepe]

I bet he's really boring lol

Don't make me pull out my course evaluations, mate.

[Pepe]

You could replace ninety per cent of academics with pretty much anyone with a relevant PhD, which, as I used to point out to my supervisor whenever she was complaining and striking, is why their terms and conditions will always be a bit worse than they think they deserve, because there are lots and lots of PhDs for every academic position. At the same time, producing all of those surplus post-graduate qualifications is what keeps the majority of them in work, so they end up being boxed in between their current middling terms or better conditions for the half of them that keep their jobs in a drastically reduced university sector. For all the complaints you read about the big professors on massive salaries and everyone else not, it seems like the natural result of that system.

The 'ArtSci' crowd over here has been bitching about their salaries via email lately. If any of them could find a job elsewhere, or if the university couldn't find fifty people to replace each of them within five minutes, they might have a point. As is, I just say that if they don't like their pay, they should just work less.

[Shindig]

I can't see Lewis lasting an hour without calling one of the kids a slur. It's just written in the stars.

[Foe]

Still alive, Jim? Or have the Paraguayans* got you?

Had one of those days today where something broke that’s nothing to do with me, and it’s immediately my problem to fix whilst nobody wants any of the options available. high five to the drilling engineers who broke the equipment, provided the problem for me to deal with and then are telling me they won’t take their shit back.

Had my pay review today though, 5.4% pay rise and a double digit bonus means it’s almost tolerable.

[Giggles]

Handy teaching. Lewis teaching

[Pepe]

Two donuts. Final offer.

[Giggles]

I’m going with one, but I’ll up it if needed.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Still alive, Jim? Or have the Paraguayans* got you?

Entered Uruguay this morning on no sleep and immediately (in the immigration queue) got the shits. Would like to think it's another dirty Luis Suarez trick but the Paraguayans (what an awful country, jeez) must be to blame via the one rodizio meal I ate there. I did what I could in the airport and then much to my horror, we aren't taking some crappy taxi into Montevideo but instead the customer has come to pick us up in his gleaming white pickup with (now formerly) white leather seats.

You can't give in to these things so after spending an hour on the toilet I went all stiff upper lip with four pairs of underwear underneath some fresh trousers. Pressed the down button on the lift and off she goes again. More new pants, more trousers, sorry I'm five minutes late gaffer and out for a steak lunch with the customer before business.

They say 'don't fill up on bread' but when that bread basket came I was going at it like a starving peasant. Mas pan señor? Sí sí por supuesto que sí.

Managed to hide it all day thanks to having mainlined some Sainsbury's tablets, got back into the hotel at 5, and ayayayay.

[Foe]

Well that sounds pleasant.

Send an angry tweet at roque Santa Cruz in retaliation.

[randomlegend]

Another things that's really been pissing me off about the coverage of the junior doctors' pay dispute is how it's reported as £X salary for "full time". But for most people (and what people will think of) full time is considered to be 35+ hours a week. For junior doctors it's 48 hours a week. A full 12 hours shift more. I work 36 hours a week and am considered 80% of fulltime with the commensurate 20% reduction in pay from the headline figures you'll have heard.

And that's before you even consider all the unpaid hours we end up doing.

I might have already moaned about this point. If I have then I don't care, I'm moaning again.

[Dquincy]

All I'm reading is you're working part time.

[Spikey M]

Jimmy? JIMMY!?

[Shindig]

It always weirds me out when there's barely an element of disguise to it. Hide those bricks, son.

[Jimmy Floyd]

You'd have to be thick as shit to even attempt that. Hopefully he spends the rest of his days getting buggered in a maximum security prison by gentlemen who grew up fucking pigs, as they all do here for practice.

[Ian]

I bet Colombian prisons are a right laugh.

Reminds me of this that I read the other day: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-64770716

"The jail will eventually hold more than 40,000 people."

[Spikey M]

Imagine all the *ahem* special treatment you'd get being a lone British bloke in there.

[Kikó]

Exactly. Another benefit of brexit.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Today (a Sunday) our customer in Chile took us out for lunch. It was a nice restaurant, but the conversation, jeez. This guy is 77 years old, his wife in her 70s too so I was giving up 40 years plus to all three of my lunch companions. It started off ok but we were right next to a massive air conditioning unit and a speaker playing crooner hits at maximum volume, which meant I had to sit through a 20 minute period where into my left ear was coming a lengthy of explanation of why General Pinochet was a great man and the best thing for Chile, while in my right ear I had a seemingly endless loop of this.

After a manzanilla on the house, I thought I'd got away with it at 3.30 but no, the geezer and his wife insist on furthering the hospitality which involves driving us up into the hills outside Santiago where he has a suspiciously nice house. More Pinochet chat followed in the garden, followed by everyone agreeing that the men should go out and work and the woman's place is in the home, and then it was inside for G&Ts - it was like living in some kind of Conservative Club nightmare, but in Santiago. I then sat there for hours while this man talked at me about topics as exciting as how they don't have wills in Chile, and the legal gymnastics involved in acquiring the plot of land to build his office back in the 80s (you guessed it, the Pinochet government loaned him loads of money). Finally at 6 it was time to leave, but even in the car there was no escape from the General as we drove past what used to be his house, a massive estate located conveniently close to where the customer lives.

Day 16 of 19 nearly over, nearly at the end of this mission.

[Spikey M]

The only South American country to back the British in the Falklands. Great man, Pinochet. RIP.

[Boydy]

I thought you'd have enjoyed the Pinochet chat tbh.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I mean it is (post Pinochet) a free country and he can stan who he likes, but jeez give it a rest. If I have someone over to my house I don't spend the entire time telling them that Thatcher was great.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Really?

[Spikey M]

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit.

[Boydy]

I tell everyone who comes to my house how great Salvador Allende was.

[Boydy]

The postman is sick of my shit.

[Shindig]

It's the only 9/11 worth talking about.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The Pinochet fan has done two Nazi salutes today, one when the boss asked the waiter if they had apple strudel, and another when he chose Jagermeister as an aperitif.

It's actually quite refreshing how they lack the stupid baggage around these things that we do. I have heard 'negrito' a LOT on this trip, if any Suarez fans are interested. It's literally just a physical description, nothing more.

[Don]

Jesus, utd melts taking hits everywhere.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Day 17 of this thing now and I've finally had enough. Fed up with coming back to hotels where you can't drink the water because it's unsafe or tastes like shit or both, so to get water you have to go downstairs and change your dollars into the joke local currency and buy water and then do about 3 different forms to expense it. Fed up with this old cunt extending our working days by 2 hours every day because his hands shake too much to use a laptop competently but he also won't accept my help to speed things up. Fed up with him saying 'the young man doesn't understand' when I consistently come up with correct solutions for the customer, 10 times faster than his method of using 40 year old catalogues and folk memory. Fed up with eating out with customers every single day and having to listen to dogshit anecdotes about the 1970s in Spanish all the way through meal after meal after meal (I've become amazing at picking up laughter cues even when the mind has shut down).

Also very fed up with the pricks back in the office complaining that my absence (i.e. them looking after my day to day) is making them busy. Try and do this iron man effort and not have any time off for a month, you arseholes.

Literally can't wait to get home on Wednesday night and cook scrambled eggs and you know, do the washing or something.

[Shindig]

Someone will have already kicked your door in to do the washing.

[Lofty]

At least treat yourself to a takeaway for surviving the ordeal.

[Ian]

I reckon I'd have hit the point you're at no later than the first Nazi salute, Jimmy. But possibly also as early as literally any of the other things you've described.

[phonics]

Jimmy’s optimistic to fucking hell I hate this mood for this trip has mirrored the majority of my extended business trips but exchange nazi salutes for Elton John being a prick.

On my second to last one and my final day there, I realised my refreshing Coca Cola had an ice cube in it half way through and spent the next 3 days including multi hour flight pissing out of my arse and had to justify to an attractive Swiss pharmacist why I needed anti-laxatives.

[Shindig]

This is going to lead to more South America trips, too.

[Ben]

An anal cavity search on the way home will round it off nicely.

[Spikey M]

Jimmy is going to need some deradicalisation training when he gets back. Pray he never gets sent to Afghanistan.

[Lofty]

Barney will be sabotaging Jim's promotion so he doesn't get stuck taking calls from Francois and Juan in his absence.

[Jimmy Floyd]

My main takeaway (as well as the renewed respect and love for solid turds) is that to do this regularly I really need to get paid quite a lot more than I am.

[Luke Emia]

My main takeaway (as well as the renewed respect and love for solid turds) is that to do this regularly I really need to get paid quite a lot more than I am.

100% should be minimum of £200 a day whilst you are away on top of your wage. Or double your daily wage which ever is higher.

[Mike]

Haven’t people on here been telling you that for ages?

[Jimmy Floyd]

I agree, it's quite hard to explain how out of date this industry is and how dominated by 1970s norms it is. For instance I've just performed a 2.5 week trip around South America without a company credit card.

Now going to airport, the very last chat with Pinochet man was about how Jewish financiers organised 9/11. I just smiled. What a way to finish.

[Foe]

Do you at least get a heap of commission out of the South Americans?

On the plus side you’ve many stories of extensive travels. On the downside your stories will revolve around talking about work, rather than wanky tourist photos.

Good effort though, Turkey dinosaurs and smiley faces to celebrate your return.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I am on no commission at the moment, this trip is for experience and the plan is when I get back I have a one to one with the new boss (who is my age thank fuck) telling me the terms of a new deal with salary + commission and which countries I will have to go to and how often.

Should be interesting. I would leave a biggish hole now so it's time to be more assertive.

[Foe]

Have you done much to benchmark your worth elsewhere?

Ie a 10% payrise might sound like a lot, but is it really in the grand scheme of things?