Early Risers.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s looking like it’s going to be another beautiful sunny day here in England’s northwest. Now that breakfast has been consumed, the plan for the rest of today is to make a start on the flooring for new underfloor storage area. However, as Sheila is at the hairdressers mid morning, I shall also keeping my ear alert for the door, just in case a certain parcel arrives today. 

 

Once the flooring is done, I’ll probably spend the next few days transferring stuff that was previously stored in the cellar, but which is currently in either the shed or workshop to the new storage area. There’s quite a bit of stuff to move, but I also plan to reorganise the storage areas in both shed at the same time. This will not only enable me to finally remove some shelving from the cellar, thus freeing up space in the cellar, but also hopefully freeing up space in the shed and workshop too. 

 

Jamie. I hope Emily gets sorted out, it’s awful when small children are ill and nothing seems to sort out the problem. The way GPS are acting/reacting (term used very loosely) to the current state of affairs, I think is appalling. 

 

Andrew C. Congratulations on the new job!

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

 

Brian 

 

[Tony_S]

Good morning.

It is very pleasant here this morning. Sunny with a gentle breeze. It is forecast to be warm later.

Four years ago today I needed a woolly hat!

Tony

 

 

[tigerburnie]

51 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Gosh yes, congrats to Andrew C, well done to escape the Directorate of Cockwombles. Yay! 

 

I wouldn't hold any hopes of anything happening to the wrangler/mangler though - as an aside it is their manager's, not HR's job, to do something about him/her.  HR may help the manager through the process, but managers are paid to manage and make decisions - HR are not, they just advise the manager on process. #takes off old HR hat#.  We get the blame for everything......

You must have been "old school " HR, at one place I was employed at HR used to tell managers to discipline people, even when they had no intention of doing so, quite a few wars broke out if HR didn't get their way. An example, an employee went to the USA after receiving a 10 year good service award for a long weekend in New York, it was the weekend of the 9/11 twin towers incident and due to the delays he was a day late getting back to work. HR had him disciplined and ruined the lads career prospects, he was an outstanding employee who had been promoted twice already, never been late or had time off in 10 years, needless to say he quickly lost interest in the place.

[Mike Bellamy]

22 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Does TheQ's Employers actively conduct time checks?  That would be very, very sad....

 

 

When I worked at the University, we had a number of overseas partnerships who were obviously in different time zones and it was thought to be helpful if we had staff available earlier in the day for email and phone contact. To offset this other staff volunteered to arrive a bit later and stay to cover the office in late afternoon. This worked well until a new manager took over the admin team and insisted that everyone had to log all of their working hours on a spreadsheet - she was most irate when it didn't balance against the actual contracted hours and as a result one young lady was told in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances was she to leave before 5.01pm instead of her usual time of 5.00pm . . . . . . . 

 

Of course this command was ignored - as were others but my appearance before an HR 'tribunal' is a story for another day. As our partners in Israel worked Sunday to Thursday, I'm surprised she didn't try and get us to work on the Sunday, which we did anyway during our visits there on the understanding that a Sunday worked meant two days off on our return. They didn't seem to realise that the office there was shut on Fridays so we had an extra day off anyway !

.

[PupCam]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Apart from that there is not a lot to report except for a Checkpoint Charlene problem with our delightful granddaughter Emily.  She has had a cough for overca month. 2 course of antibiotics,  some piriton, and steroids later, she still has a cough. Shevhas not yet been seen by a medical professional.  No one has listened to her chest. To say that we are incensed is an understatement.  Obviously 700 miles away we can't do much but support two very worried parents. If I was there, I would probably have pushed Charlene aside and broken a Dr's door down by now.  We hope for some progress today.

 

This is a typical problem very close to my heart (quite literally).   I know there is a pandemic on and I know that an over-stretched and under-funded NHS has been stretched beyond limits recently BUT ......

 

If the GP's spent less time continuously updating their pre-recorded 5 minute monologues pointing out the obvious and coming up with ridiculous unworkable processes for seeing people (e.g. making ill, old, vulnerable people stand outside surgeries in all weathers waiting to be processed by Checkpoint Charlene via an Intercomm) we would all be better off.   I now know through bitter experience that they are not run off of their feet 24/7 (Oh sorry that should be 24/5 as they never work at weekends anyway).     Without going into specific detail, I was called back by my GP in under 2 minutes in the middle of the morning recently when a few facts were laid out to a member of staff despite the 8:00 "Emergency Appointment Window" having slammed shut well before.     A cynical person (not that we have any of those round here) might think that said member of staff got a bit twitchy at the thought of some fairly serious repercussions and much form filling if the patient (i.e. me, took a further turn for the worse) and was miraculously able to convey such twitchyness to said GP who clearly wasn't on the phone to a patient, having a 121 consultation with a patient or indeed having a "comfort break" in the lav at the time!    Ill health has certainly made Puppers a lot more assertive!

 

I wish your family good luck and best wishes Jamie and hope your Granddaughter receives the care and attention she deserves with no further delays

 

Alan

[AndrewC]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Gosh yes, congrats to Andrew C, well done to escape the Directorate of Cockwombles. Yay! 

 

I wouldn't hold any hopes of anything happening to the wrangler/mangler though - as an aside it is their manager's, not HR's job, to do something about him/her.  HR may help the manager through the process, but managers are paid to manage and make decisions - HR are not, they just advise the manager on process. #takes off old HR hat#.  We get the blame for everything......

One nice thing about automated processes like the ones we have is that things like complaints to HR about specific individuals, unless removed by HR go on their performance records. Resignation reasons are matters of record and can't be removed. In this case the womble de cocque will have 3 blots on his next review. As I'm a performance manager too, I know it means no pay review for him and probably a 5% cut to his next bonus payment. 

[jonny777]

Warm and sunny again in North Somerset, but the satellite images show an area of thunderstorms brewing over NW France and moving slowly northeast. They may skirt to the east of us, and mainly affect the south and east of England much later today, but nothing is certain in these weather situations. 

 

I will water all my tubs on the prospect of missing the rain, and if we do catch a shower the plants will not be too bothered. 

[Tony_S]

11 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

probably a 5% cut to his next bonus payment. 

Possibly that many complaints should lead to a 100% cut in bonus. I know that colleagues in my last job used to get irritated that senior management got increased bonus payments for restricting staff salaries.

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

Cricket umpiring has become a bit easier to do. With warmer, drier weather no more need to wear loadsofclothes to kep warm.

 

Next door have been building a flight deck.. his house building costs have just rocketed as his builder can't start his extension due to lack of materials. The retired builder from over the road called over last week. He is sure that whoever buys the house when "complete" will be buying a heap of trouble.

 

Stay safe! Hopefully I will be enjoying a pint with Roundhouse and his good lady on Sunday.wooopppiiiiddddoo!

 

Mugateatime.

 

Baz

 

Probably sitting on board that ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal. He may be asked to contribute towards the ransom cough cough 'compensation'.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Sorry to hear about little Emily - sounds like time for two determined young women to put the boot into the surgery defensive line - hope there'll be a positive result soon.   well done AndrewC for both biting the bullet to leave and firing one as part of your departure note.   HR seem to work in many different ways in different places but if it does kick the cockwomble in a soft place all the better.  

 

As far as I'm concerned HR exists - or should exist - in an advisory capacity to managers  - they are not executive managers but advisors.  the biggest problem I found with them - with one exception - in my last big railway job was that they had less idea about the company's employment conditions for its traincrew grades than I did (which was probably why folk, including a really good bloke in HR whose expertise lay in other areas, always came to ask me about such matters. as I was effectively the company's 'guardian' of those conditions of employment.    Exactly the same had been the case with my predecessor in the job and we also effectively controlled much of the traincrew budget although it was directly managed by somebody else (who also knew who to ask).   In fact it worked very well as the knowledge in that instance rested with the executive managers although  a second (properly informed) opinion is always helps just to bounce things off - I had that on one of the chaps in my team.

 

Right off to the centre du jardin in the company of the GD thence I expect to Tesco.  have a good day one and all and stay safe.  Hopefully the shambles of temporary traffic lights might have been sorted as our District Councillor was already on the case after 'my' Councillor raised it with him

[AndrewC]

28 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Possibly that many complaints should lead to a 100% cut in bonus. I know that colleagues in my last job used to get irritated that senior management got increased bonus payments for restricting staff salaries.

Its a sliding scale. a 0% would only happen if he was rated "fails to meet objectives". Normally by then he would be on the ropes. The 5% cut would be down to meet v exceed. 

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Gosh yes, congrats to Andrew C, well done to escape the Directorate of Cockwombles. Yay! 

 

I wouldn't hold any hopes of anything happening to the wrangler/mangler though - as an aside it is their manager's, not HR's job, to do something about him/her.  HR may help the manager through the process, but managers are paid to manage and make decisions - HR are not, they just advise the manager on process. #takes off old HR hat#.  We get the blame for everything......

Working in the payroll department and also being a union rep I saw HR from both sides. Generally they were quite helpful and we had one really good HR manager but unfortunately he was so good that he was 'head-hunted' by another employer. I was union rep on a few disciplinaries with him and they were usually settled between us before the actual meeting of which many were unnecessary in the first place.

[PhilJ W]

I found out what turned the dial down on the fridge. The dial is close to the hinge side of the door and the top of a pot of yoghurt on the door shelf brushed against the dial every time the door was shut. 

[Tony_S]

28 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

op of a pot of yoghurt on the door shelf brushed against the dial every time the door was shut

Sentient yoghurt takes over fridge…

[Tony_S]

@AndrewC Congrats on the new job. Nice that you don’t have to move either. In my leaving interview, immediately after the official dismissal due to illness interview, the college principal was more than happy to include my comment on the Vice-Principal’s (HR) lack of numeracy as he had me down for more days absent than the college had existed for.

Tony

 

[NGT6 1315]

Cheers all. Scorchio has become the motto of the day again, and is forecast to remain such till the weekend. Just swell… 

 

Congratulations to Andrew on the new job!
 

I’ll see to applying for a planning and analyst position in the company in the next few days myself. Based on what I know thus far, the qualification course in Gotha which I’ve signed up for will cover several fields which would seem to be suitable for this position, so here’s hoping that referring to it will be a sufficient basis.

 

Best wishes to anyone ailing or otherwise under the weather.

 

[New Haven Neil]

Indeed I was 'old school HR', or perhaps I would prefer 'proper HR'. It was a while ago to be fair, and in the NHS which does take, or did in the Trust I worked for back then, HR seriously and properly.  Result was a pretty well run Trust, with few disciplinary issues.

 

A clue was in job titles - 'HR Advisor', there to advise managers on employment law and issues pertaining to.  This modern world 'Killer HR' really serves to unsettle the whole process of employees working efficiently as far as I can see.  As I no longer pay to keep the letters after my name from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development I once earned, I don't get the monthly comic 'People Management' from them (once parodied  - rightfully - on 'Have I Got News') to keep up to date on modern practice.  Thankfully, by the sounds of it!

[TheQ]

Missed that One, (being checked on at work) No I personally don't get checked on. This is for two reasons:

One,  My boss wouldn't do that sort of thing,

Two, Although I'm down at pond life level where elsewhere in  the factory not keeping to your 10 minute tea breaks would be taken very seriously. I'm in a department where ALL the others are of such a high grade they don't get overtime unless they do a lot of extra hours. They forget I'm just down at tea boy grade..

 

My boss and others of their level can chose to WFH except for the occasional meeting. Except of course the hardware guys and my boss need to be in most of the time to actually work on the equipment.

 

As for HR it looks like we are not going to have one in future.. Our HR manager has been promoted will now cover several factories including ours and mostly WFH. Her Assistant is part time anyway and also will mostly WFH. We are moving to just outside their offices, which will become our equipment testing rooms ( for new designs). They will just use one of the two interview rooms, up another corridor when they need one..

 

In a similar Vein, last week our boss in the USA that my boss  reports to, has been promoted to cover other calibration functions not just electronics, while retaining his current function.

 

It's obviously clouded over outside as the loading on the AC has dropped according to the Computer screen above  my lab desk..

 

Orange shed tonight.. sand to be bought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Barry O]

Last time I had a presence with HR it cost BAEsystems an awful lot of beer tokens. My legal rep  suggested they pay me 10x where x was my first offer as they had made some fundamental mistakes...

 

I got a bit more when they had some attitude problems then a bit more for some other mistakes.

 

Baz

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Barry O said:

Next door have been building a flight deck.. his house building costs have just rocketed as his builder can't start his extension due to lack of materials.

 

Oh dear, how sad...Bear is most upset....

Did that sound sincere? 

 

4 hours ago, Barry O said:

The retired builder from over the road called over last week. He is sure that whoever buys the house when "complete" will be buying a heap of trouble.

 

Bear's nearly new neighbours next door have been there, done that, got the T-Shirt etc etc.  No idea how much they've spent correcting "Bodger Bill's" handiwork (the Builder from a couple of previous owners ago) but it'd certainly scare this Bear - even enough to put me right off my LDC....

 

 

4 hours ago, AndrewC said:

I finally gone and dunnit. Accepted a new job, signed the contract, and fired off my resignation after 11 years, 5 months. 14 more working days. The prime cockwomble was named on the required reason for leaving form. Doubt anything will happen but who knows. Manglement can't redact the form as it bypasses them and goes straight to inhumane resources. That'll be the third time he has been named in a resignation in the past 6 months. Roll on a new fresh start for my last 120 months of working life. 

 

 

First class that Man .  Bear has never had the pleasure of telling an Employer to "wedge it" - though the number of times I've wanted to would need a calculator.  In later years I came to the conclusion that a policy of "you get what you pay for, matey" was the best option - far from ideal I know, but with a final salary pension scheme there was little option.  I did go looking many moons ago - and got a firm offer from Macaroni's at Stanmore for my trouble; however it was (a) going to cause pension issues, (b) the traffic to & from was a nightmare, and (c) when the Boss found out he threw me a very large slice to stay put - so it worked out pretty well in the end.

 

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

HR may help the manager through the process, but managers are paid to manage and make decisions - HR are not, they just advise the manager on process. #takes off old HR hat#.  We get the blame for everything......

 

Now would your ER Buddies do that?  We're all very appreciative of the fine role that HR play.....

Now did that one sound sincere?

 

 

2 hours ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

When I worked at the University, we had a number of overseas partnerships who were obviously in different time zones and it was thought to be helpful if we had staff available earlier in the day for email and phone contact. To offset this other staff volunteered to arrive a bit later and stay to cover the office in late afternoon. This worked well until a new manager took over the admin team and insisted that everyone had to log all of their working hours on a spreadsheet - she was most irate when it didn't balance against the actual contracted hours and as a result one young lady was told in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances was she to leave before 5.01pm instead of her usual time of 5.00pm . . . . . . . .

 

A friend at work lived near Chester and would commute to Stevenage early on a Monday and stay the week until Friday; for years he had a local agreement that if he didn't make the 0930 final start time then he'd enter a manual clock-in and make the time up at the end of the day - the bosses knew he would and the system worked very well.  Some years later, and enter HR.....

A site-wide "Though shalt start by half nine latest, and anyone "fiddling" their times would be on a gross misconduct charge (= most likely out the door)".  He and local management went into bat to continue the arrangement he had, but they wouldn't budge one inch.  So he ends up very stressed on every journey in on a Monday, to the point where it wasn't doing him any good at all.  He took early retirement at the first opportunity as a result - and the company lost a very clever bunny with irreplaceable knowledge (so much so that they had to get him back as a subbie for an overseas job that no one else could do).

 

2 hours ago, PupCam said:

Ill health has certainly made Puppers a lot more assertive!

 

 

Bear reads that as "even stroppier than usual...."

 

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

As far as I'm concerned HR exists - or should exist - in an advisory capacity to managers  - they are not executive managers but advisors.  the biggest problem I found with them - with one exception - in my last big railway job was that they had less idea about the company's employment conditions for its traincrew grades than I did

 

The Head of the Customer Support/Field Service Dept. invited several HR staff on a site tour to meet various people, see the work being carried out etc.  Why?  Because in the words of the HoD "they haven't even got the faintest idea what the company does - yet they are in charge of recruiting new staff".

 

In other news:

The Bearmobile is gleaming

Tom the Roofer appeared - scaffolding is going up on Friday (much of which will be in Bear's front garden) so they can repair nearly new Neighbour's roof on Monday (= renew the leaking lead gulley).  Now Tom has presented Bear with an option:  as Bear has asked about the cost of having the roof re-felted (it'll need doing in Bear's lifetime, unless I get hit by a truck next week) so I'm inclined to get it done before issues arise - the felt is already about 50 years old now, so well past it's use-by date).  So I could piggy-back off next door's job (which would mean no - or very little - scaffolding charge - and saving what must be a good few hundred quid) and have my job done following next door's - so probably next week.  I was planning on having it done next year, but this has given me something to think about.  Decisions, decisions - awaiting a price now....

 

Right, time to fit that decorative end panel at last....

[TheQ]

in the terms of HR haven't a clue the latest person offered to my boss as a deputy..

 

"he's a mechanical engineer, but he is learning the 18th edition...."

[The Stationmaster]

Don't worry too much aboit mechanical engineers - they seem to be adaptable from what I've seen over the years - unless of course they'd turned out to be better managers than engineers.  I had at various times as immediate bosses one who'd entered GWR service as a marine engneering cadet and was on tankers as a 3rd during WWII; one who was a time served Swindon works apprentice (who'd done his journeyman time in Antarctica before going back to BR); and i worked with one as my 'sort of boss' who'd done his time at Eastleigh works.  There were a couple of signal engineers who'd transferred to the operating side but I got my own back on them when I left the big railway and went to work for a signal engineering company where my  expertise in mechanical locking charts occasionally came in handy (not that I could sign off that sort of thing although I did sign off some drawings of something else for one job).

 

So nothing wrong with engineers moving on but for highly technical jobs they  definitely need to be those who know their limits.

[TheQ]

20 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Don't worry too much aboit mechanical engineers - they seem to be adaptable from what I've seen over the years -

A mechanical engineer is fine, just not for needing to be able to design electronics test equipment and write software for it. He probably could with a bit of training do some of the required maths..

[Gwiwer]

17 hours ago, polybear said:

This Bear will go for the visible chips, thanks all the same.  Though not at seven and a half notes....

 

I dunno - that would be a pretty decent portion of chips.  I might even get through them in one sitting   

 

Afternoon all.  It's been hot and is still being hot.  I am about to exit the premises in charge of a cooled (but not chilled) can of Jawbone's Longshore Gang IPA.  I may be some time   

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Snippty snip<

 

The Head of the Customer Support/Field Service Dept. invited several HR staff on a site tour to meet various people, see the work being carried out etc.  Why?  Because in the words of the HoD "they haven't even got the faintest idea what the company does - yet they are in charge of recruiting new staff".

 

 

 

HR should administrate recruitment of staff, but the final shortlisting and decision should be the manager of the department/team they are to work within, and maybe their boss, and an independent for senior roles.  HR should be present at the interview to ensure all candidates are dealt with fairly and in a non-discriminatory manner, checking qualifications etc, but NOT be part of the final decision making process.  Recruitment 101.  It appears a lot of HR folk have got much too big for their boots.  No wonder folk have such a crepe time with them at work nowadays.