Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

2 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

Local musicians presented the "Sounds of Laurel Canyon", music from the late '60s

And early 1970s, but I'm quibbling.

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Hope everything does get better @NGT6 1315.

 

Baz

Sentiments echoed here 

 

I believe Dom also celebrated another lap of the Sun recently so suitable greetings for that event are also proffered. 

[BoD]

Being ever the pessimist I tried to source some candles online.  It seems nowadays that  it isn’t possible to buy candles that are not;
 

a) scented

b) strangely coloured

c) in glass jars or tins

d)  lit by LEDs

e)  for use by nuns  I mean in church.

 

The hunt continues.

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

This “treat them like adults and they will behave like adults“ extended even into the company restaurant/canteen where beer and wine were available at lunchtime. The assumption being that a small glass of wine or beer taken responsibly at lunch would not impair peoples ability to do their job properly.

 

 

 

In the late 80's when I started there all the the oil company's department managers had mini- bars in their offices and a generous restocking allowance to go with it. Meant for entertaining visitors rather than the staff,  but Friday lunchtime ours would  bring out the  beers for us, wine for the ladies.

 

Since then working on defence sites, the various messes were always open for alcohol consumption from 12pm on.  Then they made defence a zero alcohol workplace - funny seeing old crusty  Warrant Officers discovering there was such a thing as "Working After Lunch".

 

Stranger to me thinking back was that there was smoking in the workplace, when that stopped working conditions improved out of sight, especially when I remember at one time I  shared an office  space with a 40 a day smoker along with 3 other non-smokers, she made our lives pretty stinky.

 

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

My sympathies for these hard put upon, well paid and cosseted Silicon Valley twitterati are slim to none. It’s almost delicious to watch them go into meltdown just because they have a new boss who is going to shake them up a bit.

 

 

For all its images of office volleyball courts, skateboarding around the office and general funkiness, Silicon Valley has a pretty toxic work culture especially if you are a woman. Many of the major  companies use the "prestige" for working there to extract maximum from their employees, who having been indoctrinated into the "work is a lifestyle" con job are shackled to their work for a lot more than standard office hours but convince themselves  that they love it as they spend every waking moment on their laptops no matter where they are. 

 

Some of the big games developers in particular are ruthless especially when a release is imminent, stories abound of coders sleeping in their cars or at their desks for weeks straight as the pressure mounts.

Edited November 2, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, BoD said:

Being ever the pessimist I tried to source some candles online.

I had a quick look at the A→Z online shop and found the following item:

 

"10 inch Taper Candle 30 Pack - Home Interior Long Burning Dripless and Smokeless Candles Unscented - Tapered Candles for Home - 7.5-8-Hour Burning White Candles"

 

About as basic as one could wish.

 

I had entered "plain candles" into the search. "tapered candles" would have worked too.

[Erichill16]

12 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

). @Erichill16 for Health.

 

Who else from the regular bunch of ER posters would you nominate? To which ministry (and why)?

Not a particularly good advert though.

I’d prefer Sport as then I may be able to facilitate  MY team win something. All about board off course.

[Ozexpatriate]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

My sympathies for these hard put upon, well paid and cosseted Silicon Valley twitterati are slim to none.

/pedant-mode on/

Twitter's headquarters are in San Francisco. While it's only about 50 miles away from Silicon Valley, the two are quite separate. I was unable to identify an office in the south Bay / Santa Clara valley.

 

They have 25 offices worldwide.

/pedant-mode off/

[grandadbob]

22 minutes ago, BoD said:

Being ever the pessimist I tried to source some candles online.  It seems nowadays that  it isn’t possible to buy candles that are not;
 

a) scented

b) strangely coloured

c) in glass jars or tins

d)  lit by LEDs

e)  for use by nuns  I mean in church.

 

The hunt continues.

 

 

 

How about these Warren:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prices-Household-Candles-White-X5/dp/B000TAUNT4/r

 

Unless you are not a fan of Amazon?

 

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

Wednesday......Pizza Day.....😁

.....with a Potato Waffle snuck in for good measure,

Let's see now - Waffle for 20 minutes in the oven, so Pizza goes in after 8 minutes - expertly timed by Alexa.  And then Bear is sitting there waiting another 12 minutes for the Alexa alarm to go off at the 20 minute mark.  After a while Bear starts to think "Jeez, 12 minutes is a long time......" - and it was.  Why?  Cos' Bear hadn't set a 20 minute timer right at the start.  Turdycurses.

The Pizza was kinda crunchy - but fortunately more than eligible edible.  Not the first time I've made that mistake - and I'm sure it won't be the last.

And that's why, our esteemed @iL Dottore, a certain Bear thinks attempting wondrous creations (over & above opening a bag of frozen crinkle cut oven chips) are best avoided.....

 

 

Spare a thought for them in the old days who had to use sun-dials, you'd be sitting there thinking "Jeez me pizza MUST be ready by now!" Go out to check the timer and find it had turned  all cloudy.

[grandadbob]

I nominate myself as Minister for Mirth.  ☹️

[NGT6 1315]

Our company has a strict 0% rule on alcohol and drugs, as do all other German transport operators I know. Random screenings can happen at any time, too, though of course possible causes for false positives will be duly considered when they occur.

 

Disciplinary measures for being tested positive vary between operators, though three-strike schemes are most common to accommodate mitigating factors and isolated events. Of course, one may be „out“ immediately when causing an incident under influence.

 

In other transport-related news, an agreement has now been reached for a future €49 monthly nationwide ticket for all local and regional public transport across Germany. This is intended as a permanent follow-up to the heavily subsidised €9 ticket which had been available this summer and had been successful beyond all expectations. The agreement also comprises increased federal support funding for regional transport requirements.

TBH, even at €49 per month, being able to use public transport up to and including regional railways with one single ticket is still much more than a fair deal. 

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

For all its images of office volleyball courts, skateboarding around the office and general funkiness, Silicon Valley has  a pretty toxic work culture especially if you are a woman.

Having worked with and for Silicon Valley companies for most of my professional career, your mileage will vary.

 

Some companies are indeed terrible for women, others are much less so.

 

The press make a lot of very ill-informed reports about wage gaps between men and women in "tech". There are differences, but reporters do not factor in the graduation rates of males and females in engineering/computer science/STEM degrees, or the wage earning impact for women who leave the profession to raise children during the prime period of wage increases.

 

The concentration of males in high paid technical work and women in lower-paid 'support' roles drives most of the discrepancy. This isn't necessarily because of misogynistic hiring/promotion as some reporting implies, but the relative dearth of females with technical degrees.

 

One thing is true about Silicon Valley work culture. Companies expect loyalty from employees and offer them very little in return. I don't know of any large industry in the US that actually does.

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Coombe Barton]

20 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

In the late 80's when I started there all the the oil company's department managers had mini- bars in their offices and a generous restocking allowance to go with it. Meant for entertaining visitors rather than the staff,  but Friday lunchtime ours would  bring out the  beers for us, wine for the ladies.

 

Early-mid 90s, finance company in central London

 

I'd gone there to do an installation upgrade just before Christmas that they had requested. However the M1 was its normal self, a car park, so I didn't get there until just before 11.

 

Got all the suff out of the car and they said "We're going for a Christmas lunch, come and join us." I couldn't do anything without them so had to agree. Went out to the posh dive. Know it was posh because of the amount of champagne flowing and the excessive food around. There was about twenty of them, and me. I could;t drink because I was driving, but they fed me. About 3pm "Don't worry, we'll be going soon." 

"Soon" turned out to be a quarter to six. So there's twenty pi55ed people and me, still having to do the installation. Got back to the office and did the installation, everyone still around and drinking the remains of the pre-Christmas drinks cabinet. Then one of the high-ups signed for the meal because they'd been taking out someone external to the company - me.

I was the excuse for a funded p155 up!

 

Then I had to drive home.

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

29 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Stranger to me thinking back was that there was smoking in the workplace, when that stopped working conditions improved out of sight, especially when I remember at one time I  shared an office  space with a 40 a day smoker along with 3 other non-smokers, she made our lives pretty stinky.

When I moved to California in the mid-1980s there was no smoking in the (office) workplace*. I did know colleagues who had shared windowless, walled offices in defence/aerospace companies with smokers during the 1960s and 1970s.  It sounded awful.

 

* Smoking sections in restaurants were still a thing, but happily short lived by then.

[monkeysarefun]

47 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

The days when railway staff could be found in the pub between jobs supping a pint of mild are very long gone. The permitted alcohol limit is extremely low and is only above zero at all to allow a margin for legitimate use of mouthwash or other products which may trigger a reading. 

 

Theres a Fred Dibna video on youtube of him in his steeplejack days where he says its hard to get offsiders (to climb up 300ft chimneys on rickety ladders).  He tells how some are nervous in the morning, come back from the pub after a few pints and go a lot better!

[monkeysarefun]

46 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

And early 1970s, but I'm quibbling.

I liked the fact that there was a Frank Zappa song among them.

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

Raining steadily now.

All parcels due have been delivered including one that wasn't expected until next week.

Drinking at work?  Oh dear.  When I was a young sales rep in the 70s it was expected that you entertained customers in restaurants or pubs at lunchtime.   It frightens me now when I think about the amount of drinking and driving that occurred in those far off days. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by grandadbob

[New Haven Neil]

The first hospital I worked in after leaving the sea actually had a staff social club on site - there was always about 20 people in there at lunchtime (not me!), including two of the electricians who were probably alcoholics.  It closed about 1990 or so when the top end of the hospital (it was huuuge) was knocked down and the land sold for housing.  How times change.

 

Drinking at sea was just about compulsory, and very cheap as it was tax-free.  Again many alcoholics, Captains and Radio Officers in my experience being the worst.  I understand this culture has also changed massively.

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, BoD said:

Being ever the pessimist I tried to source some candles online.  It seems nowadays that  it isn’t possible to buy candles that are not;
 

a) scented

b) strangely coloured

c) in glass jars or tins

d)  lit by LEDs

e)  for use by nuns  I mean in church.

 

The hunt continues.

 

 

 

You missed out

 

f) crackling, Warren!

[J. S. Bach]

A quick visit to loook at what's happening. I checked a few posts to keep up but I did not have time to read too many so Night  Owl from the Piedmont

[simontaylor484]

I bought 100 tea lights from Ikea for winter blackouts and a couple of lanterns to put them in.

 

The transport office at Bison Leeds was a portacabin it had previously been inhabited by a chain smoker. They had to clean all the nicotine staining off the "wood" panelling it was gross. When i worked in Abingdon they were still smoking in the office. It was the only place I ever worked where you could smoke inside at the time 

[Coombe Barton]

... been typing for a long time today ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/11/02/up-again-slightly/

[polybear]

2 hours ago, The White Rabbit said:

You prefer biscuits? 🤔 

 

 

For anyone wishing to be a Member of The Opposition (against the ER Party) then surely it can only be one thing......

Salad 😱

 

2 hours ago, BoD said:

Being ever the pessimist I tried to source some candles online.  It seems nowadays that  it isn’t possible to buy candles that are not;
 

a) scented

b) strangely coloured

c) in glass jars or tins

d)  lit by LEDs

e)  for use by nuns  I mean in church.

 

The hunt continues.

 

 

 

Bear found these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prices-Patent-Candles-Household-White/dp/B008PCIRIC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3M7HBWDAOU61J&keywords=plain+candles&qid=1667421022&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI0Ljg5IiwicXNhIjoiNC42MCIsInFzcCI6IjQuNDMifQ==&sprefix=plain+candles,aps,121&sr=8-5

 

- which are the same as those suggested by GDB but a "10 Box" rather than five, so slightly cheaper per candle.  There are Candles with an extra hour's burn time available from places like Asda for three quid - if you get groceries delivered at home it might be worth checking if that supermarket sells and delivers candles too.

 

Bear started watching Panorama - "Cars vs. Bikes"; some of the antics (on both sides) were unbelievable - definitely "six of one, half a dozen of the other".  In the end I started watching it with the sound turned down, and finally stopped watching it cos' it was winding me up too much.

 

I spent the afternoon sorting out muddlin' tools and "stuff".  I'll say no more at this stage for fear of low-flying pointy things.....

[Gwiwer]

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

talented individuals on ER that would be incredibly effective in the cabinet. I’m thinking of @Gwiwer for Minister of Transport, @jamie92208  as Home Secretary, @Dave Hunt  at the MoD @Erichill16 for Health. It’s tempting to put @polybear into the Treasury as he is a bear of “short arms and deep pockets” 🤣 and whilst he would undoubtedly improve the exchequer’s income, has he the right outlook to spend treasury money? Possibly @grandadbob in the Foreign Office - given his “robust” approach to all matters diplomatique 🤣🤣 And we must have @chrisf at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

@grandadbob as Minister for Health, surely? 😂

 

@Gwiwer for Minister of Transport eh?  I fell suitably honoured.  Some of the Rebuilding Your Railways schemes might get approved if I was.  Some of the severely revenue-draining and non-strategic links which are used largely for ORCATS or Parliamentary purposes might find themselves threatened to balance the books.  There would be swift measures emplaced to integrate multi-modal journeys as seamlessly as possible and to roll-out the wider use of contactless payments irrespective of mode / operator / journey with the (admittedly complex given the scale of things) back-end software calculating the best fare.  Ironing-board seats would be replaced as soon as funding allowed and proper catering counter services reinstated to all longer-distance services of, for argument's sake, above three hours duration.  

 

During one of the earlier rounds of Industrial Inaction when stand-by guards* were used to maintain services one of those, who was at the time one of our duty station managers, happened to notice a familiar figure boarding his train.  The PA announcement went something like "Welcome aboard the xx.xx train to London Waterloo.  The gentleman in the grey suit in carriage four is the Minister for Transport; should you have any questions you are welcome to approach him directly."  Minister (as he then was) Grayling was less than amused.  

 

* Persons fully qualified to act as a train guard over the routes they sign for; typically guard's managers or other management-grade employees who have volunteered to be so trained in order to keep services moving at times of need. 

[monkeysarefun]

14 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

All of the above got me thinking (yes, I can do that but I am a trained professional) about assembling a cabinet to run the UK, were I in a position to do so. I think there would be a number of talented individuals on ER that would be incredibly effective in the cabinet. I’m thinking of @Gwiwer for Minister of Transport, @jamie92208  as Home Secretary, @Dave Hunt  at the MoD @Erichill16 for Health. It’s tempting to put @polybear into the Treasury as he is a bear of “short arms and deep pockets” 🤣 and whilst he would undoubtedly improve the exchequer’s income, has he the right outlook to spend treasury money? Possibly @grandadbob in the Foreign Office - given his “robust” approach to all matters diplomatique 🤣🤣 And we must have @chrisf at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (although he might need help with the digital and sport bits 🤣)

 

 

 

 

I can replace them all with one single  ex PM Scott Morrison,  he  was able to take on pretty much all the portfolios single handed:

 

 

Scott Morrison has been engulfed in controversy since news broke on the weekend that he had secretly installed himself across several government ministries during his prime ministership.
 

Mr Morrison became joint minister for the health, finance, home affairs, treasury and resources, even keeping it secret from some of the ministers with whom he was sharing the portfolios.

 

Mr Morrison broke his silence on Tuesday, telling Sydney radio station 2GB he took the measures as safeguards in response to the coronavirus pandemic. He admitted it was an error not to tell former finance minister Mattias Cormann he had secretly appointed himself to his portfolio.
 

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the revelations "an extraordinary and unprecedented trashing of our democracy by the former Morrison government."
 

“This has been government by deception. Government in secret.”