The Night Mail

[skipepsi]

47 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Didn't Joan Baez sing about Baby Blue?

Bob Dylan?

[TheQ]

52 minutes ago, skipepsi said:

Bob Dylan?

Yeah mann....

[Hroth]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Yeah mann....

 

Boinggggg!!!

"Time for bed", said Zebedee, looking at Florence....

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, SM42 said:

We do after all work to live, not live to work.

 

 

Visitors to our fair and sun-kissed land simultaneously remark on our friendly laid-back lifestyle while at the same time bemoaning the fact that they can't get a coffee after 5pm or something. They do not realise that one thing begats the other, we are laid back and happy precisely because when 5pm comes we knock off and go to the beach or walk the dog or practice our leg spin. 

 

Working hours that cut into our relaxation time are paid at penalty rates - time and a half, double or triple time, called penalty rates because they penalise any workplace that expects us to slave away at night or on the weekend or whenever we should be at home or at the pub, being served by others who are in turn being paid penalty rates to do so. 

 

And as a bonus to encourage us to not go to work, we get paid an extra 17.5% on top of our normal pay  when we are on holidays.  And and and, if we make 10 years in the job we get an extra 3 months off on full pay. "Long Service Leave" - Thats the law!

 

 

Ostraya - workers paradise, mate.

Edited February 1 by monkeysarefun

[jjb1970]

Crikey, people in Singapore would feint at the idea of life being relaxed 😆 Life here isn't bad actually,  it's nothing like Japan or Korea but it's a little more pressured than Europe, somewhere between the two. 

The biggest difference seems to be in education and the civil service. I find business culture not that different from the UK, dress code is more relaxed and there's a little more focus on productivity but nothing dramatic. However kids can be put under ridiculous pressure and if I compare the Singapore MPA with their UK and European equivalents it is night and day. The MPA pays for good people but demands high performance in return.

[Dave Hunt]

My No.2 son works in the water industry and has an extremely high reputation as a hydrogeologist and water resource engineer. He was head of water resources department for a large civil engineering company but managed to retain at least some of his 'hands on' work and was thus satisfied with his lot until the company started pressurising him by reducing his workforce and adding to his workload at the same time, despite him telling them on multiple occasions that their demands were unsustainable. After a particularly bad year when he was working stupid hours and his health, not to say his family, was suffering as a result he told them that he had to have more support and personnel but despite empty promises they did nothing. Because of his reputation in the industry I suggested that he would do better setting himself up as a consultant and offered to support him financially until he was established and after much thought and one last go at making the company see sense he went for it. At that stage the company realised he was serious and that replacing him would be difficult so allsorts of promises were made but he told them it was too late and he was off, As it turned out he didn't need any help as work started coming in as soon as it became known that he was available. I think that his greatest pleasure came a few months after he had left when his old company asked him to contract for what was basically his old job at twice the price, working half the hours or less and with the assistance he had requested for so long. 

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

15 hours ago, pH said:

It’s called ‘face time’.

 

I know a Brit in the oil industry who moved to work in that industry in the US. He was accused of not pulling his weight based on the time (the required hours) he was visible in the office. He replied that the person accusing him should look at the amount and quality of the work he was accomplishing, compared with what was being done by people spending 50% more time in the office. Nothing more was ever said about it.

 

When we had a US Navy crew on exchange with the squadron I was on they were on my flight. Towards the end of the leave year I noticed that they both had leave entitlement outstanding so I suggested that they take it as soon as possible. They were both amazed at the idea of taking all their allowed leave as back in the USN that would be seen as not being proper team players.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

35 minutes ago, skipepsi said:

Bob Dylan?

I think she sang a lot of his songs.  At one time I believe they were an item. 

[pH]

5 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

You do.

Barry's middle name is Blue, so he hasn't been totally renamed!

If he decides to stay, and you call him by his middle name, will he be “Blue by you”? 

[Tony_S]

42 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think she sang a lot of his songs.  At one time I believe they were an item. 

She was probably responsible for boosting his early career by performing some of his songs. 

[Tony_S]

53 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When we had a US Navy crew on exchange with the squadron I was on they were on my flight. Towards the end of the leave year I noticed that they both had leave entitlement outstanding so I suggested that they take it as soon as possible. They were both amazed at the idea of taking all their allowed leave as back in the USN that would be seen as not being proper team players.

 

Dave

Our friend in Connecticut had been in the USNavy and then banking/finance. His wife said it was impossible to get him to commit to  holidays and he had no idea of whatever leave he had owing, and his colleagues were similar. 
Tony

[iL Dottore]

Interestingly, in the company where I spent a good twenty years or so, I was never promoted (no sniggering in the back), but there was no need for promotion to empty titles as the company had a very, very flat structure (just 4 people between me and the head of of drug development [there were two other groups: marketing and manufacturing] and I knew them all by name).

 

Promotion, as it was in the company, came in the form of increasing responsibility, authority and a concomitant salary. So I started out basically being allowed to look at a clinical trial only if properly chaperoned and not without training wheels and ended up designing and running entire development programmes, interfacing (I believe that is the current "buzz" word) with key opinion leaders, regulatory agencies and being able to spend up to £500,000 on my signature alone. Oh, and I had a pretty decent salary). Everyone above me had done my job and so knew exactly what I was doing (or should have been doing😁) and therefore were great to work for (and they were prepared to "roll up their sleeves" and pitch in when it was needed.

 

It wasn't perfect, but absolute heaven compared to the US based company I also worked for briefly...

[Happy Hippo]

A bit of a heart stopping moment on the way up to Cheshire Oaks this morning.

 

Northbound on the A442, just south of the Peplow crossroads there are a series of bends with little visibility of the road ahead.

 

I was about 75m behind an HGV and doing around 50 mph, when in the mirror I spotted a white BMW  X1 (it just had to be) come up behind us and edge over the line to have a look for an overtaking opportunity.

 

Did he wait long enough to see if the road was truly clear?

 

Did he hell, and powered up to pass us. Just before he he was level with us, a loaded flatbed truck appeared in the oncoming lane.

 

Fortunately I'd already anticipated other traffic and was already coming off the gas, but it was still a very rapid controlled stop from 45 mph to 0, whilst the flatbed was horns, light and smoke coming off his wheels.

 

The BMW just got back in front of me before the lorry came to a stop alongside my car.

 

I looked up at the poor truck driver and just shook my head.

 

Had I not slowed, then stopped which created space, I am certain that the BMW driver would have tried to steer into my path in order to get out of the way of the truck, which would then have hit him into us.  There is no doubt in my mind that it would have been a fatal collision.

 

Still, I was able to proceed knowing the BMW driver would need a fresh change of trousers when he got to his destination.

 

Did he make much ground over us?  No of course, he remained behind the HGV I'd been following and we passed him on the roundabout at the junction of the A442/A53 at Hodnet.

 

Had the car been fitted with a dashcam, then, I would have definitely uploaded the footage to the OP Snap police website.

 

Ironically, I bought two pairs of trousers ( Skipepsi! one for each pair of legs🤣) at CO, but can report they were not for emergency usage!

Edited February 1 by Happy Hippo

[Winslow Boy]

21 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

A bit of a heart stopping moment on the way up to Cheshire Oaks this morning.

 

Northbound on the A442, just south of the Peplow crossroads there are a series of bends with little visibility of the road ahead.

 

I was about 75m behind an HGV and doing around 50 mph, when in the mirror I spotted a white BMW  X1 (it just had to be) come up behind us and edge over the line to have a look for an overtaking opportunity.

 

Did he wait long enough to see if the road was truly clear?

 

Did he hell, and powered up to pass us. Just before he he was level with us, a loaded flatbed truck appeared in the oncoming lane.

 

Fortunately I'd already anticipated other traffic and was already coming off the gas, but it was still a very rapid controlled stop from 45 mph to 0, whilst the flatbed was horns, light and smoke coming off his wheels.

 

The BMW just got back in front of me before the lorry came to a stop alongside my car.

 

I looked up at the poor truck driver and just shook my head.

 

Had I not slowed, then stopped which created space, I am certain that the BMW driver would have tried to steer into my path in order to get out of the way of the truck, which would then have hit him into us.  There is no doubt in my mind that it would have been a fatal collision.

 

Still, I was able to proceed knowing the BMW driver would need a fresh change of trousers when he got to his destination.

 

Did he make much ground over us?  No of course, he remained behind the HGV I'd been following and we passed him on the roundabout at the junction of the A442/A53 at Hodnet.

 

Had the car been fitted with a dashcam, then, I would have definitely uploaded the footage to the OP Snap police website.

 

Ironically, I bought two pairs of trousers ( Skipepsi! one for each pair of legs🤣) at CO, but can report they were not for emergency usage!

Wot no socks.

[SM42]

38 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Wot no socks.

 

He'll just have to go back for them.

 

Andy

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Our friend in Connecticut had been in the USNavy and then banking/finance. His wife said it was impossible to get him to commit to  holidays and he had no idea of whatever leave he had owing, and his colleagues were similar. 
Tony

 

That's considered normal in the US for anyone in a senior or managerial position and it's quite prevalent in the UK now.

I actually moved to the US to escape from it 😆  I was technical director at a small electronics/software company and the pressure was a bit extreme. I got a job in Phoenix as a staff engineer with ITT (no supervising) being paid as much as I was earning in the UK. That worked well for just over a year until my manager quit, so they put me in charge of his department (and paid me a lot more money). About a year after that they fired the director of our entire group and they gave me his job (even more money).

 

And so it went. The last hi-tech outfit I worked for in Southern California paid me a ridiculous amount of money but hi-tech should really be called high-stress. I kept that one for six more years then chucked it at age 57.

[Northmoor]

Three things have held back my career trajectory:

1. I tend to hang around in a job for long as I enjoy it and enjoy building up "experiences", the sort of experience that you tell your children about, not necessarily what you quote on a CV.  I should have looked to move on quicker on a couple of occasions.
2. I lack the necessary self-confidence, there is a little man in my head who sounds like Old Man Steptoe and who likes to tell me how I am bound to screw up anything new I have a go at.
3. My "stress limit" is lower than it would need to be, to do some of the things I dreamt of doing 30 years ago.  I've come close enough to the edge once to recognise some of the symptoms, so can use than as notice to dial things back.

Moving now into the final third of my career, I certainly haven't reached anywhere near the level I hoped/dreamed/expected when I started out, but I have few regrets.  It sounds very management-speaky but I make the low points into a positive by learning how to avoid repeating them.  Besides, while I could have had more seniority and money , I often say to people that in my current role, I talk to people about railways (or usually, bits of them), their eyes don't usually glaze over and every four weeks, they pay me again.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[jjb1970]

Being happy at work is very important. We spend 35+ hours a week at work (and for some it's a big +), that's a significant part of our waking hours. I feel huge sympathy for those in jobs they hate because it's the best deal they can get, it's easy for me to recommend that people should get a job they like but it's not that simple and for many it is a case of needs must.

 

On the other hand I know a few people who persist in jobs they hate because of the financial reward and who whinge constantly.  To be clear making a decision that a job is awful but the financial reward means it is worth putting up with is a perfectly reasonable decision, but it is a decision. These aren't people in financial difficulty and they could take a big hit and still have what most people would consider to be a high income. 

 

So when they whinge it kind of annoys me, these aren't people who have a choice between a low paid, hard job or unemployment. When I left the merchant navy I lost well over £1000 a month, twenty years ago. That was a big drop for me but both Mrs JJB and I wanted me to be at home more and we wanted children, she accepted it meant trimming our spending and making some lifestyle sacrifices. A good friend is still at sea and hates it but as a senior chief engineer on gas carriers he is well paid (he is on a six figure salary, tax free) and works six months a year. Every now and again I tell him if he hates it as much as he claims then leave and do something else, but if he has decided the pay and leave outweigh the negatives then he should acknowledge that and stop whinging. That leads him to be a bit less negative for a while (at least to me).

[Darlington_Shed]

12 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

After a particularly bad year when he was working stupid hours and his health, not to say his family, was suffering as a result he told them that he had to have more support and personnel but despite empty promises they did nothing.

 

I'm not a great one for quoting the Bible, but it does offer the following words of wisdom:

 

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is shareholder value."

[jamie92208]

I count myself as very lucky.  For most of my career I loved the work.  Though I dealt with many stressful jobs outside, most stress came when I was in the station rather than out.  That was mainly induced by management.  Though the last couple of years were not good I still count myself lucky. I've got my health and my family and my hobbies.  

 

Jamie

Edited February 2 by jamie92208

[Happy Hippo]

It looks like it will be another fine day, so I am gearing up for the final section of hedge that needs trimming.

 

Last night, prior to a glass of Dalwhinnie's Winter Gold, I extracted some thorn tips out of my fingers.  They had taken up lodgings since my last hedging operation.

 

The first came out very easily on the tip of a scalpel blade.  The second needed the attention of the regimental surgeon, so blood was spilled.

 

A further excuse for the DWG 'to calm my fragile nerves'.

 

Nyda said: 'That's wasn't a further excuse, it was just any old excuse to open the bottle!'

 

Talk about semantics!

 

At least the bottle got opened and was duly sampled.

[br2975]

With almost forty years in policing (in different roles) I found the most pressure and stress was not a result of the matters I dealt with on a daily, or more seriously, occasional basis - but was generated by poor, sometimes incompetent managers and supervisors; many of whom were ignorant of Police Regulations & Determinations which governed how and when police officers can be deployed, or rostered and annual leave enitlements.

.

Many police managers have still to grasp the fact that Hallowe'en, Bonfire Night, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve fall on the same date each year.

.

Managerial decisions such as which Constables  will have their rest day cancelled, or who will do what is still often made by 'names in a hat'  as opposed to a decision based upon who worked what previously, or similar.

.

I retired first in 2009, then for the second time in 2019 - and  things have declined markedly since.

.

In the meantime, policing has not become the hotbed of racism, misoginy and grooming the media would have you believe, but has become dominated by 'entitled constables' who do as little as possible, and often refuse to turn up for work, or perform their role............. with impunity, because HR (the department that 'really' runs the police) are too scared to deal with such officers, thereby emboldening these 'entitled' problem children.

.

eg

A police officer who claims to have a bad back (NOT an injury sustained whilst on duty), cannot work on the streets as a result, and was allowed to work from home until the force bought two different specialist chairs for her desk, as she couldn't sit in either for long periods.

However, the same officer could endure a 7 hour flight to Jamaica for a holiday, and goes skiing each year.

When confronted with this, her HR department state "what she does outside work is irrelevant"

[Mike Bellamy]

11 hours ago, Northmoor said:

1. I lack the necessary self-confidence, there is a little man in my head who sounds like Old Man Steptoe and who likes to tell me how I am bound to screw up anything new I have a go at.

 

Oh yes - he's always there - not just at work but also things like DIY, modelling etc. I do spend rather a lot of time thinking about things, usually until it gets urgent and then get on with it and it usually turns out OK. Just lack confidence in my own ability - but managed 25 years in first job at Lloyds and then 20 years at the University - an example was working in the Overseas Partnership Office .

 

The second in charge of our little team of 10 left after a year or so of being useless and the boss said that she would be very disappointed if I didn't apply. After a brief chat that was supposed to be an interview, I got the job. A year later she had to suddenly leave due to a difficult pregnancy and I was left running the show with help from others higher up the tree. I made it clear that I didn't want the job full time and they recruited someone from outside the organisation who had no idea about what was going on but had 'management' experience. A lot of advice and guidance was given before he cracked and moved on and another 'manager' came in who I just couldn't get on with and in the end she found several ways to complain about me to HR. This resulted in a couple of formal meetings chaired by a senior officer in the Registry who although supposed to be impartial, was definitely on my side. A few months later when she was on holiday, he moved me to another unrelated area and so when she got back, I wasn't there. She didn't last long either and then the overseas partnerships team was merged with the UK partnerships team which never seemed to have had any management issues.

.

[TheQ]

Hedge trimming is a dangerous task, I'm always pulling out thorns and bramble hooks from my paws , even kevlar gloves don't seem to help.

 

First job RAF, screwed in the first year out of training by a junior officer, it was in the days before you actually got to see your assessments. He was telling the whole section of 25 people that they were doing wonderfully well.. the day after he got moved on , everyone of us right up to the chief were given interim assessments and told all our figures were being revised upwards, he'd lied to everyone about what he'd put in the assessments..  That put most people's promotions back by a year and for an unlucky few by 2 years.

 

Second job GEC Marconi, I was a technician doing an engineers job, it said so on the family tree, when I got my degree I was supposed to be promoted... Unfortunately they did a company regrading system change at the time. Mysteriously my job got down graded to a technicians, they denied they'ed down graded it and refused the evidence of the old manual I'd retained. At the time I was carrying QA, Engineers, and inspection stamp for work. According to their new job grades only someone 4 grades above technician could carry them so on their refusal to reconsider I turned the stamps in, and shortly after went for money instead and took a job in Saudi instead.

 

After that the job at Bacton gas works went as I passed the exams for the next level up. The company got taken over and they sacked everyone then only reemployed half the staff..

 

Tescos maintenance, to go up to manager you had to do  an amazing amount of unpaid overtime, attend meetings at a location around 80 miles away travelling time not accounted for.. not many went for it. The managers generally lived near that location, and did all sorts of fiddles to make up for the loss of over time.

 

Fluke, I wasn't expecting promotion but I later found out my manager thought I was 2 grades higher than I was, the company also did a regrading, telling everyone no one was down graded ... We then discovered that they'ed downgraded the entire calibration non management staff, even the local managers didn't know about this,  it took several months but they got forced to reverse that illegal move. Eventually the boss got me promoted up one grade..  then a couple of years later I retired a year early,I'd had enough, they replaced me with two people..