Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Interesting day. Emailed the Marie Celeste. Their response just made me a trifle annoyed. 40 minutes later I talked to a very helpful receptionist  who, having worked at the LGI gave me some very valuable information. This meant I could ring the Consultants secretary. She advised me that my ECG test results arrived.... yesterday (obviously the NHS pigeon got lost). Letter is on its way to me.. result.. fingers crossed I get rid of my nasty medication.

 

Tuesdays.. used to be I had to attend an 8 am meeting in Newcastle on Tuesday then another on Thursday in Leeds. It meant an 0530 start on Tuesday mornings.. no breakfast could be claimed so a very grumpy Baz would attend the Challenger 2 project meetings in a bad mood every Tuesday... eventually I wangled  my way out of them.

 

More recently in Barrow it was Boat update meetings on a Tuesday.  Never sure why I had to go .. but I made sure I was there.

 

So, yep, Tuesday hasn't been my favourite day!

 

Baz

Edited January 30 by Barry O
Spullung

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

arrived.... yesterday (obviously the NHS pogeon got lost)

Perhaps. it went via Nouvion…

[PupCam]

Evening All!

 

Today's excitement has mainly been watching the electricity board men replacing the pole that carries the mains cable for a good part of the road that resides outside Puppers Towers.    

 

It was all done with a double post-hole spade, the crane with a bit of chain on the end of the arm, a long pokey stick and a very long lever with chain on the end (think giant oil filter removal wrench).   They didn't quite get the hole deep enough first time round and had to go another foot down (~6' in total) so had to lift the pole out and do more digging.  The fact the water table is only about  24" down meant the hole filled up almost as quickly as the mud was removed!   Still they got there in the end and no property or power lines were damaged in the process.    Looking forward to the power blackout on Thursday (Not!) when they transfer the power lines from the old poles to the new poles.   Power scheduled to be off from 8:00am until 4:00pm IIRC.

 

 

 

 

 

On the cards for tomorrow is a trip "Up the Smoke" to collect some medication.   For reasons best known to the NHS and completely unknown to the patient the GP is unable to prescribe one of my many medicines  and I can only collect it from the hospital.      If I park the car in the station that's getting on for £30 in total for the pleasure of the collection.   It's ironic that on my return I will be able to drop into the GP's and collect the other 9 or 10 medications that I normally have.     I'm sure there's some logic ......   let's just hope the good folk of ASLEF are putting on some form of service tomorrow even if it isn't going to be the full Monty.

 

TTFN

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. What with all the kerfuffle over getting the bin emptied I never got round to getting things moving re. the new car so I will have to start on that first thing in the morning. All things being equal I should have it by the weekend.

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. What with all the kerfuffle over getting the bin emptied I never got round to getting things moving re. the new car so I will have to start on that first thing in the morning. All things being equal I should have it by the weekend.

If you haven’t bought a car recently paying for them is different now. No cash, no bankers draft. Bank transfer or debit card. After a credit card deposit. 

[PupCam]

Another quick fertle with Saturn from earlier in the month.

 

 

Well at least you can guess what it is so that's something I suppose.

 

I managed to get a version of another capture program (FireCapture) running on the old Windows 7 astronomy laptop and get it to recognise my astrocamera.    I will give that a try next time we have a half decent night sky.   It will make an interesting comparison with Sharpcap which is the program I've been using to date.    Unfortunately Saturn is pretty much done for the time being as it rises ~10:00am and sets at ~8pm  so no chance of copping that again at the moment.   Unfortunately its rings are on the decline as well for the next few months (years?) as it slowly tilts so the very thin rings are edge on to us.    

 

Still, patience is a virtue.

 

Night All

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30 by PupCam

[PhilJ W]

32 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

If you haven’t bought a car recently paying for them is different now. No cash, no bankers draft. Bank transfer or debit card. After a credit card deposit. 

The dealer will accept both debit and credit cards.

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[TheQ]

When they replaced a pole like that near us , they gave use the 12 hour window the power might be off..

Then didn't take the power off at all , they just moved the cables live.

 

Evening Awl,

Long quarterly meeting about parallel bits of metal of a small size.

Unfortunately when I formatted the accounts to print prettily I managed to break a link or two and stuffed the figures. But didn't notice... So I know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning.. before sending out an email.

 

Noticed the pub we held the meeting in does, beef stew, or chicken N rice, or sausage and mash for £3.50 each..

That's for the dogs..

For the humans it's a tenner +...

 

Driving back and orange glow on the eastern horizon!! Dawn already? Nope,  just the moon in an unusual place.

 

I noticed with the old tablet I occasionally got a headache after long use. This one I haven't so far, but the new  resolution is 1900*1200, rather than the old 1280*800.

 

Muggachoccy gone

Good night Awl.

 

 

[Erichill16]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Our vet will let us know when it's time and we will euthanise both of them at home - surrounded by familiar things and with the people they love and trust.

 

Even though Hovis is only five years old this is something that has given me much to think about. 
Does the vet really know how much your pet is suffering? I think the vet may give his advice but only you really know your pet .With Hovis it’s ultimately my decision.

Perhaps we’ll be lucky and wake up one morning to find our pet has moved on to pet heaven.

Edited January 31 by Erichill16
Re wording

[Andy Hayter]

I think vets are well versed at reading the owners alongside the condition of the animal.  Afterall it is we who speak the vets language and they then have to interpret the pets' symptoms.

[Erichill16]

18 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

I think vets are well versed at reading the owners alongside the condition of the animal.  Afterall it is we who speak the vets language and they then have to interpret the pets' symptoms.

This is exactly the what I’ve been considering. When a vet looks into your pets eyes does he see what you see? I just don’t know.

It’s late and getting a bit morbid so I wish you all goodnight.

Robert

Hovis catching up with her beauty sleep.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, Grizz said:

We are escapees. 
 

Did you find that you survived and coped, despite the system and not because of it? 
 

We at the sharp end of the job faced an extremely zealous, fanatically politised organisation, increasingly lead by proffesional managers. That is to say managers who haven’t progressed up through the ranks. I am totally convinced that towards the end they were covertly recruited for their political beliefs rather than their ability to manage a safety critical railway.
 

Worst still they learnt how to manage a railway from a book, which is ideologically perfect, until it doesn’t function exactly as the book tells you. Then in the blink of an eye these folks  had nothing to fall back on, which is why they surrounded themselves with people of exactly the same type. If you looked closely they usually last in a role for around 18 months to 2 years tops, then they got promoted or ‘quickly moved’. 
 

The most frightening part is this is the norm…..the experienced managers, who rose through the ranks are all but gone. 
 

Still we are out and it is now someone else’s issue. I can’t worry about it anymore. 
 

As I mentioned before I still hate Tuesdays, I don’t suppose that will change any time soon. 
 

Relax and enjoy your life Neil, you have earned it mate. 

 

I wonder how much of it is down to education. More and more of the professional managerial class have gone through the same managerial pipeline of university-graduate scheme-MBA where they are taught a management system and share group think.

 

At one time management did often have excellent core technical or operational skills and knowledge and knew what they were doing beyond what it says in a book. When I was at LR I noticed that many of their senior people had gone through their graduate scheme (and despite this post being negative, it was an excellent scheme) thought in exactly the same way. One of the problems was they had a little bit of experience in all parts of the business but no depth. That isn't necessarily a problem until they think their limited experience gives them the requisite expertise to try and override genuinely expert specialists. They hadn't done the awkward cases which didn't fit the rules or the difficult analytical jobs but were happy to harangue surveyors. As a principal I  always backed surveyors provided they could explain the issue which infuriated some even more. Fortunately at that time the really senior people still supported the authority and responsibility of the surveyor to decide. One of my standard responses to business managers (it was always business managers, it was notable that virtually all those who went through the graduate scheme went into the commercial rather than the technical side) was if they knew best then get authorised for the work and I would happily transfer the job to them.

 

And it's not just managers, engineering is dominated by group think largely because they've been conditioned. 

[NGT6 1315]

Cheers awl. Getting light outside.

 

Working from home today as Livia seems to have caught a flu and needs to stay in for the rest of the week. At least she's cheerful regardless! Annika seems to have been lucky so far, however.

 

Stay safe, and ta...

 

 

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

When you get decisions made by people who have no clue about what the consequences of that decision will be.. its time to fight back.. or ... leave...  I describe it as the super duper "Peter Principle" and it is, unfortunately prevalent across a lot of companies and groups. PAH!

 

Today may see a bit of shark driving, floor swabbing and a bit of culinary input (slow cooked Chile concerned is on the menu for tea). We don't eat enough rice to purchase a rice cooker, don't use a deep fat fryer so our kitchen has enough workspace for me and her indoors to prepare and cook our meals in reasonable comfort.

 

Time to getupandgerronwithit!  @NGT6 1315 hope Livia feels better soon!

 

TTFN!

 

Baz

[TheQ]

Sadly professional managers are often useless because they are to busy managing a business they don't understand. The courses they've taken have to be generic, and generic solutions don't work in many businesses, you need to know and understand the technical purpose of the company, not just see it as a profit centre.

 

Mooring Awl, 

3 hours sleep, 3 hours sleep. Not enough.

 

I needed some air, feeling a bit stuffy, so  Ben the surprised Collie was taken out on early patrol. He spent most of the time nose to the floor, something had been down to the house and he followed the trail wandering all over the garden.

 

Dull grey and damp out there, with added white grass, extensive frost but not very cold.

  The ground is still sinking in places, it's making for very uneven ground. A roller won't help it would sink in,  a ton or two of sand might have to be bought to fill in hollows, which vary between foot sized to one area about 6ft across that has dropped 6 inches in the middle. I suspect the big area has been undermined by rabbits., but the heaps dug out at their rabbit holes aren't enough to fill in the hollows.

 

Plans for today,

Once  the MRC accounts are sorted, I might have a go at moving / chopping up a fallen tree .

 

Time to head for the kitchen.. I need coffee.

 

 

 

Edited January 31 by TheQ

[jamie92208]

I saw my fair share of over promoted and inexperienced senior officers.  The problem was that if they stuffed up big time real people got hurt.  There were some very telling comments in the initial Hillsborough enquiry report. Nuff said. 

 

More carpentry today. 

 

Jamie

[Gwiwer]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

 

Sadly professional managers are often useless because they are to busy managing a business they don't understand. The courses they've taken have to be generic, and generic solutions don't work in many businesses, you need to know and understand the technical purpose of the company, not just see it as a profit centre.

 

It was not without due consideration of the available evidence that I referred to one of my superiors, an unmarried woman as it happened, as “Miss Management”. 
 

The moniker stuck, was used by others, became known to “Head Office” and she was abruptly relocated.  To a position within head office where she was no longer responsible for teams of people whose role she seemed to know nothing about and to whom she was overly fond of giving unreasonable instructions in a confrontational manner. 
 

Good management requires advanced “people skills” as much as it does business acumen. Without your people you will have no business. No two people are the same. And sometimes it is in the greater interests to sacrifice a small amount of your “bottom line” to ensure your people are the best, get the best and do their best. 
 

I would rather pay over the odds for an enthused, engaged and proactive workforce than chase the bottom line through micromanagement.  Ultimately a good workforce will serve you well, lift your reputation and generate more business. Whereas a demotivated, lacklustre team who are in the jobs they can get rather than the ones they want will cause you endless frustration, hours of avoidable “interviews”, huge sums in hiring, training and firing, and can cause significant harm to your standing and your business. 
 

I was asked more than once at the House of Fun when I was going to apply for management positions. 
 

My reply was always the same. “I could manage this station standing on my ear. But I am not going to. I have reached that point in my career when I no longer want nor need the stress, responsibility nor salary which comes with a carpeted office. And I also work very well “at the coal face” outdoors facing my customers.”  
 

There was never any argument about that.  
 

Neither was their any argument when I described my management style. A pyramid. 
At the bottom you only get sh1t from above; at the top you only get sh1t from below but at every level in between you get sh1t from all sides. At the bottom you are the strength of the business supporting it and all its people. Once at the top you are the easiest to flick off. 
 

Furthering my “pyramid” I have always described my management style as that of the sheepdog. I lead from the back. You will always get natural front-runners; high-performers who if set targets will always work diligently towards them. Then there’s the pack - mostly OK but at times needing direction around the edges and the odd straggler rescued. And then there are the lame ones at the back. If I follow them I can see they are struggling and make time to help. If I am leading from the front I have my back turned to everyone and can’t see what my people are doing. 
 

Lead from the back; let the best ones run ahead, watch the pack, support the strugglers and pay attention to the woolly edges.  Everything else looks after itself. 

Here endeth the lesson. 

Edited January 31 by Gwiwer

[New Haven Neil]

Quick look in, SWMBO is WFH, I have duties to attend to.

 

Weather not nice but not yet wet, although it will be. 7c, windy and very dark.

 

SWMBO on phone to the tax folk, sparks are flying, the person yesterday gave completely and utterly incorrect information.  Even their own website shows the correct data, but this person thought otherwise.  There may be trouble ahead...

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. And yet another good night last night, 7 hours altogether with only one call out from bladder control and not a lot from Arthur Itis either. Better get on as I have to sort out the insurance for the new car. I hope to settle things and get mobile tomorrow afternoon but first there is a parcel due to be delivered tomorrow morning. The parcel contains the contents of my Hatton's locker which I have now cleared. Hatton's have donated  some things to various transport museums and by what remains advertised for sale their warehouse must be almost empty.

[DaveF]

A grey windy morning but dry so far, that may change this afternoon.  The wind is strong enough to be heard so I will not be going far, once this is written my next job is my monthly accounts.

 

I read the post about management issues with interest, it was just the same in schools.  I was lucky in that all but one of the Headteachers I worked for and with were good at their job.  Fortunately the less good one found a job elsewhere but not before messing up the careers of a number of people.

 

It occurred to me yesterday when I again mentioned watching German and French language TV that you might think I am fluent in them, I am not any more.  If I try to translate as I listen I get lost, if I simply listen I can understand it quite well.  Speaking is another matter - I haven't needed to for a long time.  I used to practice when I taught by talking to our language staff, it also enabled us to talk in front of pupils a bit more freely.  I remember once when I was teaching a group of 6th formers in a Biology practical lesson and realised that two of the girls were discussing their boyfriends in German (they were both doing A level and were good linguists).  In the end I had to tell them to either speak more quietly or go elsewhere as I really did not want to know what they were getting up to.  They were somewhat embarrassed.

 

I think later today may be work on more photos or a model or something.

 

I had to ring Hattons yesterday afternoon to clarify something, I was told the warehouse is full of empty boxes and not much else.

 

David

[Smiffy2]

Morning all. Grey and just a bit dismal here in Carshalton-sur-Mer. No sign of the Whelkmen, but they were rumoured to be working on submersible coracles, probably to evade the Revenue Men.

 

I have long wanted an egg opener - you know the sort of thing that cracks off the top of your boiled ehh so you can dip your soldiers in. So I put one on my last Temu order and it arrived yesterday. So I tried it out at breakfast...

 

 

It certainly works, perhaps just a little too well?

 

Having a quiet day today after another bad night.  I am on medication which causes me to pee a lot, and I can't seem to get back to sleep after about 4am, so pretty knackered.

 

Have a good day, the rest of you. 

[Rich_F]

11 minutes ago, Smiffy2 said:

Morning all. Grey and just a bit dismal here in Carshalton-sur-Mer. No sign of the Whelkmen, but they were rumoured to be working on submersible coracles, probably to evade the Revenue Men.

 

I have long wanted an egg opener - you know the sort of thing that cracks off the top of your boiled ehh so you can dip your soldiers in. So I put one on my last Temu order and it arrived yesterday. So I tried it out at breakfast...

 

 

It certainly works, perhaps just a little too well?

 

Having a quiet day today after another bad night.  I am on medication which causes me to pee a lot, and I can't seem to get back to sleep after about 4am, so pretty knackered.

 

Have a good day, the rest of you. 

 

I often get the urge to have boiled or fried egg for breakfast the night before. Then I wake up & think "nah boring old Malted Wheaties" are quicker 😆

[PhilJ W]

I keep cold hard boiled eggs in the fridge. One day my brother was visiting and decided that he would do himself a fried egg sarnie. The look on his face when he cracked one of the hard boiled eggs into the pan was a picture.

[Smiffy2]

6 minutes ago, Rich_F said:

 

I often get the urge to have boiled or fried egg for breakfast the night before. Then I wake up & think "nah boring old Malted Wheaties" are quicker 😆

I am an egg man. 

I am the walrus.

Goo goo g'joob.