File under “Has to be seen to be believed” :
You are Arsehole Boss. On a whim, you have decided to move your company from its current offices to ones in London, for no real reason except that you no longer want to be in the current location. You have signed the contract for a year’s lease of the new office. You still have a year of lease on the current office, but hey, that doesn’t matter, because you’re moving to London. You’ve spent the money on the current lease already – it doesn’t have to show up in this year’s accounts, so who cares?
Three days before everyone in the office moves to London, and all their equipment etc., you suddenly think to do a headcount, and figure out how many people are going to be in that London office.
The London office has room for 12 people – maybe 15 at a push. Your current plans involve a company that has 30-35 people within the next three months. You think “Oh shit”
All of a sudden the office that was going to be abandoned and left empty has a use again. And some of the people who you’ve been giving job offers to, with the explicit location of “London” are going to be messed about, pissed off, or plain change their minds when you get round to telling them.
Laugh? I almost shat myself. You just couldn’t make this crap up – and if you wrote it as a comedy, everyone would say that the characters and situations were unbelievable.
Seen on the M4 last night :
A rental van from Hertz in front of us, with the graffiti on the back saying “My Knob” above the Hertz logo.
Very childish, but not one I’d seen before. And didn’t have a camera to do it justice. Gah.
You know, sometimes customer services things can be really bizarre. For ages you don’t get anyone who’s decent at all, and who all drive you utterly insane. Then all of a sudden you get a splurge of semi-decent ones, although you’re still stuck with the knowledge that it’s far more likely to return to the status quo, rather than becoming the norm.
Anyway, about a month ago we got a quote for a replacement garage door, as the current one has been knackered for at least 18 months. However, when it comes to selling the house, any buyer would object to the door, so we might as well get it done now. Absolute bog-standard door, nothing special at all.
At the time, the company (the National Door Company) gave us a quote for about £360, which included VAT, delivery, installation, and taking away the old door once they were done. Pretty damn good price, for all that, so we went ahead and got it booked in to be done today.
Herself was going to be at home to deal with it when they came in the afternoon. However, it turns out they arrived earlier than expected. And they’ve fitted the door, dropped the keys through the letterbox, and buggered off, job done. Talk about painless! Of course, now we have to pay the final dollop, so we’ll wait to make sure the invoice is correct before singing their praises too loudly, but on current evidence, they’re a bloody good company, and have got their shit sorted out. Which is definitely a novelty.
Hmm, maybe this is just me as well, but if you saw workmen heaving on a sheet of glass in order to pull it from its frame (we’re talking about a sheet of glass probably 8 feet high and 10-12 feet wide) would you decide to walk behind them as they were pulling with all their force?
The stupidity of some people – or maybe it’s just the completely blinkered lack of awareness of surroundings, I don’t know – just befuddles me. This morning I’ve seen not just one person do this, but seven or eight. The window is being replaced because the blackout film on it is bubbled up and knackered, but it’s one huge sheet of glass, and if it had shattered (as it eventually did) while some numpty was walking past, and they’d been hurt, you can bet that said numpty would’ve been first on the line to the personal injury lawyers, and it would never have been that numpty’s fault for walking past people obviously having a problem with a bloody big sheet of glass.
I despair.
OK, now this one befuddles me a bit – and every time I read the words, I still don’t get the concept behind them.
Who the hell would actually go on holiday to Beirut?
What’s next? Parachute holidays to Afghanistan? Fire-fighting trips to Iraq?
Do you ever have a day where you finally realise that actually it is everyone else that’s at fault?
I’m very loath to make sweeping judgement calls like that usually, but today’s been one of the very few days where it actually ends up coming through as the only sane answer.
On the one hand I’m working with a private client, and their designers who swore they knew what they were up to, and really good web programmers – yet have come up with a design for a home page that is, um, entirely an image map. Oh, and they don’t know “how include files work”, and can’t understand how I’m using them in the site architecture. (for the non-geeky I should point out that we’re talking really simple concepts here, such as the site navigation being put in an “include” file, which means you just have one file with the navigation in, and include it from every page you write. Even the syntax is simple – “include(‘navigation.php’)” Rocket science it ain’t)
On the other hand I’m still working in a company that thinks that upping sticks and moving the office to London, when most of the people who work for the company are based in this area, primarily because it’s a whim of Arsehole Boss and the new(ish) Chairman, can in no way be seen as forming the basis for constructive dismisal tribunals. Oh, and that they can just sack people, rather than going through the – contracted – disciplinary procedure of two official verbal warnings, two written warnings, and then you can be sacked. Apparently, this doesn’t apply to them, and they can do what they want.
I’m currently considering a campaign of shit-flinging, which would include reporting them to
So yes, today is one of the days where I end up figuring that maybe I’m the only semi-sane one around here. And let’s face it, I can’t be entirely sane, because of the sheer amount of shit I’ve been putting up with…
Addendum : I should point out that this post is not making out I’m perfect, because I’m not, and certain other errors fuckups have since come to light that’re entirely my fault. However, I can fix them in ten seconds (and have done) while everyone else is still pissing and moaning and being utter fuckin’ numpties. So I still rest my case , although with the proviso that I know I’m not perfect either. So there.
Had a wonderful sight at lunchtime today – a red kite floating above the place where I eat my lunch.
No, not just any old red kite – that’d be dull – I mean a red kite as in bird-of-prey, shitehawk, scavenger – but still a beautiful sight to see against a summer sky.
Amazingly, D4D™ now contains no less than 893,243 words.
I was asked by the owner of Arena Flowers for a link to them. So here it is, a link to Arena Flowers. Who are, apparently, lovely and professional.
