According to the BBC today, a school in Somerset has banned Valentine’s Day cards. Not because they’re an over-priced over-commercialised bit of tat that means fuck-all except bigger profits for Clinton Fuckbag Cards (to give them their full stock-exchange title) and their ilk. Oh no, it’s so the little darlings the “emotional trauma” of being rejected if they don’t get a card.
Somewhere along the way, we seem to have become so paranoid about how children deal with failure, they now have no idea at all what to do when failure does happen.
I think it started with the introduction of GCSE exams, where all the grades were a “pass”. (glossing slightly over the “X” and “U” grades – they were still a grade, even if it was one that marked you as having not completed the course) Then there was all the rubbish about not having sports day in some schools, because it was ‘harmful’ to the little bastards if they lost a race.
Where I work we’re beginning to see the results of this generation’s inability to deal with failure. We’ve recently been interviewing people for jobs, and it’s really surprising how many of them just walk in expecting to get the job – no preparation, not dressing for the interview, no experience in the area, and still expecting to just walk in and get the job simply for being able to walk in through the door.
This vogue for not letting children fail is incredibly damaging – part of life is about dealing with failure, of how to handle not being perfect. I don’t know why or how it came about that failure was a bad thing – but I do hope that it’s a trend that gets reversed before too much longer.
If you were to get this from an agency, what would be your response?
2 urgent PHP contracts to strart in next 2 weeks
[Skillset list - I won't add it all here]
1 Junior and 1 mid/senior level
Thanks
And that’s it.
My written response was probably more civil than it should’ve been, because my mental response was “Up yours, fuckbag. You can’t even be arsed to put the location or rate, so fuck you.“
At some point today, Enterprise Car Hire are supposed to be collecting the piece-of-shit hire car I’ve had since the accident on the 17th December.
I haven’t yet collected my own car, but according to the bodyshop that should be ready for collection today, or at latest tomorrow. Let’s hope.
So far, my experience with Enterprise has been unremittingly negative. It took them two days to even deliver the sodding car, and extending the hire for a third week was an exercise in stupidity, so I’m really not expecting them to arrive here today to collect the damn thing at all. Still, that’s not my problem – so long as they don’t try charging me for extra hire days due to their incompetence/idiocy. We’ll see.
Mind you, they also haven’t yet even charged me for the third weeks’ hire, so it’s not all a failure. But we’ll see whether they get that one right too.
In short though, I really wouldn’t recommend Enterprise Car Hire to anyone. While they might be a bit more expensive, I’ll stick with Avis in future, thanks.
Update : They actually came and collected the car by 10am. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re a lot more efficient at getting the car back than they are at delivering the damn thing.
Yet again, you can tell that the Festering Season is over and done with, the fucking Easter Eggs are in the shops!
Tesco, you utter utter bastards.
Apparently, today is the last day of trading for the Borders bookstores.
I went past the Norwich branch yesterday, and that’s already closed. It’s a sad sight, a bookshop filled with empty sets of shelving.
On occasion, I just wonder whether my brain works slightly differently to “most peoples”. Today has contained one of those occasions.
If you were running a car-hire company, would you put an ice-scraper in each car during the winter months?
I know I would – having today had to go and buy a new one. (I’ve got one in the normal car, of course – but not in the hire one. Fuckers)
I’m sure that the excuse for not doing so would be “because of the cost” when people take the scrapers for themselves afterwards. Me, I’d put some branding/advertising on them, and job done – I don’t know how much return business you’d get, but every winter those people would be seeing the name of the hire company, and be reminded of it.
Enterprise Car Hire, that’s yet another bloody trick you’re missing.
Today we’re off to Birmingham and the NEC again, this time for the BBC Good Food Show. It’s just been one of those months where we’ve ended up there twice. Mind you, hopefully we won’t be going back again ’til it’s time for the International Spring Fair.
The Good Food Show (and most of the others held at the NEC) is usually good, except that the NEC – and probably most other show venues as well – does insist on trying to stuff in as many exhibitors as possible. I understand that up to a point – after all, it’s good business – but it gets annoying when each aisle is wide enough for three or four people at most. That’s fine when people are moving along, but when they’re stopped at a stall and trying to either a) get to it or b) get samples of whatever’s on offer it gets ridiculous. At that point those “4-people wide” aisles become half the size (at best) because there’s people either side of them stopped and not moving.
I’m going prepared this time. No, I’m not taking a stungun – although that would be a good alternative – but I’ll be prepared to go and sit somewhere else, either with the laptop or a book, and just not get involved. It’s not ideal, because I’d actually like to be going round the stalls – but if I do that, the odds are that someone’s going to get hurt. And people, it won’t be me.
Amazingly, D4D™ now contains no less than 846,310 words.
D4D™ started on 9th August 2002, so it's been going 2771 days or roughly 7.59 years.
In that time, I've not posted on 186 days all told. Not bad.
