Interviewing

Posted: Fri 25 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Work-related | Leave a comment »

To start off my day today, I’m in an hour-long interview for a role that would be pretty cool if I got it.

The first 10-15 minutes of the interview will be a presentation about who I am, and what I do. (and why, I suspect) Along with examples of work done, and all that malarkey. Having done far more than my fair share of interviews where this is just a basic question (rather than a presentation) I’ve not really done much planning of the presentation, and will instead wing it a little bit – I always figure it’s far better to be looking at the people involved, rather than reading (even intermittently) from cue-cards and the like.

We’ll just have to see how it goes. I’m vaguely confident, but suspect that there will be other people far more qualified for the job than I am. Still, I’ll give it my best shot.

I’ll probably write something about it after the fact, most likely over the weekend.

Braille

Posted: Fri 25 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

The other day, I was in a local Sainsbury’s and noticed that the door to the toilets had braille for the toilet signs as well as the normal signography. (I know that’s not the right word, but I just can’t think of what the right word is)

However, the signs were screen-printed onto the door, and thus the braille wasn’t actually raised off the surface of the door at all.

Seen the problem yet? Yeah, me too.

When I pointed it out to the store manager (Yes, I asked to see him) his reaction was

“Oh, well no-one else has complained…”

Snoring Cat

Posted: Thu 24 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Animals, Domestic | 1 Comment »

I know I’ve said before that Psycho Cat snores like a trooper – enough to wake me up, in fact. However, I think that most people don’t really believe that. Currenty I’m sitting in the living room, and can hear him snoring away in the bedroom.

So I recorded him. I have to emphasise, this has not been amplified, or tweaked in any way – all I did was cut off the “start of recording” beep at (funnily enough) the start of the recording.

If you click this link, you’ll download the file to hear the little git in all his glory.

Enjoy.

Mileage

Posted: Thu 24 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Green, Own Business, Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Gordon wrote the other day about the mileage he covers to commute, and the cost of fuel (among other things) and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while (by which I mean ‘way before he wrote about it’) but never really got round to putting into words. So here goes for another attempt.

At the moment, I’m commuting between home and Great Yarmouth for the current contract. It’s about 40 miles each way, so about 400 miles per week. That’s about a tank of fuel per week – and wow, do you notice how much the price of fuel has gone up in the last year. Hell, in the last three months.

Remember all the fuss and fuel blockades when the price of petrol first went over the £1 per litre mark? (The BBC story linked to there is from 2000 – I thought it was a lot more recent than that, but what would I know?) Well now it’s nudging £1.20 per litre, and no-one seems to be protesting or complaining at all. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?

When we moved up to Norfolk, one of the main aims was to be able to live a greener, more ecological/economical life. And in general we’ve managed it. In fact, the biggest part of my carbon footprint now is my annual mileage. The problem is that as we live in the back-end of nowhere, I have to travel to offices in places where the work is. It’s a fact of life – at least until I get my own business properly started, and can work from home. Then it’ll start working out for the better. But until then, I’m just going to have to keep on eating up the miles.

God knows, I’d rather not have to be doing this kind of mileage. But at the moment, I do have to, short of completely changing my employment, career, and salary expectations.

Selling Seeds

Posted: Wed 23 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Getting Organised, Green, Green Garden, Health, News | 4 Comments »

It’s good to see that apparently more and more people are buying vegetable seeds, and growing their own veg, particularly in light of rising costs and growing awareness of the environmental impact of various imported fruit and veg.

We’re doing this more and more now that the garden is getting a bit more sorted – so far this year we’ve planted:

  • Three rows of potatoes
  • Leeks
  • Carrots
  • Onions
  • Bell peppers
  • Chilli peppers
  • Runner beans
  • Peas
  • Rhubarb
  • Tomatoes
    and
  • Parsnips

We’ve still got plans for broccoli/calabrese, courgettes, pumpkins, cauliflower, more leeks and parsnips for over-winter, and a couple more tubs of potatoes as well as gooseberries, blackberries and (probably) strawberries on the fruit side. And even then, as we get more organised next year we’ll do even more.

It’s just good to see people doing more for themselves in this way – I suspect it’s something that’s going to keep on happening. I certainly hope so.

Slow Mover

Posted: Wed 23 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Cynicism, Driving | 3 Comments »

Ok, if you’re in a car on a dual-carriageway or motorway, and you keep on being overtaken by trucks and coaches, wouldn’t you think that just maybe it’s time to speed up a bit?

Water Shortage

Posted: Tue 22 April, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Health | 7 Comments »

Since last Thursday, we’ve been unable to use our mains water.

About a year ago (apparently) one of the people on our road had an oil delivery, and some amount of oil spilled/leaked into the ground. Since then, Anglian Water have occasionally been testing the water supply there, and the diesel has now leaked into the pipes. (Apparently, in a fit of genius, the blue plastic pipes used for the supply of clean mains water are permeable to diesel oil. Which fucking Mensa member came up with that one, particularly for an area where every house has oil central heating?) Therefore, it’s now contaminated for everyone on our road – which admittedly only runs to about eight houses. We can use it for washing and so on, but we can’t use it for drinking, cooking, giving to animals, etc. etc. In short, it’s unfit for consumption.

So since Thursday, Anglian Water have been keeping on checking the contamination levels, and supplying all the houses on our road with bottled water.

Yesterday (Monday) they confirmed that the entire of the water main for our road is going to need to be replaced, which might happen next week. And even then we can’t go back to using the mains water until it’s been repeatedly tested. And I bet they replace the pipe with another blue-plastic one that the diesel oil will eventually seep into as well.

So with luck, we’ll be back on mains water in a couple of weeks time. And until then, Anglian Water will keep on supplying us with bottled water.

Surely it would’ve made far more sense (financially, practically, and from the perspective of customer services) to replace the pipe with a non-permeable version a year ago when the leak/spillage originally occurred, spend a day or two doing it, and have no further issues, rather than the farce of sending someone out to check it every so often for a year, then have to supply eight houses with bottled water for a fortnight while they finally get round to repairing/replacing it?

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