Health and Safety Signs
Posted: Mon 5 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Work-related | 4 Comments »As I’ve written before, my current workplace has an unhealthy (and frankly ridiculous) obsession with health and safety, and particularly with regard to warning signs. They haven’t yet put ‘danger of electric shock’ on all the plug sockets, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
We’re not even allowed to use light switches. Instead, the office has automatic sensors, and if nothing’s moving near those sensors, the light goes out. So far, so green, and all well and good. It can be weird if you’re the only person in a section of the office, and the lights start going out all round you, but there we go, that’s the way it is.
However, the lights in the toilets also work like this. Which again isn’t so bad in general. It means the energy doesn’t get wasted, blah blah. But the sensors are quite a way inside the toilet room, by five or six paces. So you go in, the door closes, you walk forwards, and then the light goes on.
Perceptive readers may have seen the flaw here.
Today, the toilet floor had been mopped, and was slippy. So the cleaners put up a little sign to warn people the floor was wet – as per Health and Safety.
Only, because the light was off when I went in, and walked forwards, rather than slipping on a wet floor (which had dried off in the meantime) instead I tripped over the fucking warning sign, which I didn’t see before the light went on.
I haven’t yet decided whether to report this as a problem…
Making Things Simple
Posted: Sat 3 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Thinking About..., Web Development, Work-related | Leave a comment »Over the last three weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of work on a new site. The basic premise is that it needs to be very user-friendly, easy to use, quick, smooth, and useable. I’ve got my own ideas about a lot of this, and on the initial development work, I’ve been applying quite a few of them to what I’m doing.
One particular thing that drives me crackers when I’m using a website is – to use the example of on-line banking – when I have to go through a seperate page to ‘select an account’ when I’ve only got one account. To me, if that’s the case, I’d far rather that the system had some logic, and effectively figured out for itself (OK, was programmed to ‘realise’) that if I’ve only got one account, I don’t need to select that account, it’s fine to go straight through to the account details page.
Anyway, I’ve been working to a similar kind of idea on the site, and while in theory it’s simple, it actually turned out to be (in some ways) a real pain. Yes, the logic is also simple, it’s just that it does take a couple of extra steps in order to get it to work.
But when it does work, it’s really nice, and makes life a lot easier.
Why is it, though, that making things simple to use can be incredibly complex in the back-end, whereas making things really complex and obstructive is actually dead easy?
New Media
Posted: Fri 2 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Photography | 1 Comment »Had an interesting conversation today with a media company up in Manchester.
Following on from the photographs I did for a charity up there back in November ’04, they now want to use those photos in a TV advertisement. I’m not quite sure what they plan to do, but it’ll be interesting to see once they’re done.
Oh, and yes, I still retain copyright on the images, and I’ll get a copy of the TV ad as well to add to the portfolio.
I have to say, I’m really quite chuffed about the entire thing…
Dungeonesque
Posted: Wed 31 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Work-related | 4 Comments »Way back on Thursday, I came in to find my desk in darkness. The light-fighting above it had broken (well, wasn’t working) – not that I minded, because it was quite nice to not have any glare on my monitor, and it meant the display worked a lot more nicely too.
Anyway, they tried replacing the fluorescent tubes in the light fitting, to no avail. A couple of flickers, then zap, back to darkness. So they decided to call in an electrician.
He came in yesterday, took a look at it, and left. Still in darkness.
It’s been replaced today, so I’m back to the world of light, and glare.
I have to say, I preferred it when the light fitting was broken.
Extensions
Posted: Mon 29 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »So, I’ve now finished working at the current place through an agency.
And today I start working at the current place for myself, albeit still with Parasol as the umbrella company that handles all the invoices, tax, NI, and the multiplicitous malarkey that would be additional responsibilities for me if I were simply self-employed.
I’m now here for at least another two months, probably three – and quite possibly six, as they’re already mid-discussion about that one. Absolutely barmy. Particularly when you also consider that I didn’t get the permanent position (doing the same thing) but I’m still fine for doing it as a contractor. For twice the money I’d have been paid as a permanent employee.
Still, if they’ve got cash to throw around, I suppose I might as well be the recipient of some of it.
Tosspots
Posted: Sun 28 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Work-related | 1 Comment »It’s not a common occurrence for me to be pissed off with an agency I’ve worked through. In fact, this is the first time it’s happened. Then again, this is also the first time I’ve worked for a tin-pot local agency, rather than a national one, so maybe that’s part of it.
As it is, I’ve now finished working for them, and I’m pleased about that. The last four months have been a bizarre journey, and while the work itself has been fine, the agency have been utter cunts.
I’ve had to chase them every month to get paid, and they’ve been utterly disorganised the entire way through. They’ve also contacted the workplace every month in order to get copies of paperwork that they’d already got, and just been an utter nightmare the entire way. In fact, knowing that the contract was ‘ending’ on Friday, they haven’t even been in touch with me all month. Not a word, nothing about another contract, or not having anything available at the moment, or anything at all.
So now I’ve finished with them. I’ve had an email from them telling me that while my technical skills are fine, my “personal conduct fell below the professional standards we expect as an agency on several occasions and we no longer wish to have you on our list of suppliers”. Now I have to say, that’s a first. In fact, it’s fucking bizarre – considering that the company I’m working for has extended the contract, and has now got me privately rather than through Clowns’R’Us, and that I’ve actually never not had a contract extended.
However, I have chased up the agency every inch of the way, and been a pain in the arse to them, because they’ve been so amazingly bad. I’ve had to be, or I’d still be waiting for my first paycheck, let alone my last one. So maybe that’s been where my personal conduct fell down – for calling a bunch of incompetents on their incompetency.
I just have to decide now whether to write a shitty email in response to it. It’s very tempting…
Home
Posted: Fri 26 January, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, House Purchase, Work-related | 2 Comments »Today’s either going to be really quiet, or really busy. I’m not yet sure which. But either way, I’m working from home today rather than being in Cambridge.
First off, we’ve got this meeting with an architect, to talk about our plans for the new place. That’s the main reason for being home-based today, but it the meeting should be over by about 11am, so that’s great. After that? I don’t know – there’s a lot of stuff I need to get done, but none of it is really ‘work’-based. Instead it’ll be my own odds and sods.
And of course it’ll mean I can take Hound out for a decent walk. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. And she’ll be happy with that too…