Job woes/wins

[MoogleViper]

14 minutes ago, bob said:

Also, £6 for breakfast? Where was he eating, Harrods? Wetherspoons do a fried breakfast and a pint for £4, not only setting him up right for the day, but saving his company valuable £'s and putting money back into a good British institution at the same time.

Maybe he didn't leave his house until midday, so missed their breakfast menu.

[MindFreak]

I'm bored at the moment. Since returning from paternal leave on September 1st I've had nothing to do - I work with software and we have so many tasks ahead of us but for some political reason we cannot work on them. Our budget has been cut because of a large project elsewhere in my company and therefore the remaining staff may not work overtime. However, we do not get the time off so it practically means that we only have small tasks to work on which are not nearly big enough to fill out half a week at a time. 

 

I'm just taking time off then since I have a relatively newborn son at home who is not quite well (problems gaining weight and such - see bad stuff thread in a little while) so it's not that bad but I'm running out of days to spend on this... 

 

Before (or actually on the day that) my son was born I actually applied for a new job within the same company - I was about to go to the interviews when I saw that not everything was right with my son and thus I cancelled the interviews - I wouldn't be able to start before next year so it wouldn't make sense to go to the interviews now. I'll talk to the manager at that place next year and hope he still has an open spot for me. It sounded just like the place for me.

[Charlie]

18 hours ago, Zell said:

Our policy is that you can only claim (non-overnight) breakfast if you had to travel or leave home before 6am. I've done this recently when having to get an early flight, my travel receipt showing that I got a 5am (!) taxi proves that I had a legit reason to get breakfast at the airport.

To be honest if it's not in policy (assuming you have a well written and established expenses policy) then he really shouldn't have claimed it in the first place. 

Our policy is if you leave before 0715 you can claim up to £10 for breakfast so he's completely in policy. Flight was at 0630 so it's not really up for debate what time he left the house at.

@bob - I challenge you to get a £4 breakfast in an airport!

@MoogleViper - It's just that £6 breakfast that has been rejected but until it's been resolved the rest can't be claimed.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Charlie

[Cube]

It seems that not only have I lost my job, but my boss is also attempting to screw me out of any notice period/pay.

[Esequiel]

All this expenses talk.... we allow £3 for breakfast if people leave before 6:15am and £3 for lunch if they are out all day (8:15am to 4:45pm)....

 

its enough ugh for a McDonald's muffin and a subway lunch lol

[S.C.G]

22 hours ago, Cube said:

It seems that not only have I lost my job, but my boss is also attempting to screw me out of any notice period/pay.

I'm sorry to hear that Cube I hope you manage to get the pay that you're owed and that you can find something else soon.

Edited September 29, 2017 by S.C.G

[Cube]

Just now, S.C.G said:

I'm sorry to hear that Cube I hope you manage to get the pay that you're owed and that you manage to find something else soon.

I've literally finished speaking to him. He's giving me proper notice now (which is 9 weeks). 

[S.C.G]

Just now, Cube said:

I've literally finished speaking to him. He's giving me proper notice now (which is 9 weeks). 

Well that's a bit more like it, still though... wishing you all the best.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Shizzle seems to happen to me like buses. I received an email inviting me to an interview in Nottingham last Tuesday [the interview was on Friday], a couple of days later I get another response to an application inviting me to an interview tomorrow. 

I thought I bombed the interview on Friday, the personality charm I put on was amazing as always, but I did piss poor at their WPM test - getting about 47-49 which is shocking to me - but to be fair I was put in a cramped booth with no room to manoeuvre oneself. So pinned on the tomorrow interview. 

Got a call today from them saying I hadn't gotten the job I applied for - legal services assistant- but have been offered an admin assistant role. Which I have accepted! I've just come back from work giving them a written notice of leaving. I've never handed in my notice before. Feels weird. But I'm back on the legal bandwagon, yay!

[Fierce_LiNk]

I've had an insane week in work and am looking forward to just chilling out over half-term. In short, it's all going well so far, but it does feel like being reborn and learning lots of things from scratch. I had to help run the Harvest festival service on Friday and was already a bit nervous about a "reflection" that I had to do at the end of it, which would be around five minutes long, in front of a shitload of parents. But, it was decided about 20 minutes beforehand that we kinda needed somebody to do lots of introductions to each part, e.g. to introduce which year groups were coming to the stage and what would be happening after that. Basically, I had to play host with less than 20 minutes preparation time. So, what ended up initially just being a five minute reflection ended up being much more than that. Talking to children is easy, but the parents are terrifying.

Managed to get through it ok. I guess this is something that I'll be doing more of, so going to start to look into ways to improve here. E.g. to make my voice sound less like the shrill of a banshee and more pleasing to the ear. Hosting is haaaard. Dunno how people do it!

[Ashley]

Hosting and presentations and all that is something I find weirdly easy to do. Dunno if it's just because there's a layer of disconnect compared to more one-to-one things which I find more difficult.

Anyway, enjoy the week in which you inflict the annoyance of children on the rest of us.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Hosting is something I can do if I can unleash some hardcore banter and ribbing action, and saying "Yeeeeaaaaah" at least twice, such as at Mecca. Formal presentations though... Not sure if I could pull that off without some boombastic prep.

[Fierce_LiNk]

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

Hosting and presentations and all that is something I find weirdly easy to do. Dunno if it's just because there's a layer of disconnect compared to more one-to-one things which I find more difficult.

Anyway, enjoy the week in which you inflict the annoyance of children on the rest of us.

Any tips that you can give me, braaah? I'm going to spend half term looking at ways to improve this. I guess that it was extra tricky with it being my first time. Hashtag popping my cherry.

I've spent yesterday and today chilling with the cats.  

1 hour ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

Hosting is something I can do if I can unleash some hardcore banter and ribbing action, and saying "Yeeeeaaaaah" at least twice, such as at Mecca. Formal presentations though... Not sure if I could pull that off without some boombastic prep.

Yeah, the formal aspect of it just made it seem a million times more difficult. Plus, it's meant to be a semi-religious type of event, so it's difficult to pitch it. So, I just kept it really simple and short. I think I did the right thing. 

[Ashley]

3 minutes ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

Any tips that you can give me, braaah? I'm going to spend half term looking at ways to improve this. I guess that it was extra tricky with it being my first time. Hashtag popping my cherry.

I've spent yesterday and today chilling with the cats.  

Not really because its not like its something I consciously did, just the way I turned out.  Practice I guess.  Trying to remember you may make mistakes or whatever but it is seldom life or death (unless you're secretly a doctor).  But it will come with experience.  Just pretend all the parents are from kN-Eeeeeee.

[Ashley]

On 21/09/2017 at 1:43 PM, Ashley said:

Working on specing a new request, which basically has a number of factors and for each one the person meets the requirements they get that factor.  Each factor also has its own score (one may be worth 1 point, another 2 etc) and obviously they get a total amount of factors and a total score (up to 7).  Over the course of several emails, and eventually a face to face conversation, the discussion basically went as follows:

Them: They pass if they get 2 factors and a score of greater than 2 or 2 factors and a score between 2-3.5
Me: Is that not the same thing by and large?
Them: No because if they get a score of 4 they shouldn't be included
Me: But 4 is greater than 2
Them: Yes, but not between 2 and 3-5
Me: But you said either greater than 2 or between 2-3.5
Them: Yes, so if they get 4 they shouldn't be included
Me: But that meets the "greater than 2" part
Them: But not 2-3.5
Me: But you said or
Them: Yes because it can be either
Me: So if they get 4 its the first part
Them: But not the second
Me: So you only want it if its between 2-3.5?
Them: Yes
 

This person met with my line manager last week (regular thing) and twice said "can you put more people on this project" because they were worried about missing deadlines and my manager (rightly) said that it doesn't need more people, it needs them to respond to queries.

We were emailing today and I was trying to convince them to utilise some data we can get from an external supplier for reasons and they eventually said "only if it doesn't delay things any further" so I went in basically saying "it's not been delayed yet, I have done as much as I can with the information that has been provided and I had to wait five months for you to respond to my email before I could get started, the issue isn't this data, nor a lack of staff working on it".

Sod you.  Don't you do bugger all, do what little you do do (heh) badly and then have the gall to act as if I'm potentially delaying things.  

Especially as their boss asked our team to drop everything we were doing (across the board, not just for their team which is what we spend most of our time working on) to work on something for them.  

[EEVILMURRAY]

Coming to the end of my first week as a full time legal dude. Still unsure on the entirety of the role, as it seems the job description differs from what the job does. But I've been training all week and did some solo photocopying today - gasp you should - so pressure is on to keep things profesh.

It's a bit weird that I'm on the defence team this time as opposed to my previous paralegal job which was making the claims, I need to flip reverse my thinking sometimes.

[punio75]

On 22/10/2017 at 11:08 AM, Fierce_LiNk said:

I've had an insane week in work and am looking forward to just chilling out over half-term. In short, it's all going well so far, but it does feel like being reborn and learning lots of things from scratch. I had to help run the Harvest festival service on Friday and was already a bit nervous about a "reflection" that I had to do at the end of it, which would be around five minutes long, in front of a shitload of parents. But, it was decided about 20 minutes beforehand that we kinda needed somebody to do lots of introductions to each part, e.g. to introduce which year groups were coming to the stage and what would be happening after that. Basically, I had to play host with less than 20 minutes preparation time. So, what ended up initially just being a five minute reflection ended up being much more than that. Talking to children is easy, but the parents are terrifying.

Managed to get through it ok. I guess this is something that I'll be doing more of, so going to start to look into ways to improve here. E.g. to make my voice sound less like the shrill of a banshee and more pleasing to the ear. Hosting is haaaard. Dunno how people do it!

To be fair I still find this hard. Speaking in front of a hall of kids- no problem, sprinkle in a handful of parents (or a full hall of parents) different story! 

[Ashley]

On 21/09/2017 at 1:43 PM, Ashley said:

Working on specing a new request, which basically has a number of factors and for each one the person meets the requirements they get that factor.  Each factor also has its own score (one may be worth 1 point, another 2 etc) and obviously they get a total amount of factors and a total score (up to 7).  Over the course of several emails, and eventually a face to face conversation, the discussion basically went as follows:

Them: They pass if they get 2 factors and a score of greater than 2 or 2 factors and a score between 2-3.5
Me: Is that not the same thing by and large?
Them: No because if they get a score of 4 they shouldn't be included
Me: But 4 is greater than 2
Them: Yes, but not between 2 and 3-5
Me: But you said either greater than 2 or between 2-3.5
Them: Yes, so if they get 4 they shouldn't be included
Me: But that meets the "greater than 2" part
Them: But not 2-3.5
Me: But you said or
Them: Yes because it can be either
Me: So if they get 4 its the first part
Them: But not the second
Me: So you only want it if its between 2-3.5?
Them: Yes
 

This person is still up to their same old shit.

Long story short I had to inform them today that their required changes won't be going Live by next week as I'm out for half of my week (i.e. 1.5 days) and still awaiting testing results and confirmation on a few points and they're now trying to argue its my fault for not being around all week and asked for someone else to do it.  My line manager responded saying even if I was around all week my sole obligation isn't to them and nobody else will be doing it.  They even had the gall to ask if I could just put the changes out to test - they have still not told me what the changes are.

Just combed through emails and built a timeline to send to my line manager in case it comes to that.  At one point I had to wait four months for an email so sod them. 

[MindFreak]

I'm starting to get a bit bored by my current job. It's not that the tasks aren't interesting but the future of the site worries me, it seems to be completely stuck at old software engineering regimes without the wish to move on to newer technologies (still working on mainframe, which is alright but also so limited). I want to try out something new but I lack the experience with the new tech that other companies or departments within my company need - .NET especially. I can code in Java and has learned some C# (those two are very similar) but still need to have more experience with the framework which is hard to get without some proper training / tasks. So yeah, I'm feeling a bit stuck now. 

I was at an interview a couple of weeks ago. They thought that the learning curve of .NET framework would be a bit too steep for me which is hilarious to say the least: I have a master degree in mathematics, I have taken a professional master in software engineering alongside a full-time job without delay, and I work with pensions which is not really the easiest topic to get into. I almost sighed at that point, I think I've proven that it's alright to throw a steep learning curve at me.

Edited November 28, 2017 by MindFreak

[Ashley]

5 hours ago, MindFreak said:

I'm starting to get a bit bored by my current job. It's not that the tasks aren't interesting but the future of the site worries me, it seems to be completely stuck at old software engineering regimes without the wish to move on to newer technologies (still working on mainframe, which is alright but also so limited). I want to try out something new but I lack the experience with the new tech that other companies or departments within my company need - .NET especially. I can code in Java and has learned some C# (those two are very similar) but still need to have more experience with the framework which is hard to get without some proper training / tasks. So yeah, I'm feeling a bit stuck now. 

I was at an interview a couple of weeks ago. They thought that the learning curve of .NET framework would be a bit too steep for me which is hilarious to say the least: I have a master degree in mathematics, I have taken a professional master in software engineering alongside a full-time job without delay, and I work with pensions which is not really the easiest topic to get into. I almost sighed at that point, I think I've proven that it's alright to throw a steep learning curve at me.

I'm also considering learning .NET.  I found this guy's Library App video series useful, and I know he has another one more recently.  Problem is I don't think either are complete, but they were the most practical and user-friendly tutorials I found (most others were either badly made, difficult to follow or sales pitches dressed up as tutorials): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfniixfhHqpIGbU7z2JCNJw/playlists

[MindFreak]

@Ashley Thanks, may look into some of those courses. Looked through Coursera but couldn't find anything useful there - only for learning C# which I don't want to spend to much time on at the moment because it looks so much like Java.

[Ashley]

Yeah if I were you I'd focus more on the .NET Core framework and pattern rather than the actual language because as you said C# is not that different from Java at its core.

[Ashley]

So as well as doing the part-time work at once place I am doing some contracting work for a different place (that I used to work for anyway) through a company (part-owned by someone that I used to work with).  They've emailed about a potential next project and as I was reading it I got excited when they said it was for a Dublin-based place (because trips away) and then read on and it said it was off-site.  Oh

I want paid for flights to Dublin.

[Happenstance]

Just had the text from work saying that the school would be closed tomorrow. Well done snow! lol

[punio75]

Lucky sod!