Author Topic: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant. (Read 1625660 times)

T42 · « **Reply #7600 on:** 06 May, 2016, 11:57:15 am »

Registered letters from the bank, one for missus, one for me. Dunno about the UK, but over here a registered letter means something dire threatens, so adrenalin surges. We rip the damned things open to find that they're simply telling us that since we've reached retirement age (years ago) we can probably cash up on our savings plans.

Pass the trinitrin spray, someone.

Kim · « **Reply #7601 on:** 06 May, 2016, 01:04:18 pm »

We have brown envelopes, posted third-class with "DWP" and/or "HMRC" written on them to fulfil that function.

barakta · « **Reply #7602 on:** 09 May, 2016, 01:53:32 pm »

Exile office is officially TOO FUCKING HOT. 28C on my clock and that's with blinds closed and windows wide open. HR offered me a fan, which I didn't tell them to SHOVE where it belonged. I have a meeting at 2pm which is the only reason I've not sent an email to relevant management with "Lair too hot to function in, gone home cos not reasonable" aka "pick a fight if you dare!".

Evil-Office had no ventilation this morning and was actually more stagnant and airless than usual, but at least not noisy. Ventilation came back on, but was not making a noticeable difference. Expect heat fun in there too this summer.

mcshroom · « **Reply #7603 on:** 09 May, 2016, 02:09:18 pm »

Hot offices are grim and tiring. We regularly hit over 30^oC in our old ~~condemned portakabin~~ office anytime between March and mid-October if the sun came out. Unfortunately there is no statutory maximum temperature in an office in the UK.

From experience 28^oC was the point at which concentration became difficult and productivity took a dive.

Lady Cavendish · « **Reply #7604 on:** 09 May, 2016, 02:15:01 pm »

Our office is 28+ from about May to September! I genuinely have no clue why this is. Can live with it though.... would rather that than freeze to death

mcshroom · « **Reply #7605 on:** 09 May, 2016, 02:22:11 pm »

I would much prefer a cold office. If it's cold you can add layers. Too hot and after a point you run out of layers to remove.

I miss my old lab which had to be 20 +/- 0.5 ^oC for the machines to work.

Ashaman42 · « **Reply #7606 on:** 09 May, 2016, 02:24:21 pm »

My old lab was meant to be held at 18-20C but the manager used to complain he was cold and set the heating/air-conditioning to 27.

Boiling it was.

Ruthie · « **Reply #7607 on:** 09 May, 2016, 04:15:29 pm »

Quote from: mcshroom on 09 May, 2016, 02:22:11 pm

I would much prefer a cold office. If it's cold you can add layers. Too hot and after a point you run out of layers to remove.

I miss my old lab which had to be 20 +/- 0.5 ^oC for the machines to work.

And if you leave the heating on, on the warmest night of the year, your house guest can't sleep.

Sorry about that mcshroom

hellymedic · « **Reply #7608 on:** 09 May, 2016, 05:20:32 pm »

AIUI 28C is the temperature at which you will be thermally in balance if you are stark naked and immobile.

Ashaman42 · « **Reply #7609 on:** 09 May, 2016, 05:26:10 pm »

I suspect my coworkers would have had words if I'd stripped off.

hellymedic · « **Reply #7610 on:** 09 May, 2016, 05:30:49 pm »

That is the point!
The correct temperature for a nude ICU patient is unsuitable for mobile staff...

Ashaman42 · « **Reply #7611 on:** 09 May, 2016, 09:00:03 pm »

Yeah, in fairness I don't think it actually ever got to 27C it was just blooming hot. Aircon/heat and 8 GCs with ovens cycling from room temp to 320C every twenty minutes or so and then venting to the room. Toasty.

And unheated corridors in the rest of the lab so in the winter you really couldn't dress right at all. I swear somedays I spent more time taking jumpers on and off than I did doing actual work.

Oh well, I'm out of it now in a much better place

bumper · « **Reply #7612 on:** 10 May, 2016, 04:55:16 pm »

Hi,

Your public liability insurance is due for renewal. Because you've never claimed, ever, we're going to up it by 25%*. To renew give us a call or pay us via bacs so we don't even have to speak you.

Regards
Robin Twat

*we've also added a secret endorsement that you may not find from your last policy- You're no longer covered for damage to any property you're working on

ElyDave · « **Reply #7613 on:** 10 May, 2016, 07:52:10 pm »

my office at home is a little airless box, no direct communication with outside.

Winter it's freezing until about 2pm when the sun gets round to the front and comes through the glass partition to the hallway.

Summer it's just hot, to the extent that I'm normally found in a pair of shorts and not much else, which is OK until someone unexpectedly add video to a call when I don't know they could.

Ruthie · « **Reply #7614 on:** 10 May, 2016, 10:41:59 pm »

I wish Sadiq Khan didn't look like Philip Schofield. It's very upsetting.

mcshroom · « **Reply #7615 on:** 11 May, 2016, 09:47:15 am »

Quote from: Ruthie on 10 May, 2016, 10:41:59 pm

I wish Sadiq Khan didn't look like Philip Schofield. It's very upsetting.

He didn't until you suggested it. Now he does though $:-\$

My grumble. If you were going to close a cycle cut-through at the end of a 1km dead end road over a hill, wouldn't it be a good idea to put up some sort of signage warning it's shut, rather than just tying a barrier across the gate at the end? It happens to be one of the busiest cycle routes to my workplace so I won't have been the first to come across this.

This is only a grumble because the farmer had left his access gate further down the lane unlocked so I could walk through the "Private Property, No Access" gate to bypass the closure. Otherwise it was going to be a long diversion. Judging by some of the tyre tracks, others have not known about the farmer's gate and had to go all the way round.

Kim · « **Reply #7616 on:** 11 May, 2016, 01:13:54 pm »

Quote from: mcshroom on 11 May, 2016, 09:47:15 am

Quote from: Ruthie on 10 May, 2016, 10:41:59 pm
I wish Sadiq Khan didn't look like Philip Schofield. It's very upsetting.

He didn't until you suggested it. Now he does though $:-\$

Sadiq Khan:

Phillip Schofield:

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #7617 on:** 11 May, 2016, 01:19:02 pm »

Someone badly needs to apply their l33t 'shopping 5k1llz to the bottom picture so he's holding Gordon the Gopher.

hellymedic · « **Reply #7618 on:** 11 May, 2016, 07:25:25 pm »

Dear Odeon Cinemas,
Thank you so much for the email, timestamped 18.25 today confirming my ticket purchase for today's 15.00 screening of 'Florence Foster Jenkins'.
We enjoyed the film, thank you. As it was PG, I came with my Mum.
Please explain why it takes 24 hours to confirm electronic purchase of these tickets.
Yours etc

ETA Further weirdness has changed the timestamp to 5.47pm yesterday.
I definitely did not receive this either yesterday or earlier today.

This is the start of the full header. Perhaps someone who knows about these things can explain what's been happening.

From ODEON Tue May 10 16:47:04 2016
X-Apparently-To: helenvecht@btinternet.com; Wed, 11 May 2016 17:25:22 +0000
Return-Path: <git@odeon-job.krankikom.de>
Received-SPF: none (domain of odeon-job.krankikom.de does not designate permitted sender hosts)

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #7619 on:** 11 May, 2016, 08:16:29 pm »

krankikom.de

Wee Jimmy goes international?

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #7620 on:** 11 May, 2016, 08:18:22 pm »

Feels like I've chipped a tooth

hellymedic · « **Reply #7621 on:** 11 May, 2016, 08:43:02 pm »

Quote from: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2016, 08:16:29 pm

krankikom.de Wee Jimmy goes international?

It would seem BRITAIN'S IT is not good enough for some.
My recent hotel booking for partner's stay in Dorchester on Thames went via Hotel.info, another German outfit.

Kim · « **Reply #7622 on:** 11 May, 2016, 09:22:16 pm »

Quote from: hellymedic on 11 May, 2016, 07:25:25 pm

This is the start of the full header. Perhaps someone who knows about these things can explain what's been happening.

From ODEON Tue May 10 16:47:04 2016
X-Apparently-To: helenvecht@btinternet.com; Wed, 11 May 2016 17:25:22 +0000
Return-Path: <git@odeon-job.krankikom.de>
Received-SPF: none (domain of odeon-job.krankikom.de does not designate permitted sender hosts)

"From" lines don't normally have dates in them (it should be a name and email address), and I wouldn't trust an "X-Apparently-To" in this context (that tends to be added by mailing list software to create an audit trail).

The "Date" line is added by the sending software, and should reflect the time the message was sent (time of clicking the notional 'send' button). This is usually the one that's wrong... either because their clock/timezone is wrong, or because it's right, but the message has been sat in an outgoing queue for ages before actually being sent on.

"Received" lines (which may span multiple lines) are the ones to look at for working out when it was sent. They tell you when it reached each SMTP server in the delivery chain. Those tend to have accurate clocks. Mail may spend non-trivial amounts of time sitting in one SMTP server before being delivered to the next, typically because of network problems or high load.

There's an optional "Delivery-date" header that the receiving mail server may add to show the time it was delivered to your mail box. Not all servers do this.

hellymedic · « **Reply #7623 on:** 11 May, 2016, 09:41:31 pm »

17.25 GMT = 18.25 BST, which is when mail hit my inbox.

I bought the tickets yesterday evening and the 16.47 time seems about right.

Here is the tail end of the header

X-Originating-IP: [194.77.82.27]
X-OWM-Source-IP: 194.77.82.27(DE)
X-OWM-Env-Sender: git@odeon-job.krankikom.de
X-CTCH-RefID: str=0001.0A0B0201.57336B00.0293:SCGSTAT1769378,ss=1,re=-4.000,recu=0.000,reip=0.000,cl=1,cld=1,fgs=1024
X-CTCH-VOD: Unknown
X-CTCH-Spam: Valid-Bulk
Received: from odeon-job.krankikom.de (194.77.82.27) by rgin11.bt.ext.cpcloud.co.uk (9.0.019.04)
id 571F3FDE4894DA6E for helenvecht@btinternet.com; Wed, 11 May 2016 18:25:14 +0100
Received: by odeon-job.krankikom.de (Postfix, from userid 1011)
id 4E33D439D4E; Tue, 10 May 2016 17:47:04 +0100 (BST)
To: helenvecht@btinternet.com
Subject: ODEON BOOKING CONFIRMATION
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 17:47:04 +0100
From: ODEON <booking@odeoncinemas.info>
Message-ID: <eeaae3b49442175735c1ab4a1882ee12@localhost.localdomain>
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.73]
X-TicketBoxX-ID: 36512770@
X-TicketBoxX-Country: uk
X-TicketBoxX-Website: odeon
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="b1_eeaae3b49442175735c1ab4a1882ee12"
Content-Length: 12473

The whole process seems as useful as a chocolate teapot!

Kim · « **Reply #7624 on:** 11 May, 2016, 09:49:39 pm »

So the message sat in odeon-job.krankikom.de for a little more than a day, for some reason. Either because it wasn't trying or wasn't able to send (maybe it had network problems, or had crashed), or because the btinternet MXwasn't responding.

On balance of probabilities, I'm not going to blame our-favourite-telco for this one...

If it were $another_major_cinema_chain, then I'd be surprised it got through at all. I know someone who used to have to wrangle their systems.

ETA: I suppose it could have got through to a BT server and had the message temporarily rejected for some reason, causing it to be queued. Like if the disk server holding your inbox was AWOL, for example. Or a misguided attempt at rejecting spam.