The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I took wokka as representing a generic helicopter noise.

[robgul]

I took wokka as representing a generic helicopter noise.

These may help to distinguish between single and double rotor sounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zm6v1iHivg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1EYPy67qOU

[Mr Larrington]

The Met's Plodcopters have been at North Weald for a Several of years now; before that they were at Lippitts Hill in Epping Forest.  The National Police Air Service still has helichopters at the latter though.  Both use Eurocopter/Airbus 145s which while quieter than Chinooks are still noisy bastards when hovering over one's manor at three in the bloody morning.

[jsabine]

The Chinooks are, as far as I know, Army jobbies which relax with cocktails in Woolwich barracks.
They have to fly down the Lea Valley and along the Thames.
Flying elsewhere is verboten is my understanding.

Not sure how wide the flight corridor down the Thames is, but when we see Chinooks (and, I think, the occasional Apache) from sunny SE7, they're almost invariably south of us, so we're between them and the river - and we're not that close to the river.

The police fly over fairly regularly as well, but we prefer to think that they too are on their way to the badlands yclept Woolwich.

[T42]

One of the Army's favourite helicopter-training areas is around 30k from here.

https://youtu.be/Vl6-00wJrzA

It's quite impressive when you're cycling tranquilly along the road and one of they buggers suddenly explodes up over the top of the banking so low that you could count every rivet.

[robgul]

The Met's Plodcopters have been at North Weald for a Several of years now; before that they were at Lippitts Hill in Epping Forest.  The National Police Air Service still has helichopters at the latter though.  Both use Eurocopter/Airbus 145s which while quieter than Chinooks are still noisy bastards when hovering over one's manor at three in the bloody morning.

Ah - Lippitts Hill is the place (it's near Sewardstonebury - I just couldn't remember the name) - my father was about 800m due south of the site, on a direct line into central London, so had the pleasure of the whole noise and vibration experience 

Back in my youth the pub next to the chopper site, The Owl, was "the place" for the young, trendy and groovy gang from Buckhurst Hill (where I lived) and Woodford to amass on Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes.

[rafletcher]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

[PhilO]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

My previous employer had a flexi-hours policy which was effectively: You can start as early as you like and finish as late as you like.  In return (and this bit was explicitly stated!) we were expected to do at least 5% extra hours unpaid.

This was only one of a number of reasons why they are my ex-employer.

[fimm]

Colleague 1, if you are contacting someone out of the blue, it would be nice to have some sort of introduction along the lines of "Your name was given to me by <person> they suggested you might be able to help with <some description of thing>" rather than just messaging "Hi can I call you?".

Colleague 2, if you need to test the emergency lighting, it would be polite to warn us that you are going to turn all the lights off before you do so...

[Flite]

It's quite impressive when you're cycling tranquilly along the road and one of they buggers suddenly explodes up over the top of the banking so low that you could count every rivet.

We live in a small valley under what used to be a regular flight path of the Vulcan bombers.
First warning was the darkening sky - then that roar
Loved them to bits.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Colleague 2, if you need to test the emergency lighting, it would be polite to warn us that you are going to turn all the lights off before you do so...

Perhaps they also needed to test emergency reactions? 

[rafletcher]

It's quite impressive when you're cycling tranquilly along the road and one of they buggers suddenly explodes up over the top of the banking so low that you could count every rivet.

We live in a small valley under what used to be a regular flight path of the Vulcan bombers.
First warning was the darkening sky - then that roar
Loved them to bits.

When I read H2G2 I could relate to the Vogon Constructor Fleet, having been under the flightpath of a Vulcan as a 6 yr old.

[T42]

It's quite impressive when you're cycling tranquilly along the road and one of they buggers suddenly explodes up over the top of the banking so low that you could count every rivet.

We live in a small valley under what used to be a regular flight path of the Vulcan bombers.
First warning was the darkening sky - then that roar
Loved them to bits.

Ditto us and Concorde.  At 11:30 every morning it used to pass over our house, about 20 km from Roissy. Wonderful sound.

[Mr Larrington]

Used to go over Fort Larrington most days too.  IIRC it took a more southerly track than most Transatlantic flights so it could get to the open sea and light the blue touchpaper ASAP.

[ian]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

Embroiled in the mothership abductee engagement survey at the moment. The Swiss do work a 42 h/week standard (to be fair, you should see their salaries, which hover around twice the equivalent in the UK). They also record all their hours in a very Germanic fashion. A fair number on this basis opt to do a 4-day week and take a 20% salary cut. All of this means, our UK abductees are pegged at 40 h/week which is causing some displeasure (not unreasonably, considering it's an industry where 35 h/week is fairly standard in the UK). We did sort of make the decision to do a reduction in the UK, but then misplaced it. We're mostly flexible and completely hybrid though, and the office has beer and snacks, and we throw good parties. As for my department, if they act like grown-ups, I'm not bothered when they come and go as long they're generally about when needed.

[mrcharly-YHT]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

Embroiled in the mothership abductee engagement survey at the moment. The Swiss do work a 42 h/week standard (to be fair, you should see their salaries, which hover around twice the equivalent in the UK). They also record all their hours in a very Germanic fashion. A fair number on this basis opt to do a 4-day week and take a 20% salary cut. All of this means, our UK abductees are pegged at 40 h/week which is causing some displeasure (not unreasonably, considering it's an industry where 35 h/week is fairly standard in the UK). We did sort of make the decision to do a reduction in the UK, but then misplaced it. We're mostly flexible and completely hybrid though, and the office has beer and snacks, and we throw good parties. As for my department, if they act like grown-ups, I'm not bothered when they come and go as long they're generally about when needed.

Which industry is this, with a standard 35hr week?

I moved jobs to reduce hours from 65-70 down to a more reasonable 50-55

[Pingu]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

Embroiled in the mothership abductee engagement survey at the moment. The Swiss do work a 42 h/week standard (to be fair, you should see their salaries, which hover around twice the equivalent in the UK). They also record all their hours in a very Germanic fashion. A fair number on this basis opt to do a 4-day week and take a 20% salary cut. All of this means, our UK abductees are pegged at 40 h/week which is causing some displeasure (not unreasonably, considering it's an industry where 35 h/week is fairly standard in the UK). We did sort of make the decision to do a reduction in the UK, but then misplaced it. We're mostly flexible and completely hybrid though, and the office has beer and snacks, and we throw good parties. As for my department, if they act like grown-ups, I'm not bothered when they come and go as long they're generally about when needed.

Which industry is this, with a standard 35hr week?...

My bunch of work-shy, superannuated, waste-of-hard-working-taxpayers'-money, wokists.

[ian]

My employer is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century with respect to "flexible" working. Which in reality is "you can start any time between 7 and 9, but you must work the same fixed full day every day, oh, and 1 day a week (except Mondays) you can work from home".  Not my definition of "flexible" working.

Embroiled in the mothership abductee engagement survey at the moment. The Swiss do work a 42 h/week standard (to be fair, you should see their salaries, which hover around twice the equivalent in the UK). They also record all their hours in a very Germanic fashion. A fair number on this basis opt to do a 4-day week and take a 20% salary cut. All of this means, our UK abductees are pegged at 40 h/week which is causing some displeasure (not unreasonably, considering it's an industry where 35 h/week is fairly standard in the UK). We did sort of make the decision to do a reduction in the UK, but then misplaced it. We're mostly flexible and completely hybrid though, and the office has beer and snacks, and we throw good parties. As for my department, if they act like grown-ups, I'm not bothered when they come and go as long they're generally about when needed.

Which industry is this, with a standard 35hr week?

I moved jobs to reduce hours from 65-70 down to a more reasonable 50-55

The tidy mines of Thought Leadership (data and analytics mostly, I worked in various bits of Thomson and its entities for years). That's 35 hours contractual, obviously as a salaried subdeck minion, I have always worked more (and I've never had a job where they counted the actual hours, and travelling made for long weeks). This is the first time I've been contracted to 40 hours, though as a bridge crew these days it's not like it matters, I mostly work 9-6ish.

Of course, that five extra hours matters to the junior subdeck minions who are expected to be on-station and don't enjoy the bounteous benefits of Swiss-style remuneration and thus might be tempted to go elsewhere.

If I see any of my bunch lolling around on Teams after 6pm, I tell them to fuck off, I don't want people working stupid hours, it's stressful and unproductive.

[Beardy]

My week was technically 37 hrs, but I was very much frowned at because I had a habit of working 37 hrs a week. Being an early starter (usually the first in of a morn) meant I left work at 4pm or earlier and I also left my desk for a proper lunch hour as well. Those that got the major share of the bonus pot typically did 50 or 60 hrs a week and didn’t take any time when they worked over a release weekend.

[Pickled Onion]

My week was technically 37 hrs, but I was very much frowned at because I had a habit of working 37 hrs a week. Being an early starter (usually the first in of a morn) meant I left work at 4pm or earlier and I also left my desk for a proper lunch hour as well. Those that got the major share of the bonus pot typically did 50 or 60 hrs a week and didn’t take any time when they worked over a release weekend.

I'm a strong believer that working long hours produces worse results. I've always worked the accepted or contracted minimum and nearly everywhere have been given better raises/bonuses than the presenteeism bunch.

The one outlier was one place where I and the other new starter both worked strictly 8-4:30 with an hour lunch. The other teams came in late and most days worked until 10 PM or later. We brought in our project ahead of schedule, exceeded system performance targets several-fold, saved the company £millions. The other teams produced buggy code with regular outages. They got the bulk of the bonuses, we both left.

[perpetual dan]

Our washing machine has stopped doing the going round bit of washing stuff. It’s about 12 years old, we have hard water and it’s seen the kids through school. It’s been repaired before, so even if this is just brushes I suspect it’s turning into an income stream for the repair man.

So now I’m comparing replacement machines. Have synthetics programmes gone out of fashion?

[rafletcher]

Our washing machine has stopped doing the going round bit of washing stuff. It’s about 12 years old, we have hard water and it’s seen the kids through school. It’s been repaired before, so even if this is just brushes I suspect it’s turning into an income stream for the repair man.

So now I’m comparing replacement machines. Have synthetics programmes gone out of fashion?

We just use a low temp quick wash for synthetics.

[Mrs Pingu]

Our washer has 2 'easy care' programs (30 and 40") which I use for gear type synthetics and stuff, though they are over 2h long. If I want a quick wash it's 'dark wash' or something else. Having said that I'm not convinced by this Bosch, all my merino has suddenly started bobbling since we moved house and washing machine.

[Flite]

My fairly new Samsung has a ridiculous number of programmes with silly names and very little explanation of what they actually do.
The "Synthetics" wash takes over two and a half hours! At this time of year we wear a lot of wool, so I chuck all my bike kit and anything else that won't go in the cotton wash in the Wool programme, which takes about half an hour.  Then anything that isn't delicate goes in for an extra 10 mins fast spin.
I only use about 4 programmes all together. Basically I can change the temperature and dosage and spin speed to anything I want in most of the programmes, so it's all a nonsense. Much easier to just have delicate/cotton; temperature; spin speed.

But I do like the autodose system for detergent that only needs filling up every few weeks - useful for clumsy arthritic hands

[perpetual dan]

Quick is, in my head, for “not very dirty”. I rarely need some particular item turned round in minutes rather than hours. If it gets speed by banging things about harder then cycling kit and printed gig t shirts will both probably suffer. Equally a wool wash is maybe a bit over gentle for clothes that have been wicking sweat for a day.

Anyhow, we’ve picked a Samsung. Without the auto-dose as we use different detergent in different washes and that sounded like a good way to get none or both sorts rather than one or the other.