A random thread for small things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[andrewc]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

[Pedaldog.]

The migraine lot want to stab me with needles (botulinum toxin) and I've got a hip joint steroid injection in 3 weeks. I am lucky as long as they don't go near my veins I'm fine...

Hope the pain is better by now Pedaldog, I know a few people who've had various pain stuff like that and found it does help after a few days of horridness.

So far, Not a lot of improvement in pain levels, but I have so many different head pains, more than there are sub-set divisions in Socialist Party Offshoots!
I can say that, after 9 days, a couple of the nasty bits actually are less debilitating. I still have hope as they told me that the (bot -toxin) injections could increase pain for a week or so.

[ElyDave]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

Does your manager have to agree? Do you want to go?

Is the answer to the second is yes how would you manager serve the organisation by taking a good employee and disgruntling them

[T42]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

Did Spock get it?

[Beardy]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

A 'brilliant' D1 is hardly a minor achievement!
And how quickly things change. Is Enterprise what was Business?

ElyDave, staff moral doesn’t have an easily quantifiable value to enter into the spreadsheet, so personnel HR and senior managers aren’t interested in it. I’ve a friend who applied for the release package just before I did. The powers the be let 5 of his colleagues go, but told him he had to stay to finish the project he was managing, and if there was any money left in the pot they might consider letting him go then. He applied again when the package was re-offered last month and was turned down again.

[Ham]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

Don't bet the silver on it, your manager will have targets as well and I'm guessing the "easy" decisions are long gone. Chances are, after that many years you are relatively expensive, so vulnerable from that respect. I assume that if BT fail to achieve sufficient voluntaries, it will go to involuntary?

[Beardy]

Yes, for the first time ever. BT has maintained a 'no compulsory redundancies' policy, ostensibly in recognition of its people’s efforts, but in reality because compulsory redundancy carried a heavy premium for oldsters like me. But now they’ve closed the pension scheme that supported that premium they are free to chop where they will.

[ElyDave]

I'm only a humble pleb (D1) ,  but it was sent to everyone who might be eligible in Enterprise.  I think I was marked as "Brilliant"    on my last APR , so am doubtful if my manager would agree to me going.

A 'brilliant' D1 is hardly a minor achievement!
And how quickly things change. Is Enterprise what was Business?

ElyDave, staff moral doesn’t have an easily quantifiable value to enter into the spreadsheet, so personnel HR and senior managers aren’t interested in it. I’ve a friend who applied for the release package just before I did. The powers the be let 5 of his colleagues go, but told him he had to stay to finish the project he was managing, and if there was any money left in the pot they might consider letting him go then. He applied again when the package was re-offered last month and was turned down again.

That's the problem Beardy, my evaluations of my team now need to include "flight risk" FFS, I'd suggest deliberately keeping an employee who wants to go will increase flight risk significantly.  Of course the cynic in me woudl perhaps think that's exactly what they want - voluntary flight to avoid the payout

[ian]

It's all about the headcount, I don't think they actually care if you're good or not. If you wanted to deliberately engineer an scheme that gets rid of the good staff and keeps the bad, well, that's what they've done. But if your target is to reduce headcount it will be successful and any problems will be someone else's in a couple of years time.

[andrewc]

Yes, Business is now Enterprise.   The FAQ's for the scheme say that people with a "brilliant"    marking will not normally be authorised to leave.   I'm definitely no high flier , just the most experienced chap on a team that deals with one of our cash-cow products.

Ideally I'd like to go in the next couple of years, but as Beardy says, they've closed our defined benefits pension scheme & put us into a stock market based money purchase one.  I'd like to get enough cash paid into that so I could drain it for a year or two, before hitting the defined benefits one. 

They offer schemes like this more or less annually, but each time there are rumours that it will be the last one, so it's knowing when to jump!

[Ham]

Just FTR, my esteemed employer $megacorp now offers no packages, legal minimum even for voluntary "packages". Oh, by the way, please work your notice period. (for reference $megacorp employs> 4x BT worldwide, these days aout 15% that of BT in UK)

[hulver]

A 1973 graph on human moving efficiency.

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/11/14/efficiency-2/

“When one compares the energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body weight for a variety of animals and machines, one finds that an unaided walking man does fairly well (consuming about .75 calorie per gram per kilometer), but he is not as efficient as a horse, a salmon or a jet transport. With the aid of a bicycle, however, the man’s energy consumption for a given distance is reduced to about a fifth (roughly .15 calorie per gram per kilometer).”

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've been to Ryman's. Perhaps it's just this branch rather than the whole chain but their card machine only does chip and pin, not contactless. How 20th century!

[T42]

Our chippie used to do winkle and pin.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A 1973 graph on human moving efficiency.

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/11/14/efficiency-2/

“When one compares the energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body weight for a variety of animals and machines, one finds that an unaided walking man does fairly well (consuming about .75 calorie per gram per kilometer), but he is not as efficient as a horse, a salmon or a jet transport. With the aid of a bicycle, however, the man’s energy consumption for a given distance is reduced to about a fifth (roughly .15 calorie per gram per kilometer).”

I wonder what makes the salmon such a paragon of efficiency and the mice and lemming so inefficient? But I also wonder whether it's fair to take a per km measure for comparison. A reasonable distance for a human (on foot or cycle), a horse or a salmon but probably further than a fruit fly travels in its whole life and not far enough for a jet transport to even get airborne. Perhaps a measure of n body-lengths would be a more reasonable interspecies comparison?

[citoyen]

I've been to Ryman's. Perhaps it's just this branch rather than the whole chain but their card machine only does chip and pin, not contactless. How 20th century!

B&Q don’t do contactless either.

[matthew]

Relocated to the correct thread:


My old uni has posted me out the alumni news letter. Two questions arise; firstly how did they get this address? I am pretty sure i haven't told them about it. Secondly of all the people who should know I didn't complete the phd I started why did they address it to dr Matthew?

[Jurek]

It's my company Xmas do tonight.
It is to be held at our other premises, in a marquee, erected in the car park (which is adjacent to the M25).
At present the car park is flooded, and the marquee (which is a 2 day build) hasn't turned up.

I'm sooooooooooooo glad that I'd decided not to go.

[ElyDave]

Ours is the week after next, I'm on AL.

In 11 years, I've been to two Xmas do's.  They don't seem to realise that most of our folks a) don't live in that London and b) are paid to be on the road, not sitting in an office

[Jurek]

I've been to one in six years.
I was quoted £218.00 for a cab home.
I stayed in the Travellodge next door to the venue, and went home by train on the Saturday morning.
The best part of the night was watching Thunderbirds whilst in bed on the Saturday morning.

[ElyDave]

I took the sleeper service from Aberdeen to get to one of the two I attended.

Good night's sleep, probably the best way to arrive in London IME

[Greenbank]

Prior to being bought the company parties were absolutely fantastic. Small company with money to burn.

After being bought out I went to one and it was awful, and haven't been again for the last 11 years.

[essexian]

Since a Christmas party ended in a fight between a drunk manager and one of his team members and the said drunk manager breaking several expensive items in the CEO's office, we haven't been permitted a Christmas party.

There was also an incident of someone ending up in the wrong hotel room.... no, it wasn't me!

Instead, we are to have a meal after a team meeting in January..... I won't bother attending as frankly, having spent several hours discussing the meaning of words and what on Earth GDPR actually means, I will just want to get home to my bed!

[rafletcher]

As a contractor I don't get invited to the Christmas do. Well we were once, then half an hour later we were uninvited. 

[Kim]

There's a rhythmic clunking coming from the other side of my wall...