Nick's Ramblings

Well we thought that TalkTalk would be good to go to for our phone and broadband. After all the bad press they've had since they launched their broadband service, we thought everything would have calmed down and things would go easily.
Wrong!!!
After placing the order with them on 31/08/07, we were told we'd go live on 25/09/07 (today), and we'd get the welcome pack and broadband stuff soon. So I was a bit concerned when we'd not heard a peep from them by yesterday.
So I rang them up. After being on hold for yonks (thank goodness for SayNoTo0870.com), I got through only to be told that the switch hadn't happened as there was an error. That was helpful I thought! I asked what was happening now and the buck was passed to another department! After waiting on hold again for 10 minutes I put the phone down as I wanted my tea!
So I've cancelled our order.
It says a lot when a company can't send out a welcome pack, broadband info or even tell you that there is a problem with your order! Can't trust TalkTalk to sit on the lavatory the right way round!

The moral is – TalkTalk NO!!!!!

Nice to see that the Prime Minister thinks that it is right and proper to award public sector workers an annual pay rise that is less than inflation.
That means, in effect, that I will be getting a pay cut!
You can be sure that when it comes to MP’s pay rises that they will be above inflation and they will get a huge amount of extras. Mr. Brown, I’m sure, will be pleased to accept his pay package.

The other thing about working for the County is that pay scales and details of pay rises are not exactly well publicised. When I worked for Asda, although the pay was poor and rises were poor, at least you knew what you were getting and when. There was no doubt about what and when you were getting.
I think the Council could learn a thing or two!

This has been floating around for a bit now, but it's still relevant and the spoilt lazy kids of today should take notice!

Rule 1
Life is not fair – get used to it.

Rule 2
The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3
You will not make £50000 a year right out of school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.

Rule 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping-they called it opportunity.

Rule 6
If you mess up, it's not your parents fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
 
Rule 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites your parent's generation created, try delousing your own room.

Rule 8
Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This does not bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9
Life is not divided into terms. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10
Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. 😉

I see on the NUT website that they are banging on about teachers being underpaid again!
THEY ARE NOT UNDERPAID!
To start as a teacher you get over £19000 plus up to £5000 as a signing on fee. The teachers where I work get extra for working in a special needs school. I guess the minimum amount paid to a full time teacher at my school is around £25000. Over £10000 more than I get. Some of them who are not even management are getting over £40000 a year!
Again the poor dears are not badly paid. My wife works 50 hour weeks, has a hell of a lot more responsibility and still earns less than a teacher who is starting.

Message to the Teaching Unions – try a job in the real world and then see how poorly paid you are! :@

Well on Wednesday the County Cabinet threw out the Job Evaluation proposals! Seems they had a bit of feedback from the people! I suspect they were concerned for their jobs come next election!

A few weeks ago, I e-mailed my County Councillor about the County's proposed pay restructuring. I won't loose out exactly, but my chances of promotion have diminished.
It's now over 4 weeks since I e-mailed and the ignorant sod hasn't replied. I know he's not ill or anything as I know he's been attending Council meetings. Had a similar problems with him a couple of years ago. It took a letter to the local paper to get him to wake up! 'Broken computer' was the excuse!
Now this is a man whose main career is politics. Last year he was given around £25000 (which includes around £2500 expenses) for the privilege of representing his ward. The only time you can see him is when he is promoting himself in the local paper! Useless! Trouble is we've got to put up with this fool until 2009 🙁

Typical of Labour in our area – they think they have the 'right' to be on the Councils!

Anyway I'll keep e-mailing – I wonder if he's heard about delivery receipts?

Well, Christmas is coming and has been since September! The shops are decked out with their decorations, the Chavs round where I work have the decorations on their Council houses and the TV adverts are nothing but Christmas and it isn't even Advent!
After spending 13 years working in retail, Christmas doesn't really start for me now until Christmas Eve!
Oh well only 35 days to go…………………..

Since July my internet connection has been playing up. This was after a supposed speed upgrade. I placed a call to my suppliers and it still isn't fixed! Even worse their LLU supplier has now killed off my connection completely. If they went any slower fix it, they'd be going backwards!

I think Mummy & Daddy are away next door as their evil offspring that have been left behind are being even more obnoxious and anti social than usual.

The other night they were round the back and round the front with their mates shouting and arseing about until well after midnight, and then yesterday, they had some band practice for around six hours. Luckily they finished at about 7.3o pm, or I think they may have had some really upset neighbours.

 

Typical of that family though. They only think about themselves and no one else. 

Had the builders in the yard again this morning. At least they knocked on the door to say they were finishing off thier work. Mr. Next Door still didn't bother to ask. He even had the cheek to come into our yard to speak to the builders!

Really should have said NO………..! :-@

Last week I finished off a lesson I'd started a couple of weeks before with a Y5/6 class from one of our local primary schools. This was to design a web page using MS FrontPage. Now everything went well (even though I do say so myself!) and the kids did some good work.
Now I'm no teacher and this was my first experience teaching a class of kids. However the teacher thought it was time for her to do other work, so I was left, on occasions, on my own with the class! Ho hum!

Trouble is that I'm doing this lesson as a favour to the school and getting paid a damn site less than a teacher. Unfortunatley, if your not a teacher in education, you're considered not as good, as worthy or not worth as much money as a teacher. Of course, without support and technical staff, schools would grind to a halt.
Also why is it non teaching staff cannot become management?

The bloke I spoke to asked if Mr. Next Door had told us the work needed doing. Nope, not heard a peep.
Mind you that's typical of them. When we bought our house we went round to introduce ourselves and say hello. They couldn't be less interested. Their kids are little gits as well. They don't seem to think there is a problem when their football hits our windows, will wander into our yard without even thinking to ask and they smoke by our back gate and leave all their debris by our gate.