The Protégé's Sister

Pea Soup

2011-01-10T21:00:00.000Z

I like this recipe because you basically put everything below into a pan, bring it to boil and wait for everything to go mushy. If you've been lucky enough to get a pressure cooker this could take potentially less than 20mins including time to blend.

Ingredients:

450g Marrowfat Peas. (dried weight) Follow instructions to soak
1.5 litres veg stock
2 sticks of celery (chopped)
2 carrots (chopped)
1 large onion. chopped
3 teaspoons Fresh Thyme Leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
½ teaspoon Cracked Black Pepper
½ teaspoon Sea Salt
½ cup Fresh Parsley. Finely Chopped

2010 Gumball 3000

2010-05-01T17:05:00.006+01:00

The start of the Gumball 3000 was on in London so i thought i'd check it out. here's the photos:

Wembley Stadium & the Ashes

2010-04-15T20:07:00.003+01:00

Ok so it was more like volcanic ash not The Ashes but i went there today and i thought i'd post my photos..

Jobcentre Plus, should I give back what I got from them?

2010-03-11T09:22:00.003Z

I got asked on a business networking forum to join Jobcoach Experts - a subgroup of Jobcoach:

This sub-group has been set up by Jobcentre Plus to encourage employed professionals to share their tips and knowledge on finding work in their particular profession.

When I was job hunting I found them less than helpful as they pigeon holed me into a job category that didn't fit and had the nerve to say I didn't even qualify for job seekers allowance!

Seems I'm not the only one who got asked to join even though the job centre had failed them too:

Subject: You've got to laugh...

I couldn't resist popping in to say that I'm not qualified to take part in this process, as I didn't manage to find a job when I was unemployed last year... my local job centre were so completely useless at finding anything even vaguely resembling my line of work that I gave up and went self-employed instead.

I hope this initiative has some success in improving the incredibly poor level of service I received from the job centre system last summer... at present it seems to be entirely set up to deal with unskilled labour who are assumed to be trying to avoid work rather than find it. The whole thing is quite blatantly insulting to anybody who is honestly looking to find a job, and doubly so if they have some specialist skills (which should make them more employable, but in practise just seems to them get treated as 'too picky' when they don't want a shelf-stacking job on minimum wage).

I have to say none of what the author has said is untrue except for the last bit about some of us skilled workers not wanting minimum wage jobs, there have been lots of us who were so desperate, we did apply to pretty much everything and got told we weren't suitable for minimum wage jobs!

So, do I give them what they gave me? or do I try to help a bunch of people who have been failed by this very same service so that they don't have to feel as worthless as I did?

Oystercards and Honesty

2010-01-14T20:05:00.002Z

Seriously!

so i touched out on the exit gates at the tube station and realised my account balance has dropped to £2.00 which can't be right considering it was topped up 2 days ago with £20 and despite TFL's attempt to punish us for using their services i know that it doesn't cost me £8 per day for travel (though i'm wondering if that's their plan for next month)

off i stroll to the counter:

me: "hi, i think there's something wrong with my oystercard"

tfl-man: "there's something wrong with everyone's oystercards!"

me: "?!"

tfl-man: "you know why?"

me: "?"

tfl-man: "cos they're rubbish, every last one of them, rubbish!"

me: "i think it's cos it didn't register when i got back last night"

tfl-man: "you know what the technical reason is?"

me: "no?"

tfl-man: "they're all rubbish! they're technically and really rubbish!"

tfl-man hands me back my card

tfl-man: "i've recharged it with £4.30 for you"

me: "um, thanks"

Things I've Observed on London Underground

2010-01-12T20:18:00.002Z

I looked up at the adverts hoping to see something about getting away on holiday on the tube. sadly the 3 adverts i saw were:

Sure - now's a good time to think about underarm protection
yorkshire tea - your bath doesn't bubble, your kettle is full of fur, at least yorkshire tea is made for hardwater areas like london
nhs advert on germ spreading

so from this merry collection i can conclude that london is a place filled with smelly people who spread disease.

well that inspired me!

Psychic Recruiters

2009-08-20T16:29:00.002+01:00

Today I received an email from a recruiter:

Good afternoon
Thank you for your email and CV.
Unfortunately your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion.

Now, I'm not shocked because I was rejected, I'm shocked because I haven't applied for a job through them. So I'm wondering if they knew I was looking at a job and thought, "hold it, lets email her now and say NO!" or they're just doing a blanket email to everyone reiterating the point that we're unemployed... :/

Camping in Devon

2009-08-17T16:39:00.004+01:00

I went camping for the first time in a little place called Morthoe in Devon. It was a chance to go somewhere and ignore technology, well some of it like my phone, my laptop and basically anything i could be contacted on.

it poured down with rain, except for the day i left where it was so hot that those who were staying on had a bit of a sunbathe outside.

all in all it was a pretty good camping experience, i also learnt that without technology you have to make your own fun, for example, when your friend decides to take a nap next to a gravel/pebble filled area, always take the opportunity to make pictures on their stomach whilst they sleep, and don't forget to take photos so you can remember the moment :)

i had this conversation at the job centre...

2009-07-21T15:49:00.002+01:00

personal advisor 1: "what does IDOC mean?"
personal advisor 2: effective date of claim
personal advisor 1: but effective begins with an e not an i
personal advisor 2: but it's always been like that..
me: i stands for initial, as in initial date of claim

personal advisor1 & personal advisor2: ?

me: *sigh*

Sarkanniemi in the Sunshine

2009-06-23T13:24:00.007+01:00

We'd promised the host's 4 year old daughter that if the weather was good we'd go to Tampere's answer to Alton Towers. She'd not been able to go up until now because her mother is 37 weeks pregnant and therefore couldn't fit onto the childrens rides to help her on. Plus she also has an 18 month old baby brother too.

The theme park is called Sarkanniemi and i was suprised at how good it was. It caters to people of all ages and I found they were particularly good for providing facilities for the younger children,

for example they had baby changing areas that included microwaves and hobs for heating baby food so you don't have to harrass the local food vendor for something they're not allowed to do! they also had carts that you could put all of your heavy stuff and your children into and then drag around the park, all of this was free of charge!

You'd expect that they would have spent all the money on making it child friendly and not much on the rides but they had a fair few number of rides that would easily rival the other theme parks i've been to.

The other plus side to Sarkanniemi over the other theme parks is that you can buy wrist bands according to what you intend to do in the park. so for example if you have a small child who cannot fit on any rides above a certain height you can pay for just access to those rides. on top of this there is alway someone who gets dragged along to these things merely as a coat/bag holder/babysitter, they could go in for the price of a basic entry fee of 8 euros and not feel ripped off. Those adults who paid for the big rides and access all areas were able to then take the children round to various attractions and shows for free.

Sarkanniemi also contains a massive tower which you can go and investigate and eat a picnic whilst admiring the 360^o veiws or you could go to the revolving restaurant. It isn't until you go up here that you realise that the park could almost be considered some kind of isle. the majority of the high flying rides are positioned on the edge so as you pretend to be superman on Trombi you actually feel like you're flying over the lake.

In conclusion if you like rides, have a reasonable group of people with varying ages and needs this could be the theme park for you!

Sunshine on a Rainy Day..

2009-06-22T09:50:00.001+01:00

We woke up reasonably late on Sunday morning to find the weather had improved dramatically and looked like how it should've done!

This was still good news though as it meant everyone could pack up their tents and the two marquees relatively quickly and enjoy some more bbq food which I once again offered to cook mainly because it makes me feel useful :)

In the late afternoon we caught a bus back to Tampere and headed to a fabulous italian restuarant where I got to try a pizza containing Deer, Moose, Elk and Ostrich meat! The restaurant is also one of those rare places that serves minced garlic in olive oil as a topping.

Unfortunately one of our younger less experienced guests had thought it would be a good idea to eat a spoonful of the stuff.. needless to say she was rather shocked and I don't think she'll be doing that again in a hurry!

Queen of Crepes

2009-06-21T12:52:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I decided that the Sauna Kotta was an excellent place to stay during the wet weather so once again I offered to cook, this time however it was pancakes/crepes with a long spatula and crepes that ended up being about 16" in diameter. The first couple looked like Africa but after a while I felt like I was getting the hang of it, I managed to finish all of the batter and I'm told that it would have made approximately 40 pancakes. I also had the opportunity to rant in person though I'm told that my audience found my comedy stylings so funny that tears were streaming down their faces, I'm pretty sure they just enjoyed me slating IKEA..

After the big pancake making session we had an impromptu gig which turned out to be one of the funniest things I'd seen in a while. One of the band members has made quite a hobby out of his love for music, I believe some of his humour can be found at www.niknewark.com

As soon as the gig was over and we were able to stop ourselves laughing for long enough to light a fire without injury I offered to bbq some more food. I have to say by this point I was starting to love that Sauna Kotta!

The Protege's Sister Survives a Night of Camping

2009-06-20T10:58:00.009+01:00

Yesterday we woke late to find the weather was still attrocious and I had survived my first night of camping. We gathered up our costumes for the rockstar event and I opted to wear my outfit over my regular clothes because it was far too soggy to contemplate anything else. Whilst up at the cottage we raided the kitchen for some food to tide us over till the bbq which was due to start after the band played.

Once everyone had finished getting themselves ready we moved back down to the marquee where the band had set up their equipment. We got ready to hear what I thought was going to be traditionally shouty rock in Finnish. Turns out the band had many influences and prefered to play songs that appealed to them rather than sticking to just one genre. I think the majority of people enjoyed this gig, the singer's girlfriend especially, i believe she nearly gave herself whiplash dancing so much! the band are called Boneslide by the way.

After the band finished playing I went to the Sauna Kotta to get warm and discovered there was some food to be cooked on the bbq which I gladly offered to help cook so I could stay next to the fire!

We noticed that there were a couple of empty charred cans here. at first I had wondered why any of the locals would be that silly to ruin a couple of cans.

In Finland they have a really good collection system where you bring back the cans in tact and get about 15cents. the machine reads the barcode to determine how much money the person should get back (sometimes it's more and sometimes less)

We then realised that they'd been boiling water in these to cans to give them water for coffee and tea. I will have to remember that the next time I go camping..

Everywhere you go always take the weather with you..

2009-06-19T10:51:00.003+01:00

We arrived at Tampere airport on last night, they have one flight per day from Stanstead and it arrives at around 11pm local time. Tampere airport is something to witness in itself. It's an ex military airport so it's tiny. The funniest thing I noticed about the place was the luggage pickup point. In Stanstead they have a carosel where the luggage goes around on a loop until it is claimed. In Tampere it just drops off the end into a big pile of luggage. Fortunately passport control is relatively quick so you get there soon enough to catch it off the end!

As we waited for the other English guests to group together for the mini-bus taxi I couldn't help but wonder what the time was because it felt like it was late afternoon. We had left London at 6pm GMT so I knew it was after that. It seemed so bizarre that it would be so light.

When we arrived at the cottage we heard that the people who'd arrived earlier had set up our tent for us as the weather had been looking a little bleak. We stayed up for a short while until we realised it was 3am despite looking like a rainy 3pm.

The London Marathon

2009-04-24T12:17:00.003+01:00

My friend is running the London Marathon on Sunday, 26 miles of pure crazy, but he decided to do it anyway, I thought it deserves a mention and if any of you fancied sponsoring someone for it here's a link:

https://www.charitiestrust.org/members_data/event/terryhighfield/index.html

Cream of Asparagus and Mushroom Soup

2009-03-30T18:29:00.003+01:00

I looked up some recipes for what to do with some excess asparagus and mushrooms and found that making a soup would be my best bet and that way I could use up some leftover cream.

Ingredients:

125g mushrooms, sliced

125g asparagus, chopped into 3cm long pieces

butter

3 tablespoons of extra thick cream

2 vegetable stock cubes

pint of boiling water

1/2 bulb of garlic, chopped

black pepper

3 shallots, chopped

1/2 large onion, diced

teaspoon of mustard

(potatoes could be added to thicken the soup)

first get the shallots and onions in a pan with some butter and "sweat" them.

Add the vegetable stock cubes with your boiling water to the mix

if you're adding potatoes then boil them up first

add the mushrooms, asparagus, garlic, black pepper and mustard

once the mushrooms have wilted you're ready to add your cream. make sure you do this at a low temperature otherwise it'll end up curdling and looking a lot like sick. if you're new to adding things that curdle I'd recommend adding small amounts like a teaspoon at a time and mixing in thoroughly before adding the next spoonful.

Your soup is now ready to enjoy :)

Vegetable Soup

2009-03-25T10:45:00.003Z

So after you've made a load of vegetables in a meal there's always leftovers.

I wondered the other day what to do with some old peppers that had been chopped up for a salad the night before and some random other roasted vegetables. I thought I'd have a go at making soup with it. Turned out amazingly well so I thought I'd share.

First get some chopped onions and heat them in a pan with a little butter till it goes mushy. Then add in 2 stock cubes and 1.5 pints of hot water and your leftover vegetables. Bring to the boil, add some black pepper and then simmer for as long as it takes for the vegetables to go mushy. Your vegetable soup is ready!

Roasted Vegetables

2009-03-25T10:37:00.004Z

Simple as it sounds it's an excellent dish to make and looks really colourful as well as being healthy.

The vegetables I usually use are:

peppers

onions

asparagus

mushrooms

peeled cloves of garlic

some people also like the following:

butternut squash

squash

aubergine

drizzle a little olive oil over the oven proof dish, season the chopped vegetables with thyme, salt, pepper, put in a preheated oven at ~gas mark 7/220^oC until the vegetables get a nice brown edge to them. usually this takes me 15-20 mins.

Playing with Filo Pastry

2009-03-25T09:47:00.003Z

Last month a friend of mine who didn't celebrate his birthday in the usual party style decided that he'd like to have people round to his for dinner. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to cater for 15 people, some of which are not a big fan of garlic.

This was a big problem for me, anyone who knows me knows I use garlic in most of my dishes. I searched the internet for ages lookg for something that looked impressive yet didn't require too much effort. I came across this recipe for asparagus in filo pastry.

The basic ingredients I ended up using were:
Pesto
40g Butter
pack of Filo Pastry (from the chilled foods section)
pack of asparagus tips

not much deviation from the original recipe but mainly due to the short time constraints and not really knowing the difference between the stir in pesto and regular pesto.

the only tips I really have for this recipe are keep a clear workspace to do this on as pushing things aside whilst playing with filo pastry gives you ripped pastry and less for starters.

Whilst I was shopping for the ingredients I realised that I was getting an average of 20 large sheets of pastry in the pack so to use up the rest I was recommended by a friend to use feta and sun dried tomatoes. Those got turned into filo parcels and also seemed to go down a treat.

Playing with Pesto

2009-03-25T09:44:00.008Z

I'm spending my time off cooking for myself and my parents so I can give them a bit of a break. I found that when I moved back home I'd brought back a load of random jars which hadn't been touched in a few weeks by anyone but myself. One of these jars was pesto.

I've never really used pesto except when I played about with it for some starters using asparagus and filo pastry.

Ingredients are as follows:

1/2 jar pesto

150g of plain yoghurt

1 teaspoon of garlic (few cloves if you're using fresh garlic)

black pepper

4 large chicken breast fillets

Mix the pesto, yoghurt, garlic and pepper into a marinade. Marinate the chicken for at least a few hours. Most recipes don't use yoghurt but I'm a fan of it as it makes the meat nice and tender and helps absorb the flavours.

When you're ready to cook it pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7/220^oC and put a little oil in an oven proof dish to stop the chicken from sticking. place the chicken fillets on the dish and cover with foil, make sure the foil doesn't touch the marinaded chicken as the yoghurt tends to discolour the foil and it looks worrying!

check on the chicken after 20 mins and see how it is cooking. depending on your oven it can take up to an hour. ensure that the chicken remains covered until you are sure it is close to being cooked. This will keep the chicken moist.

I served this up with some roasted vegetables and freshly made mashed potato with chives.

Snow Day + England = Transport Chaos

2009-02-02T12:04:00.004Z

I got up at the normal time this morning with a message from my Dad saying the snow outside is treacherous and that I really should check the transport and see if I can avoid going in to work today. Naturally I felt that my Dad's advice should be taken, I can't ignore those wise words ;)

They officially closed our office today but some poor saps dragged themselves in before the message got out so now the rest of us have to remote work. They didn't set up our credentials before hand which is a real shame cos i've already wasted 4 hours on FaceStalk muttering about snow whilst waiting for a way to be more productive when "working from home"

I did however come across this:
TransportChaos.org

The screenshot of the TFL site from this afternoon is for those of you who don't believe the situation

A Good Excuse for Public Transport to Fail

2009-02-02T08:49:00.005Z

last night's journey took me an hour and a half longer than usual and even when a bus turned up after an hour it only took me part way, here's me thinking, "screw it i'm already covered in snow, might as well take some photos!"

New Year, New Recipe

2009-01-28T20:18:00.008Z

Today I decided I need to eat a bit more healthily and actually do it. Thanks to the recipe for Spinach and Potato Soup I made what I think was actually a very nice tasting soup despite it looking a lot like pond slime. I'm not really a fan of onions and all they had at the shops today was either a small bag of shallots or a giant bag of onions which probably would've taken me weeks to get through, so I picked the shallots and they seemed to compliment the dish quite well.

So basically my recipe was:

3 shallots peeled and quartered

a small amount of butter

a pint of veg stock

3 lumps of frozen spinach

2 baking potatoes

I basically used the same instructions when it said to sweat the onions I figured simmer in butter till it goes mushy, I think that sounds a lot more appealing than "sweating".

The above quantities make a reasonably thick soup for 2 servings.

There was an incident involving the mini blender overflowing which left mashed up green bits all over the kitchen but aside from that I'd say a fairly successful attempt.

TPS wishes you a Happy New Year

2009-01-27T19:23:00.004Z

Just in case anyone was wondering what had happened to me since last year, well not much!

I finally got my PS3 up and running like a dream which would explain me neglecting pretty much everything else in my life! I have to admit I never thought that as a 20-something I'd get really excited over collecting stickers, and actually say that I *need* more stickers.

it's good, it's something i enjoy, it keeps me happy on those cold, dark evenings

DHL, Amazon and the Never Occuring Collection

2008-12-31T09:54:00.003Z

So I got a new wide screen 22" monitor delivered by Amazon to my workplace a fortnight ago. I made my way to the station with my 8.5Kg package, waited 25 mins for a bus at the other end to my house when I could have walked it in 10 mins (without the package) and got it home, set it up, only to realise that Amazon had put the wrong specs on their site for the monitor and it kept displaying a lovely message saying "Not at Optimum Resolution Please adjust" in a little white box. Over a perfect picture of what looked to me like optimum resolution. Now, I searched the internet high and low for a way to fix this issue but apparently it's an issue Samsung don't believe in fixing so I thought, I'll just get a new one. From a company who might not get so confused over their specs. The new one was ordered on the 24th and arrived yesterday by DHL, nice one guys.

Problem solved? No.

It turns out that Amazon have a really cool returns policy where you can send something back with one of their nice labels and even have it picked up from a chosen address. it's a nice idea, in theory. In practice however, DHL's online booking allows you to book a slot for the very next day. I booked this on the 23rd, it offered me the 24th. Excellent! I thought to myself, my housemate will be home, he can answer the door.

I get an email half way through the day on the 24th saying they have rebooked it for the 29th. Thanks guys! It’s not like we don’t have jobs to go to! So I sent them a nice email explaining that I’m at work on Monday till 5:30, could they pick up after that. Their response was to say that they work 9-5. That’s nice, I have to work 30mins longer and they expect me to be home in the week. One of my mates kindly offered to stay at my place all day Monday waiting. I sent an email back on the 24th saying, ok, Monday 29th is fine. I had 3 separate employees tell me on Monday that the courier would be picking up that day. Then Monday afternoon I get another email saying that yes, they could pick it up, would I like it booked in. this is my face :s

I don’t fully understand how this has happened. Sent an email back explaining that as far as I knew it would get picked up that day anyway. Get home that evening, the package is still there waiting at the door like a child who’s been left at school too long. My friend also sat at the door with an apologetic look on his face like it’s his fault that the couriers never turned up! Unless he beat them with sticks I’m guessing that’s not the case.

I was in constant email communication with them all day yesterday trying to explain that they missed the collection date and I was off sick so could they pick it up that day. They sent me various emails all stating that essentially *I* had missed the cut off point and now I had to rebook it for Friday. Whilst I, *yet again* explained that they missed the pick up and I will not be at home on Friday because I am out of town. Eventually they said they can pick it up on Monday 5th. That’s nice, I’m still not going to be home. I’ve given up, my friend is probably sick of my moaning which is why he’s agreed to come and collect it from my house and take it to work with him so they can pick it up on Monday.

Yes I understand that essentially all I’ve really achieved is a ranting subject and the fact that my poor friend now has to drag this monitor around in the hope that someone, somewhere will take it away. Maybe this is how Amazon keep their returns down??

HMV Classifies McDonald's as Horror in End of Year Sales

2008-12-31T08:15:00.004Z

I know McDonald's don't make amazing food but I still think this was a little harsh.

TPS Gets Creative with Sugary Components

2008-12-31T08:08:00.002Z

It was my sister-in-law's birthday whilst they were in England so my brother wanted to make it special by making sure that his wife had a home made cake. Now, I'm not going to pretend I can bake, my track record with baking hasn't been particularly great.

It turns out however, that Design Technology is just as valid as Home Economics/Food Tech when it comes to decorating cakes. This was my first attempt at turning a square slab of cake into a butterfly and then decorating it. I had my mother's advice on how to make the butter icing (I can't stand marzipan and I don't think anyone else really likes it except the cake decorators because it's easy to work with)

I think it looks ok for my first attempt. I think I may have to learn how to bake cakes as my next culinary project.

TPS and the Chocolate Factory

2008-12-31T07:56:00.003Z

So about a month ago my brother came back to England for a visit with his wife and 6 year old daughter. Naturally this was an excellent excuse to go and visit Cadbury World in Bourneville.

The last time we had both been there was when we were about 10 and 12 years old when it first opened in 1992. I have to say it was a shock to see how much has changed in the manufacturing process in the last 16 years (yes, 16 years!). It made me feel old when I looked at my 6 year old niece thinking, when I was a girl, people had to do the job that this robotic arm is doing.

Anyway, the tour was good, free chocolate all round (you can't argue with free chocolate) and as we wandered round the thing that caught my eye the most that I had never noticed before was this picture of what I can only describe as a Cadbury employee possibly getting a wedgie??

Well it amused me anyway!

An Unbelievable Job Offer

2008-10-30T13:39:00.003Z

Ok, so maybe it's not a real job offer but this is an email I was greeted with this morning:

Hello TPS,
my name is Ostin Brown and I am Evona Pty. Ltd. Staff manager. We have
found and reviewed your resume at careerbuilder.co.uk and decided to offer
this job to you.
Here is the information about Payment Protection Agent position:

Job Basis
As the basis of our service is to provide payment protection deals on the Internet we need payment protection agents all over the world. Attracting clients from different corners of the world we should have our agents everywhere in order to be able to provide instant payment protection solutions (in-state bank transfers take no more than a few hours). We engage new technologies to deal with thee-document exchange, which makes the process reliable and safe. Our servicedeals only with the paperwork, leaving the financial part (accepting funds on your personal bank accounts from the buyers, and routing them to the sellers according to our instructions afterwards) for you. We can't bare the financial responsibility because in today's world of extremely fast solutions it is time that is of significant importance to our clients. Having an escrow agent in every country we can quickly transfer funds inside the country without wasting time on the international bank transfers, and continue our rapid growth rather than overwhelming our own bank account with inbound and outbound transactions leading to severe hold times and probably service interruption.

Career and Benefits
Your main task will be receiving money transactions to your personal bank accounts and forwarding them to the next party of the payment protection process, according to our instructions. You will benefit from the commissions, which are 5-7% of each transaction and depend on the quantity of completed transactions and the speed of your work + you will be paid a basic salary of 1500 GBP per month. For your convenience there will be no paychecks, your commission will remain in your account after every successfully completed transaction. The money transfer fee is not included in your commission, meaning that you will deduct it from the received amount, not from your commission. Also you receive 5-7% of the transaction amount. Normally the amounts that we process vary from 2,000GBP to 10,000GBP, but can go higher on special occasions.
If you are ready to proceed, please provide us with your AVAILABLE phone number and send it back to our Staff Manager at staffmanager@evona-online.com
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need more information.

--
Sincerely yours,
Ostin Brown,
Evona Pty. Ltd.
staffmanager@evona-online.com
Visit us at www.evona-online.com

So, my alarm bells were ringing after reading this email.. think maybe we should play spot the inconsistencies and blatantly ridiculous ideas?
I am also resisting the urge to ask them for their bank account details..

Googling Ostin Brown: http://forum.escrow-fraud.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1594

Boredom = Frustration = Ranting

2008-10-22T11:14:00.002+01:00

So I'm currently at work, supposed to be working and quite frankly, I'd love to be doing something productive. Alas, I have nothing to do, honestly, I'm even craving those horribly boring jobs at the moment so at least I could feel like I've achieved something this week!

I thought I'd just say my piece on a couple of things.

Firstly Network Fail, you add to my misery every day by providing me with machines that are slower than a fat child on Valium running up a hill. Also, you decided to advertise a new scheme whereby you're offering more machines to make the queueing process shorter, next to a hole where the painfully slow ticket machine used to be before they put that sign up, it's been 6 weeks, I've seen nothing but a hole there and an advert saying we'd have more machines.

I'm thinking now might be the time to stick an advert at that train station saying I personally will be made London's poorest and slowest moving commuter, I believe this is a great place because it seems that Network Fail's train stations are the best places for Opposite Land advertising.

I'm not sure what Network Fail's logic is where they produce painfully slow machines that break on a regular basis so people can't actually buy the tickets. I wonder also whether they are aware due to their escalating prices that it's now cheaper for a person to risk getting fined once a week at £20 per fine than it is to travel with a 7 day ticket. The chances are now increasing for commuters to be forced into taking this gamble every day they travel due to the inadequate technologies they insist on using.

Inadequate technologies leads me on to my second gripe. Why do people insist on doing half-arsed projects? I am constantly faced with really stupid questions at work such as:
"I want to update my logo."
"No, I don't know what I want to change it to."
"Why are you being difficult and asking me what to change it to??"
"CHANGE IT!!"
"Oh, but I didn't want *that* logo *there*.."

It makes me wish I could reach through the phone and beat people with their keyboards until they learn the serious stress they cause others by their levels of incompetence.

Surely if they want to behave like that they should join the admin offices of the government like some of the others and leave the private sectors alone to enjoy their miserably long hours without fear of dealing with another technotard?

Well I think I've ranted enough. Rest assured I will be back, unless I've had my access revoked for Technotard Bigotry.

Carpetman's Home Town

2008-10-15T20:15:00.006+01:00

Last weekend I learnt that Tallinn has a spirit that likes to stay in Hotel Shnelli, for those of you who have been to Tallinn, I don't mean the liquid kind! The spirit was apparently some kind of friendly presence that likes to settle somewhere friendly, the hotel certainly lived up to it. Decent prices, nice spread for breakfast and you have a lovely room to stay in, what more could you want from a weekend break?

We arrived on Friday and rather than waste our precious little time in this gorgeous city filled with medieval architecture we decided that we'd take a wander round the old town, the last place we visited that day was up these many, many stairs.

I think the walk up there was worth it :)

Here's one for you trainspotters who heard that Hotel Shnelli is a very popular place to stay for those interested in trains, specially seeing as the train station is right next door.

Playing Dead

2008-10-06T15:55:00.003+01:00

I was lucky enough to witness a very bizarre day where I was able to get dressed up to play a zombie extra in an amateur film.
There are probably a lot of very confused and traumatised people wandering round Cambridge yesterday afternoon as a result of some creative genius and about 50 people who were willing to brave the rain and simply awful weather to make this idea a reality. At first, I have to admit, I did think it was simply a few people wandering round a set area for 20 minutes or so having a bit of a laugh wearing dodgy costumes. Upon my arrival however, I realised how serious this film was being taken by some people.
This was one of those fuzzy feelings which is only experienced when a group of potential strangers use the internet for good in order to unite for a common goal, people travelled the distance dressed in odd outfits and were greeted, mainly with a healthy humourous response.
I myself was approached by a cab driver who put on a very serious face and asked,
"You two in need of an ambulance?" and as we were tired and obviously not as on the ball as Mr Cab-Driver our response of
"no thanks, it's just make-up" was greeted with a cheeky smile.
I have never got dressed up as a zombie and attempted to stagger around whilst being documented on film and I have to say I never saw it as one of those things to do before you die, I would highly recommend it based purely on how amazingly fun it was to just let your imagination go nuts and just know that you did something utterly crazy that wouldn't involve you spending a fortune and waking up with a regret in the morning.
Edit: here's a teaser from youtube to get you started:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KaBtrjvAs
Rumour has it they'll be posting the finished production at www.zombiedaytrip.com
Zombie Day Trip in BBC Galleries

Keeping The Customer Informed

2008-09-30T14:09:00.000+01:00

A lot of people must have experienced some kind of customer service at some point in their lives, usually being informed of what is going on is very helpful and reassuring.

Today I witnessed one of South West Train's stupid announcements whereby they told me at the train station where I was vacated, that there was a delay because the train was defective at the station. Thank you so much, I was not aware that I had been removed from said defective train because it was defective.

I was under the impression that they had realised that the train was running on time and therefore must put a stop to this action immediately before commuters actually get a trouble-free journey, hell, we might start to expect that, it's like we're paying customers!

As soon as I got onto the next train, the very helpful announcer informed the entire train that it was now running 16minutes late, just in case I didn't already realise how much of my time I'd already lost waiting around for yet *another* train.

Thanks SWT, you've really made this one very irrate customer start to change their minds about violence towards others..

Network Fail

2008-09-17T22:04:00.000+01:00

What's wrong with this picture?

I'll give you a clue, this is an empty train station where I should not have been at the time because I should have actually been at my destination.

I would like to take this moment and thank those lovely people of all the train companies who have found this wonderful work ethic of having no desire to do anything on time. I mean, the rest of us go to work and we actually have to be on time, you know, it's our job. Train companies however vow to take £35 from us every week to ensure the consistent service of making people like me late at least 3 times a week.

Now I don't mean to sound like they do nothing with this money. They've been painting the stations and adding bins, so at least whilst I wait over 30 minutes for my train to turn up it's all pretty! My train is supposed to be every 30 minutes :|

I'm not quite sure how they think this is an acceptable service.

It's like buying a mug on the internet and they send you a colander. Late. And it smells a bit of wee. Then they ask you to prove that you paid for it. Nice.

I have more recently been subjected to their new ticket system which means that you have to provide a photocard at the ticket office, for a weekly pass. Now I would compare my £35 weekly pass to underpants. I believe that as a consumer I have bought that £35 pass, it is mine, if I want to share it with someone then I should be allowed to. I should not have to prove photographically that I am in fact, the moron who chose to use this as my sole means of public transport. It's painful enough just having that expensive pass to garanteed lateness burning a hole in my wallet.

I also have to question how the rail companies can justify their extortionate prices when a lot of the time we don't even get seats and the new trains don't have toilets even though there is a tendancy for these companies to leave us stranded on there for hours. Also why should we have to pay full fares for train tickets and not get refunds when suddenly they cancel trains or decide to have planned engineering works? Now if it cost £4 to go by coach but takes 4 hours, and I choose to take the train at £28 for 2 hours, then they change their minds and I am then forced to take a crappy coach back, shouldn't I get my money back??

Network Fail, I am pleading with you to stop thinking of "ways to improve your station" and think of ways to make your trains turn up on time and have enough seats.

Commuters of the working world unite and tell the rail companies that you want a better service, and not in a violent manner to the customer facing staff (much as those people annoy me with their "ticket machine isn't broken, my colleague says it's fine now" - he would!) but to the big heads that get a bonus for not even doing their jobs competently let alone going beyond the call of duty!

The Final Stage is Acceptance..

2008-09-17T21:56:00.001+01:00

I finally thought of a response to Hat,

I can appreciate your need to clarify this situation so as to get the ball rolling again, however, I would still like to respectfully withdraw my application as I would only feel uncomfortable working in such an environment having experienced this miscommunication.

I would therefore like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best in hiring a new employee who might better suit the needs of NewCrappyCompany.

Kind Regards

TPS

I thought that was pretty respectful and honest? Well, whatever I think, they finally accepted with a one worded email consisting of

"Thanks"

I rate a working environment over money/holidays. Silly me, I am a people person!

A Very Awkward Position

2008-09-16T22:14:00.000+01:00

Because I know you’re all so very excited to find out what happened next here’s the updates..
(By the way, I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with because, but part of me likes to wind up people who get upset about these things)

I get this on “Sack Monday” as was dubbed in the Metro..

From: ass@new-company.com
Subject: Contract of Employment
To: me@tps.com
Cc: c@new-company.com; hat@new-company.com

Hello TPS,

Good news. I will get you and official Contract Letter over the weekend.

Apologies for the confusions of the past few days. This offer will confirm the offer at £Money/year, starting with three weeks holiday, one week of personal time off, and 8 days of public holidays. The details of our pensions contribution plans are being worked out and will be communicated soon.

Thank you for your patience. We very much look forward to having you at NewCompany

I did not respond. I mean what do you say. It’s like finding out your boyfriend has been making fun of you with his mates.. so I wait and think. Well, we don’t want to be impulsive do we? That only results in reply-to-all incidences..
Then I get this.

From c@new-company.com
To me@tps.com
cc everyman@theirdog.com
Subject Re: Contract of Employment

TPS, are you able to send your references to us as soon as possible please, as well as an expected time for your start?

We'd like to get this tied up as soon as we can.

I think to myself, “oh dear. Now I have that awkward moment, do I tell them I know what they said or do I respectfully decline their offer?”
I opt for the mature approach:

Hi C,

Apologies for this, but I would like to withdraw my application on the
basis that I promised 24 days paid leave plus 8 days Bank Holidays by
the recruitment agency and then only offered 15 days paid leave plus 8
days bank holiday by NewCrappyCompany.

When I queried this with you, I was then copied in on a response which
I believe was not meant for me which implied that I was playing games
with the company.

Firstly, I queried this due to what I was originally promised, and
secondly, UK employment law has made it a legal requirement that those
employees that work full time are entitled to a minimum of 24 days
paid leave.

I am sorry to say that the response I received from Ass, although
it was not intended for me was offensive to me and highly
unprofessional when referring to the recruitment agent and therefore I
feel that I cannot work for such a company.

Sincerely,

TPS

I figured that this would trigger a response if I replied to all that were concerned. Yes, I understand when to use the reply to all function, I should possibly ask them if they would like training on this.. :-/

From: hat@new-crappy-company.com
Subject: Re: Contract of Employment
To: me@tps.com
Cc: c@new-crappy-company.com; ass@new-crappy-company.com;

Hello TPS,

I am sorry to hear about your withdrawal.
With regards to the basis of your decision, our proposal states15 days holiday, 5 days personal time, and 8 bank holidays - for a total of 28 days off. The only difference between the Holidays and Personal Time is that you need to use those days in the year they are earned. In other words, you are entitled to 20 paid days off plus 8 National Holidays.

You are correct that UK Employment law specifies 24 days paid time off, however that includes Bank Holidays. So our offer for the first year is in excess of the legal requirements, and in line with the requirements from April 2009.

As you know, the President's email was not intended for you, and there was no intention of suggesting improper action on your part. On the other hand, the recruiter had miscommunicated without our agreement, which is in conflict with our agreement with him, hence our frustration at putting us in an awkward position in working with you.

I very much hope that we can put this into perspective and renew our employment discussions. I am happy to talk to you in person or by email and look forward to hearing from you.

Until then, we wish you the best in your career aspirations.

Regards,
hat

This is how I’ve left it so far. I’m not sure what to say, other than I feel like I just tried to dump someone for being annoying, yet they’re still hoping I’ll come back. That’s me put in “an awkward position”

Reply to all is a very dangerous tool..

2008-09-14T10:44:00.001+01:00

This is a lesson that could be learned at a very early point in your career, or in the case of this email rather late on in your career.

Let me set the scene, I've been job hunting, looking in particular to work in a place where I feel like I could make a difference. I'd been for the interviews and was just waiting for the contracts to come through. I am an impatient person and so I requested that I get the draft contracts emailed over. You may or may not know this but currently as a UK resident I was looking for a UK based contract. There are many things to complain about in the UK, their employment laws however, I simply love.

I know a lot of UK residents will ask "WTH? Why??"

The reason for my love of this bureaucracy is because it gives us as employees the rights to say "Er, you can't do that, that's not legal" and actually having a reason to say it.

So, continuing with my utterly exciting story;

I get these draft contracts stating I get 15 days paid holiday a year on a full time contract plus 8 days bank holidays. I'm thinking that

a) national minimum for full time employees currently is 16 paid days plus 8 days bank holiday

b) I'm currently on 21 and was offered 24 + 8 days BH by the recruiters

Naturally, my inability to put up with bad contracts led me to write the following email.

Obviously to save the people involved a lot of embarrassment and to save me from getting stick for this I've amended it slightly :)

From: me@tps.com

To: c@new-company.com

Just been reading the contract over and have noticed that the holiday
entitlement seems to have dropped. RG advised it was 24 days
plus 8 bank holidays, but the contract seems to state that it is only
15 plus 8 bank holidays.
Kind Regards,
The Protégé’s Sister

I wrote this email just to Mr C as he was my direct contact with the company, his reponse as follows:

from: c@new-company.com
to me@tps.com
cc c@new-company.com ; hat@new-company.com ; ass@new-company.com
subject Re: Contract drafts
I'm asking Ass/Hat to comment on this.
Thanks
c

a few hours later I get this:

from: ass@new-company.com

to: c@new-company.com

cc: me@tps.com ; hat@new-company.com

subject Re: Contract drafts

At which point, if true, RG should be fired.

we can say 15 vacation (cumulative up to two years)

5 personal (2 more than PoorSucker, but she's not entry level)

total 20 plus, of course 8 Bank Holidays.

Here is the best reason for centralising the control of offers. I hope her agreement doesn't hang on this. And I don't want to give way immediately because she moans. She has also probably read that the best time to negotiate a better offer is when you get hired!

We could do the same "moving loan" if needed and pull that out of the bag as if RG hadn't remembered to talk to her abt it. But let's not start with that.

Ass

So I’m now wondering whether I should be angry or laugh. The Protégé seemed to think the best response/reaction to this email was to put it out there for the whole world to enjoy and remember why you should *always* check who you send an email to before you end up looking like a complete tool in front of someone.

I hope you enjoyed my little story.

For those of you lucky to be in a position of looking at employment contracts or think that your current employers aren’t being fair, check out sites like www.acas.org.uk and know your rights..

The Protégé's Sister Speaks Up

2008-09-14T09:52:00.000+01:00

I always thought a blog would be too much effort to keep going and that I also had nothing to say but as it turns out the Protégé reckons I have some stuff to say that's somehow noteworthy.

Now, being the Protégé's Sister, although it may not seem like it, is a lot of pressure, it's also very useful.

My background is basically this:

I'm a flighty individual with a conscience who is as close to being a jack of all trades as possible, given my age. I've worked in the service industry, the support desks, the boring office jobs and the labour industry.

I am that voice that asks if you've tried switching your computer on and logging in properly.

I am that girl who asks if you phoned the store to check if those 2,000 blue plates really do exist in our branch or if the remote call centre desks just lied to get you off the phone. I'm probably also the one who put that disclaimer on the end of our phone conversation saying, "the computer may say 2,000 plates are here but I've only seen a pallett of 2,000 red bowls, which should be in Leeds right about now, chances are the computer lies and people make mistakes".

I am the one you shouted at because you had to wait for your food, then in my haste to make your food arrive quicker I *may* have slipped and didn't have time to remake your food. It's called that special ingredient that you won't find anywhere else, mainly because we don't know what was on the floor at the time.

I am the one who stuck up for all my classmates when I was five and you were the teacher and should have known better than to pick on children, even if they did spend their lunchtimes mentally abusing me.

I am the reason why you should never assume that because someone looks young or thick, doesn't mean they are.

I hope you enjoy this blog as long as it lasts, lets hope it's longer than the lifespan of my last Tamagotchi..