Tag: OWN

bookmark_borderA petition arrives!

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It begins “Dear Sir/Madam,” and, being the former, I read on.

“Objection to proposed Mobile Phone Base Station (Aqua Court/Nature Trail, O2 Cell Site: 040762)”

I pause at this point. I have an O2 mobile phone, it has a crappy signal in my house, the new cell site would be up the hill a bit, off to the side of the road (not a particularly nice site either, ignore the bit about ‘nature trail’ it’s a path between two housing estates).

YES! FINALLY a better mobile phone signal. BRILLIANT!!

Then I remember that I live in a community and, perhaps, there are good reasons as to why someone would object to having a good mobile phone signal in their house. I pause and despite some serious thinking whilst I watch an episode of Scrubs (the one where they all drift in and out of a medieval fantasy, hilarious!) I can’t think of any off the top of my head. I can only surmise that, with it being 2009, if you don’t have a mobile phone you must be ‘of an age’ that views those that carry them as suspicious, communist-card toting luddites. Or hippies. Or, god forbid, a Liberal Democrat.

So I return to the missive and read on. And on. And on. I’m less than half way through the first few sentences when I give up.

I know who has put this through my door and I’m sure he means well but I’m hungry and can’t really be bothered reading it all. However I vow to read the rest of the missive later, noting that the return address is included, figuring that once I’ve done some of my OWN research I may (or may not) sign in agreement and post it off.

I do note that there is no option to disagree with the stated objection, thereby agreeing that the erection (waahey!) of the base station should go ahead, but decide to cross that bridge later.

My troubles behind me (for such things do trouble me, dear reader) I turn my attention to more timely and important matters, namely unlocking Everlong by the Foo Fighters in Guitar Hero World Tour on the Wii. I’m midway through one of the songs in the setlist (Sweet Home Alabama by Lynnrd Skynnrd if you must know) when the doorbell chimes.

I pause the song, annoyed, and stomp to the front door. Lo and behold the very man who pushed said missive through our letterbox today is back to “collect my signed copy”.

Now, I’m a reasonable man but there are a few things that irk me greatly and one is people who make assumptions on my behalf. That just makes an ass of you and an umption of me, and there is nothing I hate more than being an umption, let me tell you!

“Ahh I’ve not signed it, not sure I will to be honest”, says I, confident that’ll put the wind up the cheeky sod.

“Ok, no problem, cheers”, he says, all too cheerful. How very dare he! Not only has he made me an umption of me, but he has the gall and sheer affrontery to be cheery about it!

I am irked, possibly even miffed, by this and am left with no other option.

I reach out and grab him by the throat and, whilst squeezing his windpipe and cutting off his air supply, I reiterate my dislike of being an umption and, just when he’s approaching his final breath, I let go. He drops to the ground and I stand over him for a moment to make sure I haven’t killed the old bugger (he’s 70 if he’s a day) and, satisfied he isn’t going to die whilst on my property, consider the matter closed.

I turn and close the door firmly, but not before he’s choked out a final “sorry to have bothered you…”.

So, dear reader, I’m sure you feel my pain. It seems I shall remain adrift in a calm sea, with no mobile signal to billow my sails.

Bugger.

bookmark_borderIt's time to stop when…

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You take a break from work, fire up Google Reader and idly flick through a few feeds. Your eyes alight on a delicious link and you think, ohh must check that out.

Only then do you realise that you are reading your OWN RSS feed, and you’ve already bookmarked said link in delicious so you’ll check it out.

Sometimes the internets really is confussing, round and round it goes.

bookmark_borderState of the Union

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Some council workers got sacked because they spent too much time on the internet (eBay in particular). Apparently this isn’t really their fault, with Union officials blaming bosses for “putting temptation in their way” – by allowing access to the internet.

Now, I’ve never had access to, or worked within an organisation that has, a Union but I thought they were supposed to help protect the workers? If so, how does this help?

And, without wanting to come across all curmudgeony, what is it with people these days? Can’t they just fess up and admit they were in the wrong?

There seems to be a feeling that if you make a mistake you no longer have to say sorry, you can just feign embarassment, mumble something about understanding that you made a mistake and then point the finger at someone else.

To those council workers who got sacked. I’m sorry you don’t have a job anymore, but IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT.

I say this whilst sitting in work, typing up a blog post but then again I don’t work in a prescriptive environment, I don’t have “tea breaks” or “lunch hours” I just have a contract and it’s down to me to be professional and thorough and get my work done. I can stop and start when I like. I’ve always worked in this kind of environment, and find anything else utterly bewildering.

There is a further thread to this, about the fall in moral values, work ethic and so on, part of which is aimed at the education system (kiboshed as it is by the people who, ultimately, run it) and an understanding the Unions are there to protect those who can’t protect themselves. But I’m going to leave it alone as, from this ivory tower in which I’m installed, EVERYTHING looks worse than it probably is…

bookmark_borderTwuntage: Redux

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So, having made several calls I’ve gotten to the root of the problem and found further justification for dumping 1&1.

The story:
Yesterday I received an invoice from 1&1. It had no payment date on it, but I recalled from their T&C that it needed to be paid within 14 days and they would attempt to take funds from my account at the end of that period.

Guess what.

No, surprisingly they didn’t try and grab the money from my account that day, well they did but that wasn’t the problem. No, this is even better.

They charged me £50 for a credit check as I was paying by Switch. £50. To credit check details that hadn’t changed.

Having bemused the phone bank people (“No we don’t know who it’s going to” – wtf?), I phoned the Billing department at 1&1. I asked if they had tried to take payment for the recent invoice. The girl at the end of the line said they HAD tried but failed and would be trying again tomorrow.

After tearing a strip off her for breaking their OWN terms (but not too harshly as she obviously couldn’t see on her system that I’d already requested a cancellation of the contract) I happened to mention that what had confused me was the amount being processed as £50.

“Ohh that’ll be the credit check, but it should be an instant, ‘in-and-out’ transaction”

Cue much swearing (Lyle, you would’ve been so proud of me!) amidst which I pointed out that the “in-and-out transaction” had managed to bump me over my overdraft limit and I would be incurring additional bank charges.

Thankfully this isn’t true, for once my bank have been quite good about it and won’t be charging me at all (and here was me bemoaning them earlier, tut tut).

So farewell 1&1. Strike that, I hope they get everything they deserve. As a comparison; in the hours since I’ve signed up with 34sp I’ve received better information and support than I did during two and a bit years with 1&1, and at more than half the price.

There is another lesson here.

I jump to conclusions far too fast for my own good. I need to learn to pause.

bookmark_borderPhoto

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Borrowed my Dad’s digital camera (for a trip in a Ferrari that has been postponed) and got snapping around the house. Outcome 1 – my first Mirror Project entry.

More to follow soon. God, just think what I would be like if I had my OWN digital camera!