Saturday, April 09, 2005
Adventure 18: 8th April 2005
“sure son, you can borrow the carving knife….” Hello all! It’s been what seems like ages so, it must be at least a week since my last…
It’s been fairly manic so hopefully I won’t miss anything out….
Thursday 31st March 2005
The Grand Wizard is “working from home” today God I wish I could do that.
I send him an email, asking that since it’s the end of the month, and since Britney Skunkmaster (since he’s forever walking around with his Bluetooth headset on), had said that we’d find out about our pay rises by the end of the month, I was curious as to when we would actually find out.
The reply was simply that due to a hold up at HR (man they have to improve security for those guys), things were a little delayed, but clarity on the pay rise situation should be forthcoming shortly…hmmm that clarity word I’m not looking forward to this. Now then in 15 years in IT, I’ve never had a payrise bigger than 3% soooo as a guess 3% looks most likely. Not a huge amount but not to be sniffed at either.
Friday 1st April 2005
Apparently there’s a large sunami, heading for the coast of Britain, yeah right, it’s the 1st of April so that’s going to likely isn’t it. Most fault lines and natural disasters know all about the tradition of April Fool’s so it’d never happen on that day in any case. That being said if it doesn’t hit until after 12pm the joke will be on it !
The Wizard is in a good mood today, so he must know what his pay rise is going to be, a lot by the persistent grin on his face and the fact he keeps talking to people about cars and stuff like that, the anticipation is growing.
About 4pm he calls me in to Britney’s office, “when I saw these, I knew yours was going to be the hardest one”, he explains, I simply stare into space trying to look surprised. He hands me a company headed letter indicating that my salary from today would be £500 more than it was last year. I simply shrug, Rule # 5: Never say “thank you” for a pay rise, because a. The person telling you about it, had nothing to do with it, b. It’s never enough and c. You’re bloody well worth it and they owed it to you. “Now then don’t be too disheartened by the amount” he stammers, trying desperately to make feel like a £1 per day pay rise isn’t actually an insult, oh no, “what you have to understand is that you’re paid quite a lot more than the others in the team”, ok then so until they earn the same as me I can expect this ? “you also have to consider the perception factor”, oh this old cookie, “it’s always Brentboy and Me at the meetings, taking actions etc, so you’re never seen to be doing anything”, ok so going to the meetings would be a good thing then ? Those meetings that I don’t get invited to and brentboy does ? “We all know that brentboy takes on too much”, err no, Brentboy takes on what you give him to do, he has little choice in the matter, I feel there’s a massive justification issue here, so we’ll see, Brentboy is off next week with his son, I didn’t have the heart to tell him the weather is going to be typically April, i.e. rain, sleet, snow, -5 northerly winds etc etc, I’ll let him find out all by himself. That being said we’ll see when he comes back, if he’s all chipper and enthusiastic then I know where the pay rise went ;-).
I go home feeling a bit dejected for some reason.
Still on the up side, Mandy and I are having a rare night out. We’re going to the theatre in town to see Jack Dee, Christ I need a laugh.
Saturday 2nd April 2005
T Minus 1 day and counting until Armageddon (POD’s birthday)
I’ve only just recovered from a very good night out. Jack Dee was really funny and then we decided to recapture some our youth by going to the local Donor Kebab van (spelling was deliberate incidentally). Having spent at least half an hour waiting, listening to the inane mumblings of the owner of the van’s “best mate”, there’s always one isn’t there. He’s been coming to this van for the last two weeks, so now feels the need to tell everyone who’ll listen how he gets extra chicken, salad and chillies with his orders. Best mate ? ha! The owner is sick of the sight of him and is actually trying his best to give him food poisoning, that’s the real reason for the extra portions !!! But I digress…it’s 10am ish and we’re up !! On a Saturday ??? Yup we’re off to the local AfFord garage to see if we can trade in our Mondeo for a newer car (fat chance!)
10:30: Having dropped the kids off with their grandparents Dave, spitfire and Olly, feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea we turn up at the showroom, I can tell we’re both really looking forward to it. The salesman we’re supposed to see is a bit busy at present with another couple of victims, sorry customers, so we wait. He’s about 10 minutes and then comes over to us, “can I help you?” he asks innocently, “err we made an appointment to come in and see you about our mondeo”, he looks at us blankly, “you wrote it in your diary” I say, “did I”, man this is like wading through treacle, he paces over to his desk diary, “Mr & Mrs 8tor ?”, he asks innocently, “yeeeessss” I say becoming a kindergarten teacher for about 5 seconds….”right ok, so what can I do for you ?”….I’m losing the will to live at this point. Mandy takes over and explains that we’re on an No-Options plan and that it’s up at the end of June, so we need to sort out what we’re going to be doing, i.e. handing in the keys, handing in the keys or alternatively handing in the keys. He busies himself at his computer screen making sure we can’t see the ridiculously low prices of the cars that we wanted. Ok I’ve got this one. NNNN MLK, 6 speed gearbox, 1.8 LX in black and it’s yours for £11,000. Just a second £11k ? “£11k ??” I ask, Mandy cuts in “but we’ve seen them much cheaper than that on the AfFord Indirect web site”, “really?” he asks almost believably surprised (almost but not quite!), “well this is all it’s coming up as, tell you what why don’t I go and value your car?”, we agree and he goes off clipboard in hand, ticking bits and writing things down whilst opening and closing doors and boots and bonnets (he’ll get to our car in a minute), I was just waiting for him to start kicking the tyres (the new one’s I bought last week), when he seemed to have finished and came in, muttering something like, “won’t be a minute” as he disappeared off in to the “managers” office, to decide sorry calculate how much they were going to rip us off. After about 5 minutes of both of the standing with their backs to us, pointing at the clipboard, looking over their shoulders at us “do they look rich ? well she does but he doesn’t…” our salesman comes back. “right ok, I’ve valued your car and it’s in pretty good shape, it’s worth according to “the book” £4,800 but for this car we’re prepared to give you £5,300”, bloody good of them I thought given the car’s just a shade over two years old and it cost us over £10,000 when we bought it. They work out all the figures etc, and it comes to £193.68 per month over three years, which is a shade over the £150 absolute bear minimum that we were prepared to pay, so we make our “ok we’ll have a think about it” excuses and leave, thoroughly disillusioned with the whole process.
The rest of Saturday is a bit of blur, I remember watching the second episode of the new Doctor Who? Which was good but I can’t actually think of anything else worth talking about…so I won’t.
Sunday 3rd April 2005
It’s Jack’s birthday !! (my appendix scar is getting twitchy too), so we’re up with almost a lark at about 8:30am and it’s presents time. Mandy says “can you get the camera” so I do, then I discover there’s no power left in the batteries or so the camera says (it’s a bit dodgy on them, and eats batteries for breakfast), so I go to the universal "find everything in here draw" and get my bag of semi used / unused / completely flat batteries and load a pair up.
Sure enough it’s saying the charge is full on the camera, and Jack begins tearing up some pretty impressive presents. Two pictures later and the thing is flashing at me again, so I load up another pair of batteries take another couple of pictures and the same thing. Note to self, never buy a digital camera from Ebay again!!
We loll around for a bit (well I go back to bed and have a snooze, it was early for a Sunday), Ryan begins making Jack’s bioncles for him, ahhh my work is nearly done.
15:00 Jacks mates begin arriving bringing him even more gear, God I wish I was 9 again, and in 20 minutes we’re going to the cinema to see Robots, with 5 kids and just me and Mandy to try and steer them away from oncoming traffic etc. We made it in to the cinema without too much of a hitch, the film was very funny and nearly managed to keep Mandy awake all the way through, but she was feeling a bit under the weather.
17:00 Ok so I have a brilliant idea of walking down to McDontdoititsnotworthit to feed the starving brood we’ve adopted for the day. We get them to sit down (not an unimpressive task), but Ryan is supervising, so we’ll be fine.
We’re up to the counter behind, some very loud teenagers, who are so cool, that rather than queue, they can just get one of their mates to order for them, “get us a milkshake”, now that is cool. We get to the front of the queue, and Steve our counter man is ready…”right then I want 2 childrens nugget meals with noteethhyperactivitydrink, 1 childerns cheeseburger meal with water, a childrens burger meal and a plain childrens burger meal”, he reads it back to me “yup that’s it” so I pay and I wait…it’s all there as quick as you like and I walk it over to the kids, he even brings the tray with their drinks on, now that’s what you call service !
Turns out that the plain burger meal was misunderstood to mean, put every thing on it. James is so allergic to so many things he has to have his epipen with him all the time, so I trudge back to the counter and explain, “Ok” steve says, no problem, I’ll get a new one made. I wait 5 minutes and he hands me a new burger, which I hand to James, who opens it and discovers, the same ingredients as before…so I trudge back and explain once again, third time lucky hooray. Burgers are wolfed down and drinks are nearly drunk, the natives are getting restless, so we exit and make our way back to the car(s).
All in all a good day Jack seemed to enjoy it so that’s the main thing and both Mandy and I survived. Work tomorrow, I’m really really feeling like going in, I may even spend my daily pay rise on a celebratory can of coke from the vending machine, but that would just be pushing the boat out too far now wouldn’t it ?
Where was my C.V…..ah there we are…
It’s been fairly manic so hopefully I won’t miss anything out….
Thursday 31st March 2005
The Grand Wizard is “working from home” today God I wish I could do that.
I send him an email, asking that since it’s the end of the month, and since Britney Skunkmaster (since he’s forever walking around with his Bluetooth headset on), had said that we’d find out about our pay rises by the end of the month, I was curious as to when we would actually find out.
The reply was simply that due to a hold up at HR (man they have to improve security for those guys), things were a little delayed, but clarity on the pay rise situation should be forthcoming shortly…hmmm that clarity word I’m not looking forward to this. Now then in 15 years in IT, I’ve never had a payrise bigger than 3% soooo as a guess 3% looks most likely. Not a huge amount but not to be sniffed at either.
Friday 1st April 2005
Apparently there’s a large sunami, heading for the coast of Britain, yeah right, it’s the 1st of April so that’s going to likely isn’t it. Most fault lines and natural disasters know all about the tradition of April Fool’s so it’d never happen on that day in any case. That being said if it doesn’t hit until after 12pm the joke will be on it !
The Wizard is in a good mood today, so he must know what his pay rise is going to be, a lot by the persistent grin on his face and the fact he keeps talking to people about cars and stuff like that, the anticipation is growing.
About 4pm he calls me in to Britney’s office, “when I saw these, I knew yours was going to be the hardest one”, he explains, I simply stare into space trying to look surprised. He hands me a company headed letter indicating that my salary from today would be £500 more than it was last year. I simply shrug, Rule # 5: Never say “thank you” for a pay rise, because a. The person telling you about it, had nothing to do with it, b. It’s never enough and c. You’re bloody well worth it and they owed it to you. “Now then don’t be too disheartened by the amount” he stammers, trying desperately to make feel like a £1 per day pay rise isn’t actually an insult, oh no, “what you have to understand is that you’re paid quite a lot more than the others in the team”, ok then so until they earn the same as me I can expect this ? “you also have to consider the perception factor”, oh this old cookie, “it’s always Brentboy and Me at the meetings, taking actions etc, so you’re never seen to be doing anything”, ok so going to the meetings would be a good thing then ? Those meetings that I don’t get invited to and brentboy does ? “We all know that brentboy takes on too much”, err no, Brentboy takes on what you give him to do, he has little choice in the matter, I feel there’s a massive justification issue here, so we’ll see, Brentboy is off next week with his son, I didn’t have the heart to tell him the weather is going to be typically April, i.e. rain, sleet, snow, -5 northerly winds etc etc, I’ll let him find out all by himself. That being said we’ll see when he comes back, if he’s all chipper and enthusiastic then I know where the pay rise went ;-).
I go home feeling a bit dejected for some reason.
Still on the up side, Mandy and I are having a rare night out. We’re going to the theatre in town to see Jack Dee, Christ I need a laugh.
Saturday 2nd April 2005
T Minus 1 day and counting until Armageddon (POD’s birthday)
I’ve only just recovered from a very good night out. Jack Dee was really funny and then we decided to recapture some our youth by going to the local Donor Kebab van (spelling was deliberate incidentally). Having spent at least half an hour waiting, listening to the inane mumblings of the owner of the van’s “best mate”, there’s always one isn’t there. He’s been coming to this van for the last two weeks, so now feels the need to tell everyone who’ll listen how he gets extra chicken, salad and chillies with his orders. Best mate ? ha! The owner is sick of the sight of him and is actually trying his best to give him food poisoning, that’s the real reason for the extra portions !!! But I digress…it’s 10am ish and we’re up !! On a Saturday ??? Yup we’re off to the local AfFord garage to see if we can trade in our Mondeo for a newer car (fat chance!)
10:30: Having dropped the kids off with their grandparents Dave, spitfire and Olly, feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea we turn up at the showroom, I can tell we’re both really looking forward to it. The salesman we’re supposed to see is a bit busy at present with another couple of victims, sorry customers, so we wait. He’s about 10 minutes and then comes over to us, “can I help you?” he asks innocently, “err we made an appointment to come in and see you about our mondeo”, he looks at us blankly, “you wrote it in your diary” I say, “did I”, man this is like wading through treacle, he paces over to his desk diary, “Mr & Mrs 8tor ?”, he asks innocently, “yeeeessss” I say becoming a kindergarten teacher for about 5 seconds….”right ok, so what can I do for you ?”….I’m losing the will to live at this point. Mandy takes over and explains that we’re on an No-Options plan and that it’s up at the end of June, so we need to sort out what we’re going to be doing, i.e. handing in the keys, handing in the keys or alternatively handing in the keys. He busies himself at his computer screen making sure we can’t see the ridiculously low prices of the cars that we wanted. Ok I’ve got this one. NNNN MLK, 6 speed gearbox, 1.8 LX in black and it’s yours for £11,000. Just a second £11k ? “£11k ??” I ask, Mandy cuts in “but we’ve seen them much cheaper than that on the AfFord Indirect web site”, “really?” he asks almost believably surprised (almost but not quite!), “well this is all it’s coming up as, tell you what why don’t I go and value your car?”, we agree and he goes off clipboard in hand, ticking bits and writing things down whilst opening and closing doors and boots and bonnets (he’ll get to our car in a minute), I was just waiting for him to start kicking the tyres (the new one’s I bought last week), when he seemed to have finished and came in, muttering something like, “won’t be a minute” as he disappeared off in to the “managers” office, to decide sorry calculate how much they were going to rip us off. After about 5 minutes of both of the standing with their backs to us, pointing at the clipboard, looking over their shoulders at us “do they look rich ? well she does but he doesn’t…” our salesman comes back. “right ok, I’ve valued your car and it’s in pretty good shape, it’s worth according to “the book” £4,800 but for this car we’re prepared to give you £5,300”, bloody good of them I thought given the car’s just a shade over two years old and it cost us over £10,000 when we bought it. They work out all the figures etc, and it comes to £193.68 per month over three years, which is a shade over the £150 absolute bear minimum that we were prepared to pay, so we make our “ok we’ll have a think about it” excuses and leave, thoroughly disillusioned with the whole process.
The rest of Saturday is a bit of blur, I remember watching the second episode of the new Doctor Who? Which was good but I can’t actually think of anything else worth talking about…so I won’t.
Sunday 3rd April 2005
It’s Jack’s birthday !! (my appendix scar is getting twitchy too), so we’re up with almost a lark at about 8:30am and it’s presents time. Mandy says “can you get the camera” so I do, then I discover there’s no power left in the batteries or so the camera says (it’s a bit dodgy on them, and eats batteries for breakfast), so I go to the universal "find everything in here draw" and get my bag of semi used / unused / completely flat batteries and load a pair up.
Sure enough it’s saying the charge is full on the camera, and Jack begins tearing up some pretty impressive presents. Two pictures later and the thing is flashing at me again, so I load up another pair of batteries take another couple of pictures and the same thing. Note to self, never buy a digital camera from Ebay again!!
We loll around for a bit (well I go back to bed and have a snooze, it was early for a Sunday), Ryan begins making Jack’s bioncles for him, ahhh my work is nearly done.
15:00 Jacks mates begin arriving bringing him even more gear, God I wish I was 9 again, and in 20 minutes we’re going to the cinema to see Robots, with 5 kids and just me and Mandy to try and steer them away from oncoming traffic etc. We made it in to the cinema without too much of a hitch, the film was very funny and nearly managed to keep Mandy awake all the way through, but she was feeling a bit under the weather.
17:00 Ok so I have a brilliant idea of walking down to McDontdoititsnotworthit to feed the starving brood we’ve adopted for the day. We get them to sit down (not an unimpressive task), but Ryan is supervising, so we’ll be fine.
We’re up to the counter behind, some very loud teenagers, who are so cool, that rather than queue, they can just get one of their mates to order for them, “get us a milkshake”, now that is cool. We get to the front of the queue, and Steve our counter man is ready…”right then I want 2 childrens nugget meals with noteethhyperactivitydrink, 1 childerns cheeseburger meal with water, a childrens burger meal and a plain childrens burger meal”, he reads it back to me “yup that’s it” so I pay and I wait…it’s all there as quick as you like and I walk it over to the kids, he even brings the tray with their drinks on, now that’s what you call service !
Turns out that the plain burger meal was misunderstood to mean, put every thing on it. James is so allergic to so many things he has to have his epipen with him all the time, so I trudge back to the counter and explain, “Ok” steve says, no problem, I’ll get a new one made. I wait 5 minutes and he hands me a new burger, which I hand to James, who opens it and discovers, the same ingredients as before…so I trudge back and explain once again, third time lucky hooray. Burgers are wolfed down and drinks are nearly drunk, the natives are getting restless, so we exit and make our way back to the car(s).
All in all a good day Jack seemed to enjoy it so that’s the main thing and both Mandy and I survived. Work tomorrow, I’m really really feeling like going in, I may even spend my daily pay rise on a celebratory can of coke from the vending machine, but that would just be pushing the boat out too far now wouldn’t it ?
Where was my C.V…..ah there we are…
# posted by cre8 @ 3:49 PM 
