I wanted to go out with a bang so I submited this item to the staff student forum agenda. Brandon kindly accepted said submission. Have a peak.
Roger Boyle our head of school even approved the plan. Although he added that it only really works when the person you name something after has passed away. Still, phase one complete, just phase two to take care of now…
I got a call from Vodaphone retention this morning.
Suddenly, they can do me the packages for new customers and can even give me the special offers on top of that too. So I now have 500 minutes and unlimited texts and they’ve even gone as far as to throw in free itemised billing (which I already had lol). Best of all they are now doing it £5 a month cheaper than o2.
So I now have a phone on the way from Vodaphone and a phone on the way from o2 as well as my PAC code even though I don’t need it. Messy, messy situation.
First of all, such heresy as was rumoured back in January has been put to rest. I remain as ever a Sony Ericsson fanboy. And not just because the contract was £5 cheaper than going with an N95 or P1i. But because I’m old and afraid of change.
I have however officially requested my PAC code from Vodaphone. Much as Kieran ran into problems when he wanted to upgrade his phone when his last contract expired I phoned up Vodaphone to complain that none of their price plans on their website were available from the upgrades process.
The patronising call centre worker explained (well more confirmed my suspicions when I proposed such ideas) that they were only available to new customers. To be honest I thought such practices had now died out but apparently not. I explained to him that the packages being offered to me were “just rubbish” so he passed me through to their promotions department.
Properly implemented CRM systems shine through as always as I began talking to the girl in promotions by giving her my phone number, confirming my full name and address and other security details even though I’d already done that twice this call (once with the automated system when you phone up and once to the guy in upgrades).
She managed to throw me together 150 minutes and 500 texts for £25 a month. However, given o2 were offering the slightly more appealing 400 minutes and 1000 texts for not much more I decided to officially abandon Vodaphone in favour of o2. No doubt I’ll be telling a similar story in 18 months time.
Traditionally I enjoy my somewhat cryptic blog posts.
Recently though I have begun to reconsider their use. After all, my blog has a public readerbase and really they don’t mean anything to the author. They tend to leave everyone else a little nonplussed.
Sometimes though, your blog simply needs to serve as an emotional release. So this is me, as if driving at the speeds I just drove back at and talking it out with Moz weren’t enough, releasing my anguish onto my blog. You can stop reading here. This really won’t mean anything to you.
But I mean seriously, WTF?
WTF?
It isn’t just me right?
Because the sad truth is I already know. But I don’t want to admit it. Or maybe I geniunely don’t know. But is that the seeds of doubt I wish were there because I’m in denial?
And seriously, why are you still reading?
Having received an email through regarding the upcoming TKD grading I feel I need to express my appreciation for Mr. Smith’s blunt and to the point style. Allow me to pick out some examples…
2. ‘Ironed’ means that that you get a household electrical appliance called an ‘iron’. If you haven’t seen one or used one get a friend to help. After you have ironed your dobok fold it as neatly as you can to take to class. If you stuff it in your bag it isn’t ‘ironed’ anymore.
…
If your dobok is heavily creased or grey or dirty you will be killed before the start of the grading.
…
5. If you try to wear any other type of tshirt with a fun/music/anything print on then you will be killed.
…
7. ‘I don’t trust the internet’ is something your grandparents would say. I will ridicule you if you say it.
…
9. If you completed the form less than 3 weeks ago and you email me to say ‘you said to email you I hadn’t got my licence book through’ I will come to your house and throw bricks through your windows.
10. If you completed the form less than 1 week ago and you email me to say ‘you said to email you I hadn’t got my licence book through’ I will come to your house and kill you in front of your housemates.
…
13. Unless you have already been spoken to about an assessed grading and you ask if you can double grade because you missed the last grading then you will be killed and left in the corner of the hall out of the way until the bin men come.
Enjoy your grading and try not to get killed.
Good advice all round I feel :D.
Having been reading the debate regarding Jason Calacanis’ post how to save money running a startup I feel I should step up the mark and take on my usual roll as devil’s advocate.
The first point I would note is that many of the critical responses to Jason are just plain harsh. They seem more like attacks than criticisms.
More overly, though, I agree with a lot of what Jason has to say. The fact is, you do need the people in a startup to work really hard. Whether this is a case of hiring the right people in the first place or getting rid of them when they don’t work hard seems to be irrelevant. Have you seen the failure rates of startups?
Other criticisms seem to be just in denial about the world. Stilgherrian writes that Jason is basically suggesting we should “hold meetings at lunchtime so people never get a mental break from work.” Let’s not pretend most companies don’t do this because most of them do in some form. Work at any office job and chances are you will end up eating lunch at your desk because the company wants you to so you will be thinking about your work all lunch time. It happens at The D too, get this, managers on a night (because there is only one of them) can’t clock out and go off and have a break because there has to be a first aider on shift. So they have to eat their break food in the office. Point is, its nothing new for people to be encouraged to be work focused on their breaks.
I would also dispute the point that the workaholic lifestyle can’t be maintained. I am fully aware there are many arguments to say I don’t work as much as it would seem (uni holidays are long, some work doesn’t really count as work, etc) but I generally do something like a 50-60 hour week and I work every day. Even if you don’t count that, I was working every day over summer doing a real job if you don’t wish to count a full-time degree and again that was doing 50-60+ hour weeks and going weeks on end without a day off. I’m still here, I haven’t exploded yet. Why? Because I love a lot of what I do.
Allen Stern (http://www.centernetworks.com/mahalo-employees-like-prison) seems a bit more supportive but some of the comments seem a little naive to me. Dual screens are like cell phones and dishwashers. You get along fine without them until you actually try them, then you can never go back. Well worth it. Flexible hours is also incredibly important. We geeks, as a people, are not known for our 9-5 lifestyles.
Congratulations to Si who has just being accepted onto my blog roll. His ramblings have been offering some fresh content to my Netvibes on a reasonably regular basis which seems to be somewhat of a rarity these days. On saying that most people have posted within the past week or so. I might do a little pruning of those who haven’t.
Michelle has just gone home meaning that I am the last remaining person in DEC-10.
I don’t see the point in going home really, I have to be back on campus for like 8:45 so I figured I would feel worse if I went to sleep. Still I have a really full today – I’m booked up almost solidly until 9pm which should be lots of fun. Still, only 40 minutes until I can have my last Red Bull (I’m rationing until the shops open again :D).
If you missed the house party on Friday you missed an interesting affair. Notable events included Fonze drinking himself unconscious and waking up in hospital, Liz taking off her jeans while in my darkened bedroom, Izzy feeling up Norm, lots and lots of Chinese food and endless discussions about pornography. So yeah, your standard Circle event really.
I haven’t posted for a week. A week! That’s a long time for me. Though I have noticed that I have been blogging less lately. Some would say it’s because of how busy we are all are a the moment but then I’m always busy and it has never stopped me before. Others would argue my life is just a little less exciting a the moment. Myself, I remain unsure.
Perhaps it is the inevitable doom of FYP. The fact that we also have plenty of coursework deadlines on top of that (I have another 5 before the end of semester 2) not only doesn’t really help the situation but also explains why I’m in the lab at 4am. And glad to be here. The hardcore nights are back :D. It’s good we get one more run in before we graduates.
Because quite frankly, this could be the last time. I mean what is there after this? Once I get these courseworks out of the way and given our software demos are next week (mine is on Monday so I won’t be pulling all nighters for it next week) there is really just report writing to be done which I doubt many people (though I would like to think a few of us will) will be writing up in labs. And in any case, doing write up isn’t the communal experience you gain from late night coding sessions.
We really need one more for old time’s sake. And get some chair races in too.
Kieran correctly pointed out earlier today (well, technically yesterday now) that things are getting a little too close to graduation. Today was our last staff student forum meeting (at which it was agreed to go ahead with my proposal to re-name of the school to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence but only if I was dead). There are a lot of things coming up that will be the last of something. It’s actually getting scary.
On the plus side the provisional exam timetables are now out and I don’t have an exam at 9am the night after I go to Manchester for a gig. Which is quite a nice bonus. It’s also quite a nice bonus that I seem to finish before everyone else which makes a big chance – indeed last summer I had an exam on the Friday of week 3 – the very last day of exams.
So yeah, that is my late night rambling on what’s been happening recently. I’m sure I’ll think of more as soon as I hit publish. Luckily, you shall be saved that fate ;).