What I want to know is, when you're applying for a job shovelling chips into paper bags or putting tins of beans on shelves and they ask you why you want to work for McDonalds/Sainsburys - surely they know as well as you do that the answer is "I can't get anything else, I need some money, and you've got a vacancy". So why do we play this game of pretending it's some kind of career ambition at interview?
Being autistic, when I first interviewed for a Saturday job at Clarks I answered the question honestly but was still appointed.
I wonder if that would happen today?
Mind you, biggest challenge mine are facing trying to get McJobs or similar is even getting interviews. They fill in the online forms and never hear a thing. Try any other approach and you just get told to fill in the online forms.
I once applied for a Christmas job at WH Smiths, and was asked what my greatest achievement was. I said it was learning to swordfight, which had done wonders for my self confidence!
Surprisingly, I didn't get the job!
I once applied for a Christmas job at WH Smiths, and was asked what my greatest achievement was. I said it was learning to swordfight, which had done wonders for my self confidence!
Surprisingly, I didn't get the job!
"... and I'm very good with rolled-up newspapers too!", perhaps?
I saw it a lot in IT jobs but this is the first time I've seen it in the education field (private school).
Not hellish, but bemusing. For an education role one of the perks listed in the summary was "Exclusive access to our app"! I know I'm 48 but app access doesn't seem that interesting to me. Oddly it wasn't mentioned at all in the full advert.
Webforms that you have to fill in where one of the boxes you have to tick turns out to reference something you won't encounter until you get the induction... but you have to tick it to get the form to submit!
Sandemaniac: I teach my subject area (amongst others) to ICT platform and application developer trainees. They're sometimes a bit shortsighted in terms of customer-friendly designs.
TICTH - Citroen, and their poor communication concerning the current airbag problem
We have one of those cars with the dodgy Takata airbags. We were notified a couple of weeks ago that there is a Safety Recall on certain models, including ours, and that we have to get new airbags fitted.
Then, a couple of days ago we got a DoNotDrive letter, saying that the car is unsafe and that it should not be driven until after the new airbags are fitted. Presumably that invalidates our insurance until that time.
Our appointment is three weeks away but we are not heavily dependent on the car, so this is not such a hardship as it will be to many drivers, but our current concern is that we cannot get an answer to the question of how we get the car to the dealership to be fixed. It is an hour's drive away on the other side of the nearby city.
And, if we were to take the risk and drive it there, who is responsible if it blows up en route, causing injury, death & mayhem in the city`?
Surely if they've told you not to drive it (and, as you say, probably invalidating your insurance), they should have to send a tow-truck to pick it up?
One would hope so, but we have not been told that - the DoNotDrive letter doesn't mention it. We have left a couple of messages with the dealership that is to do the job, but have had no reply.
I expect they are busy, 120,000 drivers are affected in the UK (although presumably not all booked in locally).
TICTH scam websites that fuck over small businesses in the process. I’ll probably get my money back because I paid by credit card, but the poor bloke who runs the business that has had its identity stolen is getting five calls a day of people chasing orders he knows nothing about for products he doesn’t sell. He says he has reported to the police and google, and I can see from the business’ genuine Facebook page that other would be customers have reported to Action Fraud weeks ago, but the site is still up.
Our local bin men. Several weeks ago, I applied to the County Council for new recycling bins (I have no idea what happened to the original ones, which were missing when I arrived). The advice from the council was to put the recycling out anyway, and it would be taken. Well, that worked once, and another time I had to run after the bin lorry with my food waste, and today they've missed me again.
So it's complaint email to the Council time, pointing out that I just want new recycling bins before my house overflows!
I ordered some jewellery from E Bay, and got a couple of messages over the weekend to say it would be delivered today. I had a look at my emails this afternoon, and for reasons unknown, it was sent to the Leven delivery office (in Fife - the other side of Edinburgh!) by mistake. They said it was being re-routed and offered a link for me to track its journey - probably via North Utsire, Channel Lightvessel and the Isle of Man ...
I regularly find myself vexed by delivery tracking. RM is generally pretty good, but all others are a crapshoot, with delivery notifications (even in good whether with reliable ferries) telling me parcels have been delivered anywhere from 3 days before to the next working day after they've turned up in the porch. Case in point: 6 parcels comprising 3 consignments turned up on Saturday. According to the email notifications they turned up around lunchtime today (Monday), having previously dropped off the radar on Wednesday.
Grrr! Discord! I belong to several discussion forums on Discord, and over the last few days I've found myself shut out of the NSFW areas until I pass an age verification test. I wasn't going to bother until I realised that this included one of my favourite threads in one of the Good Omens servers.
Turns out they want you to take a selfie while holding photo ID with your date of birth clearly visible, and a piece of paper with your Discord name on it (how many hands do they think you have?).
Well, I managed it in the end, and now I'm just waiting to hear back.
I suppose it's my own fault for going on forums that have a lot of teenagers on them!
Waterstones seem particularly bad at delivery tracking. I get an e-mail telling me that the book has just left London and should be in Darkest Aberdeenshire within a couple of hours.
Adding British Gas to my list of society offenders who never will be missed.
They provided the electricity for my new home when I moved in, and I wanted to change to the supplier I had at my old home. I found it difficult to find a place on the BG website to tell them this, and now every time I get in touch with them I have to go through a "we're sorry you're leaving. How can we persuade you to stay?" message.
At this stage, it smacks of desperation, especially since, at the same time, they are trying to charge me for the year when the house was empty, and I had nothing to do with it (the trustees of the charity have been trying to sort this out for a couple of months without success).
And then there was the phone call this morning - trying to get me to stay as a customer again - in which the young man tried to persuade me that British Gas was far greener, with more renewable energy than Good Energy, but they were "saving the planet in secret", and if I wanted to talk to someone about my account, I could use their Chatbot.
No, thank you - with Good Energy I can talk to a real person who is actually helpful.
Honestly, the time when I never have to deal with British Gas again can't come soon enough!
Two things TCTH:
1. the woman who went straight past a passing place, refused to reverse, then berated me for not pulling into a field entrance or driving onto the verge to let her pass. Added bonus of "I know who you are!"
2. Myself for not being able to handle confrontation calmly. It was over an hour ago and I'm still shaken up. Short of just giving in and reversing rather than standing my ground I'm not sure what I should have done.
I'm rubbish at conflict too @Arethosemyfeet, hope you are feeling a bit better.
I'm feeling cross with the political party who have seen fit to re-post (for at least the third time) something on Facebook about mine and some fellow councillors views on a local matter. It is basically in the form of a wanted poster. Fine that they don't like my views, but I'd wish they'd engage in a more considered manner. No wonder politics is in such a mess.
Today I consign to hell my usually very good local hospital. In April I went for a routine maintenance appointment for my hearing aids and I asked for a proper appointment to check my hearing as it was coming up to three years since I got my current aids and I think they aren't as good as they once were and my hearing has declined more as well. She said she'd put me on the referal list. When I didn't hear in a month I checked back with the out-patients department who told me I was on the waiting list.
Today, still having not heard anything, I went to check again. The receptionist couldn't find any appointment and her colleague was less than helpful at helping her or me. They told me I needed to phone the appointment line and gave me a number . When I got home I tried the number and got back to the same unhelpful receptionist. She then gave me another number. Phoning that didn't get me very far, but I finally got through to a recorded message that gave me the right number. That receptionist got me a cancellation for August. I'm still not sure if I ever actually got onto a waiting list in the first place. The irony of it is I know one of the comms team at the hospital trust and when I told her how impressed I was with the service when I got my current aids she arranged an interview with the local paper where I talked up how important getting your ears checked was and how good the hospital is.
I hate getting stroppy but in this case it seems to have worked. I shall be telling them what I think when I go for my appointment.
I wonder which department of hell is responsible for voice-to-text software? I attended a board meeting of a charity yesterday and heard all about how the system recognizes your voice and identifies you in the minuted conversations. I didn't appear in the list of attendees, but was quoted as making statements completely unrelated to anything I had said. Much of the report was gobbledegook that should have embarrassed the person who sent it out. With the heavy editing and extra fact-checking now needed, the old fashioned method is surely quicker.
Addendum to previous post. I understand the process applied by the noted software is known as 'encraption' i.e. the irreversible conversion of clear data to electronic garbage.
Not a spray, but cigar smoke seems to drive away most flying nasties. You don't have to smoke them, just buy a few cheap panatellas and set them to smoulder in a tin.
I consign to Hell all Android type devices, i-phones etc and the companies who promulgate them. And change the programs that operate them. I can't keep up and now can't open the photos I need for an article an erstwhile respected and trusted colleague sends me in emails. 'Oh, they explain', sorry about that, I've just updated my i-phone. Are you on instagram?'
I tried to open an instagram account. With no luck. My PC software is soo dated.
I vented my frustration about all this in a bit of doggerel:
No App-titude in Old Age
With apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning
How do I call you? Let me count the ways:
The icons are there, in serried arrays,
but sometimes they vanish,
Often for days.
What’s App, Messenger, Instagram and text,
and whatever they think is gonna come next.,
"Is easy", they say, but I'm just perplexed
and they twitter away
on something called ‘X’
I'm frozen immobile, my mind's gone to ice.
To talk to a loved one would be very nice,
But how to do it on my tiny device?
The new one is better - and smaller - I'm told,
but my battery's flat and my apps are too old.
Arthritic fingers don't work when they're cold!
I've lost my emojis, this aged has-been,
so I poke about dimly, reloading the screen.
What on earth am I doing with this wretched machine?
I wish it had valves, with their nice warming glow.
And nostalgic buttons, in dials or a row --
And 'Press button A' as it was long ago . . .
So how do I call you? Does only God know?
Addendum to previous post. I understand the process applied by the noted software is known as 'encraption' i.e. the irreversible conversion of clear data to electronic garbage.
I love the descriptor 'encraption'. Another friend has just told me his 'media hub' (whatever that is) now doesn't work with the new BBC algorythm.
Aaaaaaaaagh !!!!!
Not a spray, but cigar smoke seems to drive away most flying nasties. You don't have to smoke them, just buy a few cheap panatellas and set them to smoulder in a tin.
That's how "Mosquito Coils" work - used them in West Africa.
I consign to Hell all Android type devices, i-phones etc and the companies who promulgate them. And change the programs that operate them. I can't keep up and now can't open the photos I need for an article an erstwhile respected and trusted colleague sends me in emails. 'Oh, they explain', sorry about that, I've just updated my i-phone. Are you on instagram?'
I tried to open an instagram account. With no luck. My PC software is soo dated.
I vented my frustration about all this in a bit of doggerel:
No App-titude in Old Age
With apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning
How do I call you? Let me count the ways:
The icons are there, in serried arrays,
but sometimes they vanish,
Often for days.
What’s App, Messenger, Instagram and text,
and whatever they think is gonna come next.,
"Is easy", they say, but I'm just perplexed
and they twitter away
on something called ‘X’
I'm frozen immobile, my mind's gone to ice.
To talk to a loved one would be very nice,
But how to do it on my tiny device?
The new one is better - and smaller - I'm told,
but my battery's flat and my apps are too old.
Arthritic fingers don't work when they're cold!
I've lost my emojis, this aged has-been,
so I poke about dimly, reloading the screen.
What on earth am I doing with this wretched machine?
I wish it had valves, with their nice warming glow.
And nostalgic buttons, in dials or a row --
And 'Press button A' as it was long ago . . .
So how do I call you? Does only God know?
I consign to hell a certain bank account I cannot access. Yesterday I most politely told the ‘agent’ who answered the helpline that whilst I am by no means technically incompetent and am well accustomed to using passwords, User IDs, passcodes etc to access various financial institutions, I found the process of accessing his company’s account the most opaque and frustrating of them all, and if the third attempt was unsuccessful I would not be continuing to place any money with them.
Not a spray, but cigar smoke seems to drive away most flying nasties. You don't have to smoke them, just buy a few cheap panatellas and set them to smoulder in a tin.
Not sure which is worse - carcinogenic tobacco smoke or bugs.
I lit a spill one time I was entertaining a friend in the summerhouse, and she reacted as if I were spraying poison gas. All the more disproportionate as she lives in London where the air is 90% exhaust fumes (imo).
From now until October I know not to go into the garden without a good hosing down with BugDeath.
Not today though - contrary to the forecast ('light cloud') it's coming down steadily. I wish to complain to The Management.
TICTH Best Buy, which was supposed to have sent my new laptop computer on Monday, July 14, and which is now listed as shipping delayed and not yet arrived.
My current laptop is literally physically falling apart, I need this new computer asap. Not to mention that I'm leaving on a two week vacation on the 24th, If it hasn't shown up by then I'm screwed.
The phone company that sent me in circles. Hello I would like to take advantage of the free phone upgrade. Hello this is Sally, let me switch you to our new phone department, Five minute wait .......Hello, this is Bill. New phone upgrade, please. Oh, you are a current customer, let me switch you to the correct department. Hello this is Sally, This is me again Sally, Oh my let me switch you again. Hello this is Bill, I will send you back to the right dept. Hello this is Sally, oh for heaven sakes I will make that upgrade for you. All set let me switch you to the shipping dept. Sorry they are on another call, we will have to wait. We waited, and waited, and waited. Oh dear says Sally I will just finish this off for you myself. There you go all done your phone should arrive in four to six days. If Sally could have done the whole thing all along, why did I need to spend 20 minutes on the phone for less than five minutes of switching?
Scottish Power and their absolutely shambolic handling of the Radio Teleswitch Meter switch off and replacement- that's twice now I have cleared access to the meter and taken time off work as I would need to wait in for them and have a power cut and they have failed to do the job.
First time - oh no we can't replace those meters which we are meant to be replacing!
Second time - cancelled during the slot while I was waiting for them- and they're not proposing to come back until the end of October! By which time I will need my heating which runs off that meter... And this has been going on since April.
Absolutely shambles and waste of time. And I pay through the nose for their electricity because the antiquated dual meter set up makes it impossible to switch!
Scottish Power and their absolutely shambolic handling of the Radio Teleswitch Meter switch off and replacement- that's twice now I have cleared access to the meter and taken time off work as I would need to wait in for them and have a power cut and they have failed to do the job.
First time - oh no we can't replace those meters which we are meant to be replacing!
Second time - cancelled during the slot while I was waiting for them- and they're not proposing to come back until the end of October! By which time I will need my heating which runs off that meter... And this has been going on since April.
Absolutely shambles and waste of time. And I pay through the nose for their electricity because the antiquated dual meter set up makes it impossible to switch!
Our Manse had this problem. I'm waiting for e.ON to come out and replace the incorrect smart meter they installed but they did at least manage to replace the separate meters so we're no longer paying double standing charge.
Happy to join you in cursing Scottish Power. While we still pay them for power, we cancelled expensive maintenance contract when the CH failed in mid January, during lockdown, household of two highly vulnerable pensioners - their response time? Nine days. Fortunately we knew of a Polish plumber, or we would have been an item in the Edinburgh Evening News - Elderly Couple Die of Hypothermia.
I'd like to CTH the system that forces me to soldier on with a dying laptop because I'm scheduled to get it replaced in September--and by gum, they aren't going to replace it a single day early, no matter what errors it throws or what responsibilities I have that require a functional machine! I'm currently at a point where, if I walk away for a nap, I come back to a computer showing several "recovered" files and asking plaintively which ones I want to keep. This means the whole system has gone down at least once while I was away. So it's daily, or more than daily, now.
In the past I've attempted to get these problems rectified. What THAT leads to is losing my computer altogether to the company tinkerer, who give me (maybe) a loaner computer incapable of doing any but the most basic of tasks, while he fiddles around, calls in help, and eventually returns me a machine which promptly malfunctions again. I lost a full month of work time in 2023 over this nonsense, and the fact that they could have saved themselves a huge amount of money by just replacing the damn thing a bit early--well, no, we don't do that sort of thing. Better to spend ten times as much...
Insomnia. 4 weeks of it getting steadily worse. On my 3rd medication currently.
Unfortunately this is linked with the "high" phase of my bipolar; not sure which is the cause and which the effect. I find myself not at all physically tired during the day but more mentally exhausted.
My sympathy too! I'm just off two nights without any sleep, and felt incredibly drunk trying to function at church. I dared not drive. (In my case it's probably anxiety over a meeting on Thursday.)
TICTH the BBC - more precisely, the producers of "Only Connect" in which one of the clues was WRONG as it claimed that a picture of Stephenson's "Locomotion" was actually "Rocket". Fortunately the quizzers had answered the question by then, otherwise they might have had good reason to complain.
Comments
Yep.
Surprisingly, I didn't get the job!
"... and I'm very good with rolled-up newspapers too!", perhaps?
"What is your expected salary for this role?"
I saw it a lot in IT jobs but this is the first time I've seen it in the education field (private school).
Not hellish, but bemusing. For an education role one of the perks listed in the summary was "Exclusive access to our app"! I know I'm 48 but app access doesn't seem that interesting to me. Oddly it wasn't mentioned at all in the full advert.
Sorry to hear of your struggle.
We have one of those cars with the dodgy Takata airbags. We were notified a couple of weeks ago that there is a Safety Recall on certain models, including ours, and that we have to get new airbags fitted.
Then, a couple of days ago we got a DoNotDrive letter, saying that the car is unsafe and that it should not be driven until after the new airbags are fitted. Presumably that invalidates our insurance until that time.
Our appointment is three weeks away but we are not heavily dependent on the car, so this is not such a hardship as it will be to many drivers, but our current concern is that we cannot get an answer to the question of how we get the car to the dealership to be fixed. It is an hour's drive away on the other side of the nearby city.
And, if we were to take the risk and drive it there, who is responsible if it blows up en route, causing injury, death & mayhem in the city`?
I expect they are busy, 120,000 drivers are affected in the UK (although presumably not all booked in locally).
So it's complaint email to the Council time, pointing out that I just want new recycling bins before my house overflows!
I ordered some jewellery from E Bay, and got a couple of messages over the weekend to say it would be delivered today. I had a look at my emails this afternoon, and for reasons unknown, it was sent to the Leven delivery office (in Fife - the other side of Edinburgh!) by mistake. They said it was being re-routed and offered a link for me to track its journey - probably via North Utsire, Channel Lightvessel and the Isle of Man ...
Turns out they want you to take a selfie while holding photo ID with your date of birth clearly visible, and a piece of paper with your Discord name on it (how many hands do they think you have?).
Well, I managed it in the end, and now I'm just waiting to hear back.
I suppose it's my own fault for going on forums that have a lot of teenagers on them!
They provided the electricity for my new home when I moved in, and I wanted to change to the supplier I had at my old home. I found it difficult to find a place on the BG website to tell them this, and now every time I get in touch with them I have to go through a "we're sorry you're leaving. How can we persuade you to stay?" message.
At this stage, it smacks of desperation, especially since, at the same time, they are trying to charge me for the year when the house was empty, and I had nothing to do with it (the trustees of the charity have been trying to sort this out for a couple of months without success).
And then there was the phone call this morning - trying to get me to stay as a customer again - in which the young man tried to persuade me that British Gas was far greener, with more renewable energy than Good Energy, but they were "saving the planet in secret", and if I wanted to talk to someone about my account, I could use their Chatbot.
No, thank you - with Good Energy I can talk to a real person who is actually helpful.
Honestly, the time when I never have to deal with British Gas again can't come soon enough!
1. the woman who went straight past a passing place, refused to reverse, then berated me for not pulling into a field entrance or driving onto the verge to let her pass. Added bonus of "I know who you are!"
2. Myself for not being able to handle confrontation calmly. It was over an hour ago and I'm still shaken up. Short of just giving in and reversing rather than standing my ground I'm not sure what I should have done.
I'm feeling cross with the political party who have seen fit to re-post (for at least the third time) something on Facebook about mine and some fellow councillors views on a local matter. It is basically in the form of a wanted poster. Fine that they don't like my views, but I'd wish they'd engage in a more considered manner. No wonder politics is in such a mess.
Today, still having not heard anything, I went to check again. The receptionist couldn't find any appointment and her colleague was less than helpful at helping her or me. They told me I needed to phone the appointment line and gave me a number . When I got home I tried the number and got back to the same unhelpful receptionist. She then gave me another number. Phoning that didn't get me very far, but I finally got through to a recorded message that gave me the right number. That receptionist got me a cancellation for August. I'm still not sure if I ever actually got onto a waiting list in the first place. The irony of it is I know one of the comms team at the hospital trust and when I told her how impressed I was with the service when I got my current aids she arranged an interview with the local paper where I talked up how important getting your ears checked was and how good the hospital is.
I hate getting stroppy but in this case it seems to have worked. I shall be telling them what I think when I go for my appointment.
I tried to open an instagram account. With no luck. My PC software is soo dated.
I vented my frustration about all this in a bit of doggerel:
No App-titude in Old Age
With apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning
How do I call you? Let me count the ways:
The icons are there, in serried arrays,
but sometimes they vanish,
Often for days.
What’s App, Messenger, Instagram and text,
and whatever they think is gonna come next.,
"Is easy", they say, but I'm just perplexed
and they twitter away
on something called ‘X’
I'm frozen immobile, my mind's gone to ice.
To talk to a loved one would be very nice,
But how to do it on my tiny device?
The new one is better - and smaller - I'm told,
but my battery's flat and my apps are too old.
Arthritic fingers don't work when they're cold!
I've lost my emojis, this aged has-been,
so I poke about dimly, reloading the screen.
What on earth am I doing with this wretched machine?
I wish it had valves, with their nice warming glow.
And nostalgic buttons, in dials or a row --
And 'Press button A' as it was long ago . . .
So how do I call you? Does only God know?
And grandchildren, of course.
I love the descriptor 'encraption'. Another friend has just told me his 'media hub' (whatever that is) now doesn't work with the new BBC algorythm.
Aaaaaaaaagh !!!!!
That's how "Mosquito Coils" work - used them in West Africa.
Brilliant!
I feel your pain...
When David and I smoked, our usefulness as Wee Beastie Repellent was much appreciated by our fellow-picnickers.
Not sure which is worse - carcinogenic tobacco smoke or bugs.
I lit a spill one time I was entertaining a friend in the summerhouse, and she reacted as if I were spraying poison gas. All the more disproportionate as she lives in London where the air is 90% exhaust fumes (imo).
From now until October I know not to go into the garden without a good hosing down with BugDeath.
Not today though - contrary to the forecast ('light cloud') it's coming down steadily. I wish to complain to The Management.
I want to have bath, I can’t have a bath until you pick up the bloody cupboard.
My current laptop is literally physically falling apart, I need this new computer asap. Not to mention that I'm leaving on a two week vacation on the 24th, If it hasn't shown up by then I'm screwed.
First time - oh no we can't replace those meters which we are meant to be replacing!
Second time - cancelled during the slot while I was waiting for them- and they're not proposing to come back until the end of October! By which time I will need my heating which runs off that meter... And this has been going on since April.
Absolutely shambles and waste of time. And I pay through the nose for their electricity because the antiquated dual meter set up makes it impossible to switch!
Our Manse had this problem. I'm waiting for e.ON to come out and replace the incorrect smart meter they installed but they did at least manage to replace the separate meters so we're no longer paying double standing charge.
In the past I've attempted to get these problems rectified. What THAT leads to is losing my computer altogether to the company tinkerer, who give me (maybe) a loaner computer incapable of doing any but the most basic of tasks, while he fiddles around, calls in help, and eventually returns me a machine which promptly malfunctions again. I lost a full month of work time in 2023 over this nonsense, and the fact that they could have saved themselves a huge amount of money by just replacing the damn thing a bit early--well, no, we don't do that sort of thing. Better to spend ten times as much...
Unfortunately this is linked with the "high" phase of my bipolar; not sure which is the cause and which the effect. I find myself not at all physically tired during the day but more mentally exhausted.
Sorry to read of your insomnia, Lamb Chopped. 🕯️for Thursday.