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It's not proof either, just possibly proof they were there. Nothing to say they didn't take the parcel with them?
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Comedic "things you would ban": minor things that irritate you
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Strat-tastic
Established Member
Those pictures are not proof of delivery. Don't let them fool you otherwise.
They’re not great but they’ve been enough to identify the “we have delivered your order” as delivered to a neighbour twice recently. Their deliveries sometimes come to us and vice-versa, they’re number 2 whereas we’re number 2 in a small block of townhouses with a different name. The pictures help.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
Calling it the News at Ten when it's nowhere near 22.00 when they show it...
Maybe a better name would be the "News at When"...?
Maybe a better name would be the "News at When"...?
Gloster
Veteran Member
To be a bit of a spoilsport: you know that News at Ten is the name of the main late evening news bulletin, so that is what you look for. It is a bit unfortunate that the name chosen is one that ties it to a time. If they changed the title every time they had to put it on at a different time, people would complain that they missed the news because they didn’t realise that it was called News at Twenty-five to Eleven today. Anyway, it is at Ten…and a bit.
nanstallon
Member
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I find the 09.17 CrossCountry service from Truro to Plymouth very handy, but when I look it up online am always warned that it is busy and I should use an alternative service. However, west of Plymouth it is usually not too bad.
dangie
On Moderation
‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’
Never managed to watch a whole episode. How something can become so popular is way beyond me. The real annoyance is that it takes up 30-40 minutes of television time which could be used for something more entertaining.
Never managed to watch a whole episode. How something can become so popular is way beyond me. The real annoyance is that it takes up 30-40 minutes of television time which could be used for something more entertaining.
Mcr Warrior
Veteran Member
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Corrected that for you.
Juliet Barvo
Member
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See it, Say it, sorted
Gloster
Veteran Member
The way that even the tiniest disappointment leads to people going onto social media and the like claiming that something has been ’ruined’: today’s seems to be people who had slightly dodgy turkeys (turkey turkeys?), but often it is just something in a TV show or the packaging on some soft drink. I once heard a woman in the Co-op in Newport telling one of the staff that her grandson’s life had been ruined because they didn’t have the pizza topping that he wanted.
BazingaTribe
Member
Flipping heck, they sell pizza dough now, you can make your own. That would be a fun way of teaching her grandson how to make his own stuff and not depend on others so much, as well as being an active, fun and messy way of bonding with him that he'd probably enjoy much more and make a wonderful memory than just being served up a ready-made pizza. Totally agreed about the broad point as well -- and I admit to being a bit of a Princess and the Pea when it comes to less than ideal situations due to autism. Maybe people need to learn to make their own fun again.
I'd ban any Christmas stuff in shops before Remembrance. I like it when it gets going in November because it's otherwise a gloomy and dark time of year and I suffer from SAD, but bloody Nora have some decorum. (The twinkly lights and anticipation of the season can get annoying and stressful round about 18 December when you're scrabbling about to get everything ready, but I enjoy the festival itself and had one this year for the first time in a long while where my mum didn't put the boot in about my weight, so I'm happy to see Christmas trees in place in the second half of November.)
I'd also enforce more of a ban on audible media on trains and public transport. Maybe I'd leave a get-out clause for under-5s, but maybe not, as I've seen parents engage more usefully and creatively with their children when they're not being deafened by 'the wheels on the bus go round and round'. If you're going to have kids, then be a good parent and engage them and make what is a tedious thing for a lot of people more genuinely fun. But for anyone over 5, I'd make it a day in prison. The lady next to me on Christmas Eve was TikToking out loud but I only had to glance round for her to realise she wasn't going to get away with it on my train. If you don't have headphones, you have to go without.
Heck, I'd actually ban TikTok itself. It's caused enough death and despair that actually makes it some kind of net detriment to humanity. It's also spyware for a hostile foreign government who knew our weaknesses. I know it fills a niche that would otherwise be occupied by another similar app, but it's one of the few forms of media that I legitimately think is a negative influence on young people and the PRC Trojan horse is just the cherry on the top. (I know China has its own version, Doujin, but the Chinese government can create their own way of keeping their population quiet without trying to infiltrate ours.)
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pokemonsuper9
Established Member
It already is in comptition with a bunch of others, Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels etc.
BazingaTribe
Member
Yeah, they responded to TikTok's popular format. The quality at least on YouTube is much better thanks to many of the professional creators having better production and using the format for good animation.
TikTok originally also replaced Vyne, which missed a trick in that it refused to allow creators to earn a share of the revenue they brought in from advertising. Unsurprisingly, creators hit a brick wall when they realised they were simply creating content for an app to monetise their success and not pass anything on, so TikTok did fill an important gap in the market. But the way it incentivised content meant that TikTok has created more harmful trends -- YT isn't innocent in that respect but with the opportunity for greater length and depth of content it's got more substance and more focus on actual information sharing than TikTok.
I can't speak for Instagram though.
Obviously this is purely griping about stuff we don't like and has no chance of becoming actual law, but TikTok is already banned in some jurisdictions and from being downloaded onto US government hardware, and for good reasons beyond mere censorship too.
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dangie
On Moderation
As someone who worked for 40 years in the power industry on a 24/7 three-shift system I totally agree with this. If a Bank Holiday fell on one of your working days, well tough sh*t, you had to work it. In my 40 years I probably only had a handful of full Christmas’s or New Year’s off. When you did, great, when you didn’t, you just accepted it.
Two bonuses of working over Christmas & New Year, was firstly there were no bosses or management, and secondly you didn’t have to feign jollyness and join in party games
Gloster
Veteran Member
Exactly. When I joined the railway you got no choice about working bank holidays or not. The attitude was that if you didn’t like you shouldn’t have taken the job.
godfreycomplex
Established Member
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Luckily we’ve moved on a bit since then
dangie
On Moderation
In what way?
I’m not being obtuse here, I simply don’t know what you mean.
BazingaTribe
Member
This is my first WFH Christmas and I'm enjoying not having to be up at the crack of doom on 27 December to do the graveyard shift on reception in an empty office building. I'm still working it -- we don't shut down in the NHS, so it leaves the days free for other times, but yeah, in my case the enforced jolliness was my mother using my house as an impromptu AirBnB for my third cousins twice removed over from Timbuktu (Irish families are big and have no concept of personal space) or dragging me away with them somewhere equally remote.As someone who worked for 40 years in the power industry on a 24/7 three-shift system I totally agree with this. If a Bank Holiday fell on one of your working days, well tough sh*t, you had to work it. In my 40 years I probably only had a handful of full Christmas’s or New Year’s off. When you did, great, when you didn’t, you just accepted it.
Two bonuses of working over Christmas & New Year, was firstly there were no bosses or management, and secondly you didn’t have to feign jollyness and join in party games
Work jollies are more fun now I sit at the big table with management as their admin, so I don't mind that so much. Waking up with a migraine after the Christmas party is more fun in a Novotel with the general understanding that you'll be travelling home most of the morning so if you're not online until 11 no-one will care than it is when you've got to be at work at 9 sharp the next morning to open up.
godfreycomplex
Established Member
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“That’s the job so get on with it and don’t ask questions” is how people get killed or injured, for one thing
GatwickDepress
Established Member
Eh, a key part of any job is moaning. Teachers moan about students, IT folk moan about PEBKACs, certain WFH people who do nothing moan about having all that free time, and retail/security/facilities/healthcare/emergency services will complain about working Christmas.
BazingaTribe
Member
My experience is with the NHS and taking general leave rather than bank holidays, but I'd imagine it's now more that you arrange with your colleagues which BHs you'll work and which you get off. (I always had BHs off anyway since I didn't work in a hospital, but e.g. clinical administration colleagues, not to mention anyone in clinical or maintenance teams will probably need to cover BHs.)
Some of my friends were really quite upset that I had to do that throughout my tenure on reception, but it's considerate to ensure you split things evenly. I'd imagine that's an improvement over a fixed roster. It used to be that two people out of three had to be in at any one time, but after the pandemic that went down to one person on because there was less to do once people got used to WFH. My supervisor used to take three weeks in Tenerife during the early autumn, so by extension we could never go away at that time either. However, when her mum died and she met a fella of her own, my supervisor stopped taking that long holiday and things eased up...just at the time my husband died and so the need to impose my needs on someone else died with him.
The problem for me was always that my colleagues ended up being very fixed in their habits and had a lot of seniority, so periods like this one usually fell to me to be flexible and work it. I didn't mind that (for the reasons I have in my previous post) but it was a strange notion for people who hadn't worked in public services before.
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Go to any eBay/Amazon etc forum and see what sellers think about buyers! Mostly it is just letting off steam and you put your game face on when at work, but too much of it and it leaks, so you do have to be careful.
Falcon1200
Established Member
People who do not, and never would, work on Christmas or Boxing Day complaining when others also want those days off.
godfreycomplex
Established Member
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Agreed
GatwickDepress
Established Member
Exactly! It's all about letting out your frustration somewhere that is private and not going to damage reputation or relationships. I've chaired more than a few meetings where someone has bad-mouthed the company on their public social media or ranted about stuff to a customer.
BazingaTribe
Member
Yeah, that's what it looks like to me too. It's like the people who want a four-day week for themselves in order to get more leisure time, and forgetting that for them to have that leisure and enjoy it to the fullest, other people would still have to work to provide those leisure facilities. (I wonder if the reason Christmas is so sacrosanct in England is because of the Cromwell dictatorship -- the experience of being forced to work by military presence on the streets on Christmas Day produced a backlash so hard that it has lasted three and three quarter centuries?)
Let people have their days off, for goodness' sake. It won't kill you to have a few days to actually rest and relax rather than having to be somewhere and do something 24/7/365. The world does not revolve around you and your desires; it is provided for everyone to enjoy.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
Some companies declare a mandatory shut down between Christmas and New Year - and then say the staff must book those three or four days out of their annual leave entitlement.
Surely that practice should be banned - if the company is shutting down for the duration, the company should absorb the days instead?
Surely that practice should be banned - if the company is shutting down for the duration, the company should absorb the days instead?
You've just reminded me -- anyone remember "factory fortnight"? I'm 44 so can't remember it that well, but pretty sure all the local factories used to shut down for two weeks in the summer I think?
The last place I worked had a mandatory shut down but added the days to your annual holiday entitlement.
I suspect that the policy of not doing so isn’t illegal, but ought to make employees leave the company, it’s not a thing I’d do if I were running a company.
PS Working Time Regulations (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/regulation/15/made):
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BazingaTribe
Member
Possibly! Although many services, even those which are office based or who cater to leisure takers, don't shut down over the period, so it makes sense in the wider scheme of things to ask people to take holiday when others are having to work. Also if you work in an office you generally have no choice around the 8 bank holidays coming out of your allowance anyway. I have to book them out, since theoretically my NHS pay grade includes people who might have to work BHs and thus get the time off elsewhen, but because of my office-based role I have to take the BHs anyway. (I worked in Ireland in my very first job and there, Good Friday was not a public holiday, but my office closed down anyway. They paid us for it, but it came out of AL.)
From anecdotal evidence elsewhere some companies do add those three days to the AL allowance but with the understanding that it's taken anyway. When I was last looking for a new job (18 months or so ago), most companies advertised 25 days discretionary leave plus BHs, which would presumably include any days that you were made to take off after Christmas. You weren't gaining much but you weren't losing. But normal experience is that those 3 days come out of AL anyway and you just have to put up with it. (If you keep arguing this way, you end up with escalating demands -- if you feel you ought to have the full legal 28 days as completely discretionary, does the company therefore also have to pay you for shutdowns, including BHs? etc)
As it stands it's legal for a company to tell you when you can take holiday. It's certainly not the worst I've seen in the UK -- one landscaping firm competing with my late husband's employer had a holiday blackout from May to September inclusive. Sure, it's the busiest season for work and people in the industry, and sensible people work round their colleagues' dates. But it also happened to coincide with the prime holiday season for children and possibly emphasized the very specific gender roles in which any guy working for the company would have a wife to take care of any kids. The problem came when my husband's firm contemplated buying them out when the owner retired, and whether TUPE would allow the purchasing firm to remove the onerous contractual provision to match their own much more sensible policy.
So it gets complicated for employers and accounting systems and so a compromise has been reached. Personally I'm glad I'm in the NHS where I can trade those days for others at another time of the year and with WFH added to long service on my current contract I have more AL than I can actually use or need to use, but for the other 8 BHs I'm out of luck.