Work

Last One

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As mentioned in the previous post, I went to the last of this year’s Xmas parties on Friday.

It was a good do – free bar and free food, etc. I really quite enjoyed it.

Thing is, there weren’t that many people who I knew. The company has such a high turnover of staff that, of the sixty or so people there, I probably only knew about a dozen of them – just the old stalwarts.

But it was great to catch up with those that I did know and haven’t seen since I retired.

There was Football Freddy; Doroffee; The Big Boss and The Other Big Boss; The Legend that is… ; Moany Eric; AC/DC and Steve… amongst others. And let’s not forget Scrubs Up Well Julie, who always looks fantastic at parties, in her low cut, little black dress with the split up the side (Phew!)

The DJ was a bit rubbish, I thought, playing some modern shite that no-one had heard of, apart from half a dozen young girls with impossibly short skirts covering their ridiculously small bottoms, dancing away in one corner of the room by themselves.

Eventually, he put some decent stuff on and I was able to strut my stuff. It was like John Travolta had just stepped onto the dancefloor.

Probably.

But – under strict orders from the current Mrs Masher, not to return home like I did last week – I refrained from drinking too much of the free booze and I left in time to make sure I caught the train so that I would get home at a reasonable hour  (2am wasn’t too bad, methinks).

So, that’s it now: no more festivities until the big day, when we celebrate the birth of Santa.

My liver will appreciate the break, I’m sure.

Xmas Dinner

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Tomorrow (Friday the 13th – what could go wrong?) I am having a Christmas do, down that London.

This is with the people I was working with, only earlier this year.  As per usual, it’s a free bar and free food. It’d be rude not to go.  I hasten to add, that this soirée isn’t being held – or paid for – by the impecunious and somewhat, beleagured water board that I used to work for. No, this is being thrown – as it is every year – by their more affluent contract partner.

If it’s anything like last year (or the year before that, or the year before that) I shall likely get a little sozzled.

And, this isn’t my first Christmas party/lunch/get-together this year. This will be the fourth.

I’ve already had a get together with some old work colleagues, in Reading, this week.

Last Saturday, I attended the Xmas bash of the motorcycle club I belong to: forty of us turned up and pretty much took over the pub where it was being held, which was great fun.

And the day before that, I was with my old BT pals in ‘spoons in town.  Even though the food wasn’t brilliant, fourteen quid for Xmas lunch and a pint? Can’t knock that.
It seems though, that I had rather too much to drink.  One minute I was seated at the table, chatting away with the guys, next thing, I wake up the following morning, naked in bed, next to the wife.   Between those two events, I have nothing but a vague recollection of being bundled into a car.

I’ve not been that far gone in the last forty-five years!

I’m wondering whether someone spiked my six pints of Leffe?

Motoring Madness

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Well, let’s kick this thing off with a bit of a rant, shall we?

Something that has been driving me absolutely barmy for a long time now, but which just seems to be getting worse: traffic.

This past week has been absolutely horrendous for me on the roads.

And by ‘roads’ I mean the M1 motorway.

Yes, I’m still having to drive my daughter to Watford each morning for work – more on that in a later post, probably – and quite often we get delayed due to an accident on the motorway.

But, this past week we have been delayed EVERY SINGLE BLOODY DAY due to accidents. Every day.

And trying to take alternative routes is pointless, because everybody else does exactly the same and the smaller roads just don’t have the capacity for that amount of traffic.

I have to feel sorry for the good people of Harpenden though: whenever there is a hold-up on the M1, the amount of traffic on Harpenden High Street increases ten-fold, as we all try to crawl our way further south and pick up the motorway a bit futher down.

Now, Friday’s tend to have less traffic and the motorway is usually quite a reasonable journey for us, but last Friday, it was horrendous!  Again.  Another bloody accident.

Not only that, but there was also an accident on the way home, which added another forty minutes to my journey.

Why do we have so many accidents on our roads?  Why can’t people just learn to drive properly? I do wonder how many of these accidents are caused by people talking (or worse) on their phones whilst driving because, I see this happening every day.

And, driving too fast and too close to the car in front. Why is it, that when some people get behind the steering wheel  – and I’m talking about the steering wheels of German cars in the main, here – they suddenly think they have Lewis Hamilton-like driving skills?

Which they don’t.

There is a campaign for the motorway speed limit to be raised to 80MPH. Eighty!

Good lord, please, no!  It’ll only make it worse.  There will be even more accidents.

How many millions of man-hours are lost each week, by us sitting in traffic, going nowhere?

How many accidents are there on the motorways each week? How many fatalities?

Although it’s a pain, in one respect, I don’t mind driving my daughter to work each day, as once she has passed her test, she will be on the motorway herself, driving alongside all those idiots.

And that thought fills me with dread.

 

 

The Social Network

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I’ve mentioned here before, that I don’t do social media.

I’m not a member of InstaFace or the Twitters or any of the other online hangouts that the masses seem drawn to.

Admittedly, when I was younger and going through my experimental phase, I dabbled in a bit of Friends Reunited, but I wasn’t addicted to it and I could have quit it anytime I wanted to.

Which I eventually did.

My one concession to the genre, however, has been LinkedIn.

I was persuaded to join LinkedIn back in 2008 or so, when I was contracting. “It could help you get another job”, I was told.

It never has.

Yes, I’ve received a number of emails from recruiting agencies over the years, offering me six-month contracts in Outer Mongolia, and stuff like that, but never anything decent.  Admittedly, I’ve not actually followed up on most of the recruiting mails that I’ve received, so maybe there could have been something half-decent in there… we’ll never know.

But, LinkedIn has always got on my nerves: people I’ve never heard of… wanting to join my ‘network’.

People I worked with years ago and can barely remember… wanting to join my ‘network’.

People that I knew only fleetingly whilst contracting (engineers that pass in the night)… wanting to join my ‘network’.

To me, for most LinkedIn members, it wasn’t so much about connecting with people who could help you find a new job, but more about how many connections they could get in their own ‘networks’.

And the constant emails:

“Masher, somebody you’ve never heard of just posted something that might interest you”.

“Masher, sombody else you’ve never heard of is congratulating you for five-years at the Acme Water Company”.

“Masher, your career trajectory is gaining momentum! Add these people who you don’t know, to your network and see it really take off!”

I was right fed up with it so, today, I took the decision to close my account.

When I tried to do so, as well as deleting the account, it also gave me an option to ‘pause’ it and hide it from public view.  At first, I was tempted by this option, but then thought better of it and permanently deleted the account.

I immediately received an email from them, saying they were sorry to see me go.

The feeling isn’t mutual.

I’m free! Free, ya hear me? FREE!

Ha ha ha ha ha…

Tea… It Wasn’t To Be

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I was out on site yesterday, auditing one of the teams. I’d taken one of the new starters from the office, to show her the ropes… and the pipes.

It’s fair to say it was a bit nippy out and after two hours, we were both frozen.  We finished the audit and changed out of our PPE.  “What now, back to the office?” she asked.

“Hell no!”, I replied. “Now we go find somewhere to get a cup of tea and a wee… and not in that order.”

Google Maps showed there was a Tesco Superstore just a few miles away. “Follow me!” I said, jumping into my car.

She dutifully followed and soon we were on the North Circular heading toward Tottenham… or somewhere.  “GPS signal lost” said my phone, matter-of-factly.  I looked at the screen and it showed me as being stationary… which I very much wasn’t.   After a couple of minutes, it regained the signal.  “Please make a U-turn” it said.  I’d obviously missed the turn off.

I turned round at the next roundabout. “Stay on the A406 for one mile”, it said.  Half a mile later: “GPS signal lost”. Aarghh.  I phoned G who was driving behind me and explained what was happening. “I wondered why we were going round in circles”, she said, ” You follow me instead”.

Five minutes later, we pulled into the car park of a huge Tesco Extra. “That’s a relief”, I said, “I thought we were never going to get here. I’m gasping for a cuppa.”

The café only had a small queue of people, but even so, we still queued for about twenty minutes before we reached the till. By then, I was parched.  “I’ll get these”, I said magnaminously. “A tea, a coffee and two fruit scones, please”, I said to Jacky on the till. She tapped it in.

“Are you paying by cash or card”, she asked. I opened my wallet and pulled out my debit card, with a flourish. “It’s ready for you now,” said Jacky, nodding her head toward the card reader. Now, I know they call it ‘contactless’ but I always physically touch the card to the reader… that’s just the way I roll.  I tapped my card atop the device, just noticing the price of £9.55 as I did so.

Just as my card made physical contact, the reader went blank and the till turned off.

The lights also went out, plunging the whole store went into darkness, save for the emergency lighting.

“Did I do that?” I asked Jackie.

She shook her head. “No. We’ve had this before.  Several times”, she said, with a sigh.

With the power off, we couldn’t have our tea and coffee.  “I think that transaction went through though”, I said, “so how do I get my money back?”

“It didn’t go through, otherwise I would have got a till receipt”, said Jacky, confidently.

“But there’s no power… the tills are dead… you wouldn’t get a till receipt.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do until the power comes back on”, she said. “Last time it took three hours.”

G and I decided to abort our coffee stop and head back to our respective homes.

I checked my bank account when I got home and sure enough, the transaction had gone through.  I won’t bother trying to get it back as it will likely be more bother than it’s worth.  Tesco can keep it. Maybe they can put it toward getting a new power supply installed.

I know £9.55 isn’t a lot, but every little helps.

Pinch Punch…

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… First Day Of The Month.

Halfway through the year.

Soon be Christmas.

 

Also, it’s my wedding anniversary.

And I forgot.

Genuinely.

I know it’s an old cliché for men to forget their wedding anniversary, but I truly forgot.

I think that’s the second time in twenty-seven years.

Oh well, I’m sure I will (have to) make amends later.

Yesterday, I went into the office. That’s  only the second time this year.  The last time I went, I had a horrendous journey home, due to an accident on the M1 causing a huge tailback.

Yesterday, I again had a horrendous journey home, due to an accident on the M25. I actually gave up and went to my cousin’s house instead, for a cup of tea and a natter, so it worked out OK in the end… apart from getting home pretty late.

But the reason for this (admittedly, now rather rare) trip into the office, was for a face to face team meeting. It’s good to be seeing people in 3D again.

And then the boss delighted us all by taking us out to lunch.

He’d spotted a stall selling pie, mash and liquor on his way in and so we ended up eating there.

Wow! I love pie, mash and liquor, but I’ve not had it for years. What a treat!

Sometimes it’s the simple things.

If only I’d thought to bring some home.

As an anniversary present.

Nerds Day Out

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On Friday, a couple of mates from work and myself, took a day off and visited NPL – the National Physical Laboratory – in Teddington.

It was this:  most excellent.

It was also this:  wondrous.

Friday, as I am sure you are aware, was International Metrology Day and is the one day a year that NPL open their doors to the public.

We hadn’t realised that the place was so big and had so much to see.  In the nearly four hours that we were there, I doubt we saw half of the stuff that they had opened up to the public – there were still plenty of doors marked as No Entry.  But the stuff that we did see, was fascinating.

Mostly.

We saw so much, that I can’t remember a lot of it, but one of  the highlights for me was seeing the actual laser(s) that defines (for the UK)  how long a metre is.

And we also saw* a single ion trapped inside an Ion Trap.

But my personal favourite was seeing the Caesium Fountain device (well, a replica, as the real one was behind one of those locked doors) that provides the standard that UK time is derived from.

It was a great day out and I would urge anyone with any scientific curiosity to go visit. Next year.

And yesterday, we had our long-awaited (cancelled for the past two years due to Covid) local Amateur Radio Rally, where hundreds of radio and electronics nerds gathered together in a field and bought a load of old tat from each other.  I showed great restraint in only spending twenty-five quid – thirty-five if you include the three cups of tea and a sausage and egg roll.

A fun weekend.

*we couldn’t actually see it

Not Staying In

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I went out, yesterday.

Actually out out.

Out of this little room which, – because it doubles up as my home office and my play room – I sit in for far too many hours of the day,

So, I went to High Wycombe.  What’s in High Wycombe?

I don’t know… I never went there to see the sights.

I went there to audit one of our installation teams: a Health and Safety audit, to ensure they are following the company safety protocols and are working in a safe manner.

Which, I’m pleased to say, they were.

I got talking to the customer – a nice ol’ boy – and we had a good chat whilst we stood in the bright sunshine, watching the team do their work.

And then he opened his double garage door, so his wife could get her little Suzuki car out.

Inside, parked next to the Suzuki, in pristine condition, was a 1931 M-Type MG, similar to the one in the photo above. It was probably worth a fortune.

We talked about it for a bit and then he pulled a sheet off a vintage Rudge motorcycle that he was restoring. It needed a bit of work, but was in good nick and will probably look a bit like this picture when it’s finished.

“Gives me something to do”, he said, with a smile.

Two  Hondas dating back twenty-plus years, sat in one corner. I took a shine to the CB250 which, although a little dusty, was in perfect condition.  He explained how his daughter had bought it in 1999 so that she could go out riding with her boyfriend.  They had then split up just a few weeks later and the bike had sat in the garage ever since. I checked the odometer – it had just 184 miles on the clock.

It crossed my mind to make him an offer, but then I quickly realised I don’t need two bikes AND if this bike has sat in his garage for over twenty years, he obviously had no plans to sell it, anyway.

Before long, the job was finished. The customer was happy with the work and the team set off to do their next job.  I headed home, but realised that I wouldn’t get back in time for my 11:30 Teams meeting. I thought about pulling up somewhere and hot-spotting from my phone, but then I had a better idea and called in to see my cousin, who lived not too far away.  She was surprised to see me. “Can I avail myself of your kettle and your Wi-Fi?”, I asked.

Of course!

I sat in her spacious kitchen, drinking tea and eating Garibaldi biscuits, whilst those on the call wondered as to the different background behind me.

We had another cup of tea and chatted for a bit before I headed home.

All in all, it was a really pleasant day.

I must get out more.

The big V

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Valentines Day!

In my more youthful days, this was both an exciting and a nerve-racking day.

I received a number of cards over the years – usually from girls that  were already actually dating – but the exciting ones were those from the “unknown admirer” that came in the post or were left on the desk at work for me to find when I came in.

And it was exciting: “I have an admirer… who could it be?”

It could also be embarrassing: “Hey Masher, I see you got a Valentines card. Do you know who it’s from? Is it your mum again?”

Of course, it wasn’t from my mum.

Again.

And later on, the current Mrs Masher and I continued with this romantic soppiness, for several years. even after we were married.  But, it fizzled out after a while. Seemed a bit pointless spending several quid on a bit of card just to say “I Love You”, when I could actually say it to her face, for free.

And it felt daft taking her out to a restaurant, and paying Valentine’s Day prices, when we were already going out to eat a couple of times a week anyway.

And so it just kind of got forgotten about.

She has gone into work this morning and neither of us even thought to mention it, before she left.

Time off

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I am off work today.

And tomorrow.

Not doing anything in particular or going anywhere special (obviously), but just using up some of my annual leave.

With holidays cancelled last year, I didn’t dip into my annual leave allocation much, save for a few days here and there.

And the company isn’t allowing us to carry over any more than the usual five days, so it’s a case of use it or lose it.

And I ain’t losing it… done that before.

So, I have a couple of days this week; a week later in the month and then a few days spread throughout March – our year runs April to March.

Of course, I am not alone in this situation: lots of others are in the same boat at work and we have had to carefully arrange our leave around each other, such that we don’t all end up taking the same week off, leaving no cover for our department.

Many are moaning about the company not allowing their several weeks of remaining leave to be carried over, rather than just the one.

And others are saying that the company should buy the leave back from them, as they haven’t been able to use it, being stuck at home, as we all are.

This is ridiculous, of course, and neither scenario is going to happen.

Yes. it’s not their fault that they haven’t been able to get away this year, but then, neither is it the company’s.

Me: I’m looking forward to my couple of days off.

Let it snow!

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It can’t have escaped anybody’s attention, that we have had a reasonable fall of the white stuff over the past couple of days.

And whilst it looks pretty and it gets the kids and the dog excited, I hate it.

Yes, it was great when I was young and I can remember being out in it all the time back in the early seventies – that’s when we had proper snow… and at Christmas too.

But once I grew up (last Tuesday), I took a real dislike to the stuff.  And, as I’ve got older, I’ve come to dislike it more and more.

And there are two main reasons for this:

  1. It’s cold.  I hate the cold. I used to relish it, but not so much nowadays.  Actually, I don’t like the heat either – I’m more of a temperate kind of guy: 20 degrees is the Goldilocks zone, for me.
  2. It disrupts my journey to work.  As if I don’t spend enough time sitting in traffic as it is, a half inch of snow will double or triple my journey time, because we are rubbish at driving in the snow.

Whenever snow falls, I literally dread having to drive to work.

But, every cloud has a silver lining:

We are in lockdown and I am working from home.  I can sit in the warm comfort of my home office, with a nice cup of tea, looking out the window (because that’s what I normally do at work) and thoroughly enjoy the snowy spectacle outside. No having to defrost the car for fifteen minutes before I start; no sitting in a line of traffic en-route to the motorway, because some silly sod is just sat spinning his wheels as he tries to get up the slip road; no frustration at being stuck for hours on the M25 because a lorry has jack-knifed 30 miles ahead of me on the other carriageway.

Nope, just me and a cup of tea and a lovely view out the window as the sun rises.

I don’t know if any more snow is forecast, but if so, bring it on!

Time to listen

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I have been working from home since just before the first lockdown and – all in all – I’m loving it.

I’m saving about two hundred quid a month in fuel, for one thing.

And about three hours a day sitting in the car.

I really do not miss that commute!

But, there is something that I do miss about that drive.

Being such a horrible, boring  journey – all 37.5 miles there and 37.5 miles back on the M1, M25 and M40 – I have to keep myself entertained, to save the steering wheel getting too chewed up through frustration.

As such, once I was in range, I would often talk to a small group of amateur radio operators, who frequent the Amersham repeater most mornings.  A friendly bunch, it was always pleasant to chat over technical matters with them. We even got together a couple of times for Christmas dinner… not gonna happen this year, obviously.

But, working from home, I am out of range and so  haven’t been able to have my regular chats with them, and I miss that.

But, the other thing I am missing is my podcasts.  Each Sunday I would store up a week’s worth of podcast listening onto a Re-Writable CD-ROM (I know: how quaint, in this day and age) and I would listen to it throughout the week, whilst driving… and until I was in range of the Amersham Repeater.

I would also record comedy shows from Radio 4 and Radio 4xtra and bung a couple of them on the CD as well.

I am still recording them, even now, but as I haven’t been driving, I haven’t been listening, so have amassed a huge backlog.

Episodes of Just A Minute, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and The Unbelievable Truth, languish on my radio’s memory card, amongst classic episodes of Dad’s Army, Hancock’s Half-Hour and Steptoe & Son.  The Answer Me This podcast remains undownloaded, along with The Modern Mann, Rutherford & Fry, Dr Karl, The Naked Scientists  and the Eclectic Tech podcast from the ARRL.  Amongst others.

Even if things do return to ‘normal’, I’m wondering where I’ll ever find the time to catch up with them all.