Is it really 2009 Week 50 already ?

[Philip Ayres]

I had to go to Jonathan's playgroup Christmas party yesterday.

Hell on earth.

[Deleted]

I'm glad I don't have any kids!

[Deleted]

I'm helping to babysit my nephew this week (before and after work that is, and all of the previous weekend too)

today he is: "gunna see fartter crimba, gunna ask for nee naw!"

[Deleted]

Oh dear

I suddenly realised a second ago that it's the last month of the year, and I still have like 10 days of paid holiday left to take in this month...I dont have that many days left of possible work to take off O.O

[Deleted]

The holiday system at your place must work differently to the places where I've been before. Usually your holiday entitlements end at the end of March or April the following year due to that being the end of the current tax year for employers.

[Deleted]

Dec 7, 2009 13:34:40 GMT @zudobug said:

The holiday system at your place must work differently to the places where I've been before. Usually your holiday entitlements end at the end of March or April the following year due to that being the end of the current tax year for employers.

I dont understand it either, thats why I got all confused, I mean we also get paid on the 15th every month, for that month (including the 2 weeks we've yet to work)

[The Doctor]

Got home to find a letter from gas supplier. Oh dear, they need a magic number I already gave them as I don't exist. A 35 minute phone call later it turns out I still don't exist, even though I have letters from them. Further enquiries reveal that another company have an account already set up for me, that the letting agency did last month yet neglected to inform me. Everything is now on track and I should avoid arrears but frankly I could have done without the stress on this particular evening and am bloody angry that I came close to paying two different companies for my gas through no fault of my own at a lean time.

I hope to feel calmer after some Aunt Bessie's Roast Potatoes and beer battered Young's Fish.

Us newbies at work go over the top tomorrow. Yes, initial induction is over and now the job begins. It's a ramp-up system so low caseload to begin with and we don't have to worry about meeting targets until January but frankly I am shitting bricks big time.

Cool news though is that for a one-off never-to-be-repated 'bonus', the bosses are giving everyone December 24-Jan 4th off as extra annual leave as well as the usual public holidays. Yay.

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

I believe in your existence. Fear not!

Hope it all goes well tomorrow. It sounds like they have an experienced handle on the whole training and induction side of things.

[legios]

I'd agree, it sounds like they have their heads firmly wrapped around the training side of things. I have every confidence that you will do fine.

Congratulations on the bonus annual leave as well, that is not bad at all.

I had a fairly hectic day today, getting my teeth into the newly increased rent arrears caseload that comes with my job. Fortunately some of the cases don't look like they are going to need quite as much intervention as I feared that they might. Nevertheless, there is a bit of a learning curve in terms of how I am going to manage the caseload.

I still managed to get out of the office by five-thirty though, and detoured around past the Supermarket in order to pick up "Gi Joe:Rise of Cobra". So it was definitely a good end to the day.

Karl

[Fortmax2020]

When all else fails, Karl doesn't.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Your employers sound like good human beings, Ralph.

Martin

[Hero]

Dec 7, 2009 9:15:42 GMT Philip Ayres said:

I had to go to Jonathan's playgroup Christmas party yesterday.

Hell on earth.

I was at the local toddlers group party recentley too. I had to be at the front of the conga-line, dance on stage, judge the dancing competitions and serve jelly, ice-cream with vast quantities of kitchen towels to parents and kids.

On top of all that, I was in reserve to be Santa Claus, but an older gent who regularly dons the red and white was present. There is always next year.

===KEN

[Deleted]

My nephew has decided he likes "Charlie and the Chocolate factory" (Tim Burton version) now

he's fascinated by the scene where Augustus Gloop eats the grass lol

[Deleted]

I've just had to go down the post office to pick up a parcel because the postman wouldn't deliver it due to not enough postage being paid on it. I checked out the card which was stuck through the letterbox and it said that I had to pay £1.08 which included a £1 handling fee for non delivery. That meant that they refused to deliver it because the postage was just 8p short! After I had paid for the parcel and had been given it I couldn't believe how small it was. They could have just put it through the letterbox and forgot about the 8p but they didn't. Instead, they wanted me to walk down to the post office and pay them £1.08 to take it off their hands!

[kayevcee]

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago, Zudo- although with a happier end. I got a message from the sorting office saying I had been sent something with inadequate postage and had to come down to pick it up and pay the excess. However, when I got down to the office the chap at the counter said people had been coming in all day for these things and offered to let me open it to see if it was worth keeping before I paid up.

It turned out to be an advert for the new Savoy Centre that the promoters had used out-of-date stamps on. Not the best PR move in history, forcing thousands of people to walk miles then stump up cash to read what turns out to be an advert for your new shopping centre. Ah well. I thanked the office chap for his generosity and bade him file it in the bin.

-Nick

[The Doctor]

I had the same problem with 'free' energy saving bulbs from my then current energy provider a few years ago.

-Ralph

[andrewbcalculating]

Apparently these are Victoria's Secret adverts directed by Michael Bay:





|<o>|

[Deleted]

It's now been just over two full weeks since I had quit smoking and this made me think how much money I have saved. I spent over £30 a week on cigarettes and so now I have save something in the region of £60 - £70 which is enough to buy me my ticket for AA2010. If I stay off the fags for another two months I will have also saved enough money for the bus fare up to Birmingham and the hotel accommodation. Another month after that I would have saved up enough spending money for the convention.

Although I am on the lookout for a job I figured that if I quit smoking for long enough I'll be able to go to AA2010 regardless of me having a job or not.

[The Doctor]

At last the source of the beeping in the flat has been identified after a week of irritation. I found a carbon monoxide detector that wants a new battery. One beep for yes, two beeps for no according to the instructions!

-Ralph

[Dave]

Waiting on the phone as I type....
Someone has my card details...
My bank really doesn't want to help...

[Deleted]

We used to have a carbon monoxide detector in our house that kept beeping and at first we didn't know how to change the battery. We then read that the user does not change the battery but rather you have to phone up the gas supplier and request a new detector. I then discovered that it was possible to change the battery in it by getting a screwdriver and prising open the battery cover that was designed to only be opened by a specialist tool. The result: one new battery fitted and no need to call up British Gas!

[Dave]

Update!

So yeah, someone has somehow got my card details. I discovered this when I noticed that for the past three days I'd paid the London congestion fee, despite the fact I don't currently own a car and haven't been near London anyway.

My bank was really quite infuriating, sending me round to other departments until I ended back at the original wrong number - at one point someone gave me a number that turned out to be for a different bank! I was thinking I'd have to go down to my local branch first thing tomorrow and just have to accept that I'd be paying a fourth congestion fee when I get a phone call...

It's the fraud prevention people! They've discovered it's been cloned - don't know how that's happened: nothing recent springs to mind that could have caused it. Anyway unlike their friends in stolen cards, they're not a bunch of [edit]silly sausages[/edit] and have kindly canceled my card for me. They will be sending a new one out and even give me a number to sort out the stolen money.

Hurrah!

[Philip Ayres]

Not mail ordered anything from FP recently have you ?

[legios]

Dec 9, 2009 18:32:07 GMT The Doctor said:

One beep for yes, two beeps for no according to the instructions!

-Ralph

But can you slot blocks of wood into it to gain access to information?

Dave, sorry to hear about the card - t'is not a fun thing to have happen, but at least somewhere in the system someone was on the ball enough to do something about it.

I have had a hectic day today - what with meetings taking up part of my day and my lunch with my team today. It was a very nice lunch indeed and quite out of the blue I received christmas present from my boss. A QI book of quotations which I shall no doubt dip in and out of in the months to come. The lunch was particularly nice as well, except that I don't think I am used to eating rich food anymore. I certainly didn't need much in the way of tea this evening and not needing to wash up has made a nice difference.

As we were gone more than the standard hour for lunch I ended up having to stay back in the office till six to make up the time but that had its good side as well - with no one around I managed to make some headway with some paperwork I had not been able to get stuck into.

Then it was home to work on another load of paperwork.....

Karl

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Dec 9, 2009 9:33:21 GMT andrewbcalculating said:

Apparently these are Victoria's Secret adverts directed by Michael Bay

He has his good days, there's no denying it.

Had an unusually structured day today.

I had two Christmas work meals this week, one on Monday the other today. On Monday I worked till 7pm and then went on to the restaurant. I wasn't about to do that again today, so I knocked off at 3, saw 'The Box' at Cineworld (a decidedly decent film, though the conclusion is a bit unsatisfactory and could have done with more twists), then clocked back in and worked from 6 till 7, then went to the restaurant. Never done that before. Feels weird.

Martin

[Deleted]

Although I've never been a victim of card fraud I have heard about its done. One reason is the well known method of 'skimming' where somebody puts a phony device on a cash machine where the card is inserted and when somebody inserts their card this device reads the information allowing somebody to copy it. The other way is to do with purchasing stuff off the internet. Unless the internet site is a trusted one there is no way I will buy anything off it.

[dinogrrl]

I had a false charge for a porno website turn up on a card some years back - the credit union was real quick about fixing the problem. Since then, I've had the card for both that and my more current account canceled and replaced twice each due to security breaches of card processing at brick and mortar stores. Although I've never had another false charge, there's just as much risk of having card details nicked from the servers that process cards from POS machines as through websites.

Glad you got it sorted Dave, hopefully you can get the money back as well.

It's currently -8 degrees celcius, raining ice and snow and gusting up to 30 mph. Driving is a tense and frightening chore. I wish I could move my lab into the basement so I didn't have to leave the house.

[Dave]

Thanks people. Well I've calmed down a bit (so edited the previous post slightly) but as Karl said it was due to someone being on the ball. If I'd stuck with trying to get through to the "right department" I'd be down at my local bank trying to get them to cancel it before Mr(s) Thief booked an expensive trip away or something.

The response so far from everyone I've mentioned it to is surprise followed by "but you're always so careful". It could well be there was nothing I could have done to prevent it but...

Dec 9, 2009 21:27:08 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Not mail ordered anything from FP recently have you ?

Nope, but I was up most of the night wondering when was the last time I used somewhere for the first time and (re: skimming) when I last used a cash machine.

Oh well, sorted now. To the coffee!

[Cullen]

Interesting that the thief chose to pay for the congestion charge. A photograph of his license plate at the exact times he entered London should help the police (if they bother to do anything that is).

[Deleted]

I have to take my nephew shoe shopping tomorrow...yay.....