Tuesday December 22
The start of the big move - packing up day. Which bright spark thought it would be a good idea to move immediately before the Christmas holiday? I suppose they thought that not much work would be done on these two days anyway - apart from all the senior managers, of course, who all had very pressing meetings they had to attend and were extremely conspicuous by their absence from the chaos that was going on all over the office. It was left entirely to the grassroots to decide how to organise things - which was probably for the best, judging by past performance. All went reasonably well until the crates ran out. An e-mail had been sent to all staff making it quite clear that everything had to be packed up and ready to go by the end of the day ........ All very well if you've got crates to pack in .......... a bit difficult if not! Crates had to be labelled with personal and team names to make delivery easier at the other end ....... but the printers were removed at the beginning of the day so no labels could be printed. The computers were taken at lunchtime so no-one could do any normal work. So the afternoon was a case of sitting around reading the paper and doing Sudoku ....... couldn't do anything else. We saved one crate for the Emergency Planning Manager (who obviously had not planned for the move and had disappeared to a meeting all morning). He had not had the foresight to start packing his stuff in advance, and I left him pondering how to get about four crate-loads of stuff into the last remaining crate.
Monday, 11 January 2010
When Christmas came to Follyville
When Christmas came to Follyville it was a total cock-up.
The executive directors should be sent straight to the lock-up.
We had to move from Office One across to Office Two
the same day that the plumber was there taking out the loo!
We didn't have sufficient crates to pack up all our stuff
and by the time we got to Office Two we'd all had quite enough.
We had no seats to sit upon, unless you got in early,
but "more are coming soon", they said, "we hope" ......... "they must do - surely?"
There were no shelves on which to put the content of our boxes.
We'd better dump them all outside to amuse the local foxes.
The noise in here is quite intense. In fact, it's almost nearing
the levels in a poutry shed used for intensive rearing.
I'll have to go and work from home - the buggers have won the battle.
I'll work far more effectively ..... just miss the tittle-tattle!
The executive directors should be sent straight to the lock-up.
We had to move from Office One across to Office Two
the same day that the plumber was there taking out the loo!
We didn't have sufficient crates to pack up all our stuff
and by the time we got to Office Two we'd all had quite enough.
We had no seats to sit upon, unless you got in early,
but "more are coming soon", they said, "we hope" ......... "they must do - surely?"
There were no shelves on which to put the content of our boxes.
We'd better dump them all outside to amuse the local foxes.
The noise in here is quite intense. In fact, it's almost nearing
the levels in a poutry shed used for intensive rearing.
I'll have to go and work from home - the buggers have won the battle.
I'll work far more effectively ..... just miss the tittle-tattle!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
More Follyville
I've just been "VDI'ed". VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. What it means is that my computer is no longer a computer. It still looks the same as it did last week, but it no longer behaves the same. My computer "desktop" still looks the same but it is now "virtual" ..... there is no computer behind it ...... all the programs, applications, documents and everything else are stored on the Follyville servers. The point of all this is so that when we move to our new "virtual desks" (which aren't actually going to be there because the silly burghers of Follyville seem to think that most of their staff can work without a desk) in our new office (which is actually there!),we will be able to plug our dongle into any of the few terminals which will be available and see what we would have seen had we had a computer of our own. (If you don't understand all this, please don't phone in because I don't either).
Back in the "real world", without a real desk in the real office, if we want to do any proper work we will have to go home and do it. Here comes the clever part ...... if we plug our dongle into our home computer it will show us what we could have seen in the office, had we had anywhere to sit and see it. Sounds great ..... I can work from home, with hours to suit, not wear a tie, make myself a cup of coffee whenever I want without having to remember to bring in milk, sugar etc.......
But here's the stupid part. Once you've plugged your dongle in to any computer, whether at home or in the office, it disables all other peripherals. This means that you cannot use a USB memory stick to transfer documents between home and the office to work on, you can't download photographs from a digital camera (a fairly important part of my job), and you can't use a printer at home.
So you can log on to the Folleyville server and find out what jobs are waiting for you, but you can't just print out the details and go out and do them. No, that would make your life far too easy and efficient! As compensation for the relaxed coffee culture whilst working at home, you will either have to spend a while doing mental gymnastics trying to remember the name, address and other details of every visit you have to make, or else or save the details into a "secure print queue" and go all the way in to the office to get a print-out before you go anywhere else.
This, we are told is the Government's idea, nothing to do with Follyville B.C. The burghers have signed up to the Government's "I.T. Security Code of Practice". What absolute nonsense is this?? A couple of Civil Servants leave a laptop on a train with some important data on and the Government's kneejerk reaction is to stop all Civil Servants and Local Government officials throughout the country from doing their job efficiently. Simultaneous to all this, they complain that the public services are costing too much money and that huge cuts have to be made.
Listen up Government ........ and listen well!! The only reason the public services are costing too much money is that you are continuously making it more and more difficult, time-consuming and expensive for public sector workers to do their job. Just tell your departments, quangos and local authorities what you want them to do ........... and then let them do it without any further interference, obstruction of hindrance. All these bodies are old enough, wise enough and experienced enough to do the job efficiently and effectively on their own without any further help (sic) from you!
The prophet has spoken!
Back in the "real world", without a real desk in the real office, if we want to do any proper work we will have to go home and do it. Here comes the clever part ...... if we plug our dongle into our home computer it will show us what we could have seen in the office, had we had anywhere to sit and see it. Sounds great ..... I can work from home, with hours to suit, not wear a tie, make myself a cup of coffee whenever I want without having to remember to bring in milk, sugar etc.......
But here's the stupid part. Once you've plugged your dongle in to any computer, whether at home or in the office, it disables all other peripherals. This means that you cannot use a USB memory stick to transfer documents between home and the office to work on, you can't download photographs from a digital camera (a fairly important part of my job), and you can't use a printer at home.
So you can log on to the Folleyville server and find out what jobs are waiting for you, but you can't just print out the details and go out and do them. No, that would make your life far too easy and efficient! As compensation for the relaxed coffee culture whilst working at home, you will either have to spend a while doing mental gymnastics trying to remember the name, address and other details of every visit you have to make, or else or save the details into a "secure print queue" and go all the way in to the office to get a print-out before you go anywhere else.
This, we are told is the Government's idea, nothing to do with Follyville B.C. The burghers have signed up to the Government's "I.T. Security Code of Practice". What absolute nonsense is this?? A couple of Civil Servants leave a laptop on a train with some important data on and the Government's kneejerk reaction is to stop all Civil Servants and Local Government officials throughout the country from doing their job efficiently. Simultaneous to all this, they complain that the public services are costing too much money and that huge cuts have to be made.
Listen up Government ........ and listen well!! The only reason the public services are costing too much money is that you are continuously making it more and more difficult, time-consuming and expensive for public sector workers to do their job. Just tell your departments, quangos and local authorities what you want them to do ........... and then let them do it without any further interference, obstruction of hindrance. All these bodies are old enough, wise enough and experienced enough to do the job efficiently and effectively on their own without any further help (sic) from you!
The prophet has spoken!
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Follyville continued (again)
Monday - receive e-mail that all desks have to be completely cleared by close of play Thursday because they are being removed on Friday to be taken to the new office .......... but we are not moving for another four weeks ........ which means that hire desks will have to be brought in to keep us going in the meantime. I think maybe the Follyville burghers should have consulted a logistics expert before undertaking this little bit of stupidity ...... or at least consulted me for a bit of common sense.
In practice I am not going to be in for the rest of the week so I have to clear my desk (and everything under it!) with about 6 hours notice. Luckily a supply of large crates are delivered at lunch time and I manage to get all my paraphernalia into two of them ...... just! And then I read another e-mail that states we should use one crate each and, if at all possible, share a crate with a colleague! No one knows where all this stuff is going to go to at the other end ... there simply is no room for storage.
So on Monday I return to my hire desk ........ naturally much smaller than the one they have just stolen from me. I was planning on living out of crates until the final move but, no ........ we have to pay for the crates by the day so they all have to be emptied back onto and under the desk. The crating up exercise will have to happen all over again in four weeks time. A little foresight and forward planning could have avoided all this disruption and expense. Goodness only knows what will happen on D-Day if the burghers carry on like this. The phrases "meltdown" and "the end of civilisation as we know it" come to mind. Watch this space as the story continues.
In practice I am not going to be in for the rest of the week so I have to clear my desk (and everything under it!) with about 6 hours notice. Luckily a supply of large crates are delivered at lunch time and I manage to get all my paraphernalia into two of them ...... just! And then I read another e-mail that states we should use one crate each and, if at all possible, share a crate with a colleague! No one knows where all this stuff is going to go to at the other end ... there simply is no room for storage.
So on Monday I return to my hire desk ........ naturally much smaller than the one they have just stolen from me. I was planning on living out of crates until the final move but, no ........ we have to pay for the crates by the day so they all have to be emptied back onto and under the desk. The crating up exercise will have to happen all over again in four weeks time. A little foresight and forward planning could have avoided all this disruption and expense. Goodness only knows what will happen on D-Day if the burghers carry on like this. The phrases "meltdown" and "the end of civilisation as we know it" come to mind. Watch this space as the story continues.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Follyville continued
The workers at Follyville Borough Council continue to get ready for the big move. The office phone system has now been replaced with VOIP (Voice over internet protocol). This is supposed to be cheaper and will allow those working from home to make free calls. However, it is plagued with problems. For a start, you can't make a phone call unless your computer is logged on. This in itself is a process that now takes about 20 minutes each morning so, if you have just popped into the office briefly before going off somewhere else for the day, you can't make a quick phone call because it's just not worth firing up the computer. It also means that you can't be helpful and answer your colleague's phone when it rings because if they are not there, their computer will not be logged on.
This week my system has been ringing and then hanging up before I have a chance to answer. The caller gets a message asking if they want to leave a message, even though I am sitting at my desk. This then transformed into a total malfunction by the end of the week whereby my colleague had to phone someone else in the office on their mobile and get them to bring me a message to phone her back because my phone was not ringing at all (no voicemail either).
But this is not as bad as it gets. We heard on Friday that when we move we will lose our computers and will instead have "dumb terminals" connected to the server. The dumb terminals won't have any kind of sound-card in so when the phone rings ........... we won't be able to hear it! Great for getting work done but not exactly high in the "customer care" stakes. I'm starting a book on how long it will be before we get proper phones back again!
This week my system has been ringing and then hanging up before I have a chance to answer. The caller gets a message asking if they want to leave a message, even though I am sitting at my desk. This then transformed into a total malfunction by the end of the week whereby my colleague had to phone someone else in the office on their mobile and get them to bring me a message to phone her back because my phone was not ringing at all (no voicemail either).
But this is not as bad as it gets. We heard on Friday that when we move we will lose our computers and will instead have "dumb terminals" connected to the server. The dumb terminals won't have any kind of sound-card in so when the phone rings ........... we won't be able to hear it! Great for getting work done but not exactly high in the "customer care" stakes. I'm starting a book on how long it will be before we get proper phones back again!
I've just put a link to this site on my new Facebook page, so hopefully I might get a few followers!
Does anyone actually understand Facebook ....... or is it really as random as it seems? I keep getting e-mails from people I have never heard of wanting to be my friend. Is it just that (a) I have completely forgotten them over the years. (b) they think they know me but have made a mistake or (c) they are desperate for friends and will take anyone? If they read the blog for a while they will probably all be clamouring to be de-listed.
If you can explain how the system works (simply), please respond to this message.
Does anyone actually understand Facebook ....... or is it really as random as it seems? I keep getting e-mails from people I have never heard of wanting to be my friend. Is it just that (a) I have completely forgotten them over the years. (b) they think they know me but have made a mistake or (c) they are desperate for friends and will take anyone? If they read the blog for a while they will probably all be clamouring to be de-listed.
If you can explain how the system works (simply), please respond to this message.
Monday, 2 November 2009
More Government Stupidity
Just when you thought the government couldn't get any more stupid - it does just that! Not only is the level of stupidity increasing but the rate of it as well. Two significant items this week within a day or two of each other......
1. The government appoints expert scientific advisors and then not only ignores their advice but actually sacks them for having the cheek to give it. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, on sacking the head of the government's Drug Advisory Committee, said "I have lost confidence in him". What he meant was, "I have sacked him because he said the opposite of what I wanted him to say". But if the Government already know what answer they want and what action they are going to take, why bother to have an advisory committee at all? Could it be, Alan Johnson, that if this is the attitude you are going to take, the public has lost confidence in you. Just remember that MPs are supposed to exist to represent the will of the people ......... and that the will of the people is based on facts and common sense not political dogma.
2. Two very disturbing articles in the Times about the effects of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority .....
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6898127.ece
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6898212.ece
One of my favourite poems (because it is so short I can actually remember it) is by Steve Turner -
History repeats itself.
Has to.
Nobody listens!
The government are not immune to this failure to learn lessons from history. They seem hell bent on taking us back to the Stalinist era of Russia when nobody could do anything unless the government said they could. In this country we have fought long and hard for democratic freedoms but now the government is slowly (or in some instances not so slowly) unpicking all this and reverting to ultimate state control ....... of everything. This sort of thing resulted in Revolution in Russia (and in other countries where it has been tried) and it can only be a matter of time before it happens here.
We are supposedly still a Christian country. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and we still have "Her Majesty's Government". So why the discrepancy?? One of the main commands of the Christian religion (and many other religions too I believe) is "Love your neighbour". Yet the government seems determined to put every obstacle possible in the way of people doing that. But who is the first organisation to bewail the breakdown of society as we know it in this country?? ........ that self same government! On the basis of the above, the law bringing this ridiculous scheme into being is almost certainly "ultra vires" and probably contrary to the Human Rights Act. I shall certainly ignore it and I suggest everyone else does the same. If nobody co-operates the scheme will have to fail. in addition to the ethics and common sense of the scheme, it is a horrendous waste of money. On one hand the government is saying we are in a terrible financial situation and must all tighten our belts and cut back spending, and on the other they are inventing new quangos, to carry out a function that nobody wants, will cost them money, and which will be completely ineffective anyway.
When the next election comes round I will drag the doorstep candidates indoors and not let them go until until I have a written assurance that, if elected, they will do all in their power to get this iniquitous law repealed.
1. The government appoints expert scientific advisors and then not only ignores their advice but actually sacks them for having the cheek to give it. Alan Johnson the Home Secretary, on sacking the head of the government's Drug Advisory Committee, said "I have lost confidence in him". What he meant was, "I have sacked him because he said the opposite of what I wanted him to say". But if the Government already know what answer they want and what action they are going to take, why bother to have an advisory committee at all? Could it be, Alan Johnson, that if this is the attitude you are going to take, the public has lost confidence in you. Just remember that MPs are supposed to exist to represent the will of the people ......... and that the will of the people is based on facts and common sense not political dogma.
2. Two very disturbing articles in the Times about the effects of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority .....
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6898127.ece
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6898212.ece
One of my favourite poems (because it is so short I can actually remember it) is by Steve Turner -
History repeats itself.
Has to.
Nobody listens!
The government are not immune to this failure to learn lessons from history. They seem hell bent on taking us back to the Stalinist era of Russia when nobody could do anything unless the government said they could. In this country we have fought long and hard for democratic freedoms but now the government is slowly (or in some instances not so slowly) unpicking all this and reverting to ultimate state control ....... of everything. This sort of thing resulted in Revolution in Russia (and in other countries where it has been tried) and it can only be a matter of time before it happens here.
We are supposedly still a Christian country. The Queen is the head of the Church of England and we still have "Her Majesty's Government". So why the discrepancy?? One of the main commands of the Christian religion (and many other religions too I believe) is "Love your neighbour". Yet the government seems determined to put every obstacle possible in the way of people doing that. But who is the first organisation to bewail the breakdown of society as we know it in this country?? ........ that self same government! On the basis of the above, the law bringing this ridiculous scheme into being is almost certainly "ultra vires" and probably contrary to the Human Rights Act. I shall certainly ignore it and I suggest everyone else does the same. If nobody co-operates the scheme will have to fail. in addition to the ethics and common sense of the scheme, it is a horrendous waste of money. On one hand the government is saying we are in a terrible financial situation and must all tighten our belts and cut back spending, and on the other they are inventing new quangos, to carry out a function that nobody wants, will cost them money, and which will be completely ineffective anyway.
When the next election comes round I will drag the doorstep candidates indoors and not let them go until until I have a written assurance that, if elected, they will do all in their power to get this iniquitous law repealed.
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