That's a phrase that has echoed around our house - both houses actually - for almost ten years. Whenever we inherit or find something, or for one reason or another it becomes surplus to requirements, but it's "just too good" to throw out. Like it still works, or it was originally quite expensive. We have some sort of investment in it still - emotional, financial, psychological - that prevents us from driving it to the tip.
I'm not pretending we never chuck stuff out. We do. But there's always more. And increasingly (it seems) the stuff is still OK. Still serviceable, usable, whatever. Just not by us.
So "the eBay pile" has been growing for many years. That old hi-fi stack I never use. It was all wired up in our previous house. Played occasionally. But that was in the B.I. years. The time Before iPod. When listening to music entailed physically inserting a CD or a cassette tape (a WHAT? Google it) into a device and pressing a real, solid, play button. Not clicking an icon that just *looks* like a play button. Anyhow when we moved, this lovely old stereo stack in its smoked-glass-and-mahogany cabinet came with us and lived under the stairs - well, the loft ladder - for three years. Then the loft ladder was replaced with stairs and the cabinet had to move into the study. Then into the dining room. Still never connected. Never played. Listen, I spent over £2,000 on in it 1984! I can't just throw it out!
The Christmas tree stand that we don't need since we started using an artificial tree that has its own feet. An old telephoto lens for a camera long since crushed under the boot heel of digital technology. The camera that it fits. The aluminium flight case I carried them both around in. The socket set I used to use to service my car, in the days when I did my own car servicing (OK, this item has been kicking around for a lot longer than ten years. It sat in the garage of my old house in Yorkshire quietly rusting away for most of the 12 years I lived in that house, and I hadn't used it much in the ten years before THAT).
You get the picture.
Three months ago something snapped. "Put in on eBay" became something more than just one of those things we say that doesn't really mean what the words imply. I actually listed some things on eBay. What? Yes, you read that right. I started small. A couple of things on the Saturday, and a couple more on Sunday. Just to ease myself into it. And you know what? It was easy. I said I started small, but one of the first things I listed was that stereo. I figured hey, if I'm going to dump my emotional baggage let's start with the biggest bag. It had 11 watchers within 12 hours. It sold easily, and for more than twice the starting price. The guy drove up from Northampton for it.
There's no stopping me now. Well, not quite. I still wait for those "zero listing fee" weekends. eBay gets enough money out of me when I sell the stuff. I'm not giving them anything up front. But gradually, all that tat that's been hanging around for years is disappearing. And the bank balance is rising!
I picked a good time to get into this, when you remember that we just inherited the contents of an entire second house. And 95% of the stuff in it is both stuff we don't want, AND stuff that is "too good to throw out." Only one answer to that. Put it on eBay.
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Monday, March 29, 2010
Talent Week
One of the... advantages... of working for a large corporate is that occasionally you have the chance to pitch in with one of the corporate initiatives. The one in question today is Impact On Society (IOS), where the company get to feel good about themselves by "giving something back" to the local community.
This year, that takes the shape of contributing to Business in the Community's Talent Week initiative. For several weeks, young people up and down the country have been logging on to a website to create their "talent bricks" - a brick-shaped doodle containing art of their choice, and a statement about what they think is their best talent and what they'd like to do with it when they leave school. Some of us had already spent a day in a local school talking to the kids and helping them with that part and now, in Talent Week itself, a selection of those bricks have been stuck up on a wall in the Arndale Centre, and there's a week-long programme of activities, demonstrations and stalls designed to connect the kids with the world of work.
And I got to spend the day on the Fujitsu stand.
We had a few banners, some information about the skills we use (obviously there's more to the company than just IT - like many companies we need managers, finance people, graphic designers, good communicators, sales and marketing, etc), and a taped-off rectangle of floor where we were going to play games.
Land the plane
A bunch of blindfolded passersby (the aeroplanes), instructed using only the words Forward, Back, Left, Right and Stop, by a smaller bunch of passersby (the air traffic controllers) in an effort to get them from one side of the rectangle to the other while avoiding the groups of cones (representing storms, pylons, etc) that we distributed around the play area once the blindfolds were on.
Clearly this game is all about communication skills, and realising that some people will interpret instructions differently from how you intended them. And... it's a lot of fun.
Rafting game
Small group (say 3-7) of people, same number of floor tiles, move from one side of the rectangle to the other stepping only on the floor tiles. The tiles can have a maximum of two feet and one hand on them at any one time. Any more and the tile is removed (it has "sunk"). Any tile left unoccupied for more than 5 seconds is removed (it has "floated away").
Again this is about communication, but also about teamwork and problem solving. The only way x people can stand on x-1 tiles (so that the one at the back can be passed to the person at the front) is by sharing tiles and/or standing on one leg, so you're going to end up hanging on to a total stranger. And... it's a lot of fun.
Lego building
Two boxes containing the same assortment (number and colour) of Lego bricks (well, Duplo if we're being entirely accurate). Only one box has instructions to build a tower. Three players. Player A builds the tower using the instructions. Player B watches, and relays the method to Player C (who cannot see Player A) so that s/he can build the same tower from the bricks in the second box. There is only one right way of building it, proven by being able to lift it up at the end when holding only the top layer of bricks.
This might have been a lot of fun, but no-one wanted to play it (although we did have a go between ourselves at lunch time).
So, you know, this isn't the kind of thing we do for a day job, and that was obvious from the design of our stand. BitC had done their bit by including something like "be Top Gun, learn how to land a plane" on the section of their banners devoted to Monday, but whoever designed our stand had somehow forgotten to include this important piece of information. There was absolutely nothing on any of our banners or posters that talked about landing a plane. We had "skills" and a list of customers, and the company logo. And a rectangle made of red and blue plastic tape. And... er... that's it.
If it hadn't been for the good offices of the compère, (the excellent Terence from BBC Your Game), I don't think we'd have had a single player all day. As it was, we handed out almost 100 raffle tickets during the day (play a game, get a ticket, win a laptop bag), and we got to see several demos by local cheerleaders, Olly the ball kid (Youngest Freestyle football World Champion - see him on YouTube - who knew keepy-uppy could be a life choice?) and a couple of boxing coaches who teach non-contact boxing as a keep fit regime. And we drank a lot of Starbucks.
Did we feel good about ourselves at the end of the day. You bet. Although my legs were aching a bit. And I could have done without the strange conversation with the gentleman who claimed to be "Amber Level."
This year, that takes the shape of contributing to Business in the Community's Talent Week initiative. For several weeks, young people up and down the country have been logging on to a website to create their "talent bricks" - a brick-shaped doodle containing art of their choice, and a statement about what they think is their best talent and what they'd like to do with it when they leave school. Some of us had already spent a day in a local school talking to the kids and helping them with that part and now, in Talent Week itself, a selection of those bricks have been stuck up on a wall in the Arndale Centre, and there's a week-long programme of activities, demonstrations and stalls designed to connect the kids with the world of work.
And I got to spend the day on the Fujitsu stand.
We had a few banners, some information about the skills we use (obviously there's more to the company than just IT - like many companies we need managers, finance people, graphic designers, good communicators, sales and marketing, etc), and a taped-off rectangle of floor where we were going to play games.
Land the plane
A bunch of blindfolded passersby (the aeroplanes), instructed using only the words Forward, Back, Left, Right and Stop, by a smaller bunch of passersby (the air traffic controllers) in an effort to get them from one side of the rectangle to the other while avoiding the groups of cones (representing storms, pylons, etc) that we distributed around the play area once the blindfolds were on.
Clearly this game is all about communication skills, and realising that some people will interpret instructions differently from how you intended them. And... it's a lot of fun.
Rafting game
Small group (say 3-7) of people, same number of floor tiles, move from one side of the rectangle to the other stepping only on the floor tiles. The tiles can have a maximum of two feet and one hand on them at any one time. Any more and the tile is removed (it has "sunk"). Any tile left unoccupied for more than 5 seconds is removed (it has "floated away").
Again this is about communication, but also about teamwork and problem solving. The only way x people can stand on x-1 tiles (so that the one at the back can be passed to the person at the front) is by sharing tiles and/or standing on one leg, so you're going to end up hanging on to a total stranger. And... it's a lot of fun.
Lego building
Two boxes containing the same assortment (number and colour) of Lego bricks (well, Duplo if we're being entirely accurate). Only one box has instructions to build a tower. Three players. Player A builds the tower using the instructions. Player B watches, and relays the method to Player C (who cannot see Player A) so that s/he can build the same tower from the bricks in the second box. There is only one right way of building it, proven by being able to lift it up at the end when holding only the top layer of bricks.
This might have been a lot of fun, but no-one wanted to play it (although we did have a go between ourselves at lunch time).
So, you know, this isn't the kind of thing we do for a day job, and that was obvious from the design of our stand. BitC had done their bit by including something like "be Top Gun, learn how to land a plane" on the section of their banners devoted to Monday, but whoever designed our stand had somehow forgotten to include this important piece of information. There was absolutely nothing on any of our banners or posters that talked about landing a plane. We had "skills" and a list of customers, and the company logo. And a rectangle made of red and blue plastic tape. And... er... that's it.
If it hadn't been for the good offices of the compère, (the excellent Terence from BBC Your Game), I don't think we'd have had a single player all day. As it was, we handed out almost 100 raffle tickets during the day (play a game, get a ticket, win a laptop bag), and we got to see several demos by local cheerleaders, Olly the ball kid (Youngest Freestyle football World Champion - see him on YouTube - who knew keepy-uppy could be a life choice?) and a couple of boxing coaches who teach non-contact boxing as a keep fit regime. And we drank a lot of Starbucks.
Did we feel good about ourselves at the end of the day. You bet. Although my legs were aching a bit. And I could have done without the strange conversation with the gentleman who claimed to be "Amber Level."
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Seasonal bombardment
This year will go down in my memory as the year online retailers finally caught on to the use of email to whip up business. I'd already done my Christmas shopping (almost all of it online) by the end of November, but back then things had hardly even got warmed up in terms of emails. Guess I can't call them spam, because I signed up to them when I joined, or used, the sites, but damn there's a lot of them!During December I've been getting at least one per day from
amazon.com
play.com
ebay
hmv.com
the PlayStation Store
Xbox Europe
thorntons
iwantoneofthose.com
not to mention all the usual stuff inviting me to "review my shopping experience" and the odd seasonal message from other retailers - like the local garden centre - we've used during the year. It's going to feel really quiet in my inbox once all this dies down. Unless they're just as keen to drag me back for the January sales! ;o)
One downside to shopping early is that I've missed out on some deals, but that's always a balancing act even with traditional B&M shopping. On the high street some places have been offering 50% discounts, or better, in the week before Christmas. Personally I'd rather be sure I've got everything covered, and it's all been delivered, in time for a leisurely wrapping experience in the few days before the main event. This year especially, with the weather causing major disruption to deliveries, I've been grateful for putting my innate procrastination to one side where gift buying was concerned.
So now it's looking quite festive under the small tree in the lounge. Everything's done - apart from cooking the bird - and it only remains for me to crack open the wine, light the fire, and wish all my readers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful, prosperous and successful New Year. May 2010 be the year everyone stops referring to the date as "two-thousand-and-something."Cheers!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
On our way 'ome
A considerably more substantial breakfast this morning, as I knew I wouldn't be eating again until we were airborne on the return journey. So I tucked in to a bowl of cereal crunch, a fried egg (freshly fried in front of my eyes by the griddle chef, or whatever they're called), sausage, schnitzel and potato cakes, juice, coffee and a small slice of delicious chocolate cake.
Since the lectures today were repeats of yesterday, in pretty much the same order, there was little value in returning to the conference centre (although coaches were provided for those who still had business to do), so I elected to take a walk into Augsburg and see something of the town.
A light drizzle greeted me as I stepped out of the hotel and turned right onto (what I thought was) the main street. I'm always fascinated by the subtle differences in local architecture when visiting other countries, but I wasn't prepared for the wonderfully eclectic mixture of old and new buildings as I made my way slowly down Gögginger Strasse in the direction of Stuttgart. This one sported an inscription mounted around the top floor, each glass block holding a single letter. Further up the street a private apartment building carried this unusual mural.
The further I walked the stronger the drizzle became, until after about 25 minutes I realised I risked being caught in a downpour and turned back for the hotel. Altogether I was out for about 50 minutes and didn't see any sign of a shopping centre. A later examination of the town centre on googlemaps revealed that I should have turned left rather than right at the end of the road on which the hotel stood.
I spent the rest of the morning in the hotel lobby, reading, caught the coach to Munich airport at 12.30 and arrived back at Stansted shortly before half past four. I could have done without the four-hour drive back to Manchester through the M11/A14 rush-hour traffic, but since it was the only way to get home I gritted my teeth and got on with it. An interesting experience, all things considered, but not one I'd be in any hurry to repeat.
Since the lectures today were repeats of yesterday, in pretty much the same order, there was little value in returning to the conference centre (although coaches were provided for those who still had business to do), so I elected to take a walk into Augsburg and see something of the town.
A light drizzle greeted me as I stepped out of the hotel and turned right onto (what I thought was) the main street. I'm always fascinated by the subtle differences in local architecture when visiting other countries, but I wasn't prepared for the wonderfully eclectic mixture of old and new buildings as I made my way slowly down Gögginger Strasse in the direction of Stuttgart. This one sported an inscription mounted around the top floor, each glass block holding a single letter. Further up the street a private apartment building carried this unusual mural.The further I walked the stronger the drizzle became, until after about 25 minutes I realised I risked being caught in a downpour and turned back for the hotel. Altogether I was out for about 50 minutes and didn't see any sign of a shopping centre. A later examination of the town centre on googlemaps revealed that I should have turned left rather than right at the end of the road on which the hotel stood.I spent the rest of the morning in the hotel lobby, reading, caught the coach to Munich airport at 12.30 and arrived back at Stansted shortly before half past four. I could have done without the four-hour drive back to Manchester through the M11/A14 rush-hour traffic, but since it was the only way to get home I gritted my teeth and got on with it. An interesting experience, all things considered, but not one I'd be in any hurry to repeat.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Illusions newly shattered
When I was offered the chance to attend Fujitsu-Siemens Computers "VISIT 2008" event in Augsburg a couple of months back, I jumped at it. Jollies like this are few and far between these days and my memory of such events in the past is uniformly good.
When I learned UK delegates were to be flown to Munich by private jet from Stansted my excitement leapt up a notch. Memories of our most excellent trip a few years ago to visit EMC's factory in Cork were uppermost in my mind: the 8-seater Gulfstream, the stretch limo, the feeling of ultimate luxury. So it was with great expectations that I set off from home just before 8am to ensure I arrived at the Inflite terminal in good time.
The bloom left the rose slightly when I drove past the gate guard on my arrival. "Make sure you don't leave any gaps when you park up," he advised. "We have to get 100 cars in here today."
Sure enough, for my second experience of private jet travel, it wasn't at all what I'd expected. Gone was the 8-seater executive jet; the leather; the gleaming, polished walnut. Gone were the dainty sandwiches with their crusts cut off, served on crested china plates, fresh coffee in china cups. In their place a 30-year-old Boeing 737-200, its seats configured in the worst charter airline style. I swear there wasn't more than nine inches between me and the seat back in front of me, occupied (as they always are) by a man incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes at a stretch. I couldn't even deploy my tray table without breathing in.
The meal, when it came, was the ubiquitous mystery chicken beloved of airlines the world over, served in plastic, along with a schizophrenic dessert that wasn't sure whether it was apple pie or apple crumble. I couldn't tell you what the coffee was like: I didn't dare try it. Having missed my chance of a pee at the airport after consuming a complementary coffee in the lounge, and with a tray table that wouldn't rest less than 25° from the horizontal, it was too risky on all counts.
Touching down at Munich I finally remembered the mantra of seasoned travellers - never pass up a chance for a pee - and leapt for the gents' as we were waiting at the baggage carousel. After an uneventful (but long!) transfer we arrived at the Hotel Dorint in Augsburg, about 70km NW of Munich.
My room - a slightly more upmarket version of hotel rooms the world over - was very pleasant. The hotel is in a cylindrical building of about 35 floors, only the bottom 11 of which are the hotel. The rooms, arranged radially around the central lifts, are wedge shaped, with a walk-in shower nearest the centre, widening into a well-appointed bathroom which then widens further into the main part of the room. Each room has a semilunar balcony which gives the building the appearance of a series of bubbles on a stick (I've since discovered the hotel is known locally as the "corn cob").
With a free bar starting at 7pm and a late arrival owing to traffic and a massive construction project on the autobahn out of Munich there was just time to phone home and confirm my safe arrival before heading downstairs and seeking out some fellow Northerners with whom to sample the local Bavarian ale.
When I learned UK delegates were to be flown to Munich by private jet from Stansted my excitement leapt up a notch. Memories of our most excellent trip a few years ago to visit EMC's factory in Cork were uppermost in my mind: the 8-seater Gulfstream, the stretch limo, the feeling of ultimate luxury. So it was with great expectations that I set off from home just before 8am to ensure I arrived at the Inflite terminal in good time.
The bloom left the rose slightly when I drove past the gate guard on my arrival. "Make sure you don't leave any gaps when you park up," he advised. "We have to get 100 cars in here today."
Sure enough, for my second experience of private jet travel, it wasn't at all what I'd expected. Gone was the 8-seater executive jet; the leather; the gleaming, polished walnut. Gone were the dainty sandwiches with their crusts cut off, served on crested china plates, fresh coffee in china cups. In their place a 30-year-old Boeing 737-200, its seats configured in the worst charter airline style. I swear there wasn't more than nine inches between me and the seat back in front of me, occupied (as they always are) by a man incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes at a stretch. I couldn't even deploy my tray table without breathing in.
The meal, when it came, was the ubiquitous mystery chicken beloved of airlines the world over, served in plastic, along with a schizophrenic dessert that wasn't sure whether it was apple pie or apple crumble. I couldn't tell you what the coffee was like: I didn't dare try it. Having missed my chance of a pee at the airport after consuming a complementary coffee in the lounge, and with a tray table that wouldn't rest less than 25° from the horizontal, it was too risky on all counts.
Touching down at Munich I finally remembered the mantra of seasoned travellers - never pass up a chance for a pee - and leapt for the gents' as we were waiting at the baggage carousel. After an uneventful (but long!) transfer we arrived at the Hotel Dorint in Augsburg, about 70km NW of Munich.
My room - a slightly more upmarket version of hotel rooms the world over - was very pleasant. The hotel is in a cylindrical building of about 35 floors, only the bottom 11 of which are the hotel. The rooms, arranged radially around the central lifts, are wedge shaped, with a walk-in shower nearest the centre, widening into a well-appointed bathroom which then widens further into the main part of the room. Each room has a semilunar balcony which gives the building the appearance of a series of bubbles on a stick (I've since discovered the hotel is known locally as the "corn cob").With a free bar starting at 7pm and a late arrival owing to traffic and a massive construction project on the autobahn out of Munich there was just time to phone home and confirm my safe arrival before heading downstairs and seeking out some fellow Northerners with whom to sample the local Bavarian ale.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Writing a book is the easy part
My head is spinning. I've been searching for a publisher. Some of the purple prose on both publisher's and agency's websites is worthy of award in its own right, but this entry on a website that will remain anonymous (unless you really want to Google it, and even then...) had me laughing out loud:
But before you send us your manuscript you MUST understand a few facts:
1. Writing a book is the easy part; selling it to a publisher and then to a market is very much harder.
The easy part eh? Yeah, that'd be right. It's only taken me eight years. If that's the easy part and selling it to a publisher is "very much harder" then I'll be lucky if it gets into print before I croak. *sigh*
Then there's the word count argument. Published work is divided into "short story", "novella", "novel" by the number of words it contains. So how to arrive at that number of words? Here are two conflicting stories that coincidentally appeared on agency sites that I visited consecutively today.
Site A:
Your computer lies - you cannot trust its word counting ability. It can't even read. So, here is the quick and dirty method agents and publishers use. [with standard m/s formatting] your typed page will contain 250 words. If you have a manuscript 300 pages long, then the word count will be 75,000.
Site B:
Word Count: The three best ways for determining word count are simply
1. Use the word count feature in your word processor.
2. Use the same feature to count the number of characters including spaces and divide by six.
3. Or to use the counter to total the number of characters not including spaces. Take this number and divide by five
This is important. If you have used some sort of formula to tell you how long your novel is based on an assumed number of words per page, you're probably way off.
Good grief.
But before you send us your manuscript you MUST understand a few facts:
1. Writing a book is the easy part; selling it to a publisher and then to a market is very much harder.
The easy part eh? Yeah, that'd be right. It's only taken me eight years. If that's the easy part and selling it to a publisher is "very much harder" then I'll be lucky if it gets into print before I croak. *sigh*
Then there's the word count argument. Published work is divided into "short story", "novella", "novel" by the number of words it contains. So how to arrive at that number of words? Here are two conflicting stories that coincidentally appeared on agency sites that I visited consecutively today.
Site A:
Your computer lies - you cannot trust its word counting ability. It can't even read. So, here is the quick and dirty method agents and publishers use. [with standard m/s formatting] your typed page will contain 250 words. If you have a manuscript 300 pages long, then the word count will be 75,000.
Site B:
Word Count: The three best ways for determining word count are simply
1. Use the word count feature in your word processor.
2. Use the same feature to count the number of characters including spaces and divide by six.
3. Or to use the counter to total the number of characters not including spaces. Take this number and divide by five
This is important. If you have used some sort of formula to tell you how long your novel is based on an assumed number of words per page, you're probably way off.
Good grief.
Monday, January 07, 2008
I trip off the road trip
Finally received email confirmation today that I've been credited with the cost of the iPod RoadTrip that I bought by mistake and returned before Christmas. Now I can go ahead and order what I thought I'd ordered in the first place - an iTrip Auto (pictured).I was surprised (delighted!) that the original company had refunded the full amount including postage. The Amazon charter suggests that they're under no obligation to refund postage if the fault is not theirs, which it wasn't. I'd simply ordered the wrong thing. So top marks to Add-ons World for being an excellent supplier but unfortunately they are ten quid more expensive than anyone else for the iTrip Auto, so I'll be ordering that from another Amazon marketplace vendor. Customer loyalty only stretches as far as the edge of my wallet!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Good old British engineering
The Channel Tunnel Rail Link opened today. It links St.Pancras station in London with the UK side of the tunnel.
A marvel of engineering you might think, to allow a train to travel at 186mph, with short bursts of speed over 200mph.
I'm not so excited. The French have had their High-Speed Rail link in place between Paris and the coast since the tunnel opened in 1994, so this "good old British engineering" is only 13 years late. At a cost of almost £6 billion its nett effect is to shave 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Paris.
Is that all? Well worth it. Ah, but, you see you're not looking at the whole picture. Those twenty minutes mean the rail option is now competitive with the flight option, so from the rail company's perspective it really is worth it, since they expect passenger numbers to grow significantly.
Tell that to the commuters in Kent. The HS1 lines pass through the lovely Kent countryside, but they don't actually stop to pick anyone up, so those locals get all the noise and none of the benefit. Well, stopping would reduce the average speed wouldn't it, and defeat the object?
A marvel of engineering you might think, to allow a train to travel at 186mph, with short bursts of speed over 200mph.
I'm not so excited. The French have had their High-Speed Rail link in place between Paris and the coast since the tunnel opened in 1994, so this "good old British engineering" is only 13 years late. At a cost of almost £6 billion its nett effect is to shave 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Paris.
Is that all? Well worth it. Ah, but, you see you're not looking at the whole picture. Those twenty minutes mean the rail option is now competitive with the flight option, so from the rail company's perspective it really is worth it, since they expect passenger numbers to grow significantly.
Tell that to the commuters in Kent. The HS1 lines pass through the lovely Kent countryside, but they don't actually stop to pick anyone up, so those locals get all the noise and none of the benefit. Well, stopping would reduce the average speed wouldn't it, and defeat the object?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Bowled over
Went bowling with the customer tonight. A "team building" exercise. In the end it was a fun evening, with no-one taking it too seriously. Well, apart from me maybe. Not seriously, exactly, but I did have to take my own ball, didn't I? Why did I do that? I didn't really think it through. I could've predicted that the effect of me declaring that I'd brought my own ball would be a bunch of people saying:Hey, he's got his own ball.
Did you know he had a ball?
He's a ringer.
You must be good then.
...etc, etc, and on and on. I should explain that I was never *really* good at ten-pin bowling. I just used to enjoy it a lot, went regularly (once a week) and was given a ball as a present. It was a boon, at the time. I have reasonably small hands for a bloke so it was often quite hard to find a ball that was the right weight AND had the right span between the holes. The first time I bowled with my own ball was sheer magic. But back then I bowled a 155 average. Now, well, I haven't bowled regularly for over five years.
So the sensible thing would've been to leave the ball at home, and not set any unreasonable expectations. Because not only have I not bowled in over five years, I haven't taken part in *any* form of exercise beyond gentle swimming on holiday for more than double that time. So it was entirely predictable that (a) I'd achieve a pretty lame score (97 on the first game; 115 on the second) but also (b) I'd come in for some stick for having a ball and not knowing how to use it.
Ah well, it was all in good fun. After the game we all trooped next door to Old Orleans and the 42 of us (evenly split between my colleagues on the project and customer staff) were joined by a few latecomers who weren't interested in bowling but definitely *were* interested in food. And more to the point, drink.
Here's where you would have had your first clue that we were an assembly of computer geeks and their managers. One of the latecomers stopped by our group to greet us all. Then, about to make his way to the bar to get himself a drink, he asked if there was a tab behind the bar. "Yes," said a friend of mine, "and I think there's two newlines and a carriage return as well."
The meal was excellent. Even though I'd spent many Sunday afternoons entertaining my daughers at this complex (Centertainment just outside Sheffield city centre) in the years when we had nowhere else to go, we'd never eaten at Old Orleans. It was always Frankie & Benny's for us after bowling, or after a movie. We didn't know what we were missing. The starters were pre-ordered, so we waded through several plates of wings, dips, wedges, ribs, etc and then I tucked in to a sizzling skillet of chilli lime chicken fajitas. Six fajitas in all, and I polished off the lot. Delicious. And served with dozens of sliced chillies with the seeds still in. Tasty! The only minor drawback was having to drive home afterward (something else I would've been able to avoid had I not taken the ball with me) and hence being unable to take full advantage of the free bar. Perhaps a good thing, on reflection!
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
A voucher to vouch for
A reminder popped up on my Outlook last week. "Return Regency Warranty certificate" it said.
When we bought a pair of sofas for our new house in 2002 we opted for the stain protection service. This came with a five-year guarantee which had an unusual (or so I thought) clause. If you didn't make a claim during that five years then you were eligible for the return of the cost of stain protection (£59 in fact) provided you returned the original certificate within 30 days of the anniversary date. I guess the company reckons on most people not being sufficiently organised to be able to comply with those terms. Not me. I entered an Outlook reminder right away and filed the certificate away.
Five years later and here we are. The anniversary falls due on Friday and I'm ready to go. Not that I'm holding out any hopes of actually getting my money back. Since the original warranty was taken out the company has changed its name three times (although still trading from the same address) and I've found at least one reference on the Net to someone who fulfilled all the criteria and was still refused their money back on a technicality. Still, if you don't try, you don't win, so we'll see what happens.
When we bought a pair of sofas for our new house in 2002 we opted for the stain protection service. This came with a five-year guarantee which had an unusual (or so I thought) clause. If you didn't make a claim during that five years then you were eligible for the return of the cost of stain protection (£59 in fact) provided you returned the original certificate within 30 days of the anniversary date. I guess the company reckons on most people not being sufficiently organised to be able to comply with those terms. Not me. I entered an Outlook reminder right away and filed the certificate away.
Five years later and here we are. The anniversary falls due on Friday and I'm ready to go. Not that I'm holding out any hopes of actually getting my money back. Since the original warranty was taken out the company has changed its name three times (although still trading from the same address) and I've found at least one reference on the Net to someone who fulfilled all the criteria and was still refused their money back on a technicality. Still, if you don't try, you don't win, so we'll see what happens.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Architect's Away Day 2
One of the other dinner conversations last Thursday was about erstwhile colleagues we'd both known but lost touch with in recent times. Learning of the fate of someone I'd worked very closely with for six years in the 80s brought home to me again how differently life turns out from what you might expect.
This is a recurring theme on my blog, but in this case the star player in the story is not me. It's a man who, when I first met him in 1982, appeared to walk on water. New into the operating system support team in July of that year, it was the first chance I'd had to meet some of the people who actually wrote the operating system. I'd been studying the code for several months (the entire OS code - referred to as "the Project Log" - was regularly released on microfiche the use of internal users to investigate and suggest fixes for errors) as part of my previous job. The experience stood me in good stead for my years in support. I knew my way around a small part of the OS and that was the part I started supporting.
But the guy at the heart of this story wasn't just the author of that small part. He was the leader of a team who at one time had responsibility for almost a third of the entire operating system. It seemed to me at that time that his intellect and knowledge were so far above mine that I was scarcely worthy to breathe the same air. It soon became apparent that he had an ego to match, and a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. You've heard the expression "not allowed to make the same mistake twice?" Well with this guy you were barely given scope to make the same mistake once. Growling, scowling and generally behaving like a bear with a sore head, most of the rest of the support team gave him a wide berth and avoided talking to him whenever they could.
Since he had ultimate responsibility for all of the code I was interested in (and experienced with), I didn't have the luxury of avoiding him. So I figured all I could do was play it with a straight bat - admit that I was inexperienced, show a willingness to learn, make sure I *did* learn, do the best I could before seeking his help with a problem, and try to make sure that whenever I did go to him for help it wasn't with a trivial problem that I should have been able to sort out for myself.
Armed with little more than that approach and a propensity for fast learning, we built up a grudging respect for each other over those six years. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say we ever became friends, we could at least claim to have developed a good working relationship which included trust, appreciation of our abilities...etc.
In the interim period between me leaving the support team and him leaving the development team, we'd lost touch. I was aware that he'd spent some time in our ecommerce unit and then been moved sideways into the supply units - the people who handle the best-price acquisition of all the hardware and software that we put into our solutions. I guessed that his abrasive style had not gone down too well with a succession of managers. This may even have led to him being passed over for promotion and/or receiving a succession of bad pay reviews. Either that or he'd made a conscious decision to move to less challenging work. This was all supposition on my part but it's certainly true that as well as providing a wealth of opportunities, big companies can be unforgiving places if your face doesn't fit or you become a victim of internal politics. It can happen to anyone.
But I was surprised to learn that he'd left the company and even more surprised when I found out what he was doing now. Driving trucks. Long distance.
Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a truck driver. It's another of those essential jobs without which we'd all be dead. But it's not the kind of job you expect someone who is capable of writing mainframe operating system software to end up doing.
There was one more surprise in store. My later reaction to the news. I started envying him. The open road, the lack of stress, feeling in control. I imagined him translating his legendary attention to detail into his new role. Making sure his rig was always in tip-top condition, his load balanced and his tarps tied down. Tyres checked, oil topped up, tachograph maintained and his driving hours exactly meeting regulations. And his idiosyncratic interpersonal skills not getting in the way of making a decent living. And, probably best of all I suspect, no damned office politics giving him sleepless nights. Good luck to you mate. Keep on truckin'
This is a recurring theme on my blog, but in this case the star player in the story is not me. It's a man who, when I first met him in 1982, appeared to walk on water. New into the operating system support team in July of that year, it was the first chance I'd had to meet some of the people who actually wrote the operating system. I'd been studying the code for several months (the entire OS code - referred to as "the Project Log" - was regularly released on microfiche the use of internal users to investigate and suggest fixes for errors) as part of my previous job. The experience stood me in good stead for my years in support. I knew my way around a small part of the OS and that was the part I started supporting.
But the guy at the heart of this story wasn't just the author of that small part. He was the leader of a team who at one time had responsibility for almost a third of the entire operating system. It seemed to me at that time that his intellect and knowledge were so far above mine that I was scarcely worthy to breathe the same air. It soon became apparent that he had an ego to match, and a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. You've heard the expression "not allowed to make the same mistake twice?" Well with this guy you were barely given scope to make the same mistake once. Growling, scowling and generally behaving like a bear with a sore head, most of the rest of the support team gave him a wide berth and avoided talking to him whenever they could.
Since he had ultimate responsibility for all of the code I was interested in (and experienced with), I didn't have the luxury of avoiding him. So I figured all I could do was play it with a straight bat - admit that I was inexperienced, show a willingness to learn, make sure I *did* learn, do the best I could before seeking his help with a problem, and try to make sure that whenever I did go to him for help it wasn't with a trivial problem that I should have been able to sort out for myself.
Armed with little more than that approach and a propensity for fast learning, we built up a grudging respect for each other over those six years. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say we ever became friends, we could at least claim to have developed a good working relationship which included trust, appreciation of our abilities...etc.
In the interim period between me leaving the support team and him leaving the development team, we'd lost touch. I was aware that he'd spent some time in our ecommerce unit and then been moved sideways into the supply units - the people who handle the best-price acquisition of all the hardware and software that we put into our solutions. I guessed that his abrasive style had not gone down too well with a succession of managers. This may even have led to him being passed over for promotion and/or receiving a succession of bad pay reviews. Either that or he'd made a conscious decision to move to less challenging work. This was all supposition on my part but it's certainly true that as well as providing a wealth of opportunities, big companies can be unforgiving places if your face doesn't fit or you become a victim of internal politics. It can happen to anyone.
But I was surprised to learn that he'd left the company and even more surprised when I found out what he was doing now. Driving trucks. Long distance.
Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a truck driver. It's another of those essential jobs without which we'd all be dead. But it's not the kind of job you expect someone who is capable of writing mainframe operating system software to end up doing.
There was one more surprise in store. My later reaction to the news. I started envying him. The open road, the lack of stress, feeling in control. I imagined him translating his legendary attention to detail into his new role. Making sure his rig was always in tip-top condition, his load balanced and his tarps tied down. Tyres checked, oil topped up, tachograph maintained and his driving hours exactly meeting regulations. And his idiosyncratic interpersonal skills not getting in the way of making a decent living. And, probably best of all I suspect, no damned office politics giving him sleepless nights. Good luck to you mate. Keep on truckin'
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Architect's Away Day
The architect's away day the week before last was a great opportunity to catch up with people I haven't had chance to speak to for ages. Over dinner, I was discussing old colleagues with one guy I've worked with for over 25 years. The conversation ebbed and flowed, as it does, lubricated by the plentiful supply of wine. One of the things I really enjoy about having worked for the same firm all my life is the relationships and friendships I've built up over that time.
We agreed that one of the main reasons we've stayed with the same company for so long is the people we've had the chance to work with over the years. For the most part, the work has remained varied and interesting during that time, although there have been peaks and troughs. But the people - their enthusiasm, wit and integrity; the sense of camaraderie, almost of family - the chance to continue working with them on a variety of different projects and challenges has led to many of us staying with the company for long periods, often whole careers. This is unusual today, especially in our industry, where people are almost expected to change jobs every few years to get a rounded experience. But over the last thirty years I've worked on mainframes, midrange systems, office systems and PCs. I've developed operating systems, applications and solutions. I've been a designer, implementer, tester, manager, integrator, support leader. I've done recruitment, marketing, worked on sales campaigns and stood on stand at commercial shows. So I've never felt the need to leave to gain more experience. It's all been here for me.
There is a downside though. Recruiting people with equivalent experience into senior roles is not possible unless an attractive salary is offered. A salary far in excess of what us long-serving types are on. And the way the company pay scales work, to pay such a salary forces the company to recruit into the highest grades of the technical career structure.
So we have an anomaly. 30-year veterans of the industry, who not only know the technologies but also the company inside out, have first-class networks of colleagues to draw on for help and can get the job done in half the time. These people on, let's call it grade 2, or 3 and earning £x,000 per year. And they're being asked to work with people recruited from outside the company, so no knowledge of process or information stores, no usable network of experience and (sad to say) all too often very rudimentary knowledge of the technical subject matter they have been recruited for (despite no doubt spinning a plausible yarn to the HR people and managers who interviewed them) and yet are on vastly inflated salaries (often 2x £x,000) and grades 4 or 5 - at the top of the tree.
Meanwhile the older experts are passed over for promotion in favour of these people on the grounds that if they've stuck around so long they will continue to put up with it whether they are promoted or not. It's a cynical attitude to the staff the company depends on most.
We agreed that one of the main reasons we've stayed with the same company for so long is the people we've had the chance to work with over the years. For the most part, the work has remained varied and interesting during that time, although there have been peaks and troughs. But the people - their enthusiasm, wit and integrity; the sense of camaraderie, almost of family - the chance to continue working with them on a variety of different projects and challenges has led to many of us staying with the company for long periods, often whole careers. This is unusual today, especially in our industry, where people are almost expected to change jobs every few years to get a rounded experience. But over the last thirty years I've worked on mainframes, midrange systems, office systems and PCs. I've developed operating systems, applications and solutions. I've been a designer, implementer, tester, manager, integrator, support leader. I've done recruitment, marketing, worked on sales campaigns and stood on stand at commercial shows. So I've never felt the need to leave to gain more experience. It's all been here for me.
There is a downside though. Recruiting people with equivalent experience into senior roles is not possible unless an attractive salary is offered. A salary far in excess of what us long-serving types are on. And the way the company pay scales work, to pay such a salary forces the company to recruit into the highest grades of the technical career structure.
So we have an anomaly. 30-year veterans of the industry, who not only know the technologies but also the company inside out, have first-class networks of colleagues to draw on for help and can get the job done in half the time. These people on, let's call it grade 2, or 3 and earning £x,000 per year. And they're being asked to work with people recruited from outside the company, so no knowledge of process or information stores, no usable network of experience and (sad to say) all too often very rudimentary knowledge of the technical subject matter they have been recruited for (despite no doubt spinning a plausible yarn to the HR people and managers who interviewed them) and yet are on vastly inflated salaries (often 2x £x,000) and grades 4 or 5 - at the top of the tree.
Meanwhile the older experts are passed over for promotion in favour of these people on the grounds that if they've stuck around so long they will continue to put up with it whether they are promoted or not. It's a cynical attitude to the staff the company depends on most.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
My pointless existence
I got up at the usual time today. I make a point of mentioning that because ordinarily, when it's a day for travelling to London, I have to be up at stupid o'clock (like 4 or 5am) to catch an early train. Today, the meeting I headed for was at 3pm, with a small pre-meeting, so there was no rush. I caught the 7.05am to Euston and so had a leisurely start.
The 7.05 is an express. Direct to Euston without stopping (except at Stockport of course, for historical reasons) it takes about 2 hours and because it is so quick it's usually packed out. I was lucky to get a table.
But the journey was one of those pointless business trips that any sensible person would assume no longer happens in the 21st century. I got up, washed, dressed, waited for the taxi, arrived at the station, bought a ticket, caught the train, then the tube, walked past the Houses of Parliament, and ultimately arrived at the office. It was around 10am. As usual when I turn up somewhere, I was roped into another meeting - this time to discuss how we're going to manage the series of customer workshops that need to take place once we've signed the contract tomorrow. Nothing I couldn't have done on the phone. When three o'clock rolled around we filed into the review meeting. Part of the business process, this meeting confirms that the contract is "good business" and that there are no problems with the solution, plan, resourcing or commercial agreement.
My job is to state that the solution is deliverable and that the plans have been underwritten by the development units. So I expected that sometime around 3.30 I would be asked that question, and I would say "Yes." That's all. Me saying "yes" was the sole purpose of my trip today. I felt like the man from del Monte. But I have to say it in the room. Like some archaic scene from a Dickensian workhouse, I have to be there. In person. Because that's the way it works. In fact, to discourage (as in, totally prevent) anyone dialling in to the meeting, the organisers don't provide a voice conference number.
Having said yes, I further expected to have to sit there throughout the rest of the meeting listening to the ebb and flow of the debate about whether we can sign the contract or not. People with egos the size of planets trying to score points off each other and prove they're more on the ball than the next person. And when it's all over, I would pack up my laptop and make the return journey.
It didn't quite turn out like that. Since the solution hasn't changed since the last approval review, there were no burning questions about it, so the board member chairing the meeting never looked in my direction, never asked a question and never once mentioned the solution (except to ask the development unit director whether we'd done stuff like this before). So I never got to say "yes." In fact, I never opened my mouth.
What's more, far from dragging on for an hour and a half, the meeting was over in 15 minutes. Now you might think that that's a bonus, but it just made me feel even more annoyed. I left the building at 3.35 and made it to Euston in time for the 4.05 back to Piccadilly. I arrived home almost exactly 12 hours after leaving. A 12 hour day to attend a meeting and not say a single word, just because that's what the process says we have to do. You might say the process is broken. I couldn't possibly comment.
The 7.05 is an express. Direct to Euston without stopping (except at Stockport of course, for historical reasons) it takes about 2 hours and because it is so quick it's usually packed out. I was lucky to get a table.
But the journey was one of those pointless business trips that any sensible person would assume no longer happens in the 21st century. I got up, washed, dressed, waited for the taxi, arrived at the station, bought a ticket, caught the train, then the tube, walked past the Houses of Parliament, and ultimately arrived at the office. It was around 10am. As usual when I turn up somewhere, I was roped into another meeting - this time to discuss how we're going to manage the series of customer workshops that need to take place once we've signed the contract tomorrow. Nothing I couldn't have done on the phone. When three o'clock rolled around we filed into the review meeting. Part of the business process, this meeting confirms that the contract is "good business" and that there are no problems with the solution, plan, resourcing or commercial agreement.
My job is to state that the solution is deliverable and that the plans have been underwritten by the development units. So I expected that sometime around 3.30 I would be asked that question, and I would say "Yes." That's all. Me saying "yes" was the sole purpose of my trip today. I felt like the man from del Monte. But I have to say it in the room. Like some archaic scene from a Dickensian workhouse, I have to be there. In person. Because that's the way it works. In fact, to discourage (as in, totally prevent) anyone dialling in to the meeting, the organisers don't provide a voice conference number.
Having said yes, I further expected to have to sit there throughout the rest of the meeting listening to the ebb and flow of the debate about whether we can sign the contract or not. People with egos the size of planets trying to score points off each other and prove they're more on the ball than the next person. And when it's all over, I would pack up my laptop and make the return journey.
It didn't quite turn out like that. Since the solution hasn't changed since the last approval review, there were no burning questions about it, so the board member chairing the meeting never looked in my direction, never asked a question and never once mentioned the solution (except to ask the development unit director whether we'd done stuff like this before). So I never got to say "yes." In fact, I never opened my mouth.
What's more, far from dragging on for an hour and a half, the meeting was over in 15 minutes. Now you might think that that's a bonus, but it just made me feel even more annoyed. I left the building at 3.35 and made it to Euston in time for the 4.05 back to Piccadilly. I arrived home almost exactly 12 hours after leaving. A 12 hour day to attend a meeting and not say a single word, just because that's what the process says we have to do. You might say the process is broken. I couldn't possibly comment.
Monday, April 16, 2007
How broad is your broadband?
I see in the technology press today that a new report is about to warn the government the UK has to invest in ubiquitous super-speed Internet connections if it is to compete globally. It's ironic that a few years ago the Internet was referred to in layman's terms as "the information super-highway" and now our access to *that* highway is about to be just as badly curtailed by low investment as our access to more traditional highways.
Schools went back after their Easter break today across much of the country (a few areas still have a week's holiday remaining) and the effect on traffic was immediate and devastating. Taking Nikki to work, the queue at our regular junction stretched back almost half a mile so we elected to take the next junction. As we passed the first junction the queue for the next junction came in sight and was three times as bad! I find it hard to believe that congestion levels can be SO much worse than last week, when even around the traditional rush-hour there was almost no traffic about. This morning it seemed that there were four or five times as many cars on the roads, but I know it's not credible that 80% of the UK's work force took last week as annual leave! So where did they all come from?
Leaving the motorway at the third most convenient junction and threading our way back through the side streets made our normal 15-minute journey into a 40-minute one.
Are we about to become as frustrated with ever-slowing Internet connections as Nikki and I were sitting in that queue this morning? On the face of it, access to the Internet has never been better. Only a few months ago, the average domestic broadband connection was 512kbps. Now connections of 2Mbps are common and more and more providers are offering 8 megabits and higher. But in the local loop these speeds are shared between subscribers and at peak times the actual bandwidth available to any one user can be much lower. With standard contention ratios of 20:1 or even 50:1 you may not notice any degradation except at popular times like Friday evenings and weekends, but as high-speed access to the Internet becomes a requirement in ever-increasing numbers of homes, these contention ratios will be maxed out more often leading to visible reductions in response times for more users.
The report linked above makes the point that in true 21st century cities like Hong Kong and Seoul, 100 megabit connections (i.e. the speed of your local LAN) are common. If UK economies are to compete on an even playing field, the time to start investing in a fibre-optic or wireless local loop is now.
You may be quite happy with your current access, and think that 100Mbps is pushing the envelope a little too far. But as more and more media services become available online, and larger audiences elect to watch TV (for instance) over the Internet using technologies such as Joost instead of via broadcast, bandwidth will increasingly be eaten away. Truly wired home working, too, requires additional bandwidth for messaging, voice- and video-conferencing services, online meetings with remote desktop access and whiteboarding, etc, etc.
The irony is, as better online access becomes available and more of the country's knowledge workers discover that homeworking is a credible alternative, fewer of them will be commuting and the roads will look like an Easter holiday period most of the time. Bring it on!
Schools went back after their Easter break today across much of the country (a few areas still have a week's holiday remaining) and the effect on traffic was immediate and devastating. Taking Nikki to work, the queue at our regular junction stretched back almost half a mile so we elected to take the next junction. As we passed the first junction the queue for the next junction came in sight and was three times as bad! I find it hard to believe that congestion levels can be SO much worse than last week, when even around the traditional rush-hour there was almost no traffic about. This morning it seemed that there were four or five times as many cars on the roads, but I know it's not credible that 80% of the UK's work force took last week as annual leave! So where did they all come from?
Leaving the motorway at the third most convenient junction and threading our way back through the side streets made our normal 15-minute journey into a 40-minute one.
Are we about to become as frustrated with ever-slowing Internet connections as Nikki and I were sitting in that queue this morning? On the face of it, access to the Internet has never been better. Only a few months ago, the average domestic broadband connection was 512kbps. Now connections of 2Mbps are common and more and more providers are offering 8 megabits and higher. But in the local loop these speeds are shared between subscribers and at peak times the actual bandwidth available to any one user can be much lower. With standard contention ratios of 20:1 or even 50:1 you may not notice any degradation except at popular times like Friday evenings and weekends, but as high-speed access to the Internet becomes a requirement in ever-increasing numbers of homes, these contention ratios will be maxed out more often leading to visible reductions in response times for more users.
The report linked above makes the point that in true 21st century cities like Hong Kong and Seoul, 100 megabit connections (i.e. the speed of your local LAN) are common. If UK economies are to compete on an even playing field, the time to start investing in a fibre-optic or wireless local loop is now.
You may be quite happy with your current access, and think that 100Mbps is pushing the envelope a little too far. But as more and more media services become available online, and larger audiences elect to watch TV (for instance) over the Internet using technologies such as Joost instead of via broadcast, bandwidth will increasingly be eaten away. Truly wired home working, too, requires additional bandwidth for messaging, voice- and video-conferencing services, online meetings with remote desktop access and whiteboarding, etc, etc.
The irony is, as better online access becomes available and more of the country's knowledge workers discover that homeworking is a credible alternative, fewer of them will be commuting and the roads will look like an Easter holiday period most of the time. Bring it on!
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Corporate mentality
My friend, mentor and writing partner Colleen Patrick wrote recently about Crisis Mentality, taking the wind out of my sails somewhat as I had it in mind to write a similar piece about short-termism in the arena of public services (which is every bit as bad in the UK as in the US). I might get back to that sometime later, but a recent email from a different Transatlantic friend caused me to focus on another of life's bugbears: the corporate machine and its insidious effects on anyone who works in it or depends on it for any part of their life.
There was a time, and it wasn't so long ago, when it was sufficient to work hard for seven-and-a-half (or eight) hours a day at the end of which not only were you free to come home and pursue other interests (like cooking dinner), but you felt as if you were free. All your colleagues were working the same pattern and there was no pressure to outdo each other, certainly not in the matter of number of hours worked.
A couple of days ago I wrote briefly about my years spent in support and it's true that we worked extra hours back then. But it was paid overtime. It was a fair day's work for a fair day's pay and if you worked more? You were paid more.
This is about more than just money though. It's also about fun. Yes, it is possible to have fun at work, and I did. It was camaraderie, it was taking time to help colleagues work out answers to hard problems or design complex solutions, it was the sense that we were all in it together (whatever "it" was). Real team work and a sense of knowing what you were about, where you were going, and how you were going to get there.
Today, the constant focus on the bottom line is poisonous. It ruins relationships (both in work time and at home), reduces the time you can spend on coaching and developing a rounded solution to a problem and generally takes the fun out of everything. People are just assets to be sweated and all the while companies put out the spin that "people are their most valuable resource." They should invest in them then, instead of working them into the ground!
It is regularly reported in news media that folk in the UK feel coerced into working long hours - 50+ hours a week - because they think if they're not seen to be working as hard as, or harder than, everyone else their job will be at risk. This is outrageous. Little wonder family life is suffering, relationships are breaking down, and kids feel lost, abandoned and hopeless. Especially when all they have to look forward to is the day when they will be caught up in it too!
If I'm sorry enough to leave my laptop connected to the company mail server, then I can be sure to receive emails at midnight, or 6am, and on Saturdays and Sundays. Many people work extraordinary hours and a few are known to work during the whole of their waking time. They stop when they sleep and start again when they wake the next day.
Ever heard the line "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"? Dull doesn't come close. Mad would be better.
Short bursts of exceptional activity are expected when there are important deadlines to be met. But it's too easy for this to become the norm, especially when people move from one "important" piece of work to the next without a break, or time out for training, or for less pressured tasks. What attracted me to software development in the first place, and what has kept me in computing for almost thirty years is that it's not just technologically exciting. That is a large part of the attraction, but at the same time you get the sense of creating something that would help other people. There's a deal of satisfaction in being able to stand back and say "I built that."
Unfortunately so much of creating a solution today is simply plugging together standard components. What used to be an engineering industry has now almost completed its metamorphosis into a service industry. There are no more frontiers. And being a service, the corporate and commercial pressure is on to drive out costs, increase productivity and do more and more for less and less. So it's not surprising that companies are very happy to let their employees work long hours. In the absence of overtime payments a fifteen hour day represents a 100% increase in throughput for a zero% increase in cost.
But this is like running a carbon-based economy in the absence of carbon taxes. There is a price to pay, but it's hidden. It's being paid by the employees in terms of its effects on their long-term (mental) health, by their families in terms of lost hours and, therefore, by the company itself eventually in terms of employee burn-out. Until the financial effects of this "asset sweating" are exposed, calculated, and added to the bottom line, we will continue to be subjected to the growing expectations of the long hours culture.
There was a time, and it wasn't so long ago, when it was sufficient to work hard for seven-and-a-half (or eight) hours a day at the end of which not only were you free to come home and pursue other interests (like cooking dinner), but you felt as if you were free. All your colleagues were working the same pattern and there was no pressure to outdo each other, certainly not in the matter of number of hours worked.
A couple of days ago I wrote briefly about my years spent in support and it's true that we worked extra hours back then. But it was paid overtime. It was a fair day's work for a fair day's pay and if you worked more? You were paid more.
This is about more than just money though. It's also about fun. Yes, it is possible to have fun at work, and I did. It was camaraderie, it was taking time to help colleagues work out answers to hard problems or design complex solutions, it was the sense that we were all in it together (whatever "it" was). Real team work and a sense of knowing what you were about, where you were going, and how you were going to get there.
Today, the constant focus on the bottom line is poisonous. It ruins relationships (both in work time and at home), reduces the time you can spend on coaching and developing a rounded solution to a problem and generally takes the fun out of everything. People are just assets to be sweated and all the while companies put out the spin that "people are their most valuable resource." They should invest in them then, instead of working them into the ground!
It is regularly reported in news media that folk in the UK feel coerced into working long hours - 50+ hours a week - because they think if they're not seen to be working as hard as, or harder than, everyone else their job will be at risk. This is outrageous. Little wonder family life is suffering, relationships are breaking down, and kids feel lost, abandoned and hopeless. Especially when all they have to look forward to is the day when they will be caught up in it too!
If I'm sorry enough to leave my laptop connected to the company mail server, then I can be sure to receive emails at midnight, or 6am, and on Saturdays and Sundays. Many people work extraordinary hours and a few are known to work during the whole of their waking time. They stop when they sleep and start again when they wake the next day.
Ever heard the line "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"? Dull doesn't come close. Mad would be better.
Short bursts of exceptional activity are expected when there are important deadlines to be met. But it's too easy for this to become the norm, especially when people move from one "important" piece of work to the next without a break, or time out for training, or for less pressured tasks. What attracted me to software development in the first place, and what has kept me in computing for almost thirty years is that it's not just technologically exciting. That is a large part of the attraction, but at the same time you get the sense of creating something that would help other people. There's a deal of satisfaction in being able to stand back and say "I built that."
Unfortunately so much of creating a solution today is simply plugging together standard components. What used to be an engineering industry has now almost completed its metamorphosis into a service industry. There are no more frontiers. And being a service, the corporate and commercial pressure is on to drive out costs, increase productivity and do more and more for less and less. So it's not surprising that companies are very happy to let their employees work long hours. In the absence of overtime payments a fifteen hour day represents a 100% increase in throughput for a zero% increase in cost.
But this is like running a carbon-based economy in the absence of carbon taxes. There is a price to pay, but it's hidden. It's being paid by the employees in terms of its effects on their long-term (mental) health, by their families in terms of lost hours and, therefore, by the company itself eventually in terms of employee burn-out. Until the financial effects of this "asset sweating" are exposed, calculated, and added to the bottom line, we will continue to be subjected to the growing expectations of the long hours culture.
Monday, April 02, 2007
The Big Day
I've never considered myself particularly good at bid work. This stems from a dry spell around 1998-9 when my score was "played 7; lost 7" and my confidence was totally shot. Since then I've steered clear of it whenever I can, and I'd been pretty successful at hiding too - having been on design and delivery work pretty much full-time for the last seven years.
But when I was earmarked as the lead solution architect for this latest piece of work, I knew there would come a time when I would have to get on my hind legs in front of the customer, and sell our solution to them. That time was this afternoon at 2pm. We'd worked on the presentation all day Friday. Some people had added bits during Saturday and I'd been revising my sections on the train down to London yesterday afternoon. Then we rehearsed it twice yesterday evening and continued working on our own sections either late last night or early this morning, depending on personal preference. I added a few discreet builds to my slides to help me tell the story, and amended some graphics for added legibility. I also converted my script into punchier and more personalised language, and then transcribed it into bulleted mnemonic form so I wouldn't fall into the trap of reading it out.
Following a get-together of the presentation team for a further run-through to check the changes, we then had one final rehearsal in front of the full team (presenters and those who were there to assist with the Q&A session) before taking it to the customer.
So by the time I stood up, I'd been through the material four times before in full-on presentation mode, as well as reading and re-reading my notes countless times. I know someone who will be impressed with this level of preparation and it will come as no surprise to her that the final delivery went off not only without a hitch, but brilliantly. In particular, I received personal compliments on my presentation from each individual in our team, including the Managing Director who said my section had been full of energy and enthusiasm. For the first time ever, I came out of the experience feeling positive and buoyed up with team spirit. Shortly followed by actual spirit as we adjourned to the bar across the road to celebrate a successful presentation and relax after the tension of the past four days.
After 'The Big Day' comes 'The Big Wait' as they deliberate on the suppliers' different solutions and choose the one they want to go with. We'll find out in seven days.
My mate Bon asked if he could keep up with my blog via RSS, so you'll notice I've now included a link to the feed in the 'Links' section on the right. By now I might have my first subscriber ;o)
But when I was earmarked as the lead solution architect for this latest piece of work, I knew there would come a time when I would have to get on my hind legs in front of the customer, and sell our solution to them. That time was this afternoon at 2pm. We'd worked on the presentation all day Friday. Some people had added bits during Saturday and I'd been revising my sections on the train down to London yesterday afternoon. Then we rehearsed it twice yesterday evening and continued working on our own sections either late last night or early this morning, depending on personal preference. I added a few discreet builds to my slides to help me tell the story, and amended some graphics for added legibility. I also converted my script into punchier and more personalised language, and then transcribed it into bulleted mnemonic form so I wouldn't fall into the trap of reading it out.
Following a get-together of the presentation team for a further run-through to check the changes, we then had one final rehearsal in front of the full team (presenters and those who were there to assist with the Q&A session) before taking it to the customer.
So by the time I stood up, I'd been through the material four times before in full-on presentation mode, as well as reading and re-reading my notes countless times. I know someone who will be impressed with this level of preparation and it will come as no surprise to her that the final delivery went off not only without a hitch, but brilliantly. In particular, I received personal compliments on my presentation from each individual in our team, including the Managing Director who said my section had been full of energy and enthusiasm. For the first time ever, I came out of the experience feeling positive and buoyed up with team spirit. Shortly followed by actual spirit as we adjourned to the bar across the road to celebrate a successful presentation and relax after the tension of the past four days.
After 'The Big Day' comes 'The Big Wait' as they deliberate on the suppliers' different solutions and choose the one they want to go with. We'll find out in seven days.
My mate Bon asked if he could keep up with my blog via RSS, so you'll notice I've now included a link to the feed in the 'Links' section on the right. By now I might have my first subscriber ;o)
Monday, March 05, 2007
Proud to be an a**ehole
Harking back to failures of process for a moment and how everyone's job, no matter how boring and trivial, is important in the overall scheme of things, I was reminded of this (very) old joke:
One day the different parts of the body were having an argument to see which should be in charge.
The brain said, "I do all the thinking so I'm the most important and I should be in charge."
The eyes said, "We see everything and let the rest of you know where we are, so we're the most important and we should be in charge."
The hands said, "Without us we wouldn't be able to pick anything up or move anything. So we're the most important and we should be in charge."
The stomach said, "I turn the food we eat into energy for the rest of you. Without me, we'd starve. So I'm the most important and I should be in charge."
The legs said, "Without us we wouldn't be able to move anywhere. So we're the most important and we should be in charge."
Then the arsehole said, "I think I should be in charge."
All the rest of the body parts laughed and snorted. They said, "YOU?!? You don't do anything! You're not important! You can't be in charge."
So the arsehole closed up.
After a few days, the legs were all wobbly, the stomach was all queasy, the hands were all shaky, the eyes were all watery, and the brain was all cloudy.
They all agreed that they couldn't take any more of this and they should put the arsehole in charge.
OK, this is a joke, right? So the (rather predictable) punchline is that the moral of the story is you don't have to be the most important to be in charge, just an arsehole. But I haven't shared that with you to knock managers. I have a different point, which is also made by the story: that every part of the body, just like every part of society, is as important as any other part.
Sure, we can't manage without doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, engineers and architects. But "society" would also grind to a halt without undertakers, refuse collectors, shop workers, slaughterhousemen and plumbers. A lack of properly trained and supervised cleaners has led to our hospitals being filled with deadly MRSA and C. difficile. When track inspectors don't work properly, trains crash and people die. When that 1,000th cell sample isn't checked properly and someone with cancer is mistakenly given the all-clear, people die. When simple sanitary conditions aren't maintained, infection spreads, confidence is lost in the business, and people lose their livelihoods.
It doesn't matter what your job is, we all rely on you doing it to the best of your ability.
One day the different parts of the body were having an argument to see which should be in charge.
The brain said, "I do all the thinking so I'm the most important and I should be in charge."
The eyes said, "We see everything and let the rest of you know where we are, so we're the most important and we should be in charge."
The hands said, "Without us we wouldn't be able to pick anything up or move anything. So we're the most important and we should be in charge."
The stomach said, "I turn the food we eat into energy for the rest of you. Without me, we'd starve. So I'm the most important and I should be in charge."
The legs said, "Without us we wouldn't be able to move anywhere. So we're the most important and we should be in charge."
Then the arsehole said, "I think I should be in charge."
All the rest of the body parts laughed and snorted. They said, "YOU?!? You don't do anything! You're not important! You can't be in charge."
So the arsehole closed up.
After a few days, the legs were all wobbly, the stomach was all queasy, the hands were all shaky, the eyes were all watery, and the brain was all cloudy.
They all agreed that they couldn't take any more of this and they should put the arsehole in charge.
OK, this is a joke, right? So the (rather predictable) punchline is that the moral of the story is you don't have to be the most important to be in charge, just an arsehole. But I haven't shared that with you to knock managers. I have a different point, which is also made by the story: that every part of the body, just like every part of society, is as important as any other part.
Sure, we can't manage without doctors, nurses, teachers, scientists, engineers and architects. But "society" would also grind to a halt without undertakers, refuse collectors, shop workers, slaughterhousemen and plumbers. A lack of properly trained and supervised cleaners has led to our hospitals being filled with deadly MRSA and C. difficile. When track inspectors don't work properly, trains crash and people die. When that 1,000th cell sample isn't checked properly and someone with cancer is mistakenly given the all-clear, people die. When simple sanitary conditions aren't maintained, infection spreads, confidence is lost in the business, and people lose their livelihoods.
It doesn't matter what your job is, we all rely on you doing it to the best of your ability.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Can I have a nice cup of tea?
This starts life as yet another train blog, but don't worry. It doesn't stay there for long. Only long enough to gain inspiration.
I had to travel to London again today and had just bought my breakfast sandwich and large black coffee from the Virgin train "shop" when the chap behind me placed his order.
"Can I just have a nice cup of tea, please?"
Two things about that you have to admire. The pure Englishness of it. Not just "tea please," but a nice cup of tea. And the naive hope that Virgin Rail can brew a nice cup of tea, when their drinks machines don't dispense boiling water.
There. Right there is my inspiration. I was reminded of a fight I had with the corporate mentality a little over two years ago, when they removed kettles from the kitchen areas throughout the office and we were unable any longer to make tea for ourselves. Their excuse was that there were "just too many industrial accidents" involving kettles. I think what sparked it off was a woman in Bracknell scalding herself.
I'd been used to brewing myself a small one-person pot of tea. It was ideal for me - it filled two mugs, it had its own little tea-cosy and it meant that I didn't have to be up and down to the machine every ten minutes. Most importantly of course, it was real tea, not the execrable machine version. It was drinkable.
So when "my" kettle was taken away, I played up a bit. I pointed out that everyone has a kettle at home, everyone in the workplace was an adult and should be trusted to use it safely, and if they didn't it was their own fault. Naturally, in this increasingly mad, politically correct and litigious world, this argument cut no ice with the facilities management people. If they provided the "kettle facility" they could possibly be liable if someone damaged themselves using it. Not to mention the cost of having the equipment safety checked every year.
It was clear I wasn't going to win the argument that way, so I tried a different tack. One of the arguments for there being "no need" for kettles was that the drinks machines could dispense hot water. In common with the other machine drinks, this was free, so the FM people couldn't see that there was any reduction in facility. But that was exactly the problem. The machines dispensed hot water. Not boiling water. The tea I tried to brew with it was disgusting. I complained, and in an effort to prove the water was hot enough, they reconfigured the drinks machine display to show the temperature of the water being delivered. It was 94°C.
I did my research, and found several reference sites on the web dedicated to making the ideal brew. Without exception they all made it abundantly clear that water at boiling point was essential to brewing a proper cuppa. I complained again, citing references. I think they were starting to get a little hacked off that I wasn't satisfied with their arguments, so as an ameliorating tactic they agreed to increase the temperature of the water from the machine. But the in-built safety or other limitations meant they couldn't get it above 97°C.
Ironically, this is still not hot enough to brew proper tea, but it's too hot to comfortably carry the plastic cups into which the other drinks were dispensed. On top of that, to fill my little teapot required 3.5 hot water dispensings, so I either had to overflow the pot, or not fill it, and whichever approach I took, I occupied the machine at least three times longer than for a regular drink, which meant longer queues.
So what started off as ostensibly a health-and-safety change, but was really about cutting costs, had now resulted in everyone who used the drinks machine being unable safely to carry their drinks, and me spending much more valuable work time brewing tea which was nowhere near as nice as it should be.
But with large companies it's never about maintaining a happy and contented workforce. It's about sweating assets and minimising costs. It's always about profit. And the maximum profit depends on keeping your staff at a level of disgruntlement below that which will cause them to leave, but above that which providing an adequate (but more costly) office environment would allow. So we soldier on, always with this background feeling that things could be better, should be better, but knowing in some fatalistic way that they never will be. And it's not worth changing jobs because it will be just as bad, and possibly even worse, at the next place.
I had to travel to London again today and had just bought my breakfast sandwich and large black coffee from the Virgin train "shop" when the chap behind me placed his order.
"Can I just have a nice cup of tea, please?"
Two things about that you have to admire. The pure Englishness of it. Not just "tea please," but a nice cup of tea. And the naive hope that Virgin Rail can brew a nice cup of tea, when their drinks machines don't dispense boiling water.
There. Right there is my inspiration. I was reminded of a fight I had with the corporate mentality a little over two years ago, when they removed kettles from the kitchen areas throughout the office and we were unable any longer to make tea for ourselves. Their excuse was that there were "just too many industrial accidents" involving kettles. I think what sparked it off was a woman in Bracknell scalding herself.
I'd been used to brewing myself a small one-person pot of tea. It was ideal for me - it filled two mugs, it had its own little tea-cosy and it meant that I didn't have to be up and down to the machine every ten minutes. Most importantly of course, it was real tea, not the execrable machine version. It was drinkable.
So when "my" kettle was taken away, I played up a bit. I pointed out that everyone has a kettle at home, everyone in the workplace was an adult and should be trusted to use it safely, and if they didn't it was their own fault. Naturally, in this increasingly mad, politically correct and litigious world, this argument cut no ice with the facilities management people. If they provided the "kettle facility" they could possibly be liable if someone damaged themselves using it. Not to mention the cost of having the equipment safety checked every year.
It was clear I wasn't going to win the argument that way, so I tried a different tack. One of the arguments for there being "no need" for kettles was that the drinks machines could dispense hot water. In common with the other machine drinks, this was free, so the FM people couldn't see that there was any reduction in facility. But that was exactly the problem. The machines dispensed hot water. Not boiling water. The tea I tried to brew with it was disgusting. I complained, and in an effort to prove the water was hot enough, they reconfigured the drinks machine display to show the temperature of the water being delivered. It was 94°C.
I did my research, and found several reference sites on the web dedicated to making the ideal brew. Without exception they all made it abundantly clear that water at boiling point was essential to brewing a proper cuppa. I complained again, citing references. I think they were starting to get a little hacked off that I wasn't satisfied with their arguments, so as an ameliorating tactic they agreed to increase the temperature of the water from the machine. But the in-built safety or other limitations meant they couldn't get it above 97°C.
Ironically, this is still not hot enough to brew proper tea, but it's too hot to comfortably carry the plastic cups into which the other drinks were dispensed. On top of that, to fill my little teapot required 3.5 hot water dispensings, so I either had to overflow the pot, or not fill it, and whichever approach I took, I occupied the machine at least three times longer than for a regular drink, which meant longer queues.
So what started off as ostensibly a health-and-safety change, but was really about cutting costs, had now resulted in everyone who used the drinks machine being unable safely to carry their drinks, and me spending much more valuable work time brewing tea which was nowhere near as nice as it should be.
But with large companies it's never about maintaining a happy and contented workforce. It's about sweating assets and minimising costs. It's always about profit. And the maximum profit depends on keeping your staff at a level of disgruntlement below that which will cause them to leave, but above that which providing an adequate (but more costly) office environment would allow. So we soldier on, always with this background feeling that things could be better, should be better, but knowing in some fatalistic way that they never will be. And it's not worth changing jobs because it will be just as bad, and possibly even worse, at the next place.
Friday, February 09, 2007
BT Call Minder
Someone left a message today on my BT answering service "BT Call Minder" and it reminded me how piss-poor their IVR messaging is.
"BT Call Minder. Thank you for calling. You've...ONE...new message. Main menu. To listen to your messages...press ONE or say ONE after the tone, to change your personal options..."
[1]
"FIRST...new message. Message. Received...TODAY at...NINE...FORTY-FOUR...A.M."
This is such a long-winded way of getting to your messages I'm amazed they aren't inundated with complaints. Let's just break it down:
BT Call Minder.
Yes, thanks I know who you are. I called you, remember?
Thank you for calling.
I'd like to say I appreciate your manners, but you're not real are you? You're a machine that has been programmed to thank me for calling. You don't really care if I call or not do you? You don't truly appreciate my call. So pretending you do is just another waste of my time. Get on with it.
You've...
If you thought the pauses at the end of the first two sentences were long, welcome to the variable part of the message, where the pauses are so long you can go away and make a cup of tea and still not miss anything meaningful. Really. I've used an ellipsis (...) to show where the pauses are, and variables are in uppercase. Full stops indicate shorter pauses. Wherever a spoken variable appears in the system - like the number of messages that is about to be revealed - you could grow a beard in the gaps. Come ON! Edit these pauses out!
ONE
Here's the first place where the 80/20 rule should be applied. 80% (at least!) of the users of this service will never acquire more than ten unread messages. So the quality of service for the majority of users could be vastly improved by recording these as specific messages rather than using a variable every time.
You've one new message
You've two new messages...etc
I can say "you've one new message" in less than a second and it's still easily intelligible. Instead we have to put up with TWO pauses - one each side - just so the system can pull out details of exactly how many messages are waiting.
Main menu.
What? I called up to hear my message FFS! Why are you presenting me with all these options? This is why this service appears SO bad at the side of, say, the Vodafone Recall service (which is essentially the same thing). BT have not designed their service quickly to deliver what the majority of users will call up for, while still retaining access to all the other features they might want to use once a year, or once only when they set the service up. Vodafone have got it right (never thought I'd say that) - when you call to retrieve a message, you get straight to your messages: "You've one new message" and you're straight into it. The time and date of the call are revealed at the end of the message, so in the majority of cases you never need to wait to hear that - you can suss out what it's all about during the message and deal with it much more quickly. If you take an option to listen to the message again, the Vodafone service simply adds "for the main menu, press 1" - snappy, quick, and it doesn't get in the way.
You can see where I'm going with this, so I'll skip the rest of the first part. The fact is that if you're not bothered to find out how many messages you're going to have to listen to, you can skip this part by pressing 'one' as soon as Call Minder connects. But this next bit you can't avoid:
FIRST...new message
Same rule as above. Record ten separate messages for the first ten messages
First new message
Second new message...
And then you only need to use a variable when there's more than ten messages - i.e. almost never.
Message.
This is just totally superfluous, and by now you're getting really annoyed with it. Or at least, I am. We already KNOW we're going to listen to a MESSAGE because you've just told us it's the first new MESSAGE for Chrissake! Jeez. Get on with it.
Received.
No! Really?
TODAY
Another 80/20 rule must surely apply here. I imagine 80% of messages will be retrieved the day they are left, or the next day. So the two messages
Received today
and
Received yesterday
should not use variables. If they were edited properly to remove pauses, then the whole of
"First new message received today at "
could be over in just short of two seconds instead of the six seconds it takes now.
And let's not even bother with the message timestamp. Hours and minutes as separate variables with associated pauses? AM and PM? God.
The Call Minder service has been in operation for at least twenty years. I don't think it's had a revamp in all that time. Other IVR systems have improved out of all recognition while BT have carried on oblivious to the march of technology with their massive long pauses and their "Thank you for calling." It can't be a lack of investment funds that drives this refusal to upgrade their service. At one point in the not-so-distant past BT were making £90 A SECOND profit. That's ninety quid every second of every day of the year. Would you MIND awfully spending some of that mountain of cash on a decent voicemail service?
BT - whose strapline should really be: "the most shit service we can possibly get away with before OfCom come down on us like a ton of bricks."
"BT Call Minder. Thank you for calling. You've...ONE...new message. Main menu. To listen to your messages...press ONE or say ONE after the tone, to change your personal options..."
[1]
"FIRST...new message. Message. Received...TODAY at...NINE...FORTY-FOUR...A.M."
This is such a long-winded way of getting to your messages I'm amazed they aren't inundated with complaints. Let's just break it down:
BT Call Minder.
Yes, thanks I know who you are. I called you, remember?
Thank you for calling.
I'd like to say I appreciate your manners, but you're not real are you? You're a machine that has been programmed to thank me for calling. You don't really care if I call or not do you? You don't truly appreciate my call. So pretending you do is just another waste of my time. Get on with it.
You've...
If you thought the pauses at the end of the first two sentences were long, welcome to the variable part of the message, where the pauses are so long you can go away and make a cup of tea and still not miss anything meaningful. Really. I've used an ellipsis (...) to show where the pauses are, and variables are in uppercase. Full stops indicate shorter pauses. Wherever a spoken variable appears in the system - like the number of messages that is about to be revealed - you could grow a beard in the gaps. Come ON! Edit these pauses out!
ONE
Here's the first place where the 80/20 rule should be applied. 80% (at least!) of the users of this service will never acquire more than ten unread messages. So the quality of service for the majority of users could be vastly improved by recording these as specific messages rather than using a variable every time.
You've one new message
You've two new messages...etc
I can say "you've one new message" in less than a second and it's still easily intelligible. Instead we have to put up with TWO pauses - one each side - just so the system can pull out details of exactly how many messages are waiting.
Main menu.
What? I called up to hear my message FFS! Why are you presenting me with all these options? This is why this service appears SO bad at the side of, say, the Vodafone Recall service (which is essentially the same thing). BT have not designed their service quickly to deliver what the majority of users will call up for, while still retaining access to all the other features they might want to use once a year, or once only when they set the service up. Vodafone have got it right (never thought I'd say that) - when you call to retrieve a message, you get straight to your messages: "You've one new message" and you're straight into it. The time and date of the call are revealed at the end of the message, so in the majority of cases you never need to wait to hear that - you can suss out what it's all about during the message and deal with it much more quickly. If you take an option to listen to the message again, the Vodafone service simply adds "for the main menu, press 1" - snappy, quick, and it doesn't get in the way.
You can see where I'm going with this, so I'll skip the rest of the first part. The fact is that if you're not bothered to find out how many messages you're going to have to listen to, you can skip this part by pressing 'one' as soon as Call Minder connects. But this next bit you can't avoid:
FIRST...new message
Same rule as above. Record ten separate messages for the first ten messages
First new message
Second new message...
And then you only need to use a variable when there's more than ten messages - i.e. almost never.
Message.
This is just totally superfluous, and by now you're getting really annoyed with it. Or at least, I am. We already KNOW we're going to listen to a MESSAGE because you've just told us it's the first new MESSAGE for Chrissake! Jeez. Get on with it.
Received.
No! Really?
TODAY
Another 80/20 rule must surely apply here. I imagine 80% of messages will be retrieved the day they are left, or the next day. So the two messages
Received today
and
Received yesterday
should not use variables. If they were edited properly to remove pauses, then the whole of
"First new message received today at "
could be over in just short of two seconds instead of the six seconds it takes now.
And let's not even bother with the message timestamp. Hours and minutes as separate variables with associated pauses? AM and PM? God.
The Call Minder service has been in operation for at least twenty years. I don't think it's had a revamp in all that time. Other IVR systems have improved out of all recognition while BT have carried on oblivious to the march of technology with their massive long pauses and their "Thank you for calling." It can't be a lack of investment funds that drives this refusal to upgrade their service. At one point in the not-so-distant past BT were making £90 A SECOND profit. That's ninety quid every second of every day of the year. Would you MIND awfully spending some of that mountain of cash on a decent voicemail service?
BT - whose strapline should really be: "the most shit service we can possibly get away with before OfCom come down on us like a ton of bricks."
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
IVR - what *is* the point?
As you might have gathered, we're moving house :o)
So there's a lot of phoning around to do, getting the utility bills changed, updating address records and all that. And what's the worst thing about all that phoning? What's the one aspect of customer service that almost everyone complains about? IVR - Interactive Voice Response - those annoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" messages that all call centres use now.
Search on "IVR" and you'll find lots of happy people using it. Images such as this, and the smiling operators on the other end. Do they really exist? Does anyone ever look this joyful when undergoing the IVR experience? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to select from a list of options, I don't forget what the options were halfway through the list and I don't even mind when the options are so detailed they have to be nested three levels deep. What I do object to though, is when having selected all the right options, the information isn't used! Which seems to be most of the time!
Take United Utilities today. "For billing enquiries, including moving house, please press 1"...next level..."To supply a meter reading, please press 1, to enquire about a current bill, please press 2, to inform us you're moving house, please press 3"...I think there might have been one more level after that, but anyway the point is when I got through to the very nice lady, one of her first questions was "is it a problem with your bill I can help you with?" NO! I just TOLD you why I'm calling...by PRESSING NUMBER 3!! IVR and call systems designers please note. If you're going to ask for information, then at least present the answers to the call centre agent.
BT used to be the worst. The last time I had anything to do with them, which thankfully was many years ago, you used to have to key your entire 20-digit customer reference number into the IVR system. And then 30 minutes later when someone eventually answered the phone, they would ask you for the number again. "I just keyed the flipping thing in," I exploded to one hapless helpdesk jockey at the end of a particularly frustrating hour where I'd had to redial twice to get through. "Sorry sir," she replied, "our system isn't integrated with the telephone system, so we can't see what you put in." Doh!
So there's a lot of phoning around to do, getting the utility bills changed, updating address records and all that. And what's the worst thing about all that phoning? What's the one aspect of customer service that almost everyone complains about? IVR - Interactive Voice Response - those annoying "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" messages that all call centres use now.
Search on "IVR" and you'll find lots of happy people using it. Images such as this, and the smiling operators on the other end. Do they really exist? Does anyone ever look this joyful when undergoing the IVR experience? Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to select from a list of options, I don't forget what the options were halfway through the list and I don't even mind when the options are so detailed they have to be nested three levels deep. What I do object to though, is when having selected all the right options, the information isn't used! Which seems to be most of the time!Take United Utilities today. "For billing enquiries, including moving house, please press 1"...next level..."To supply a meter reading, please press 1, to enquire about a current bill, please press 2, to inform us you're moving house, please press 3"...I think there might have been one more level after that, but anyway the point is when I got through to the very nice lady, one of her first questions was "is it a problem with your bill I can help you with?" NO! I just TOLD you why I'm calling...by PRESSING NUMBER 3!! IVR and call systems designers please note. If you're going to ask for information, then at least present the answers to the call centre agent.
BT used to be the worst. The last time I had anything to do with them, which thankfully was many years ago, you used to have to key your entire 20-digit customer reference number into the IVR system. And then 30 minutes later when someone eventually answered the phone, they would ask you for the number again. "I just keyed the flipping thing in," I exploded to one hapless helpdesk jockey at the end of a particularly frustrating hour where I'd had to redial twice to get through. "Sorry sir," she replied, "our system isn't integrated with the telephone system, so we can't see what you put in." Doh!
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