The night before I find out what I will be doing

So, Bawbag has evidently taken some time off his travels, haven’t had any telling hits in the last day or two.

He is probably being waited on hand and foot in some enclave, given the countries he appears to be visiting. It remains fascinating to me how his priorities work.

Had an interview today, have another two tomorrow, still at work so far, taking next week off to complete some work for Christmas, hopefully, but not bothered again about bringing new stuff out at Christmas given that I cannot advertise it the way I want to. Still pondering how to rework it and building a new film budget. I am thinking in a more documentary way about it at the moment, but I just don’t feel that serious anymore and tbh my odd feelings for Wolfe revealed that entertainment is a whole lot more effective than education these days.  People are more interested in being stupid and judgy. You might as well, like Madonna, just make use of that if you want to get some attention for your topic.

Just finished a new coat, which will be getting some further embellishment before being revealed to the world.

The main job I am up for pays a few thousand more a year, I will not be hugely upset if it is a no as it involves peopling, but I outgunned two and a half thousand people to get to this point, so yay for me, I guess. I will survive regardless, given that even the most mind numbing job I have in my inbox pays very well with a low pound.

I would have liked to so something reasonably fulfilling at some point in my life, it is so boring being stuck in groundhog day year after year.

Don’t think I am going to gain any satisfaction at all from employment anytime soon.

Ina

 

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Quitting Time

So I really loved my job.  It was the first time I had liked a job in ages, and it was because I was dealing mainly with professionals and a more polite generation.

However it is now time to quit.  Why?

Well for one thing, as usual I wasn’t wanted there.  The person that did not want me there probably thinks he is unique.  He is about as far from unique as Little Shiva was, which is not at all. Men are insecure little piggies with nothing in their heads and no understanding of what single females have to do to get the bills paid.

One company I was unfortunate enough to work for had two lazy golfers employing me at minimum wage to complete their deadlines whilst they took their kids to school.  They used to stand in the office openly complaining at female staff, who were actually running the company despite being administrators, getting even the most modest pay rise.

I have no idea what irked this trainer so, probably he is just an insecure little man who has little under his control so he thought he would take it out on me.

I survived a year of this, but quit on Friday and am now working out my notice.  I had three job offers today alone, so I am not particularly concerned about this.

I could write a blog just about work, I have seen so many crap people and crap companies.

This time, an outsourcer had successfully negotiated with a large financial entity to reduce their staff costs and was rapidly employing people to replace the staff they were getting rid of, who had been in the job for years, were very knowledgable but unfortunately had decent wages so they had to go, obviously.

So now the same large financial entity has a phone system that doesn’t work, staff that do not know the topic and who are told that they have failed every month.  I was no exception to this, I don’t think I have had a single month in the last year that I have not been told that I am a failure. He likes to pile on the failure too, so things that other staff would be told were minor are absolutely huge when it is my error.

Things like turning up at work, being vaguely pleasant to the customers, showing any willingness at all to find out things you don’t know don’t matter.  Getting an initial out of place is the same type of failure as giving incorrect information, so the way you are rated is entirely skewed, and there is no progress, because nobody with any sense stays in that situation for very long.

I could literally have earned more in 20 hours a week over the last year than I did full time, because I wanted to know about the topic, but have found over time that I am not learning very much apart from how not to encourage people to get better at the job and how I really cannot be bothered pretending to be a peer of someone less than half my age that could not care less about anything apart from being nice to superiors in place of knowing anything about the job.

Today alone I ignored two mistakes from other people, because why should they lose their job just because I am leaving and very pissed off? This is not a healthy or positive way to do anything.

I went as far as suggesting they put someone capable of creating a structured training programme in place, but decided that I really didn’t want to contribute to this any more.  It wasn’t doing anything for me, so why should I do anything for it?

Very telling was the fact that a drunken misogynist who did not turn up for training got a permanent job quite a while before I did on the grounds that this trainer liked him.  This left me very pissed off even before the year started.  Now that I have handed in my notice, I am free not to care at all and am likely to be taking some time off shortly rather than put myself at further risk from this job.

Again I was not alone in being hated and discriminated against, evidently this person was also a racist, because a Pakistani and an Indian were rejected before me in the rejection queue.

I am tired of bad companies, bad policy and bad management.

What’s the point of caring, when nobody else does?

 

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Day 30 of 2020

So I have now acquired another four qualifications, and am working as a specialist teacher.  I have also been working on some robot training on a linguistics project, which has been quite enjoyable so far.

I have also completed two artsy courses, and have another six courses to complete on the other project, which is likely to be more applicable to the website.

Tomorrow I will be reopening one of the shops, and probably working on some other stuff.

Taking a bit of time off the sewing, and feeling a little bit better as a result.  Still a lot of work to do and I am itching to move things on. The graphics courses, surprisingly are a bit of a chore, but it is essential.

Met an astonishing mentor, who has given me several alternative  but essential directions to pursue, and am looking forward to things settling down a bit so that I can work with her.

Need to do a bit of work on the other websites, so I will be remaining quiet for a bit.

I seem to be achieving quite a bit though, so happy with that.

Haven’t seen much of Bawbag recently. Grumpy looking rather sheepish, which is quite gratifying.

Need to sort out my ITIN again which is an absolute bore.  Why a country the size of America has a tax office which would barely accomodate the accountancy of Whitburn I do not know.

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Staring at the ceiling

Last night was not great, so I spent most of the night applying for jobs, as you do when you are a slashie.

Woke up this morning to one of the previous banks attempting to lure me into discussing their problems.  Refused.  I don’t have time to support people repeating second rate information in an effort to maintain a hierarchy that does not exist as long as I do not agree to it.  If the banks employed more people like me and less people like some of the outstandingly dull and selfish people I have met over the last couple of years, the 2008 crash would not have happened.

I did point this out at the time.  Men who are aware that they are employed purely for their ability to wear suits and smirk tend to do business with other talentless smirkers.  Nobody asks any questions, because nobody wants to have any actual knowledge in case it poisons them in some way.

I often think I would have been better off in the 1950s, when companies were actually looking to improve and still had some form of ethics.  Now they seem obsessed with supporting the needs of people who regard themselves and their mortgages way above any requirements of customers, so I am no use to them whatsoever.

This is not the first time a company I have clashed with has got back in touch a couple of weeks later to say, yes, actually you are right.  I suppose I should be happy about that.  Reality is I’m not that interested in being right.  I’m interested in people getting it right, and that does not pay well.

Also what seems to have been lost in the quest for economic growth is the idea that you are only as good as your last deal.  Companies often feel very complacent when they see their figures, and they do not understand that tarnishing is a gradual process.  When you call them out on it, they are often very surprised and see you as a ‘lone sniper.’

One very glossy financial services company that Little Shiva and I are familiar with are a case in point.  I talked to them  at various levels.  Whilst I rather liked the studiousness with which they attempted to ignore me, during this time at the very top end of the business no fewer than 28 senior members of staff were terminated within a few weeks of our episode.  Little Shiva is welcome to look up the articles relating to it.

Anyway, this doesn’t help me much.  I am tired.  I’m tired of being lonely, I’m tired of nobody understanding anything, and I am really tired of stupid nasty people.

If there is a company out there that would support a manager that empowers their staff, seeks to improve business processes and actually engages people, I would like to work for you please. The research project that my working life has become is no longer on a sufficient learning trajectory to make it worthwhile.  The answer seems to be that we need fewer wankers and more workers.

 

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Old School

Learning a job on a fast track career path when very young is fast and furious, especially when you work 20 hours a day.  It took less than two years to batter the bad habits out of me as a chef.

This is because, as a high pressure job, you have to learn really fast how to get the best out of people you would not even talk to in any other situation.  I used to say that catering should be like national service, since you learn about prioritisation, teamwork, forward planning etc very quickly.

Offices, by comparison, seem to foster a malignancy that is almost tangible at times, to the point that home workers are said to be some of the most experienced and highly qualified office workers you can get.  One outsourcing company, whose name I unfortunately forgot, cited the statistics and it was quite staggering.

These homeworkers saw the light.

As someone who has done a very wide variety of jobs, 80 hours of something you enjoy is a lot easier than 35 hours of something that sucks your soul.

I wrote and removed a post on the art of management when I first met Little Shiva.  It became apparent in the following weeks that he probably didn’t understand a word of it.  He was being dictated to by a person with a fairly advanced disorder, however, and given the stature of this person, I am not surprised that I was not to be listened to.

A good manager empowers their staff rather than intimidating them into doing things out of fear.  This is very basic.  In order to do your job well you are supposed to take things like retraining and staff turnover into account.

It is also your job as a manager to make yourself dispensable, that is to say, to ensure that if you have to be somewhere else, the work is getting done.  This means that throughout your day, you should be ensuring that your team are aware of the tasks required and doing them without prompting.

A manager’s function is to be a buffer between staff and senior management, not to generate friction.  This means as a functional adult, you should be prepared to mediate between staff and to deal with your own problems.

In a banking situation, of course, you have the complication of the bank.  Any relationship in a bank is between you, the bank and then the person.  This, however, does not negate your responsibility to communicate with your staff.  In fact, you should be making sure that everyone understands that their relationship is also with the bank before anyone else.  It is a basic principle of risk management.

In the event that you are hiring, you should have received some bias training.  Most of the major banks provide this, although I have been discriminated against because of my previous experience as a carer, because I am female and likely to procreate, because I am too interesting twice now – the first time I was told that the bank did not need cultural change (I had not mentioned any plans to single-handedly change an international bank, this was apparently a charisma issue)  because I am creative (this time I was chased by a woman screaming), and finally because I am not a mother.  At this point I made a complaint, knowing full well that the only likely response was that the bank would repeat the same rubbish that their demotivated interviewer had made up.

Because my first career was as a chef, I find it extremely easy to prioritise tasks as back burner or front burner items.  It is a very simple analogy and a question of time-management.

The most difficult thing about offices generally, however, is that people in a seated position are vindictive and lazy after quite a short time.  Cliques form, and self-interest creates deep suspicion if you express any interest in work whatsoever.  This is something I have found extremely boring over the years.  Nobody wants to deal with enthusiasm, nor do they understand why their assumptions about you are wrong.  They just invent something else to bitch about.

So, if your office staff turnover is high, and your staff look miserable, replace the manager, because they are not doing the job effectively.  Employ someone with some leadership capacity that actually likes working, not someone that looks like you.  That would be a first.

 

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Another opportunity

Today it has been intimated to me that I am now to offer mentoring services to business.

I am sure the recipients of my advice will be immensely surprised to speak to someone who has actually run a business, given that such advice is usually given by people who have never run a business in their lives.  I am also hoping to be working with seniors fairly soon, in a more social capacity, but I have not heard back yet.

I am also going to be renegotiating with a couple of people I work with at present, as I am not interested in wasting my time pretending to be something I’m not to please anyone any more.  Some things are worth doing and some are not.

I do not see why I should tolerate being on the receiving end of bad management any more when I am considerably more capable than they are.

Bumped into lovely effusive man last night.  I must go and interfere with his cafe.

 

 

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The Year of Disconnection

This seems to have been the year of disconnection.

It started off with being one of the top five performers in a company of 350 and being told that unless I agreed with American right wing corporate propaganda I would not progress in the role.

When I objected to this I was terminated as ‘not being a good fit.’  I would have been with the company now if it had not been for the force feeding of badly made corporate propaganda videos from a wide variety of companies.

Let’s hope Hugo Boss doesn’t make the uniforms, kids.

This week I got a metrics warning from one company who three days later promoted me and gave me a 25% pay rise.

I recently left a very well paid position because at entry level I knew far more about the business than the manager who had been there for years, on the grounds that if I didn’t she made it very clear she was going to invent reasons for terminating me. As this year has been hard enough, I took a short cut and again returned to freelancing. She chased me out of the door shouting that she was going to report me.  I replied that I had already reported her.

I was offered two jobs this week.  I will probably take both of them, but in the meantime am increasingly being offered shifts on a job where I sit and do artwork whilst waiting for the work to come in.

None of the people I met in actual workplaces seemed to have any connection to each other, instead waiting like baby birds for the great wage provider to tell them what to think.

We are already in a state of fascism.  People rely on the money supply and the TV to tell them what to think, and I see little in the way of resistance. This does not bode well for free thought.

The world has become entirely crazy.  I was discussing this with my friend, an international political journalist in Eastern Europe this evening, and she also sees this happening.  I discussed with another friend, an artist and film director, and his comment was that since 80% of the population were morons anyway, what I am slightly shocked by is actually just another 18% or so going the same way.

I think the most shocking thing of this year was sitting discussing management with a person who described themselves as senior, who agreed with my comments on what management should be but had so little to do that he was going to go ahead and ruin my career in order to show that he could fill in some paperwork.

I am, sadly, less shocked by the actions of the Staring Brats, although the effects were devastating on my life.  Apparently male sexuality is so acceptable that it is entirely right and fair to destroy someone because you aren’t getting what you want and then openly admit it in writing.

I am not sure at what point people became so disconnected from themselves and others.

Themselves, because it used to be that you were entitled to be a free thinking person as long as your work was okay.  Now there are a myriad of non-related work reasons for you to be abused, and there is no protection of your right to think for yourself.

Others, because at least one person this year has openly suggested that I was doing something wrong by dealing with the family commitments.  The idea of the elderly as refuse to be got out of the way seems to be prevalent with stupid people.  My peer group, on the other hand, have largely taken care of business, despite our declining rights and access to pensions and benefits taken for granted by the selfish and overpaid boomers, who then proceed to have the nerve to complain about the millennials, who largely share their more thoughtless views but for more impressive reasons.

I feel rather fortunate to come from a time when people still connected with each other, who regarded it as shameful to isolate others on the grounds of age, gender or race and who – shock – horror – actually saw each other in person.  Perhaps it is our reliance on technology and interaction with the screen that has reinforced the glass wall?

In any case, I am feeling very confident that what I have to contribute is worthwhile, so I will be spending the near future finishing up unfinished work for Wolfe, Boris, and Little Shiva prior to doing an awful lot of writing.

I am crossing my fingers that the very serious chap hasn’t lost my number.  He does know about Ina, which is rather worrisome, but we live in hope that he can see past that. It is a lot to take in, I do appreciate that, but it is mostly hard work rather than being particularly intrusive.

 

 

 

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Adventures in Venture capitalism

Well we now have a nice overview of American Venture Capitalism, which has been fun over the last few weeks.

For those who don’t understand Venture Capitalism, it takes a number of forms. Cliff Richards is actually a super-scale VC in the UK.  If you want three million or so for a few days to double it, he is your man.

Venture Capitalists are a little bit like high end backgammon players, which naturally takes my fancy, having been around a bit.  High end backgammon players, however, are usually a bit better at statistics.

Taking the Cannabis industry as an example, I have managed to get the views of three VCs on it. They are significantly different.

VC1 is an investor.  He/she thinks that the progressive legalisation for recreational use is a sign that the world is becoming tolerant of the industry in general, and has invested over half of the current financial holdings in one of the main three players.

VC2 is taking a more cautious view, and is anxiously watching to see how many states are planning to allow it for medicinal use, presumably hoping that big pharma takes it on.  It is doubtful that this is going to happen all that soon, since unlike most pharmaceuticals CBD actually helps.

VC3 is my favourite.  VC3 sees the vastly overvalued stocks and goes and has a look at the ‘big’ players in Canada.  VC3 notices that a $45 million dollar company is, in fact, a medium sized shed in a country with poor weather, and realises that investing in Canadian pot is the most crazy investment strategy since the dot com boom. He also notes that the market for medicinal and recreational cannabis is about a tenth of the investments made, and so there is an enormous bubble which is likely to burst.  I rather like VC3.

I am aware of at least two of the ‘big’ Canadian players, and whilst they are very nice chaps, they are unlikely to be creating a vast operation in Canada, given that it is far cheaper to grow pot elsewhere.  It is also unlikely that recreational cannabis is likely to become widespread due to problems with monitoring blood levels of THC. Unlike alcohol, you cannot simply look at a blood test and tell whether someone is high or not.

Also, there were significant interests in banning all hemp products from other industries, since it is very useful.  Thus we can see some parallels with the oil industry and electric cars.  We aren’t going to see a lot of progress with moving on from using oil when oil is still plentiful and in the hands of people who are already very rich.

So, basically when you see a nice clean-cut venture capitalist telling you about their mammoth successes, bear in mind that they are probably investing in literally hundreds of companies on the basis that maybe three of them pay off.  It is a high risk, and sporadically high reward business.

A good VC will tell you that investing ten million in a guy that makes great toast, for example, is self-fulfilling because that ten million will get the guy sufficient exposure and resources to scale his toast making to the point where his business pays off, at least until he pays the interest on the ten million.  If your VC tells you this upfront, however, it is still a good idea to make sure you have evaluated the toast.

 

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The Problem with Banking

The problem with banking is that it requires only followers.  I am not sure how you expect to run efficiently with no leaders.

Without exception every team leader and manager I have met this year has been extremely mean spirited, thoughtless and inefficient.  This is not how to run any kind of business, never mind a business where working within strict guidelines and communication is so important.

I am done with it personally, it is not the fault of any of these people that this industry is in such a cripplingly bad state.

I welcome the disruption of Brexit.  It might actually force things to improve.  As it stands, this is the worst run part of the UK,  because it has been safe for so long.

Also, I have noticed since my hop and skip through the business, is that it is ass-backwards in terms of risk management.  I am not sure why the back end is so tightly managed that nobody is either happy or capable of any initiative, and yet the front facing end, which has by far the highest cost-risk implication is run as if it is of slightly less consequence than the average wine bar.

Please do continue to take on stupid inane people who can’t see beyond the end of their nose, and take an industrial scale nosedive, because frankly this business has so much money that they actively seek ways of disposing of it.  The people who benefit from this are largely very dull witted and there is no way of saving the industry as a result.

There are people starving to death in this country whilst you piss money at the nearest wall.  Personally I look forward to the long awaited reset of wealth and economic reshuffle which we sorely need in the UK and the rest of the western world.

That was a nice break, I think I will go and do some real work with some real people who aren’t closet racist/sexist, closed minded twats with no life to speak of.

For the benefit of my readers, I am doing some editing as I notice my ‘type fast and throw it at you’ technique is not so good for the reader.  Sorry about that, but it takes some front to put the stuff out there, so I tend to work too fast. I don’t enjoy quite a bit of what I do.

 

 

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