The old adage that if you play with fire, you will get burned has always beeen true.
But never more apt than for our NHS and care workers on the front-line dealing with patients who have the virus.
My daughter Laura has been working on the front-line since people started being hospitalised with the symptoms in early March.
She texted me a few weeks ago to tell me that she had tested positive for the virus and sent me a copy of the positive test.
Obviously I called her immediately.
The year has barely started and I’m out of one job and starting another already.
But did he jump or was he pushed?
Did he quit or resign?
A bit of both really. But when push cane to shove I got in first!
Well I was already on the look and had today’s fresh start lined up. A 6 month contract as a Solution Architect at a major financial institution in Edinburgh at a day rate that’s hard to refuse.
Yes I can be bought! 😀
Truth be told though, that last job was a nightmare.
I was bored rigid. Yet somehow squeezed between a rock and a hard place based at a demanding customer site with lack of support from the consultancy down south.
No moans, no slagging off, that’s below me and the job served a purpose of knowing what I don’t want to do but enjoying the easy commute of being back in Glasgow for 6 months.
My probation period is up this Friday coming. My manager made a point of coming up to see me last week.
I knew what was coming. So I got in first.
Now I’m on “garden leave” and they’re paying me for the month.
Whoop-De-Doo!
Shame they don’t know I already had this contract lined up.
Now I find myself heading east towards Edinburgh and looking back in time to the many occasions that I’ve worked there and did this commute before.
The train is much less stressful than the car. A breeze by comparison and gives one time to relax, a bit of browsing, reading or writing.
Looking forward to today, a little bit anxious like any new start, but I’ve did this many times before.
I’m tempted to say .. wish me luck .. but in this life you make your own.
Happy New Year!
Do you hate working for a living?
I don’t, I’m not over keen on forcing myself to get up and out every day, dragging my sorry ass into an office to do something that even if it is creative and pays well, isn’t what I’d really be doing
i.e. lying on a beach
I’m back in Glasgow after 2.5 years out at a Global Communications company in Livingston, it’s good to be close to home, an easy commute and back home for 5:30pm allows you to have a bit of a life .. or put your feet up in front of tv if you so desire.
But I’m bored, there isn’t enough of a challenge and now after 4 months it all feels quite repetitive .. and the pay isn’t what I’m used to.
Still, beggars and choosers eh? Sometimes the lucrative contract work just isn’t around in these testing times and you just need to take what you can get and be thankful that some corporate provider helps keep the wolf away from the door.
But last week, I did an interview with a major pensions and investments company in Edinburgh, a second interview on Tuesday on the phone and today I got the job.
It’s a positive doozy .. or in Glaswegian .. a Belter!!
A better day rate than I’ve ever had, even before the economy crashes of 2001 and 2008 and we started bringing in workforce from all over the globe which provided the supply to fill demand and kill wages.
Happy daze .. I made a fortune back then .. enough to pay off the mortgage, a wife and later a partner .. but lets not go there.
A fool and his .. yep you betcha!
But here’s the rub, is it all about the money?
Is it ever all about the money? or is it always about the money?
What about the quality of life? Getting home at a decent hour and being able to .. what? I don’t really do much in the evening anyway.
But the reality is, working in Edinburgh will get me home at 7pm. Do I really want to go back to that? Not really.
Is there a balance?
I don’t think so and I’m not going to start asking about working from home before I’ve even started .. as a contractor that might be a bad sign.
I’ve told them I’ll confirm on Monday.
But next year I have a daughters wedding to pay for and you know how this is going to end.
This new job is like a prison.
It entraps you, cages you, expects certain aspects of discipline and timekeeping.
It enforces a dress code, smart trousers and a shirt for men or a dress or trousers and blouse for women.
No jeans allowed.
Or so they say.
I’m wearing jeans, smart dark blue ones with a Ted Baker shirt and tan boots.
It’s how I roll and fuck them if they want me to change.
The place is empty until just before 9am and has a Le Mans start at 5pm with people already having been to the loo, washed their cups, packed their laptop and cleared their desks waiting for the clock to tick-tick onto the hour.
I’ve never seen a place empty so quickly, Well not since my shipyard days when there wasn’t any overtime on the go.
Certainly not in an office setting.
It’s pointless waiting on the lifts at 5pm as the upper floors fill them. I’m on the 5th and the executives are on the 11th. Somewhere in between the lifts are packed. It’s the stairs for me.
Gets the steps up anyway!
A new day, a new chapter. No more working in Livingston with a 3 hour daily commute.
I’m back working in central Glasgow … Yay!!
Back to that horrible ugly city I love so well.
Horrible? Ugly?
Well by comparison with Rome, Florence, Barcelona etc.
But I guess even those cities have their dark seedy sides.
That’s not to say that Glasgow doesn’t have its beauty, of course it does.
The Kelvingrove art galleries, Peoples Palace, Gallery of Modern Art, Burrell Collection, House for an Art Lover, Science Museum, Transport Museum.
But enough of the culture!
Glasgow is a people city, great shopping streets full of bars and restaurants. Many many music venues including 3 large arenas, the Hydro, Exhibition Centre and Clyde Auditorium within stepping distance of each other.
Then there’s the football. Celtic Park, Ibrox and Hampden.
Glasgow is also the gateway to the beautiful Loch Lomond and the highlands.
So it might not be the prettiest city .. but what’s not to love?
It’s like going out with a fat girl she might not be the best looking but she has inner beauty and nice tits! 🙂
Anyway, I’m back on the train, a 10 minutes train ride to the city centre and back writing again.
Between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea?
Alternatively titled .. Dead Man Walking .. or should that be Dead Man Wanking?
Why wanking? Read on ..
It’s been a while since I wrote any of my nonsense, I’ve been busy, working too hard over the past year and not even had a week off since the Easter furlough back in April 2018, when for one reason or another I didn’t get off on holiday anywhere.
Even at Christmas and New Year, I only had 2 days and 1 day off work respectively.
That’s pretty unhealthy really.
There’s been reasons, a big project consuming my time, it went live in April and if you use the global companies services in the UK, then you’’ll most likely be processed by it. I’m quite proud of it.
Add on top of the 10 hour day an extra 2 hours for commuting, It’s way too long, for far too long.
But that’s about to change,
I’m a contractor, self-employed, I love working myself, but the powers that be here want to reduce their budget and have employed a couple of staff replacements. They guy who is my direct replacement is a complete prick, loud-mouthed, thinks he’s clever, tries too hard to impress, talks when he should be listening and sticks his foot in it big time.
Now I’m a dead man walking, my contract is up in 2 weeks’ time and I’m not being fed any new work, just handing over to big-mouth.
Or is that dead man wanking, as all I’m doing now is fucking about and trying to keep myself looking busy.
The good thing about this job is I’ve banked a few quid, well I had until a few weeks ago when I paid the mortgage off.
A 6 figure mortgage is a £700pm payment vs 6 figures in the bank and £40pm interest.
A no brainer really, why pay the bank when they don’t pay you?
No mortgage .. Free at last, free at last, thank The Lord almighty, I’m free at last!.
Well I ‘m mortgage free, still got a few quid in the bank and it will be fantastic to have a break for a while.
I might even take off the full summer, I think I deserve it.
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PS – Weren’t the Celtic shit at the weekend .. getting well beat by the new team in blue that plays out of Ibrox.
A clear out is required., drop the dead-wood, the has-beens and the never-beens.
On the plus side, we have the money in the bank to make the changes, but is there the will?
Work, work, work …
Rain, rain, rain ….
Home, home, home …
Again, again, again …
I’ve not been doing much writing recently … kinda missing it.
Working too hard, long hours, long commute, tired all the time and too many other things to do.
This job .. which I quite enjoy at a technical level.. is sucking the life out of me.
I’ve always been a bit healthily disdainful towards my work, I work for a living, not the other way around.
But that no longer seems to be possible in the world we live in. Where we used to have a knowledge gap and those with that knowledge were in demand and could command the bigger bucks, has been replaced by a culture where businesses can pull in that knowledge from other parts of the world on demand without considering the longer term consequences.
If younger generations don’t get the opportunity or the infrastructure or health system can’t support the influx then it’s not their problem.
That’s a general trend, but it’s this place, the Dickensian working practices, 8 hour days not including the mandatory hour for lunch, the 2-3 hour commute.
The day just seems so long .. Every day seems so long .. Tired .. Driving in rain and dark skies and not seeing the sunshine.
I need a holiday.
I need a change.
Like an alcoholic or some other behaviour addict .. the first step to making that change is to realise that you have a change to make.
It’s important to remember that even when it doesn’t seem possible, we always have a choice.
Now if I can only be arsed updating that CV and getting it out there.
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The lyrics above are from Town to Be Blamed by Deacon Blue from their Raintown album, a personal favourite album and legendary around these parts with its image of Glasgow on the cover just at a time when dark, grey, stormy Glasgow put on some new clothes to become the European City Of Culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raintown_(album)
I currently work for this global communications company based in Central Scotland, if you live in the UK, you probably use or have used its services as they have a tight grip on some of the best available premium content.
You might know the place, very technical, a bigger technical base than any of the banks that I’ve worked for with the exception of JP Morgan.
I’m a contractor, self-employed and run a small personal services company ( ooooh-err missus ) for tax efficiency purposes.
Did you hear that? Tax-efficiency purposes?
What does that mean?
Well efficiency in a physics sense is defined as the ratio to energy in vs energy out.
In this context, it’s the amount of money that my company earns vs the amount of cash that I abscond with . take home .. by reducing my tax and national insurance rather than paying full PAYE.
Where do you stand on this gender pay gap?
Do you believe there is such a thing?
If you do then you’re probably female and an idiot and too stupid to think past the headlines.
Still reading?
Good for you, I’m glad you’re still with me and my flippancy hasn’t made you run away like a cry baby.
Even more so if you’re female, I’m glad you stayed. You’ve got balls! 🙂
Let me explain why there is no gender pay gap for the hard of understanding.
Firstly, to pay men and woman different rates for the same job is illegal in most of the civilised world and has been in the UK since 1970 and the US since 1963.
Secondly, although it’s true in the statistics published yesterday, see link below, which provides details of the differences in mean and median pay between male and female employees, The reason that there is a difference is because of the roles that each gender is predominantly employed in with males having more senior or higher paid technical roles.
So let me condense that for you. There is no gender pay gap, Any comparison is invalid because you are comparing apples with oranges.
The difference in mean or median earnings is because women are underrepresented in the higher paid roles, That can’t be solved by employing people based on gender because higher paid roles are based on ability and education, not gender.
Note that employing people based on gender is also illegal.
That difference in education and ability between individuals paid higher or lower rates regardless of gender comes down to personal choice, effort and ability.
Am I saying that women are less capable than men?
Are you fucking mad? Of course not.
As a father of a son and two daughters, I’d never under underestimate the capabilities of my daughters, quite the opposite, my goal is to help educate them academically and in the school of life so that they succeed in their chosen careers.
After that it comes down to their choice and if they choose a lower paying position, then it’s not because they are less capable, It’s because that’s the choices they made.
Condensing and generalising that …
Hard or in demand degree = Maths, IT, Accountancy, Medicine. Law, Engineering = Well paid career.
Easy or less in demand Degree = Media studies, social science, history = low paid job.
Apprenticeship = Decent income based on ability particularly if self employed.
No education = it’s not the end, but it’s not going to be easy.
As I explained to my kids, it’s their choice, but there are long term consequences.
Of course education isn’t everything, there are lots of people making decent bucks without a degree, skilled plasterers, plumbers, builders, salespeople. People earning because of their individual abilities. Not bleating about invalid comparisons because they didn’t make an effort.
Let’s imagine a man is in a low paid job, he looks at his company and sees that he’s in the lower quartile, Why is that? It will be most likely because he didn’t try too hard at school, not because he’s got a dick.
But one things for sure, he’ll get on with it and not act like a fucking victim.
Besides, here’s the truth, If you’re not happy with your job and want more pay, ask yourself, how do I do that? Then make the effort and change it. It’s really up to you.
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UK Government data on all companies with over 250 employees
https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk
An excellent info graphic from Sky clarifies it’s not gender, but representation.
https://www.skygroup.sky/corporate/media-centre/articles/en-gb/Sky-releases-Gender-Pay-Gap-Report
Jonathon Pie interviewing a feminist condenses the argument
The fat family.
Two men and a woman, all mid-50’s, white hair, podgy faces and bodies.
They moved up to my area recently, currently seated directly facing me two banks of desks away.
I don’t know anything about these people, I’m sure they are lovely, intelligent, hard-working, all that good stuff.
But here’s what I noticed .. they all look exactly the same .. like some sort of clones who have been fed a strict diet of McDonalds.
Face, body, hair … All very similar.
Demeanour?
Absolutely no idea .. apart from the fact that they talk non-stop and are constantly stuffing their already fat faces.
Do you think that they are good people are bad people?
Get real for fucks sakes!
How can you possibly make such a decision on so little information?
Of course they are good people, holding down a job, earning a living for their families.
Even if it is just the one family! 🙂
But don’t confuse being fat or old or grey with being incapable.
That would only say more about you than them.
DancingBhoy 