Monday 24 November 2008

Cigerattes and alcohol and more fucking taxes!





Every year since Caesar battered Pompey there has been an increase in taxes on fags and alcohol. The British finance dude has just announced he is lowering VAT to 15%, a 2.5 drop and to make up for this loss of money he is dumping it on beer and fags. Its the same bullshit in Ireland. How are we going to make more money? Were going to take it off the people who like to have a good time! Well fuck them im off to france to stock up on beer and fags in a transvit van, lets hope I dont get caught.

Friday 7 November 2008

Engerland Part 1

Its been just over a year since I said a tearful goodbye to my mother and father at Dublin Airport. Its still very fresh in my memory. I had been to London for a three day seminar/interview. The interview consisted of making the hangman game in unix and convincing the sales team you had some social skills. I was given two days to do it and I was really struggling. Near the end one of the first day, one of the other hopefuls gave me some of his code and I kicked on from there. I dont know if I had writers block or nerves or what but once I had a few lines down I was flying. Two very late nights writing code into the wee hours followed and I finally finished Wednesday morning at 2am with something which I thought was decent.

I woke up late for my third day on the course. Half the candidates had not even bothered coming in the third day. We were called one by one from the training room to explain our code to some guru who would give Toners a good run for title of King of the Nerds. After he had ripped me apart for a good hour on unix code I was told I had been accepted. I was pretty ecstatic, I rang my mother and told her before I had even left the building. She was really happy for me and then told me she would be sad to see me go. It only really hit me then that I was leaving. I was on a train to Gatwick to fly back to Ireland but in two weeks I was leaving Ireland for the forseeable future.

I left Ireland for several reasons. After living in Spain for 6 months after Uni it was hard to go back to living at home, I wanted my own space. I had been unsuccessful in landing a job I actually wanted in Ireland. At the time I was temping for the government and was giving serious consideration to taking up a full time job in the civil service. (Not to be confused with my work for Dublin Council, where Toners worked me like a slave) In ways the civil service would have suited me perfectly. It was very relaxed and so was I. My boss basically did his own thing and I did mine. I can remember one week when I didnt even reply to an email or open any work related post. I was a bit of a lazy bastard and thought a year or two abroad fending for myself would serve me well. The consultancy I joined also promised to get me good work at a blue chip client. I also quite liked the idea of living in London.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

News from management!



EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 1, 2008

NEW OFFICE POLICY

Dress Code:
1) You are advised to come to work dressed according to
your salary.

2) If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a
Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially
and therefore do not need a raise.

3) If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your
money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and
therefore you do not need a raise.

4) If you dress just right, you are right where you need
to be and therefore you do not need a raise.

Sick Days:
We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof
of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year.
They are called Saturdays & Sundays.

Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet.
There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the
stalls. At the end of three minutes, a n alarm will
sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall
door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your
second offense, your picture will be posted on the
company bulletin board under the 'Chronic Offenders'
category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be
sectioned under the company's mental health policy.

Lunch Break:

* Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need
to eat more, so that they can look healthy.

* Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a
balanced meal to maintain their average figure.

* Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that's
all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.

Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here
to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore,
all questions, comments, concerns, complaints,
frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations,
allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation
and input should be directed elsewhere.

The Management
Pass this on to all who are employed!

Monday 3 November 2008

play.com is my bastard site of the week!




I was browsing around Amazon, picking up some books for a penny and then paying £2.80 for it to posted when I decided to go have nosey on play.com (another busy day in work) . I noticed they have a new section labelled tickets. It appears anyone and everyone can put their tickets up for sale on play.com. I didn't read into the details and whether you have to pay them a fee for using their site but the fact they are actually doing this has really pissed me off.

I have always refused to buy off touts on principle but its getting all too easy for them now. They dont even have to go out in the pissing rain on the day of the event to try and flog the damn things. I noticed two tickets for the Kings of Leon at Bournemouth and the owner wanted 500 for the pair.

Ticketmaster are not doing enough to combat this nonsense. Last year at Glastonbury you had to upload a photo that was then printed onto your ticket. I dont see why TicketMaster cant have a user database that holds users photos and then prints them onto tickets. If this meant I had to pay an additional two or three quid for the ticket (due to rise in price of printing your pic on the ticket) I would rather pay it than see sites like play.com make money touting tickets.