Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Banners]

Ouch. That feeling when you slowly come to realise things aren't what they seem is horrid.

Just had a 25MB attachment clogging up my email, which came with the message "will also send over wetransfer too as it's quite a large file..." Note the use of "too" rather than "instead". Grrr...

[Dandontdare]

submit 16 blank pages and an invoice and tell them it's finished "apart from the backgrounds and the characters"

[Grugz]

finally had enough of forbidden planet international's online service... whats the point of pre-ordering something then being repeatedly told its been delayed..then going to the actual shop and finding loads in stock! this has happened 4 times now so that's it.done.

[Tjm86]

Considering some of the news on the board this weekend this definitely comes under the heading of 'minor'. 

Had a job interview on Thursday but got cut loose after the lesson.  Fair enough, thanks for not wasting my time.  Feedback was useful.  Out of the blue I get an email from the head to say that they would like to offer a temporary contract and would I come in talk about it.  The original post was permanent but curious to know what had changed.  Agree to meeting to discuss it since it doesn't commit to anything.  Further email from the head with more feedback, including the fact that my current head did not provide a particularly good reference.   

Positive feeling about offer vs negative reference.

[Something Fishy]

that's good re the offer but the negative is a concern as they are really not allowed to do that these days.  Could you approach head and ask what his concerns were and why he didn't bring them to you (in a nice way)?

[Tjm86]

Legally they have to be accurate and factual so yes it is possible for an employer to give you a bad reference.  The current head is not exactly the most approachable person and she has done it to several other people.  The new head said that it was something that we could discuss when we meet.

Wait and see I guess.

[Something Fishy]

True but I know they have to be very careful and most prefer just to say you worked for them. It seems now it's either a positive reference or just reference. It's unusual these days. 

[Tjm86]

Aye, I know.  See what I find out tomorrow and go from there.  She's retiring at the end of term anyway but it depends on what was in it.

[Something Fishy]

Good luck with it.  Hopefully you can get something and build from there.

[The Legendary Shark]

They obviously gave you a negative reference because they don't want to lose you... Best of luck, though, I hope all goes well.

[DaveGYNWA]

Working with a customer (outsourced to us by O2/Telefonica, but they are managing the customer) last week on a mass rollout of ~900 iPads, all managed by the software of which my previous employers (BlackBerry) are the creators. After the first 50 devices, we spotted a major issue which I quickly found the cause for and implemented a workaround ("yeah, that little thing where we import all these users in to the system then activate them.....sorry, they have to be added manually now so do you have a lowly grunt available to do this?")

So I worked with O2 on documenting the issue, providing analysis of the cause and the workaround (and  crucially....100% reproducible steps so that they can reproduce this in their test lab) and they report it to BlackBerry. That was Friday morning....during that day there were a few back and forths to clarify things (things that are actually in the report, if they bothered to read it properly) and then they proceeded with testing. And all testing so far has failed to reproduce the issue - they've had their testing team work on it over the weekend, and performed 'multiple' tests and 0% reproduction.

Been scratching my head this morning on this one - so I get the BlackBerry support guys on the phone and go through the reproduction steps with them and instantly highlight their issue. Wrong version of server software, and totally wrong application installed on the device.

5 minutes after the call - oh, we've reproduced the issue now. Muppets.

[Theblazeuk]

They obviously gave you a negative reference because they don't want to lose you... Best of luck, though, I hope all goes well.

Yeah, that would be my guess. Ask for the reference in full.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

I have a chest infection; I've had a cough for three months and was nagged by my wife into going to the doctors last week. I am taking an antibiotic: Doxycycline.

Thing is, no one told me* that one of its side effects is that it makes you "phototoxic".

That means you burn in the sun as if your flesh was magnesium. Combine that with (a) a Glasgow tan at the best of times; (b) a bank holiday; and (c) six hours in the park with my boys, and now I look like Red Skull and feel like Ghost Rider.

Oh, and to make things worse, my missus is a pharmacist. When I said I felt a little burny, she dead-panned "oh yeah, you probably shouldn't have been out in the sun today if you're taking those antibiotics."

Now I know how Dracula feels on a sunny morning.


*OK, the pharmacy label stuck on the box says "do not expose skin to direct sunlight" but, come on, who reads the label?

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

They obviously gave you a negative reference because they don't want to lose you... Best of luck, though, I hope all goes well.

Yeah, that would be my guess. Ask for the reference in full.

You're entitled to this. If they don't cough up, make a request under the Data Protection Act.

[Fungus]

I have a chest infection; I've had a cough for three months and was nagged by my wife into going to the doctors last week. I am taking an antibiotic: Doxycycline.

Thing is, no one told me* that one of its side effects is that it makes you "phototoxic".

That means you burn in the sun as if your flesh was magnesium. Combine that with (a) a Glasgow tan at the best of times; (b) a bank holiday; and (c) six hours in the park with my boys, and now I look like Red Skull and feel like Ghost Rider.

Oh, and to make things worse, my missus is a pharmacist. When I said I felt a little burny, she dead-panned "oh yeah, you probably shouldn't have been out in the sun today if you're taking those antibiotics."

Now I know how Dracula feels on a sunny morning.


*OK, the pharmacy label stuck on the box says "do not expose skin to direct sunlight" but, come on, who reads the label?

Call yourself a doctor...