Life

[Merus]

Australia usually gets up that high; officially our last election was at 93.9% but there were enough people that entered spoiled or informal votes that the number should be more like 82%.

 

That said, there usually isn't quite so much public engagement in Australia.

 

I think, on balance, that what people were expecting from an independent Scotland wouldn't have been what would have happened. I think that the result they got was the best they could have asked for: Westminster got a hell of a scare that the SNP can use to press more and more concessions, but they also don't have to make the shitty choice of either setting up their own currency that no-one wants and being poor for decades, or jumping on board with either the euro or the pound and having a central bank who won't take the interests of a newly independent country to heart.

 

I think it's entirely possible that Westminster won't make any of the concessions Scotland wants. I think Westminster would be fuckwits if they look at 45% of Scotland voting to never have to deal with Westminster again and decide to antagonise those people, because those people are still voters. And I think there's nothing stopping the SNP from responding to the Better Together arguments that cut through, and prepare for another referendum in a decade.

[brkl]

That's presuming London lets another referendum happen ever after it came this close. Scottish people being voters hasn't been an issue for British governments thus far, so I don't see what's changed now. 

[Yasawas]

This current government shambled over the line on a pathetic turnout and was forced to form a coalition to do it, they had no support here to begin with so discovering the level of discontent toward them doesn't really affect anything. Scotland is too small to influence anything sadly.

 

I'm just incredibly disappointed, I can't put it into words. I'm not quite naive enough to think it would've all been whisky and shortbread but I was willing to take a risk and endure some uncertain times in the hope it would eventually lead to a fairer society than the Tories and UKIP want to march us toward so I don't have to see people queue up at that foodbank across the road from my office day in day out. And we were going to get rid of Trident, and the Orange Order, and stop sending our people to bomb schools in the Middle East and we totally shat it.

 

I've avoided the media this morning as much as possible but I couldn't miss Cameron having already said something about ensuring England gets a bigger say in things or something along those lines, clearly preparing for the inevitable veto of this Devo Max nonsense should it ever even get as far as a vote. I can't even decide if how badly Labour have disgraced themselves in this is a good thing overall as whilst they've been a dead man walking for years now, trading on memories of when they were a party with ideas, they're just going to be one less viable choice in future elections.

 

Still Hyrule Warriors is out today, it's not all bad.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm still waiting on the settlement cheque for that paperwork I filed two weeks ago, and still have no idea when the fibreop guy is going to show up. An electrician was by today to put in a new outlet, but the guy with the actual modem never showed.

 

I hate waiting for things.

 

I've been waiting 3 and a half weeks for internet. Yesterday I called them up again to ask why it's not working and after checking through things with the IT guy he discovered that the technician who installed my line plugged my line into the wrong place. He has no clue where I'm plugged in. It'll take up to five working days to fix this, so I'm going to hit the full month of waiting mark!

 

God I hate the term 'working days'.

[Griddlelol]

Still Hyrule Warriors is out today, it's not all bad.

 

Fuck yeah! Dependence and Zelda. 

 

I am a little disappointed with the result too. Not for the same reasons as a Scots person, but mainly out of curiosity. It would have been absolutely fascinating to see how it worked if there had been a yes vote.

 

The only problem now is that if Devo Max happens, there might be a solid UKIP presence in the House of Commons. Something I'm not particularly excited about (then again, I'm not excited about the current government, nor was I excited about the previous).

[SuperBiasedMan]

And now my internet is here. I guess that shows how you should bitch about things so the world can fix them and make you look stupid.

[Ben X]

My (very long) complaint letter to Plusnet after they took over 6 weeks to install my internet:

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to complain about the extremely poor customer experience I have had with your company since joining.

I joined PlusNet on the 1st August 2013. There was immediately a minor issue where the customer advisor who opened the account for me, despite my having specified not wanting to spend money on my landline, put me on a specific landline tariff for a week in order to allow my £10 discount for the first three months as advertised online. This was mentioned in passing at the end of the phone call, so I did not pick up on it immediately. I called back soon after and was told that this was not necessary at all and that as long as I had a phone line I would get the discount, so I had the tariff taken off again. This, however, is not the crux of my complaint.

After a little confusion with installation dates where at one point I was told that I would get both my phone-line activation and broadband installation done on the 15th August, it transpired that only the phone-line would be done on the 15th and the broadband would be installed on the 20th. As I understand it, the aim is for installation to be done within 10 working days, so this was a little over but not a big issue.

On the 20th, the engineer came round at 12pm, but soon realised that she would not be able to perform the installation due to routing/labelling issues.

I contacted PlusNet and was told that the issue would need to be fixed, then an installation rebooked and expedited. An engineer was sent out to solve the issues not that day or the next, but on the 22nd. The engineer called my landline, directly from the cabinet I believe, on the 22nd at around 8:30am and told me that the issue was now resolved. I posted a response to my Help Assistant question (#72862882) regarding the ongoing issues, advising PlusNet that the issue was resolved and asking that BT therefore be contacted that day instead of the next. I also called to request this. This did not happen and I instead had to wait until the 23rd to be given a new appointment, which was not until the 27th. Despite that being 17 working days, almost an entire month, since I signed with PlusNet, and despite my having made myself available pointlessly once already, PlusNet did not get me a same-day appointment, or one for the Saturday, Sunday or Bank Holiday Monday.

On the 27th, my appointment was for between 8am and 1pm. I had heard nothing by 12:20 and so called PlusNet. I was told that at 10am BT had realised that yet more external work had to be done and so the installation could not be done that day. I had not been contacted by either BT or PlusNet to let me know this. I requested that the issues be solved and a later installation appointment be made for the same day. I later received a call from Lynn telling me that the earliest I could get was the afternoon of the next day, which I accepted. I was told by Lynn that she would monitor the booking to make sure everything went well.

On the 28th, my appointment was for between 1pm and 6pm. I had heard nothing by 3:30pm and so called PlusNet. I was told that around half an hour earlier, BT had realised that there were routing issues that meant the installation could not be completed that day. I had not been contacted by Lynn or indeed anyone at either company to inform me of this, and presumably would not have been until at least 6pm if at all. I was told I would be called back. Soon after, I received a call from Ryan, who told me that the issues would be resolved and a new appointment booked, but that the appointment would be the 30th August at the earliest, more likely the 2nd or 3rd of September. This would make it at least 21 working days and over a month for me from joining PlusNet to having broadband installed in my flat. I again asked for the issues to be solved and a later installation appointment to be made for the same day, but was told that aside from the amount of time needed for the routing system to set itself correctly (“for the robot to do its work”, as Ryan put it), there were also orders and communication that needed to go back and forth between PlusNet and BT. I refused to believe, as I still do, that it was impossible to speed this process up for me any further (in fact, Ryan told me that there is such a thing as a High Level Expedite which I would not receive), and so asked to speak to Ryan’s manager. I spoke to his manager, who also told me there was no way to speed up the process for me but that Ryan was personally looking after my installation now. I implored the manager to give Ryan authorisation to do whatever was needed.

Ryan phoned me on the 29th and told me that an appointment was booked for the 30th. I also received the usual text notification.

On the 30th, my appointment was for between 1pm and 6pm. I had heard nothing by 2pm and called PlusNet to check that BT had not given up yet. I was told that BT had my appointment marked as the 11th September and that I would receive a call back once it had been looked into. It was also mentioned that Lynn had been active on the account since Ryan had spoken to me. I received the call a short while after and was told that BT’s systems were down and that I would receive another call back shortly. An hour or so later, at around 4:30pm, I had not received another call, so I phoned PlusNet only to be told that PlusNet’s systems had gone down in the last ten minutes and that I would receive a call back. Another hour later, I had not received another call, so I phoned PlusNet back and was told their systems were working again. Robert spoke to Ryan and then informed me that someone called James at PlusNet had failed to escalate the appointment to a team manager and so it had not been expedited, and added a comment to my online ‘question’ reflecting this. I was told that Ryan would be calling me back, which he did soon after. Ryan asked me what I had been told by the previous advisors, and then told me that I had been misinformed and that James was at BT and had escalated it correctly, and that the issue was that the routing was still not correct. He told me that it was not even certain whether I could get fibre optic broadband, and that he would need to open another order just to ask BT whether the routing had been corrected. After my call, Ryan sent me a text and added a comment to my question saying that “it would seem the order was not booked as the routing has not yet been corrected on the new order”. I now understand this to mean that BT did not book the appointment as promised but did not make a point of informing anyone.
I next received a call from Ryan not on the 31st or the 2nd, but on the 3rd September, telling me that the routing was now fixed and a new appointment was booked for the 5th September. I asked Ryan what would happen if yet again it turned out that the problem was not fixed after all, and he said he would push BT to fix it on the same day and give me an HLE.

On the 5th, my appointment was for between 8am and 1pm. I phoned PlusNet at 9am to ensure everything was going as planned, and received a call back from Ryan shortly after, telling me that BT had again not booked the appointment as they said they had because the routing was not fixed as they said it was. From Ryan’s description, it seemed to be the exact same issue as on the 20th August. Ryan said he had been dealing with it for the past 40 minutes and would continue to liase with BT and push for the issue to be fixed that day. He told me there was a chance of my installation also happening that day. I received a Question update from Ryan soon after, saying that “we have been advised that a new update will be available in 24 hours time”. This is not what was promised and, rather than me being informed via phone, this disappointing information was slipped in at the bottom of an update otherwise summing up what had already been discussed. Ryan stayed in contact with me via text on the 6th, while he chased BT for updates, and near the end of the day an appointment was made for the Monday. On Monday 9th September, the sixth attempt, my broadband was finally installed successfully.

Throughout this terrible customer experience, the PlusNet advisors I have spoken to have been professional and friendly. However, they have also made errors and generally been unable to react to the ongoing problems with any urgency or initiative. PlusNet as a company has treated me appallingly; there has been an unacceptably long waiting time, poor communication and an insultingly large amount of my and my partner’s time and money wasted.

PlusNet seems to have no systems in place to escalate problematic orders, nor the ability to fast-track any procedures outside of asking BT to expedite an order. As soon as my initial appointment was wasted, my case should have been marked as needing special attention. When my second appointment was missed, someone at a high enough level at PlusNet should have been communicating directly and constantly with someone at a high enough level at BT to make sure my installation happened as soon as physically possible. By the time the third appointment was missed, someone at least another level up should have been involved. By the time the fourth appointment was missed, PlusNet should have had a senior manager tracking my account minute-to-minute and doing whatever necessary to cut out all delays until I had my broadband installed.

I was told regularly that it is all BT’s fault and there is nothing PlusNet can do in these situations. This does not help me as a PlusNet customer and makes me feel as if I am dealing with the middle-man: with a company that cannot control whether it provides the services it promises. PlusNet needs at the very least a more flexible system of operations with BT so that, in situations such as this, a PlusNet employee is not bound to long waiting times and wading through red tape in order to make any inter-company communication and is able to speed things up beyond an appointment expedite. Indeed, BT seemed at times to be actively deceiving PlusNet, telling them that issues were fixed and appointments were booked only for it to be discovered too late that they were not; the person affected every time by this utter lack of inter-company communication was me, the PlusNet customer.
The lack of organisation that led to engineers needing at least eight different bookings (my four appointments plus the bookings in between them to ostensibly repair the system for those appointments) to resolve a single issue is staggering. On the second appointment, enough engineers should have been assigned to ensure that any and all problems arising on the day could be identified and dealt with immediately until installation was possible.

I have unnecessarily missed five days at work. As I am on a temporary contract, this is not annual leave I am losing, it is actual pay; it roughly amounts, in fact, to the five £50 penalties for missing an appointment that I was threatened with by PlusNet via text. My partner works in IT and she works from home, requiring a broadband connection; she has instead had to frequent cafes with WiFi for the past month, spending money on food and drinks to facilitate this. We have also had to buy a WiFi dongle for £30 to allow for some basic internet access at home. Counting our costs from the 15th August, which would have been ten working days from my joining PlusNet, this amounts to at least £300.

I think the very least PlusNet can do to make up for my dreadful experience is to compensate me for these costs, either by cheque or bank transfer, or by credit to my PlusNet account. I would also be glad as a PlusNet customer to receive some reassurance that all these issues will be investigated and solutions considered.


Yours faithfully,
Ben Ward

[Gwardinen]

I can't even decide if how badly Labour have disgraced themselves in this is a good thing overall as whilst they've been a dead man walking for years now, trading on memories of when they were a party with ideas, they're just going to be one less viable choice in future elections.

 

Honestly, this kind of freaks me out. I've been thoroughly unhappy with most of the decisions of this Conservative government, but as you said, Labour doesn't seem like a viable choice either anymore. And after the insane flipflop of the Liberal Democrats upon forming this coalition... well, it's hard to imagine most people trusting them again for quite some time.

 

Now some may say "well now you finally have license to vote for someone other than the big three!". That's true, and from a certain perspective it's appealing. But considering that there are still more than enough party diehards to really fuck things up by never pausing for a moment to consider their vote, I can't help but foresee a huge mess during the next election, and fringe groups like UKIP and the BNP growing stronger for it. It's genuinely kind of worrying.

[MrHoatzin]

Is it just me or is government in general everywhere super suspect? Third parties (or fourth or whatever) are only uncorrupted because they have been away from power forever. In the US there hasn't been a way to vote for any kind of substantive change in 50 years, with left or right governments, and this is increasingly evident to a lot of people. It could be that I am relatively lonely in seeing through the smoke and mirrors and live in a bubble/echo chamber of disaffection.

Anyway, I look at Yugoslavia. Breaking that mess up didn't solve anything, it just allowed local demagogues to rip their people off. Since the Roman empire, peoples around Europe have looked to sovereignty as the panacea to all the oppression and it has yet to really work. Sovereignty being a little Roman empire to call our own. So even with sovereignty we're all still under capitalism. Even 20th century communism was a kind of capitalism when you think about it, a bureaucratic capitalism, with an elite ruling the masses of commodified labor.

So TLDR, fuck the state in general. Individual clowns inside the machine, whichever team they play for, just fucking won't help us.

[JonCole]

Anyone know of any good books about modern (1900 or so on) UK politics? I know literally nothing about it and am mildly curious in enriching myself in this particular topic.

[tegan]

I just called my (now former) insurance company. My cheque hasn't even been sent yet. What the hell? It's scheduled to be sent today and arrive on Monday (Wednesday at the latest), but it seriously took more than two weeks tor them to even send it when they promised it would be in my hands within seven business days? Argh.

[Dewar]

My (very long) complaint letter to Plusnet after they took over 6 weeks to install my internet:

 

I'm curious, did you end up getting your credit?

[Ben X]

I'm curious, did you end up getting your credit?

 

I got £150 into my bank account.

[tegan]

 

 

This captcha legitimately made me feel better about my day.

[Mangela Lansbury]

Anyone know of any good books about modern (1900 or so on) UK politics? I know literally nothing about it and am mildly curious in enriching myself in this particular topic.

 

I've only read a Thatcher biography by John Campbell and the Rivals by James Naughtie. The first was a good biography of Thatcher and the second was a decent book about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

 

Lawrence in Arabia has some insight into British politics in the Middle East during World War 1, but it's not really focused on any particular player so much as that front of the conflict in general (and, obviously, Lawrence of Arabia's role in it). I think a Savage War of Peace has some information about the British attempt to seize the Suez canal in the 50s, but it's almost exclusively about France and Algeria doing their thing. The start of the Cairo Trilogy can give you some insight into British Egypt, but they're novels -- really good novels, but still novels. I've read a good history of the 1919 revolution there but I'd have to call the people I left my books with when I moved to get the title of it. Then there are all the WWII histories that, again, are more about the war in general than UK politics specifically...

 

That broad a subject is really hard to cater recommendations to.

[Bjorn]

This captcha legitimately made me feel better about my day.

 

:tup:

 

 

That's a fantastic idea for a captcha.

[aprettycooldude]

I got this sweet ink last weekend and the itching is starting to finally die down and the healing has begun. Can't wait to go back for color in a month!

 

[Gwardinen]

That is a pretty large and detailed tattoo. How long were you in for?

[Codicier]

Anyone know of any good books about modern (1900 or so on) UK politics? I know literally nothing about it and am mildly curious in enriching myself in this particular topic.

 

You could try The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli. I read this book a while back and although its a bit earlier than the sort of time period you mentioned I found it to be a enjoyable snapshot of two of the founding fathers of British politics.

[aprettycooldude]

About four hours? A little bit under, I want to say 3:45, but it's definitely gonna be another 4-5 in the chair to get the rest of the shading and color done.

[tegan]

Wind fish?

[aprettycooldude]

Yup! I think the left side of my body is going to end up mostly Zelda tattoos; I've got a small shoulder piece that's the crest surrounded by a band of color that fades from blue->green->red->blue and the three pearls. This is a full calf piece, and then I need to think pretty heavily about what I want to do as a sleeve.

[tegan]

When you run out of space for big things, you should fill in the gaps with the Hyrule field ground texture.

[miffy495]

Quoting these from several pages back so I don't need to re-explain:

 

I don't know how it works with other boards, but I have a woman at the downtown office who works kind of like an agent. She has me on file as a young male teacher who wants to work with elementary students, and any time a job that would fit that comes up, she advocates on my behalf to the principal of that school, at which point I go in for an interview. If I get a temporary contract, when that contract runs out I default back to the substitute teacher list and take calls until the next contract rolls around. Right now I am without contract, but have had a few interviews and will probably get something in the next few months. Maternity leaves happen kind of a lot. I am working for the school board still, despite having no formal job, and am expected to be available to work as a sub a minimum of three days a week (so taking any other work aside from Friday nights/Saturday days at a Starbucks as I currently am is not an option). I am employed by the school board until I (or they, I suppose) decide that I'm not anymore, so I don't need to reapply or anything. I just go back into reserves when I'm not on full-time.

 

 

It's not THAT weird. As it's my second year as a professional, I'm stuck in the temp cycle, where I go from temporary contract (usually a maternity leave) to sub roster and back to temp contract for a few years. After a while, the stars may align and a principal likes me, has me on staff as a temp, and has enough budget to make a real position for me. At that point, I will be offered a probationary contract. This is just a fancy way of saying that I have my very own class rather than taking over someone else's because they have to be away for a while. After two years of probationary contract, they have to decide to either boot me back to the sub roster or give me a permanent contract, at which point I will only ever be a sub again if I choose to be and, even when switching schools, they have to have a full position for me. Kinda like elementary school tenure.

 

At the moment, I don't feel slighted by this. I have exactly one year of experience and don't feel like I've been "on top" of anything for any time. I've been told that I'm talented by a lot of people, but there is SO MUCH that I have no idea about just due to a lack of experience. Having a good rapport with kids and an enthusiasm for the subjects your teaching is one of the most important things, and I've got that, but there are loads of practical things that I can only get good at by bouncing around and experiencing as much as I can in this temp cycle while I'm here.

 

So today I was hired for a probationary contract. I did not know that the interview was for this going in, and assumed that I was being called up because of another short notice maternity leave. I went through the interview, talked about everything fairly well apparently, and about 6 hours later was told that I got it. I will be starting on Monday as a fifth grade teacher at a middle school. Given that everyone has been telling me that I'm best suited to upper elementary, I'm not surprised, but the school's demographic being ages 10 - 14 is going to be an interesting time. The big thing is that it only took me a year to break out of the temp cycle. I have effectively skipped what for many teachers is a years-long process before getting their own class made for them. The backstory to this job is that the school originally planned on having 4 grade 5 classes, but had a rush of applicants in late summer/early fall and has now decided to split those four classes into five. This means I'm not taking over anyone's job, this is my own class. This is the best thing I could possibly hope for at this point in my career. I am terrified, but from descriptions the grade five team (four teachers who were already there) is awesome and it will be a similar experience to what I was so successful in during the first term of last year. This is a big, big deal. I think I'm going to be sick.

[Badfinger]

Boo my emoticon idea didn't work because the forums said I used too many, so...

 

                 

 

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