Eh?
Diabolical non-sequitur.
79 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2010
"Said chat started at 15:40, and didn't finish until 19:00"
There's your problem right there. Don't allow them anything like this amount of time. Either they can beat it or they can't. Once they've failed to beat it, tell them your contract is cancelled and put the phone down. Once you've sent an email informing them of their failure to cancel according to contract you're free to cancel your direct debit. Screw giving them any more than 10 minutes of your time!
Unfortunately they do have some sway, at least over any early retirees, because it is they who make the rules. So instead of requiring 35 years' NI contributions to qualify for a full state pension, they'll simply increase the number of qualifying years required. You must be fortunate enough to have youth on your side if you think that the populace ever gets on over on the government.
Yeah, this. People are talking the talk at the moment, but would they walk the walk if every employer demanded at least some time in the office, I very much doubt it. All this talk of 'oh, I'm way more productive in the office' is a red herring. Individuals may be more productive, but teams as a whole won't be. Imagine starting a new job as a graduate at the moment, with a steep learning curve, and no-one in the office to ask those 'off the cuff' questions from which so much can be learnt. As a profession, if we work from home all the time we are conning the younger folk out of their career progression, and it's our failure, not theirs.
My job's going great thanks,
Just because I think you should pay your taxes doesn't mean that I have a chip on my shoulder, I earn an excellent salary and pay my way in society. You, on the other hand, seem proud that you are scamming society out of the contribution that you should be making. Your tax regimen i(f it matches what I described in my OP) may be legal, but it's immoral as hell. How's your conscience?
Yay say all the contractors, now we can go back to paying ourselves minimum wage, employing the wife/hubby as a director, and paying a big juicy divvy. All while simultaneously berating big tech for not paying their taxes, and being indignant at anyone who questions their own tax regime
There you go again, complaining that a comparatively high salary is not enough. 80k (top 5%) is a decent salary by any standards, it's over 4x minimum wage, and well over half the population dream of earning only half of that. Also, the 'if you count how much effort it takes to earn it' really exposes a quite deluded attitude, sitting on your arse for 8 hours a day, toiling at the keyboard (which is what I do too) is hardly 'hard' work. It's sometimes tiring, and can be stressful, but it's not roofing in the middle of summer, or mining coal is it? We get paid extremely well for what we do (in comparison to the vast majority), stop bloody whinging!
I don't have an 'I'm lucky to have this job' mindset, I have an 'I'm lucky to be in a position to be able to negotiate a good salary (according to my skills, ability and experience) in a profession that I quite like' mindset. It helps keep me grounded enough such that I don't start to believe that I'm trapped in some sort of indentured servitude when I earn more than 95% of the population. It also helps me to negotiate well with new/existing employers such that I don't feel that I'm underselling my contribution. The way you complain is to leave and get a better job, either pay or conditions, or even both. Or you actually start that business in spite of the IR35 laws, rather than use them as an excuse for inaction and bitching.
Did you really just equate a salary of up to 150k with modern slavery? While they are not monumental, these salary bands are double the national average at a minimum, so calling them laughable is an insult to all the poor buggers who get by on minimum wage, or at best an actual 20-30k. Poor you that you can only stuff your isa through the years. I don't suggest that they are high salaries, but I'm lucky to be in one of the bands that are mentioned and live a dammed sweet life in comparison to the great majority of folks where I live. If you think your salary is too low then why don't you just Jack it in and offer yourself to the highest bidder? Or stop whining and start that bloody business? Entitled much?
"Had Norton on this laptop since I bought it in 2013, with an I7 cpu and upraded to 16GB Ram and a 2TB EVO 860 SSD, converted the optical drive to HDD, runs perfectly for what I need"
That's the IT equivalent of putting your cock size at the end of a PM
Are there really a majority of commentards supporting ostracisation of people who decide not to have the vaccine? It is a personal choice, and those who refuse it will eventually gain immunity or death after catching covid. Keep your condescending opinions to yourself and let them make that choice. I've had my vaccines, and if you've had yours then why the bloody hell do you think you have the right to force/coerce (or whatever word you want to use) others to bend to your will.
Nice strawman there, your analogy isn't correct at all, I wasn't praising him for anything other than showing up Hancock for the knobhead that he is, and he certainly hasn't been a despotic dictator at all. I found the Barnard Castle thing appalling at best, and definitely indicative of the entitlement that you mention. However, he's said these things as part of a parliamentary inquiry, with those who he mentioned also as 'witnesses' in this enquiry, so we'll soon see if there is any truth if anyone corroborates his versions of events. You seem to imply that Cummings is a tory, he is at most a tory sympathiser, but we don't actually know that do we? He certainly isn't a politician! I tend to hate tories with a passion, so please don't imagine I would ever truly support one, but Cummings is allegedly shining a light on all of this corrupt and crappy government, so I don't really understand why you think his speaking out is not a good thing, regardless of whether it comes from a personal vendetta.
"I will bet the former Prime Ministerial string puller utters not one word to implicate himself as a part of the covid cluckfuster"
Well he did actually say that he was included in the group that had utterly let the country down, and also gave an explicit apology for that, so it's better than anyone else has managed. Still wouldn't trust him though :-)
Anyone that shines a light on the incompetent liying half-wit that is Matt Hancock goes up in my estimation, even Cummings. We've seen Hancock obviously lie time after time, we've seen him utterly demolished on political TV programs, we even seen him pathetically pretend to cry on national television when the vaccination programme started (I still struggle to watch that, makes me squirm with embarrassment). Now we see that hancock is single-handedly responsible for old people being sent back to care homes to pass on covid to other residents, after assuring the rest of government that this wouldn't happen, and resulting in many thousands of premature deaths. He shouldn't just be sacked, he should be jailed!
That they don't take into account local factors. I live in a part of the UK where there is very rarely (every 20 years from experience) any shortage of water, yet I'm still forced to have showers with poor flow and toilets that barely shift the detritus from the bowl, nevermind down the 10m of soil pipe to the sewer. Water is in plentiful supply where I live, but because it can get a little short in and around the capital, we all have to suffer.
Yep,
Don't take on Parking Eye, they manage to do what other parking shysters can't, successfully getting prosecutions thought the courts. I took them on after a 26 minute overstay. While at the 'court' I saw the magistrate/judge laughing/joking/flirting with the Parking Eye solicitor multiple times before my case, but yet they told me they hadn't had any discussions before the hearing. The judge wasn't having any of my defense of the fact that no loss had been incurred and I was promptly ordered to pay 3 times the cost of the original ticket. After paying the 'fine' I requested multiple times a receipt to prove I'd payed it, for the purposes of avoiding a CC judgement on my credit record, but they ignored every request. I therefore got an entry on my credit record which has only just been removed after 6 years. I would recommend never parking on a car park operated by them, they are a complete scam organisation.
A sociopath because I don't like the idea of constant GPS tracking? - WOW. I'm not american, I come from the UK, where fortunately this sort of surveilance isn't yet happening. These measures are currently temporary, my assertion is that they won't remain that way. My original post indicated that I won't be visiting Singapore while these draconian measure are in place, hence I added it to my list of 'don't visit' countries, how the hell is that sociopathic? You can visit if you want to, so why does my decision not to hurt your feelings so much that you accuse me of bigotry? I do stay home, and I take effective measures to limit my exposure to COVID, just because I don't like the idea of being constantly tracked doesn't mean I want to murder people on the basis of their skin colour, you utter plonker.
Not one with GPS continually enabled, no. Yes, my phone is tracked no doubt, but that's a far cry from being mandated to be tracked. You know I don't by law need to have a mobile don't you? It's even got a power switch that doesn't cost me $7500 if I use it. You Pillock.
I don't care what the current crisis is, I will NEVER be tracked via GPS, so unfortunately Singapore now has to join Dubai et al as one of the places I will never visit again. You could argue that they may remove this restiction in the future, but I doubt it very much, it will no doubt be a 'storming success' and continued for all travellers for all time.
It's quite obvious that in a country with no protections for workers, no free healthcare system, and no bloody kits to test anyone, you are likely to see a much bigger spread of the virus than anywhere else. So in fact, this is the best thing that could have happened to Europe. As soon as the virus takes hold fully in the US of A there is absolutely nothing to stop its inexorable spread.