I have spent the day in front of 5 new PC screens. Somehow I managed to stumble into the position of being the least ITC inept person in our office following recent staff changes.
After some protest from me I was informed that due to a force of hand we need to change over to a Windows OS. And eventually the news came that this meant losing the Apple hardware too.
Thanks to the recent ‘promotion’ to least inept the job of setting up these machines has fallen into my lap. What I have learnt from the day is that though setting up a pre-installed copy of XP and Office is painless enough, all that follows is faff, faff and frustration. What I have gained from the day is a reminder of the sheer wonder of Mac OS X and Apple machines, a renewed appreciation that I have access to them, and a greater determination to keep on saving for their slightly heavier but great value price tag.
I rage Windows PC.
I heart Apple Macintosh.
So the Halloween decorations come down and everyone starts getting ready for the mass burning of Guy Fawkes (everyone apart from all the scallies who have happily been celebrating bonfire night for the last month by shooting roman candles at each other). As I think about Halloween, a festival for Pagans, the day of all Hallows in the Roman Catholic calendar, a day when kids eat lots of sweets (albeit after a friendly dose of blackmail), I wonder: why people can not be saved by eating chocolate at Easter, but are condemned for eating treats at Halloween?!
Surely trick-or-treating enters into witchcraft just as little as the chocolate bunny has to do with the Cross?
Unfortunately, I have little experience of working through an agency, and this week I learnt a lesson. When I handed in my written notice I thought that I was going about my resignation in a professional and courteous manner. However, I seems that I shouldn’t bother with such luxuries in the bitter world of ambulance chasing, well I guess temp-work in general. Having planned and budgetted around working out my notice I was rather aggrieved when the management told me, from their hiding place behind HR, that I should just get my stuff and leave immediately. Promptly, I was escorted out of the building.
They can do this, as my contract is with the agency not them. Just because they can, does not mean that they should. This experience has left me even more opposed to the rat race that people base their lives around.
Screw the system, it will only screw you. Continue reading ‘Ambulance Chasing’