Early-retirement wannabe

alexmi

atush wrote: »

Sorry, but the Blackberry is a work phone. And must be taken everywhere.

May I ask, why does it have to be taken everywhere? Is that a stipulation of your contract or something?

Marine_life

gfplux wrote: »

Email is a great tool. We just don't know how to use it properly.
Now in most company's when somebody sends an email it is cc'd to dozens of other people "to be kept in the loop" so inboxes are full of rubbish hiding the real work.
Best rule ever is do not cc unless it is VITAL.

But that's not the worst thing; the worst thing is that most people have been through some sort of coaching training so they feel obligated to send an email saying "thank you" for the first mail, to which the recipient then sends a "you're welcome" reply, of course cc' ing everyone on both, thereby multiplying the problem three fold.

elantan

atush wrote: »

Sorry, but the Blackberry is a work phone. And must be taken everywhere.

Ouch ... I sympathise

atush

alexmi wrote: »

May I ask, why does it have to be taken everywhere? Is that a stipulation of your contract or something?

Yes. If you are a director, a key holder etc you have to be able to be contacted.

We even get calls in the middle of the night if there is a major problem (such as break in, fire, security breach, system failure). Some are automated tests and that is a Huge PITA.

kidmugsy

Before mobile phones, some of us were required to phone work before we went out in the evening so that they could know where to phone us if there were trouble at mill.

alexmi

atush wrote: »

Yes. If you are a director, a key holder etc you have to be able to be contacted.

We even get calls in the middle of the night if there is a major problem (such as break in, fire, security breach, system failure). Some are automated tests and that is a Huge PITA.

Ah, yes, I sympathise. It reminds me of when I used to be on an on-call rota. I didn't mind it too much as it was only every fifth week or so and we got paid well enough even if there were no calls. But then they put an automated system in to notify of possible software bugs and it caused no end of problems with false alarms etc. Got out of it after that. I miss the money but not the 3am calls.

gadgetmind

Silian wrote: »

My sister is the opposite. She hates it when people email her instead of phoning her.

I don't mind people calling if it's necessary. It's usually that they don't think they can convey the depth of their ignorance via email whereas a 5 minute call to me will let me provide a rapid education.

What I do object to is voice mail, particularly when people just woffle on and on. I had to endure a 3 minute one last week (OK, it might have been longer but I dropped after 3 mins!) which I replied to using just the subject line of an email in six words.

missyrichards

I used to have to be on-call at night and it was awful. In the end I just said that the other staff could share the extra money and take my on-call duties, which they were happy to do.:D

cathybird

Re being phoned outside work hours, I see the point if you are a director or on-call, or it is specifically part of the terms and conditions, but otherwise you shouldn't be disturbed! If the company hasn't got enough people to cover all bases when you're not there then they don't have enough staff. I never get called or emailed outside work hours and was only once (and wrongly) contacted when I was on holiday. It's true that I've mainly worked for larger or medium-sized companies, I guess, which might make some difference.

robin61

soperman wrote: »

This is interesting and as many of you know I helped set up the website retireeasy.co.uk and the LifePlan calculator. When you first register to build your LifePlan there is a drop-down for ''title'' which as normal asks for Miss, Mrs, Mr, Dr, Prof and Sir and we have had requests from some customers to expand this to add ''professional qualifications''. Whether or not people have retired / stopped work, I think some wish to have their lifelong efforts to continue to be recognised rather than fading away.

Another key question in LifePlan is ''are you already retired'' and we need a ''yes or no'' answer for LifePlan to take customers down the correct path. Here again we have had a number of customers contact us saying that whilst they may have stopped work, they do not consider themselves retired. We totally get this but it is very difficult to set questions when our key aim is for LifePlan to be as intuitive as possible.

Thanks for the work you have all done on this. I have been using Retireeasy for a while now and I must say I have found it to be very good indeed. Easy to use and easy to tweak as and when circumstances change. I think it has certainly helped give me confidence that my plans are on the right track.