Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

John_Pierpoint

vivatifosi wrote: »

I wasn't sure Lydia if it would be a good in for Pastures a bit like the library job is for me. The pay is dreadful, but I double it by running my own business at the same time, a bit like Pastures does. I work at the library because its one of the few jobs that I can put in a relatively large number of hours and still have time off in the week to meet customers - win win. I didn't know if Pastures would be able to shape something similar at GCHQ, or for that matter how they would feel about her having more than one income stream.

PasturesNew wrote: »

Several issues ..... [1] I can't do that stuff, they're after super-geeks with super-hacking skillz. [2] They would have wanted a degree even if I were a top hacker.

I think PN should apply.
Then get to the question where they say - Of course we will need references .............. [Translation men in boots and carrying a standard issue brief case will go and see these people to do a positive vetting]..........don't know what they ask these days, is the enemy China or France. Are we still bosom buddies with the Yanks?
Perhaps it is the muslim countries we are spying on?
When a friend of mine got a job in the "defence" industry, the enemy was then head quartered in Moscow, though I knew in my heart of hearts that it was a busted system. Perhaps it is back and living in [STRIKE]Leningrad[/STRIKE] St Petersburg? I found it very difficult to take the questions about the threat of East West imminent conflict seriously, in a MAD world. "Dr Strangelove" and all that.
Perhaps these days they would just hack PN's, cyberspace identity - perhaps they already are:eek:
["Applicant has multiple links to a seditious cell of free thinkers masquerading as consumer advisers - recommend rejection"]

LydiaJ

But PN doesn't want to do uber-geek coding, and doesn't want to manage a team of people. Her expertise is in public domain internet - hubpages and so on - and things connected with internet advertising, not tracking down covert cells of terrorists or whatever. She wants to live near beaches - they're in short supply in and around Cheltenham - and she doesn't want to be tied down to a 9.00-5.30 job. She's a rather non-conformist person who would absolutely hate to have to see a vetting person every year or six months or however often it is, and be grilled by a stranger asking detailed questions about every aspect of her private life.

In short, I think a GCHQ job, even if she got it, would make her miserable.

John_Pierpoint

michaels wrote: »

It is interesting how resistant people become to change - our neighbour was very against our extension as it would reduce his view from one window and his daughters' thinking of their inheritance seemed to worry that it would lower the value of his property. However in reality everyone who buys on the street wants to extend and so setting a precedent blocking extensions would actually have been much more detrimental.

More localism would also have blocked a controversial project recently that was eventually approved on appeal where the wider community almost certainly gain a little but a small minority of locals are adversely affected - it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

I have had to sell my late uncle's Victorian house, think two up and two down with a rear extension one up and one down with a 2/3rds width (so that light could get to the window of the dining room and second bedroom above it).
The narrow strip of "garden", visible from the dining room /living room (rather than the front parlour) is called the "side return".
This is a standard design for terraced houses where two side returns facing each other could make a communal yard; but these two houses are an identical, detached by 3ft side passages; not mirror images.

Next door told me they were going to ask for planning permission to widen the kitchen into the side return by propping up the upstairs room on a "steel" and then extend the rear of the house with a single story 4 meter full width breakfast room/garden room/sunlounge extension into the South facing long & narrow garden. Would I object?.

[Of course not, if that is possible then my potential buyer could do the same and the extension would be almost invisible behind the fence and hedge.]

It never occurred to me that I needed to campaign on behalf of my neighbours.
Basically the local authority wanted to turn down everything. However the permitted development rights meant that the side return could be used to widen the kitchen, with sky lights over the working area. The narrow back of the existing kitchen could be extended four meters BUT there was no way that the new "side return" created by the narrow kitchen extension could be incorporated. So the dream of using bifold doors to integrate the garden into a big wide the open plan garden room/breakfast-room/sun-lounge/kitchen had been crushed. DAFT decision.

LydiaJ

I agree - DAFT. It doesn't seem to be about making sense, though, or about whether the neighbours object. If it ticks their little list of criteria, then it's OK even if all the neighbours campaign against it. If it doesn't, then tough, even if none of the neighbours mind. In general, they are mindlessly picky about extensions and modifications to existing houses, and will permit almost anything that builds new houses, I think.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Several issues ..... [1] I can't do that stuff, they're after super-geeks with super-hacking skillz. [2] They would have wanted a degree even if I were a top hacker.

QUOTE]
re this. I know from contacts it is not requisite to have a degree to work there. Have no idea about ''your'' bit of it though.

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

I agree - DAFT. It doesn't seem to be about making sense, though, or about whether the neighbours object. If it ticks their little list of criteria, then it's OK even if all the neighbours campaign against it. If it doesn't, then tough, even if none of the neighbours mind. In general, they are mindlessly picky about extensions and modifications to existing houses, and will permit almost anything that builds new houses, I think.

this is very true.

Incidentally, its also why we wewre advised to go through preplanning rigourously addressing all and any problems arising. Its felt that when both authrorities and neighbours see we are not attempting to get rich quick with a sloppy but sloaney property development and get understood it will make life easier in the future.

The thing that makes me cross in in conforming to some of the tick boxes some very poor and unsympathetic changes/developments have been made to houses like mine.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't know. Work hours really chew up your whole life. There are so few days off. I'm really enjoying my 'break' after more than 30 years of getting up early, not getting home until it's dark, turning out in the dark in the mornings in the freezing cold and rain .... it's horrid.



I never had anybody to come home to, so it was always coming home to a cold/dark house, to cook/eat dinner for one. I need more daytime freedom, to see the sun, than a job gave me.

Have you thought of moving somewhere sunnier, with a better internet connection, and lower cost of living? Your income would not change, and it would go much further somewhere like India.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

Have you thought of moving somewhere sunnier, with a better internet connection, and lower cost of living? Your income would not change, and it would go much further somewhere like India.

I've never been abroad. I'd not do well in a foreign country. I am struggling with today's new world of hoops and tick boxes. I couldn't begin to fathom out how a foreign country worked.

Wheezy_2

And they probably don't have dorset blue vinney in India.

lostinrates

For viva,

today I FINALLY got to the Library. Its got good access and free parking. The staff were very friendly and nice. The man peeing across the access and laughing was less nice. (and I assured him when he asked me if I ''liked that'' a little more confident than his asset afforded.

Library staff looked a little ''yeah, and?'' when I suggested a bucket sloshed across the entrance step might not go amiss. Poor things. I knew from Viva's writing this is probably the nicer behaviour.

The biggest section is the very little kid's book bit. I had a look, its mainly sub sevenish year olds books.....and the young end of that is by far the biggest. And it had a few kids and mums there, which was nice. There was a dearth of the sort of older but not teen books. Teen section...bulging with werewolves, vampires, faeries and skulls was one row of black, red and silver gruesomness, so obviously the future goths of Wiltshire are well provided for (yeah, I'll read the odd teenage fantasy book too, but some of these are just so BADLY written its grating). Crime was big section, as was sci fi and fantasy.....but the bigest section seemed to be dvds. (for which there is a charge, but cheaper than the video shop around the corner).


I chose five of the just returned and ''quick choice'' books: it seemed they'd pulled the best looking things out of the shelves.

The online registration hadn't worked, and I was told never works. One of the things that delayed me going to pick up the online card was gathering together the requisite proof of id, but the librarian didn't want to see those, lol.


I think I'll be using the inter library loan thing a lot, and having to pre plan! I hope they have a good fiction section at other libraries, because otherwise from outside the area the charge could build up quite quickly.

generally, for a free at point of use service I think it was good.