Nice People Thread Number 10 -the official residence of Nice People

silvercar

Round here prices have gone up. But people are asking silly money.

The most expensive road in our area has seen a few new builds in recent months, this has pushed up the price for the road. There are refurbs on at £2.7m that I would say is worth £1.5m on a good day. (I should add that this is one road where the price is way out of kilter with anywhere else locally, so I suppose houses are worth what people will pay.)

michaels

silvercar wrote: »

Round here prices have gone up. But people are asking silly money.

The most expensive road in our area has seen a few new builds in recent months, this has pushed up the price for the road. There are refurbs on at £2.7m that I would say is worth £1.5m on a good day. (I should add that this is one road where the price is way out of kilter with anywhere else locally, so I suppose houses are worth what people will pay.)

Very modest but your gaff must be worth well North of a million at the moment

bugslet

SingleSue wrote: »

I cannot bear show offs, all talk and no substance and have seen a few employed over the years, from their talk, you would think they were the best thing since sliced bread but in reality, they were all pretty crap at their jobs.

A customer, a freight forwarding firm, once took on a mangager for the branch we provided transport for. His first day, he ambled along and asked us to show him what a 7.5 tonner was - bit like asking viva to show him an example of what fiction versus non-fiction was. Turned out he had been a chef previously:eek:

SingleSue

bugslet wrote: »

A customer, a freight forwarding firm, once took on a mangager for the branch we provided transport for. His first day, he ambled along and asked us to show him what a 7.5 tonner was - bit like asking viva to show him an example of what fiction versus non-fiction was. Turned out he had been a chef previously:eek:

I came back from holiday once to find we had a new section leader/import manager. He talked the talk, had the swagger and most def had the attitude (he didn't like me, saw me as a threat for some unknown reason :A).

He had been taken on a week before my holiday but just as a normal bod in the office (so I was his superior) and I had already marked him down as a full of bluster, no substance person who would be so up his own bottom that he would make mistakes.

Anyway, one of the first things he did was to insist everyone did their own invoicing, big mistake number 1 . Although the system was not difficult and had check points to make sure you wanted to do something, if you was not taking care or just going through the motions, then mistakes could occur (I had helped design the system as I was the one who could understand the myriad of different charges and not get bogged down and had insisted on the check points)

One day I was sitting behind him and I noticed his neck going very red and then he dashed up to the printers and switched them off. I knew exactly what he had done - gone through the check points not reading or confirming accurately and had only gone and printed a whole vessel's worth of invoices, with no changes to account names (so invoices to the shipper instead of their agent in this country etc)...thousands of the beggers!

That mistake cost the company mega bucks in cancelled invoices and issuing of credit notes and then reissuing invoices to the correct parties but it could have been avoided if he had actually bothered to accept the training I had offered (he had been rather condescending when I offered) or had read what the computer was telling him.

To make it worse, he then repeated the exercise a week later and blamed the system! He thought he could talk his way out of it but when I was asked to give a demonstration into how the system worked, it was evident to the big wigs that the check points had been built in and that it wasn't just a one click, easy to miss check point, he had sailed through 5 of the beggers (have I ever told you I am OCD about making sure :rotfl:)

He didn't last long in the company, he made other big mistakes (which didn't involve the things I was working with) and upset pretty much the whole office with his attitude.....he really didn't have a clue what he was doing or how to manage people but at interview, he certainly boasted he could!

purch

vivatifosi wrote: »

One of my neighbours has put their house on the market. Was astonished when I saw how much. It's over 20% higher than the last one sold for a couple of months ago. Mad. I'll be interested to see if they have any interest.

Friends of HID's have had their house on the market for over 18 months.

It's in Putney, in a nice road....why hasn't it sold?

Might have something to do with them changing the price, upwards everytime the Daily Express has a headline out house prices soaring (every week I guess)

It is now on the market for at least 40% more than it started .....

They are moving to Spain, and really wanted to have done so last autumn and every time I see them (as little as possible) they keep complaining that they can't sell their bloody house..............I want to tell them how stupid they are but HID keeps jabbing her elbows into me :eek:

hjd

I much prefer working for small companies. I have a very low tolerance of unnecessary meetings, management speak etc. Also, the application process is usually simpler - you send in your cv, they invite you in for interview and it becomes apparent within 5 minutes whether or not you would fit in.
One of my current jobs - there was a card in the newsagent's window, I rang up, went in a couple of days later, chatted to the boss for 5 minutes, had the guided tour and then he told the existing jobholder (who was about to retire) to show me what needed to be done and could I start next week please. Still there 7 years later.
Don't quote below item please, may delete.
My DS is looking for graduate jobs and that can take a very long time. He applied to one company, spent several hours filling out the online application including competency questions. They then asked him to do verbal and numerical reasoning online tests, then more online competencies, then a 30 minute phone interview. He was then told he was on the reserve list for the assessment centre. On the Saturday they rang and left a message saying they might have a space on the assessment centre that Tuesday so could he please contact them - gave him 2 phone numbers and an email. Message also said she would contact him by phone by 9am Monday to say if he was wanted or not. He couldn't get an answer from either phone number so sent an email, on the Saturday, saying he was still interested. She never answered that or rang him - he sent a chasing email and left messages on her voice mail but he has never heard anything back, and that was a month ago. Given that an email costs nothing to send, I think that is very bad. He had invested a lot of hours in that application.

vivatifosi

hjd wrote: »

I much prefer working for small companies. I have a very low tolerance of unnecessary meetings, management speak etc. Also, the application process is usually simpler - you send in your cv, they invite you in for interview and it becomes apparent within 5 minutes whether or not you would fit in.
One of my current jobs - there was a card in the newsagent's window, I rang up, went in a couple of days later, chatted to the boss for 5 minutes, had the guided tour and then he told the existing jobholder (who was about to retire) to show me what needed to be done and could I start next week please. Still there 7 years later.

I so agree with that! I don't like working for very big organisations either. I find my own a bit challenging at times. It's well run, but a bit lumbering for my liking (as it has to be). The one pro- though is that I work outside of one of the central hubs. So I get a chance to know my colleagues well and work as part of a great team. I've worked as part of a team in the head office too, and they were great also, but it is a very different vibe when you have your own building away from the mothership.

vivatifosi

bugslet wrote: »

A customer, a freight forwarding firm, once took on a mangager for the branch we provided transport for. His first day, he ambled along and asked us to show him what a 7.5 tonner was - bit like asking viva to show him an example of what fiction versus non-fiction was. Turned out he had been a chef previously:eek:

That's not as straightforward as it should be in some cases. Fake biographies... historical faction... books that read like fiction but aren't (Suspicions of Mr Whicher) and then there's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which can get shelved in either. Also plays are shelved as non-fiction in many libraries.

This can lead to some strange conversations. One of my favourites was:
customer: "Have you got a copy of Macbeth?"
me: "I'll just get that for you sir" (comes back clutching copy)
customer: "No not the play adaptation, the original novel"

lostinrates

Doozergirl wrote: »

First post ever on topic for me!

Warning DH is going to be contacting doozer with some dates, I cannot use the phone this afternoon, Head bad after site meeting.

tomterm8

vivatifosi wrote: »

That's not as straightforward as it should be in some cases. Fake biographies... historical faction... books that read like fiction but aren't (Suspicions of Mr Whicher) and then there's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which can get shelved in either. Also plays are shelved as non-fiction in many libraries.

This can lead to some strange conversations. One of my favourites was:
customer: "Have you got a copy of Macbeth?"
me: "I'll just get that for you sir" (comes back clutching copy)
customer: "No not the play adaptation, the original novel"

Easy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Macbeth-A-Novel-A-J-Hartley/dp/1612183018

EDIT: If you really want to annoy your English teacher get a copy of http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Translation-Original-Version-Classics-ebook/dp/B004QS96DE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393596030&sr=8-1&keywords=shakespeare+plays+in+modern+english