Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

Jazee wrote: »

The call blocker works by asking everyone who calls to announce who they are. Cold callers don't bother as they know you won't answer it, and they then seem to take your number off their lists.

When I first got the phone, I could see whole lists of numbers who'd been trying to call, but now there's only about one a month.

You can bypass the announcement thing by keying in the numbers of friends so they just show up on the screen and you know it's them.

Genuine calls will announce who they are, and if you're not there to answer the call, that's when the answer phone kicks in.

Hope that's helpful.

That's very helpful! Thank you!

What make of phone do you use? Can you recommend it?

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

My nice news is that I've bought an original cartoon (as featured in The Grauniad) by Martin Rowson as a Crimbo prezzie for OH. It arrived today but I didn't make it to the door in time (rolls eyes) so OH will have to pick it up from the sorting office on Monday.

Since I had the annoying experience of a delivery man not ringing the doorbell properly, so although I was expecting him and listening out for it, he left a card saying not in, grrrrr!, what I do now is tape a big notice to my porch door saying "Deliveries, I AM in! There is a bell and a knocker! I do that now, even if I'm not sure what day they're coming.
Once all my orders have arrived, I take the sign down. One delivery-man said it was very helpful, and he wished more people would do that.

Interestingly, I recently ordered something to be delivered to another address in another town. The order details included some optional instructions, and one of the options was " Please be patient", indicating to the deliverer that the recipient might take a while to get to the door.,
I thought that was a very good idea, especially in this particular case, as the person might take a while to get to the door.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Since I had the annoying experience of a delivery man not ringing the doorbell properly, so although I was expecting him and listening out for it, he left a card saying not in, grrrrr!, what I do now is tape a big notice to my porch door saying "Deliveries, I AM in! There is a bell and a knocker! I do that now, even if I'm not sure what day they're coming.
Once all my orders have arrived, I take the sign down.

I have one for if I'm expecting something but will be out, advising them to stick it in the wheelie bin - which is not due to be emptied that day. Obviously, if it is due to be emptied, I don't put the sign up.

Of course, that only works if they do actually try to deliver - unlike Hermes, who claim they attempted a delivery at 09:10 this morning.
1 - I haven't left the house all day,
2 - If they had attempted, surely they would have left a card?
3 - I don't believe that they could feasably manage a drop to where I am, right out in the sticks, that early in the morning.

Being in possession of a nasty suspicious sort of mind, I reckon they looked at the delivery location, thought "S*d that, we'll do it on Monday" but marked it as attempted so that Amazon think they are better than they are.
Well, if they do try on Monday I won't be in and the card will be in the porch - but if they need a signature, they'll have to come back again

Jazee

Pysis, the phone is a BT one. Think its called call guardian. Yes, I'd recommend it. No more interuptions at tea time.

silvercar

One elderly/ vulnerable person I know has an answerphone message that says your to leave a message AND ring back in 10 minutes. So you don't know whether they are in or out until you ring back.

Pyxis

Jazee wrote: »

Pysis, the phone is a BT one. Think its called call guardian. Yes, I'd recommend it. No more interuptions at tea time.

I've ordered a new quad set of that one, the 8610. Got quite a good price, in my view, from Robert Dyas with their 15% discount for the BF weekend.

My current quad set was bought several years ago, and I paid more for that set than I did for this one!

michaels

I am thinking of applying for flexible working from Next April.

Working 3 days a week gets me an ok ish basic salary along with max pension payments.

Adding a 4th or 5th day each week adds about 3.5k to my net pay after taking into account tax and benefits (pension contribution remains the same)

Is it worth working more days for such a (relatively) small return? I would rather have the time with my kids than the money and stress.

vivatifosi

Personally I would choose the least number of hours that still gave me enough money for me and my family and I don't know where that point is. Clearly you are putting a lot away in pension so that you can retire early. The other factor I would make is tapering down my work before retiring, so that it isn't quite the shock that it would be otherwise.

Also, making sure that in the event the government changes its salary sacrifice rules (I know that pensions are safe for the mo, but in case) that you still have options and that whatever option you choose still works for you. Or alternatively that you have the flexibility to choose between them going forward.

Does that make sense?

vivatifosi

Boo hiss... it is getting darker out already and it is neither December nor 4pm yet.

Pyxis

michaels....

It depends, first of all, on the level of job satisfaction.

If you enjoy your job a lot, then working a 5-day week won't be a hardship, but would bring you in an extra £666 net a month which you could stick straight in a pension pot.

If you enjoy your job to a moderate degree, but would value more family time, then the middle option of working an extra day a week would give you a long weekend and an extra £333 per month to put in the pension pot.

If the idea of working more hours fills you with dread, then go for the 24hours/week option.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

...

I'd be looking at the number of days and flexibility....

24 hours by doing 4 hours/day for 6 days isn't attractive.
38 hours by doing 9.5 hours/day for 4 days/week is attractive.

I'd probably prefer the fewest hours over the fewest days. 24 over 2 days would be marvellous

Half the battle and time lost is getting up, dressed, driving to work and from - plus the free overtime you end up giving at the end of each day. Minimise the number of days you're in and you minimise all that wasted time and freebie overtime.

I've never been afraid of doing extra work for a real benefit to the company - the truth is most free overtime's done because of a manager/boss' inability to manage the workload correctly.