The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Pyxis

For some reason, I thought it was today you were starting the job, Sue!
Have a really good rest so that you can shake off the chesty thing.

How was Joe?, did you manage to sort him out?

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

For some reason, I thought it was today you were starting the job, Sue!

Nah, she did say Sunday

SingleSue wrote: »

There was a couple of occasions where things happened which hadn't been covered in the interview meeting but I didn't panic (well not much) and just got on the phone to ask what to do next, the instructions of what to do next was pretty much what my instinct had been but thought it best to check.

Any employer worth their salt won't object to that, provided you don't make a habit of asking the same thing or constant silly questions.

I might suggest they have written procedures though for any other new starters, an idiots step by step guide would certainly have taken some of the stress out of today if they had had them for me to go by....or that could just be the old corporate me talking again (I had to go through BS5750 quality training where an essential part was written procedures, a pain at the time but we quickly realised how handy they were).

Nope, written procedures are of great use - you could score some brownie points by volunteering to be involved in doing that. Being new, you will have a better insight into what is needed than someone who's been around for a long time.

Before I retired I spent the previous six months completing a mega-database system that I was developing to automate/simplify most of our data crunching and make it easier for someone to take over from me. In parallel, I documented the whole lot - right down to what tables held what data, what queries referred to which tables and where the output went an/or was used, what (in some cases extremely complex) VBA code did what, etc., etc. I think it came to the best part of 200 pages in the end

Unfortunately the guy who got my job, excellent though he was, wasn't content to just use it for a few months until he was used to it and any issues (mostly concerned with annoyingly frequent changes in the data source formats) were identified and ironed out but started making changes left, right and centre.

From what I heard when I last spoke to another ex-colleague he's made so many changes and not updated the document that it's nigh-on useless now. Oh well, I tried - and, of course, I couldn't care less now :rotfl:

ivyleaf

((HUGS)) Sue, I do hope you feel better soonest. You will soon get into the swing of things at work. I hope Joe is feeling calmer now x

Maggie That's a real shame about your dinghy and trailer, but I think that's better than her being stolen, IYSWIM.

SingleSue

Pyxis wrote: »

For some reason, I thought it was today you were starting the job, Sue!
Have a really good rest so that you can shake off the chesty thing.

How was Joe?, did you manage to sort him out?

He worried my mum, his eyes have sunken and he looks quite ill mainly because he is exhausted, a by product of his sensory overload and trying to appear normal all the time.

He was in a better frame of mind when I left but we really needed a bit longer to really get things under control but as a stop gap, it helped.

He loves the idea of me working but also hates it too as since he has gone to uni, he relies on phone contact with me (approx 5 hours per day spread over the day, thank goodness he had the brains to take out an unlimited call contract) to give him support and although I am allowed to use my phone (laptop too!), if a customer is on the premises it is not exactly great customer service. For him, it is the only way he can leave his halls and go anywhere, so he will call on his way to a lecture, when he comes out of a lecture, goes shopping, goes for a walk (which he does a lot), goes to see his mentor, the library etc....just everytime he steps foots outside the safety of his room.

He will be ok, he just needs to get used to everything and the pace of life up there. He's not finding the work involved in the course hard, it's just the concentration of lectures, workshops, meeting with mentors etc hard to deal with energy level wise as there is very little down time and he feels he is rushing from one thing to another. Really it is just a case of the change of routine and until the new routine becomes embedded, he will struggle a little (we had this every year at school and college).

One good thing is that he has connected with the history society at his uni in the last week or so, a subject that he loves and was his second choice degree subject. He's now getting all excited at the prospect of a visit to Berlin next year with them (don't ask me how that is going to work with his issues, I've no idea but we can cross that bridge when we get to it!).

Pyxis

I didn't realise he needed that much contact with you.



Although, as I said, ADHD isn't anything like as severe, I can really relate to the overload of info thing.
It was one reason why I took so long to settle into anything new......new place, job, etc., but once I did I was fine. I learnt how to zone out, to give my brain a rest, and sometimes have to physically remove myself and be alone in another room, even if it's only the loo!

Sometimes just shutting my eyes helps, too.

Pyxis

Something Chris said on a thread in DT reminded me of a proposed route between ?Kent and ?Cornwall, some years ago.

I think it was called something like the East-West Cross Route, but when I google stuff like that, nothing comes up that is relevant.

It was meant to create a fast route, and several A-roads were upgraded to dual carriageways as a result, but it was abandoned and not completed. Money, I suppose.

So what you have now is a series of fast sections, interspersed with single carriageway A-Roads, and several bottlenecks where the A-Road goes through a small town or village that was never by-passed.

Does anyone remember this, or know anything about it?

zagubov

Pyxis wrote: »

Something Chris said on a thread in DT reminded me of a proposed route between ?Kent and ?Cornwall, some years ago.

I think it was called something like the East-West Cross Route, but when I google stuff like that, nothing comes up that is relevant.

It was meant to create a fast route, and several A-roads were upgraded to dual carriageways as a result, but it was abandoned and not completed. Money, I suppose.

So what you have now is a series of fast sections, interspersed with single carriageway A-Roads, and several bottlenecks where the A-Road goes through a small town or village that was never by-passed.

Does anyone remember this, or know anything about it?

I remember driving down to Cornwall and Devon many times as part of my job, and realising how poor the roads are going westwards.

michaels

Pyxis wrote: »

Something Chris said on a thread in DT reminded me of a proposed route between ?Kent and ?Cornwall, some years ago.

I think it was called something like the East-West Cross Route, but when I google stuff like that, nothing comes up that is relevant.

It was meant to create a fast route, and several A-roads were upgraded to dual carriageways as a result, but it was abandoned and not completed. Money, I suppose.

So what you have now is a series of fast sections, interspersed with single carriageway A-Roads, and several bottlenecks where the A-Road goes through a small town or village that was never by-passed.

Does anyone remember this, or know anything about it?

At one point the A303 was going to be dual carriage way all the way to Exeter.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Something Chris said on a thread in DT reminded me of a proposed route between ?Kent and ?Cornwall, some years ago.

There was a proposal, in the 1930s, for a route between Penzance and Ramsgate - nothing came of it.

zagubov wrote: »

I remember driving down to Cornwall and Devon many times as part of my job, and realising how poor the roads are going westwards.

They are lot better than they were. When I was a kid we holidayed on Cornwall and the roads took us through every coastal town/village in south Dorset and Devon.
I went there a few years ago, and they'd all been bypassed. It made a heck of a difference.

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

There was a proposal, in the 1930s, for a route between Penzance and Ramsgate - nothing came of it.

I had a feeling it was a lot later than the thirties...... that maybe roads were still being upgraded for it as late as 20-25 years ago, maybe?

Dunno though.

Interesting that Michaels mentioned the A303, as I thought that part of the A35 was upgraded to do with it.

Probably my memory is flawed, or whoever told me about it, years ago, was wrong.




Anyway, good job they didn't dual- carriagewayalise the A303, in view of the proposed tunnel now being mooted!