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

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

It is weird. I guess they think that they won't inconvenience the house they are going to by parking in their spots!

Instead, they inconvenience someone else who doesn't even know them! :mad:

What might mitigate their action a bit, is if they left a note on their dashboard saying what property they would be in if anyone needed them to move the car.

That presupposes they have a degree of empathy, though, which their very act of parking there kinda refutes!

When I go out the back I lock the front gate from the inside, it can't be locked from the outside. I then go out the back gate, which is lockable from both sides. One day I opened that gate to find a car right up, tight as you can, squeezed into the corner as tight as tight could be up against my gate..... and I couldn't get my bike out. I went round knocking on doors, nobody owned up to it. I had an idea whose it was, but they'd not answered the door ... then I went back there and a child answered the door and I pointed/asked and they said it wasn't their car.... and eventually, 2 hours later, the boyfriend from that house came out and moved it and I said "Oi - you stopped me going out, I can't get my bike out unless I stick it on the roof of your car and them clamber over.." and he spoke as if it were MY fault! "I parked here so as to not inconvenience anybody" - he meant where HE was visiting.... and then "can't you use the other entrance?"

His next one was "I was only a few minutes...." "No you weren't - you were over TWO hours! And I knocked on your door TWICE and was told it wasn't your car too by a child".... and he then said "Yeah, two hours...." and looked a TINY bit "guilty", but not enough.

He is on MY freehold land, trying to tell me it's MY fault that I can't get my bike out onto my freehold land.... and I should use another gate (that doesn't lock). How DARE he tell me how to live my life with my land, my possessions, when HE is 100% entirely in the wrong. And then to LIE to my face about how long it'd been there!

Cheeky !!!!. That's when I really got to grips with the "No!" sign, that's 99.999% worked from that day forward with everybody

vivatifosi

Invite some BMXers into your back garden. If they have to ride over their car to get to the garden, they will soon get the idea:D

LydiaJ

vivatifosi wrote: »

The main motivation for open plan offices is undoubtedly cost. You can get pretty much double the number of people in an office if it does not follow a cellular design. However communication is also an issue. People ho are sitting in cellular offices need to move to interact with colleagues,whereas is a well designed open plan environment, collaboration can be encouraged. The best environment will be a hybrid of both, with plenty of open plan collaborative space, but also offices that enable contemplation, deeper thinking and individual work, as well as spaces in which confidential meetings can be held.

Hot desking is a different concept again, and far more unpopular than having your own space in an open plan office. Not only because people are creatures of habit, but also because it places an increased burden on that worker to keep their own things separate and transport them to the hot desk, then pack them away at the end of the day.

If the net sqft per person drops from c200 per person in cellular to 100 in open plan, then it's possible to squeeze a further 20% off that by desk sharing or by making desks tiny and with space only for minimal items such as a pc and phone.

I don't think open plan in and of itself is a bad thing, certainly in terms of offices, it is when it is driven beyond the realms of good design in order to save money without taking the workers into consideration.

It is almost fifty years since the concept of a paperless office was introduced, yet it still hasn't happened, and the relentless march towards space saving sometimes needs to take a break to remember this.

At work, we have a shared office where those of us in phys and chem who aren't important enough to have separate offices have our desks. There's the main room (7 big desks and 2 small ones) with a bit off at one end (1 big, 2 medium & 1 small) and another bit behind a door in the corner (2 big) and then the narrow corridor-like space with the photocopier and colour printer, plus the tiny square space with lots of doors where the shared phone is. Being a part-timer, I have a small desk - one of the ones in the main room. I like having it open plan. We communicate better that way. But of course, we are each only in there for part of the time, because the desk work is only part of the job.

LydiaJ

It is snowing here. This is extremely annoying. Amazing Therapist was supposed to see us in December, but had to cancel because of snow. We postponed it to February, whereupon it snowed again the weekend he was supposed to come, and we postponed it again, to tomorrow.

GDB2222

LydiaJ wrote: »

It is snowing here. This is extremely annoying. Amazing Therapist was supposed to see us in December, but had to cancel because of snow. We postponed it to February, whereupon it snowed again the weekend he was supposed to come, and we postponed it again, to tomorrow.

It has snowed here, but the roads are completely clear. Are you much worse?

It’s cold though. We walked some friends home and were very pleased to get back again.

Pyxis

Yes, snowed here too but didn't settle.

A bit more due tomorrow.

A small spin-off group from my AmDram entered a local competition today, and we won! :j
The whole group is entering tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

SingleSue

We woke to a bit of a winter wonderland this morning and it continued snowing until lunch time. I am currently sat at work watching the snow come down and the road outside turning white.

silvercar

Been snowing most of the day, but only settling on the grass not the roads or pavements. In fact we went for a walk this afternoon.

Drove out this evening and the temperature dropped to -2. Road was covered in snow by the time we were home.

Why hasn't someone invented windscreen wipers that don't stiffen up in cold weather?

CKhalvashi

It was snowing here when I got in around 8pm, and it's scheduled to for most of the night. I'm comfortably getting two documents and a series of letters written with The Bill on in the background and have the curtains closed now so can't see outside, but think that the bottom of the hill is going to be interesting in the morning if it remains below freezing.

We had rain this morning though rather than snow, so ultimately it may not be that bad as it may not have the chance to properly set. Here's hoping...

Good luck tomorrow Lydia!

zagubov

It started snowing sometime in the morning and I'm not sure it ever really stopped. I drove my car in the morning and the snow that fell on it froze by noon and needed serious spraying and scraping or else I think my windscreen wipers wouldn't have been up to the task.