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Life is sometimes sort of okay because...

Started by House of Usher, 23 March, 2009, 05:17:47 PM

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von Boom

Received my copy of the Kickstarter/Designer edition of Ogre! *Glee*

By Grud it's enormous.

Dunk!

Another Harley Quinn Statue (B/W, Animated version) comes onto the radar for pre-order.

And my wallet grows lighter.

It's my burden, I bear it.

Dunk!
"Trust we"

Ancient Otter

Quote from: von Boom on 04 December, 2013, 08:29:31 PM
Received my copy of the Kickstarter/Designer edition of Ogre! *Glee*

By Grud it's enormous.

Nice. I chickened out on backing it, will try and settle on the Classic Ogre $10 reprint next year. Taking up much space?

von Boom

Quote from: Ancient Otter on 12 December, 2013, 09:37:04 PM
Quote from: von Boom on 04 December, 2013, 08:29:31 PM
Received my copy of the Kickstarter/Designer edition of Ogre! *Glee*

By Grud it's enormous.

Nice. I chickened out on backing it, will try and settle on the Classic Ogre $10 reprint next year. Taking up much space?

It's massive. I have no shelf to hold it so it'll probably stay on the floor in a cupboard. Soooo many pieces to punch out and assemble. :)

Darren Stephens

Got a letter from Dial-a-Phone this morning regarding my mobile regarding my mobile insurance....for my phone that I haven't had since February.  :( One phone call later and they are reimbursing the last  ten payments, so I have a surprise 70 quid coming. Suppose I really should keep a better eye on my bank account ins and outs.  ;)
https://www.dscomiccolours.com
                                       CLICK^^

TordelBack

Wife is working 10-hour days 7 days a week all month on seasonal fund-raising schemes, while simultaneously having to defend her boss' charity-CEO salary to the media (it's more than 3 times hers).  Meanwhile, the series of 'temporary reductions' to her own salary (20% in total) remain un-addressed after 3 years. 

But! She got a Christmas bonus today, and not 10 seconds too soon! 

On examination, after tax it equates to 15 hours pay.  Coincidentally she'll be doing (by my estimate) 25 hours unpaid overtime this week alone.  Just pay the woman, FFS.

I don't what to think.  But mainly, I think it's : Christmas bonus is infinitely better than no Christmas bonus!

Theblazeuk

What kind of scumbag runs a company and enforces temporary reductions to employee salaries without taking one to their own first.

Never mind, wrong thread.

Hawkmumbler

Thats criminal Tordels. Grrrrr I hate those kind of situations, how can a person be expected to work that much for next to nought?!

Proudhuff

DDT did a job on me

TordelBack

I'm focusing on the positive, me: more money than we thought we had, possibly even enough to get the car fixed before the New Year!   :thumbsup:

Perils of working for a charity Hawkmonger!  You're expected to 'muck in' for free at crunch times, since you're presumed to have a vocational interest in what the organisation doing that precedes and supercedes your employment interests.  Which to be fair is definitely the case with my missus: she values what she does, which is payment in itself (although our bank are strangely reluctant to accept it in lieu of mortgage instalments).

Additional pressure comes from the fact that a lot of her work is co-ordinating and supporting volunteers, so it becomes very difficult to say "I'm not giving up my weekend without getting paid" when most of the folk she's coming in to supervise aren't getting paid anyway.  Mind you, they also aren't there 70 hours a week in the run up to Christmas...

That there are a few people who get paid significant salaries, not to mention the ever present consultants, and where general wages have been reduced so massively (as I like to annoy the wife by observing, she's effectively working 10 weeks a year for free compared to her situation in 2009, before she does any voluntary unpaid overtime) it does become very difficult for everybody else. 

I should note that the charity has come under almost entirely new management in the past couple of years, and the shower ofpricks who were running the place into the ground have been rooted out moved on to new challenges, resulting in a much more efficient and more pleasant operation, and a unrecognisably happier wife. 

Just give her more money!  I have needs, and many of them are comic-shaped!

EDIT: Cor, that image is something else!


Dandontdare

Quote from: TordelBack on 17 December, 2013, 08:17:55 PM
That there are a few people who get paid significant salaries, not to mention the ever present consultants,

When I worked for a charity, our chief exec used to loathe consultants - she said a consultant is someone who comes in, borrows your watch and then charges you a fortune to tell you what time it is.

TordelBack

Quote from: Dandontdare on 17 December, 2013, 08:23:48 PM
... she said a consultant is someone who comes in, borrows your watch and then charges you a fortune to tell you what time it is.

That's it in a nutshell.  As a frustrated former manager and prospective consultant* myself, I amuse myself running the numbers on various fund-raising schemes that the charity are 'sold' by consultants, and 2 out of 3 times they can only be making a net profit (for the charity) if you completely ignore the fact that these operations make use of regular paid staff (and the finite capital of volunteer goodwill) for weeks if not months at a time, not to mention vast post-room and stationery costs, diesel for transport etc..  One externally-run event thing they did a while back had a capacity-limited take of 30K, and my estimate of the in-house wages bill they ran up in the lead-in was 20k on its own, never mind the consultant's fees (which must have been several thousand minimum, surely), the venue costs, fuel etc.

That's a lot of people donating money in good faith to pay for staff to not do their actual jobs, but instead try to appease a consultant that is running about in a panic as the event approaches complaining that the 'organisational culture isn't supportive of new ideas'.   

This of course is not the consultant's fault really, it's the fault of whatever muppets contracted them and then acquiesed to whatever fantasy spreadsheets were laid before them.  Thankfully in the wife's case I think the worst of this stupidity has passed, following extensive lobbying from staff to the effect that since they are diverted into working at the consultants' whim anyway they may as well save money and run these things themselves.  Which seems to be working.  At least until the next managerial brain-fart.


*Not for this sort of thing, nosiree.

TordelBack

#1587
Man, I own this thread.  Moving up from the Minor Impediments League, me!  Next stop, Drokkin' Fantastic.

Welcome me to the 21st C, folks.  Got my very first smart device today, an entirely tiddly Galaxy Pocket Neo, for the princely no-contract sum of 45 euro including credit and Tesco points and all that crud. 

I got it to help with my homework for my new business (my old mobile went for a swim over the summer, and has never recovered). So naturally the first thing I did was to download Dredd vs. Zombies, then stream some Tabletop.  Never having owned such a futuristic thing I don't know any better, but aside from obviously needing to sharpen my fingers to tiny points, everything seems wildly shiny and zippy.

I'm liking this new world.  Any suggestions for free apps/games?  (Jellybean 4.1)

Dandontdare

I know nowt, but I'll be following any advice closely 'cos I think it may be time I got meself some kind of pad/tablet thingy but I appear to have lost the ability/inclination to learn new stuff, so I don't know what I'm doing.

Dark Jimbo

...because the excitment of imminent Christmas has banished the early depression of imminent New Year, which struck me down out of the blue on Saturday night. Sunday was a very black day for me, and Tuesday was not much better. It took me by surprise and was all a bit worrying at how completely despairing it left me - like everyone I've had days when I've been a bit down, of course, but I've never had the depression descend upon me like some outside force and then refuse to release me from its clutches. Very odd. Not looking forward to New Year's Eve.
@jamesfeistdraws