Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Trout]

Tordels, I did nights for seven years and I learned one important thing: they're shit. The childcare thing does help, but it's outweighed by so many other aspects that fuck up your life. Zombification.

The answer is to tough it out if you need to, but keep an eye out for other things.

[The Legendary Shark]

I love working nights - they were always my favourite shifts. I found that the secret is to simply treat night like day. That means that if I finish work at 6am I treat it like finishing at 6pm and don't go to bed as soon as I get home but wait 4 or 5 hours, treating noon as midnight. This approach works very well for me - but then I'm single and don't have a family to work around.
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However, if your starting times are erratic then this approach might not work as well as it does for more standard working hours. If you could swing only working nights, or being on call only during nights then I'd certainly urge you to give this a try.

[TordelBack]

Interesting stuff, thanks guys.  Yeah, it's the irregularity I'm finding the main problem - I try to do Shark's thing of staying awake until a more appropriate hour (read: when the kids go to school or the wife gets home from work), although it isn't easy, especially with the midday finishes, which I find the really brutal ones.  And alas, I've only got the contract because I'm reliable and flexible, so I can't start laying down the law - they need me when they need me. 

I generally do enjoy working at night, and the people-watching opportunities on this one are truly unbeatable.  There's been everything from running battles to regular offers of a snog (accepted, but not by me) to mass-singalongs to ladies who have conspicuously misplaced their undergarments, and last night alone I was hit by (a). half a hamburger (McDonalds); (b). a empty bottle of lucozade; (c). a full milkshake (Supermacs). Only the latter was uncomfortable, but there's me, a foreman an engineer and about 6 services guys, and it's quite amusing to watch everyone gradually retreat from the perimeter of the fenced-off area towards the very centre to huddle in around the machines as the clock ticks past 2.30am and the worst of the human wreckage hits the streets.  And if I have to hear 'dig that hole, bud!' one more time...

I think the main thing is that on all my previous over-night gigs I was in control - and I was taking a salary, so I knew what was coming up, covered what needed covering without thinking about overtime or whatever, and if it suited I scheduled other people. Being at someone else's beck and call, even while I'm self-employed, is very different.

But. The job is finite, and the money is too good to pass up (last night I passed some dull moments ca. 4.30am calculating that after likely taxes, and pretending the money shouldn't be spent on pressing bills or re-investmd in my business, I had earned enough for day-tickets to Eurodisney for the family, which does rather perk one up).  The reality is that I'm not six months into this new venture, and I spend so much of my time trying to sell myself and develop good relationships with clients that there just aren't enough billable hours to come close to making ends meet - so this kind of sub-contract that allows me to keep doing that and provides a (random) income is perfect.

I also love working - it's a delicious sensation to feel useful, to the family, the discipline (-choke-) and even to the client.  I just wish I didn't feel like the living dead when I do get a few shifts, or like a frustrated schmuck when I don't.

[Rog69]

Yesterday afternoon I sat watching my Daughter spend a couple of hours excitedly decorating an elaborate box for the tooth fairy to collect her freshly lost tooth from.

The tooth fairy got a little distracted last night and forgot to come.

I am a horrible parent.

[The Legendary Shark]

Blame the new EU Enamel Regulations...

[Tiplodocus]

Bah. Number one son took tea out of the oven and switched it off without realising our tea was still cooking.

[radiator]

Gave a meter reading to our electricity supplier when we left the UK, and they have sent us a final bill for over £760.

Apparently we've been paying estimated bills for the last two years, but still - f**king hell! 

[Jim_Campbell]

Gave a meter reading to our electricity supplier when we left the UK, and they have sent us a final bill for over £760.

Challenge it.

1) It's their fault, not yours, that your meter hasn't been read.

2) They frequently make these numbers up. We're currently in dispute with nPower, who claim we owe them £410 for six months' electricity on a house which was unoccupied with the gas and electric switched off at the main, a fact which they had been notified of repeatedly.

Cheers

Jim

[Rog69]

Gave a meter reading to our electricity supplier when we left the UK, and they have sent us a final bill for over £760.

Apparently we've been paying estimated bills for the last two years, but still - f**king hell! 

Same thing happened to me a couple of years back when I switched from British Gas, had to split the payments which ended up cancelling out the saving I thought I was making through switching .

My impediment today was coming down this morning to find that the box for the pair of shoes that I need to return has been converted into a luxury apartment for Moshi Monsters.

[TordelBack]

And the same thing happened to us, to the tune of €500 - which they took out by direct debit without warning, genuinely leaving us with no money for food or fuel for two weeks. I nearly vomited right there on the spot.  We checked the sums and they were right, and obviously we should have been submitting readings - it was the arrogance of assuming they could just take the money that annoyed. The irksome part is that or meter is on the outside wall, like everyone else in the estate, so they could have checked it any time, but left it for almost two years and then insta-charged us.

I'd like to take this opportunity to add a minor impediment:  we've been to-and-fro with the Bank for two years over mortgage arrears, most recently diverting legal action into a 'resolution process' which has somehow taken 6 months now.  The end of what I am assured is a deeply sophisticated system requiring us to submit documentation for every item of our extravagant lifestyle before arriving at realistic assessment of our capacity for sustainable repayment was to come back with a monthly figure €100 higher than what we had previously been unable to pay. 

And the dire claim that if we failed to agree to this 'restructured payment' within 20 days the 'protections of the arrears resolution process will no longer apply'.  These are the 'protections' that would see us paying more than previously.

So it's back to fightin' and feudin' with them, secure in the knowledge that a panel of financial experts on €100K can't add.  At least I'm so used to this by now that it fails to stress me any more.

[The Legendary Shark]

Tell them to show you the contract - no contract, no payment. Be aware - an agreement is not the same as a contract which must be a) voluntary b) contain reasonable expectations and c) be SIGNED BY BOTH PARTIES. If they don't show you the contract (which they can't because there isn't one) then you start billing them for every letter they expect you to read. £100 a letter should soon clear your 'debt'.
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Ask your bank to show you your mortgage agreement - you may find that they've sold it, thereby technically cancelling the mortgage.
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Don't just bend over for these bastards - and don't play their game. You have more power than you know.
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Your first port of call should be www.getoutofdebtfree.org
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[Banners]

We recently had a bill from the hapless nPower saying they owed us over £2,000. Needless to say, when I thanked them kindly and asked for a cheque, they refused to honour it.

Maybe we should all be so dismissive when we owe them.

TordelBack should be put in charge of these kinds of things...!

[ZenArcade]

 We'd all pay by standing order into the TordelBank.

[Jim_Campbell]

We recently had a bill from the hapless nPower saying they owed us over £2,000. Needless to say, when I thanked them kindly and asked for a cheque, they refused to honour it.

We had a hell of a time extracting a £600 refund out of them — this on the same empty property they now say we owe £410 on. They stalled for so long it rolled over into a different 'billing period' enabling them to then say they wanted to take their own reading, requiring us to take time off work to travel to the empty property. They wouldn't be more specific than 'morning' or 'afternoon' which meant spending half a day in a house with no electricity or running water. Only for them not to show up the first time.

What larks!

Jim

[SmallBlueThing]

Paling into insignificance next to the above monetary horrors, but we've just finished our complete binge on 'Rupaul's Drag Race' on Netflix (series one to five), and are now left without evenings spent in the company of brilliant drag queens, glam costumes and catchy catch phrases, not to mention the music of Rupaul herself. Oh Michelle Visage and Santino, I will miss you. Series six has already aired on gay channel Logo in the states, but no sign of it over here on Netflix as yet, which is irritating. Neither have they seemed to pick up the spin-off series 'Rupaul's Drag U', which ran for three seasons from 2010. Bah!

SBT