I have been expecting a letter from my solicitor for a while so today I rang up to enquire. I was told it had been posted on 14 September. To my surprise it arrived this afternoon 28 th, postmarked 27 September. Hmm.
My workplace is very good about staff recieving parcels - one chap regularly buys a box of wine, and the manager runs him home in her car because he can't carry it on his bike!
The work booking on/off system, which vanished from my machine at the end of the working day. The ICT page has a banner at the top with what to do, so it's not just me.
Tried the first step of restarting the laptop to no avail. As the next step is change password then restart, I decided to log out and leave it till Monday.
I would love to have stuff delivered or redirected to my workplace, but it's not allowed. (Which I do understand, but...)
We have 10 staff; I suspect that your workplace has rather more than that, and if you all had Stuff delivered at once your post-room would be somewhat whelmed ...
They were making noises about restricting personal deliveries at my office just before lockdown happened, on account of there being so many. But it was so convenient. I've always hated having to knock on a neighbour's door and ask for my parcel because I've had to be out when it arrived. Especially when neighbours are on night shift and your hours don't really overlap.
The only time I ever had anything delivered to work was when I won a competition. The prize was a set of Royal Doulton glasses, 38 pieces in all, if I remember rightly. Caused quite a sparkle in the staff room.
This was way back, long before ordering online had been invented.
I would love to have stuff delivered or redirected to my workplace, but it's not allowed. (Which I do understand, but...)
We have 10 staff; I suspect that your workplace has rather more than that, and if you all had Stuff delivered at once your post-room would be somewhat whelmed ...
That is indeed the case. I've been in my current workplace for 10 years and the number of people in it has more than doubled in that time and we were at the 250 or so mark when I started.
The "postroom" for parcels is actually the receptionists' space behind their desk, and as they rightly pointed out at the time the ban on personal parcels came in, when both this system and the pigeon holes system became unwieldy, with one of our receptionists being blind (that receptionist's preferred description) it was becoming a serious trip hazard. This receptionist is absolutely brilliant with our phone systems, relearning it every time it changes and expands, knowing all our voices, and I think is now our longest-serving member of staff. I, for one, am very fond of this receptionist and do not wish for trips to occur because it's convenient for me for occasional parcels to come to work.
I do know I could ask for an exemption on the ban for an occasional item which would come under "reasonable adjustments" (two people I know of have been granted this exception) as it's an essential medication item but I can juggle things so it's not necessary.
I've always hated having to knock on a neighbour's door and ask for my parcel because I've had to be out when it arrived. Especially when neighbours are on night shift and your hours don't really overlap.
When Elderly Neighbour, may he rest in peace and rise in glory, was next door, and the two people who we referred to as "The Neighbourhood Watch Boys" in the ground floor flats at the top of the cul-de-sac, I was happy for them to take in parcels. They were always in, and enjoyed the excuse of a chat. (And, to be fair, so did I. They were all good neighbours.)
Also, when we had a delightful regular post person who had done the round for 30+ years, they learned rapidly who they could leave parcels with safely.
Alas, times have changed, and I now have delivery instructions which firmly state "Do not leave my parcels with ANY neighbours."
I now won't take in parcels for anybody. I don't mind occasionally, although it is awkward when people are on night shift, but it got to the point where two sets of neighbours had frequent deliveries - one lot had them pretty much daily, the others had literally 4-5 a day (I can't for the life of me imagine why or what), and after I was asked to take in parcels for the fourth time in two days I refused. An occasional favour is one thing but I'm not a storage depot.
@Ariel I forgot - I currently have just one near neighbour who I will take the occasional parcel (Royal Mail ones as we are back on a post person who knows the people) in for and she, when she's around, will do likewise for me. It's because it's occasional, we both keep ourselves very much to ourselves in the current other neighbours' scenario. I did the same for the good neighbours who have either departed this life or who moved away.
We also return each others' bins as our road is very early on the bins route, and we're both up and about about the time they are done. I'm usually off to work not long after.
I think I've said before that one of the Inestimable Benefits of living in Arkland is that all parcels and post are delivered to the Office. A note is then put in my post-box (in the Office lobby) to tell me that a parcel is waiting within, and, if it's a large package, or I've forgotten a shopping-bag to put it in, one of the Staff will carry it to the car for me. I buy a lot of Stuff online these days, and almost invariably receive an email to tell me that the item has been delivered, so that I know when to go to the Office to collect it.
I've also mentioned my kind neighbours - F, T & their daughter P, M & S (not the shop with those initials!), and S, who look out for me, take my rubbish bags to the bin, put Coal Bags on deck for me etc. etc.
Generally deliveries here are made to the home, because nobody locks front doors. If, by chance, delivery people encounter a locked front door your parcel will probably be on the seat of your car (sometimes even if it's not outside your house). I don't know what happens if you're fool enough to lock both car and house.
We had a parcel delivered wrongly from Evri. I took it back to Tesco and said that there was no-one of that name at our address. A week later the parcel was delivered once again to our door by Evri,in spite of the fact that on the parcel was clearly written 'not known at this address'.
We were going on holiday the following day and left the parcel in our house. When we returned two weeks later there was a note from someone else in the street saying they lived at 9/3 whereas we live at 3. Glad to reunite the parcel with the person who wanted it. I have a feeling she wanted to give it to a boy friend as it was a Tshirt which said 'Hunky Boy'.
There are benefits, as well as disadvantages, in living in small, close-knit communities, where people know each other.
That and if you want to make off with something to sell you have to get on the ferry with it before anyone notices. I recall the story that someone made off with a famous post box from a neighbouring island in the boot of their car but found the ferry impounded in Oban and nobody allowed off until the thief gave themselves up.
Well, we got some post yesterday - a handful of letters sent on 7th September, including the important letter from the hospital I was waiting for, but birthday cards from over two weeks ago (Mrs Spike and I have birthdays in the same week) and the September edition of a magazine I subscribe to have still to arrive.
There are benefits, as well as disadvantages, in living in small, close-knit communities, where people know each other.
There are indeed. When my dad retired, he decided he didn't need such a big car; he had a bright turquoise, 15-year-old Volvo estate at the time, which he passed to me (I'd just passed my test). I had no need to worry about locking it; if anyone had tried to nick it (or take it off the island), someone would have said, "what are you doing in Piglet's dad's car?".
Since moving to the city from the country three years ago one of my new joys is that not once have I had to go to the post office to pick up a package. Which is good as I no longer drive. My kind mailman brings any package that will not fit in my mailbox up the steps and places it on the table on my front porch.
Generally deliveries here are made to the home, because nobody locks front doors.
Some years ago I was in the shower (upstairs) when I heard the doorbell ring. I thought I would just nip out to the landing, which would let me glance through a window to see who was at the door. The person at the door wouldn't have been able to see me.
Alas, it was my postie who, when I didn't come to the door immediately, let herself in to leave my parcel in my hallway.
Our eyes locked for a brief, horrified minute, before we both retreated, and I haven't had a parcel left inside since.
Not to worry. Many years ago my wife attended a life drawing class. One week the nude model who emerged from behind the curtain was ... our (very nice) postie! He was quite blase about it, saying that basically he was an artist but did the post job to support himself.
During lockdown I was passing by the closed shopping centre as an elderly lady hobbled slowly towards it with a stick, clearly about to try to enter, and her journey would have been for nothing. I was about to go up and break it to her when a postwoman pushing a trolley stopped and said:
"Are you okay? Do you need any shopping? Just let me know if there's anything you need and I'll drop it off at your door when I do my round later this morning."
I'm filling in a job application form. It wants to know every job I've had since I left school. In 198 fecking 5. And it wants to know which month I started and finished each one.
Does anyone know that sort of detail about themselves? Does anyone need to know it? Who creates these forms?
I'm filling in a job application form. It wants to know every job I've had since I left school. In 198 fecking 5. And it wants to know which month I started and finished each one.
Does anyone know that sort of detail about themselves? Does anyone need to know it? Who creates these forms?
Presumably at the end it then asks you to attach a CV?
The last time I was asked for that sort of data it was by Manpower (referee who'd known me 7 years? In my late 20s? FFS! I had to go back to a headteacher!), who phoned me six months later asking if I fancied an afternoon unloading a lorry at a gadren centre. I'd walked out of their door, walked into the next agency along the street, and walked out of that one with a job. A shit one, admittedly, but better than the alternatives.
Gear cables. I suddenly found this evening I had three gears on the velocipede rather than 21 - the cable has frayed through.If I drive to work, hopefully, if no-one has failed to drive down a straight road without driving off it or into someone else, I might have time to fix it tomorrow evening. If not, it's the weekend after next...
I'm filling in a job application form. It wants to know every job I've had since I left school. In 198 fecking 5. And it wants to know which month I started and finished each one.
Does anyone know that sort of detail about themselves? Does anyone need to know it? Who creates these forms?
Presumably at the end it then asks you to attach a CV?
The last time I was asked for that sort of data it was by Manpower (referee who'd known me 7 years? In my late 20s? FFS! I had to go back to a headteacher!), who phoned me six months later asking if I fancied an afternoon unloading a lorry at a gadren centre. I'd walked out of their door, walked into the next agency along the street, and walked out of that one with a job. A shit one, admittedly, but better than the alternatives.
Cthulhu be praised, it doesn't quite commit that ultimate silliness.
Just pick something if you can't remember. They're not going to check whether it was January or June of 1989. Those forms are aimed more at people who may only have had a few recent short term jobs.
I've filled in application forms in my time that asked for previous salaries. As it happens I can remember what I was paid in my first job in 1985 because it was basically just slightly more than I'd have got on the dole. But still not a great question to ask prospective applicants and a meaningless one. Who cares what I earned in 1990 in a different field?
I can also remember the months and years I started jobs (my salary would be an easy check too as I was previously a nurse and we have standardised pay scales). But I agree, just put any month down as no-one will care.
I have an old Filofax (no longer used as a diary) which has a page of every address I’ve ever lived at, with dates, and another with the dates of every job I’ve had. So I only need to remember where the Filofax is!
I do maintain a very accurate list of where I've lived, as I moved a lot between 1983 and 2009, and can construct from that accurate months/years for jobs.
This is because I never quite recovered from the police check required for one job 22 years ago where they required every single address, with postcode, I'd ever lived. From the age of 16. Whilst I could construct the addresses with reasonable accuracy, it took an afternoon in the local library with multiple directories to get all the postcodes. (No internet in my life at that point...) and the person who thought this was a good idea was condemned to the nether regions at regular intervals in the process. However, once done, I was not losing all that work, so it went in the Important Papers file and was converted to electronic form at the first opportunity several years later.
Given how many Disclosure Scotland, CRB, DBS checks I've had since, I can only recall two that have featured only one address.
I... probably can remember the months and years I started and finished jobs, but then my brain works like that.
I can too, but I’ve only had seven employers—one while I was in high school, one during summers while in college, two during summers while in law school, and three in the 37 years since law school.
I had one that took me right back to kindergarten (I believe you-all call it Reception). Seriously, they wanted jobs and schools 20 years back, and this was my first "adult" job after university.
I had one that took me right back to kindergarten (I believe you-all call it Reception). Seriously, they wanted jobs and schools 20 years back, and this was my first "adult" job after university.
When I applied to sit for the bar exam, I had to list the address of every place I had lived for more than one month, and the dates I had lived there, any time during my life. Fortunately, we had never moved when I was growing up, but I still had a challenge with three different dorms, two apartments and lodging for summer staff three different summers. That was a real headache.
I need a police record check for volunteer work with vulnerable people - no problem with that. An issue is that I have the same birthday as a registered villain with the same name, so I have to be fingerprinted - no problem with that really, but when I had to renew the check again last week, I was advised that I will have to be fingerprinted again, meaning driving over to the next town to let them repeat the record they took for the same thing a couple of years ago. They already have all the confounded information that they need. This is as bad as the US border.
I had one that took me right back to kindergarten (I believe you-all call it Reception). Seriously, they wanted jobs and schools 20 years back, and this was my first "adult" job after university.
When I applied to sit for the bar exam, I had to list the address of every place I had lived for more than one month, and the dates I had lived there, any time during my life. Fortunately, we had never moved when I was growing up, but I still had a challenge with three different dorms, two apartments and lodging for summer staff three different summers. That was a real headache.
They'd like mine. It comes to about 23 moves in the course of my life I think. I may have blotted some of the more awful bedsits from my mind.
A friend of mine is applying for French nationality. She also has to provide every address she's lived at since she's been in the country, with dates. She arrived at the age of six, and moved repeatedly as a child. I've no idea how she's done it.
(I was spared this rigmarole because I am married to a native.)
What used to be a pain for me, is they couldn’t understand the idea of overlapping addresses for university students - main address my parents term time address at uni.
I'm rather shocked to be here, age 57, and only count 9 places I've lived, including student days (college and grad school both). If I leave those out, we're down to three with my family of origin, and one in my married life. I must be a very sedentary bird.
I reckon I'm on address 13, and the only one I might struggle with is in the town where I was born and left aged 3, but I bet I could find it online (the curate's house adjoined the vicar's and I think was next to the church).
I... probably can remember the months and years I started and finished jobs, but then my brain works like that.
I can too, but I’ve only had seven employers—one while I was in high school, one during summers while in college, two during summers while in law school, and three in the 37 years since law school.
I had a couple of employers in casual jobs while in high school and early years at uni. Then I started work at one firm, where I was articled to a partner, and after that went to the bar. So no employer for over 45 years.
Address no 11 and I would struggle with some of the addresses I lived in short term in London, though I could probably chase up my flatmates on Facebook for details. I have no idea of the flat number or even the block I lived in at Wandsworth for 5 months.
Oxford was responsible for a lot of my moves. It was like leaping out of the frying pan into the fire as I fled from awful bedsit to awful bedsit - mould, damp, cold, rent, noise, nutty landladies, sex pest landlord... Actually I think it may be as many as 27 moves now, I did indeed blot some of these out. One year I even moved three times. It was certainly an educational experience.
"Your rent increase will be £100 a month."
"If you want a bath that will be 50p per bath."
"I am not having anyone here who declares their income tax. You will have to leave."
"You look a bit tense. Shall I come up and give you a massage?"
I am also contemplating moving house at some point to find somewhere suitable for my final years but there's no desperate hurry for that this time.
Helmsdale - Kirkwall - Aberdeen - Kirkwall (parents' address) - Kirkwall (David's address - a tutor's flat in the school hostel where I moved for the few weeks between our wedding and moving to NI) - Carrickfergus - Belfast - St John's - Fredericton (scuzzy wee flat whose address I can't remember) - Fredericton (house-sitting, with cat) - Fredericton (our own house with lovely view, no cat) - Balerno (my sister's) - Linlithgow.
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Tried the first step of restarting the laptop to no avail. As the next step is change password then restart, I decided to log out and leave it till Monday.
This was way back, long before ordering online had been invented.
That is indeed the case. I've been in my current workplace for 10 years and the number of people in it has more than doubled in that time and we were at the 250 or so mark when I started.
The "postroom" for parcels is actually the receptionists' space behind their desk, and as they rightly pointed out at the time the ban on personal parcels came in, when both this system and the pigeon holes system became unwieldy, with one of our receptionists being blind (that receptionist's preferred description) it was becoming a serious trip hazard. This receptionist is absolutely brilliant with our phone systems, relearning it every time it changes and expands, knowing all our voices, and I think is now our longest-serving member of staff. I, for one, am very fond of this receptionist and do not wish for trips to occur because it's convenient for me for occasional parcels to come to work.
I do know I could ask for an exemption on the ban for an occasional item which would come under "reasonable adjustments" (two people I know of have been granted this exception) as it's an essential medication item but I can juggle things so it's not necessary.
When Elderly Neighbour, may he rest in peace and rise in glory, was next door, and the two people who we referred to as "The Neighbourhood Watch Boys" in the ground floor flats at the top of the cul-de-sac, I was happy for them to take in parcels. They were always in, and enjoyed the excuse of a chat. (And, to be fair, so did I. They were all good neighbours.)
Also, when we had a delightful regular post person who had done the round for 30+ years, they learned rapidly who they could leave parcels with safely.
Alas, times have changed, and I now have delivery instructions which firmly state "Do not leave my parcels with ANY neighbours."
Fortunately, I don't have many online deliveries.
We also return each others' bins as our road is very early on the bins route, and we're both up and about about the time they are done. I'm usually off to work not long after.
I've also mentioned my kind neighbours - F, T & their daughter P, M & S (not the shop with those initials!), and S, who look out for me, take my rubbish bags to the bin, put Coal Bags on deck for me etc. etc.
We were going on holiday the following day and left the parcel in our house. When we returned two weeks later there was a note from someone else in the street saying they lived at 9/3 whereas we live at 3. Glad to reunite the parcel with the person who wanted it. I have a feeling she wanted to give it to a boy friend as it was a Tshirt which said 'Hunky Boy'.
That and if you want to make off with something to sell you have to get on the ferry with it before anyone notices. I recall the story that someone made off with a famous post box from a neighbouring island in the boot of their car but found the ferry impounded in Oban and nobody allowed off until the thief gave themselves up.
There are indeed. When my dad retired, he decided he didn't need such a big car; he had a bright turquoise, 15-year-old Volvo estate at the time, which he passed to me (I'd just passed my test). I had no need to worry about locking it; if anyone had tried to nick it (or take it off the island), someone would have said, "what are you doing in Piglet's dad's car?".
Some years ago I was in the shower (upstairs) when I heard the doorbell ring. I thought I would just nip out to the landing, which would let me glance through a window to see who was at the door. The person at the door wouldn't have been able to see me.
Alas, it was my postie who, when I didn't come to the door immediately, let herself in to leave my parcel in my hallway.
Our eyes locked for a brief, horrified minute, before we both retreated, and I haven't had a parcel left inside since.
During lockdown I was passing by the closed shopping centre as an elderly lady hobbled slowly towards it with a stick, clearly about to try to enter, and her journey would have been for nothing. I was about to go up and break it to her when a postwoman pushing a trolley stopped and said:
"Are you okay? Do you need any shopping? Just let me know if there's anything you need and I'll drop it off at your door when I do my round later this morning."
Does anyone know that sort of detail about themselves? Does anyone need to know it? Who creates these forms?
Presumably at the end it then asks you to attach a CV?
The last time I was asked for that sort of data it was by Manpower (referee who'd known me 7 years? In my late 20s? FFS! I had to go back to a headteacher!), who phoned me six months later asking if I fancied an afternoon unloading a lorry at a gadren centre. I'd walked out of their door, walked into the next agency along the street, and walked out of that one with a job. A shit one, admittedly, but better than the alternatives.
Cthulhu be praised, it doesn't quite commit that ultimate silliness.
I've filled in application forms in my time that asked for previous salaries. As it happens I can remember what I was paid in my first job in 1985 because it was basically just slightly more than I'd have got on the dole. But still not a great question to ask prospective applicants and a meaningless one. Who cares what I earned in 1990 in a different field?
This is because I never quite recovered from the police check required for one job 22 years ago where they required every single address, with postcode, I'd ever lived. From the age of 16. Whilst I could construct the addresses with reasonable accuracy, it took an afternoon in the local library with multiple directories to get all the postcodes. (No internet in my life at that point...) and the person who thought this was a good idea was condemned to the nether regions at regular intervals in the process. However, once done, I was not losing all that work, so it went in the Important Papers file and was converted to electronic form at the first opportunity several years later.
Given how many Disclosure Scotland, CRB, DBS checks I've had since, I can only recall two that have featured only one address.
They'd like mine. It comes to about 23 moves in the course of my life I think. I may have blotted some of the more awful bedsits from my mind.
(I was spared this rigmarole because I am married to a native.)
I think that's it to date.
I had a couple of employers in casual jobs while in high school and early years at uni. Then I started work at one firm, where I was articled to a partner, and after that went to the bar. So no employer for over 45 years.
"Your rent increase will be £100 a month."
"If you want a bath that will be 50p per bath."
"I am not having anyone here who declares their income tax. You will have to leave."
"You look a bit tense. Shall I come up and give you a massage?"
I am also contemplating moving house at some point to find somewhere suitable for my final years but there's no desperate hurry for that this time.
No Vladivostok or Tierra dal Fuego?
I rather hope that's it.