Our Survey Says....Exactly What We Wanted (15)

Broadband price comparison website says that you are being ripped off by your broadband provider, so you should come and look at their site for some great money saving deals. And it's easy. All you do is click the link the BBC have kindly provided in their "news" story reporting the results of their survey which found out that you're being ripped off by your current broadband provider. Simples. Or a fat Opera singer singing at you. Or that Iranian guy. Wasn't he in "Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow" or something?  Jesus that's a plummet from greatness isn't it? Doing a price comparison website advert? One minute you're rubbing shoulders with Paltrow and Law. The next? Your main rival for the affections of the British public is a computer generated Meerkat

  

Rumours of it's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I would have posted this earlier but since today's announcement that the recession is over, I've been too busy dealing with calls, emails and people knocking on my front door offering me jobs.  

Of course not.

Yesterday I did get an nice email telling me that I was "overqualified" for a job. Interestingly this position was all but identical to my last job, but with one notable difference. It was much better paid. 

Yes I spoke to them. And no they wouldn't budge. Nor, unsurprisingly, could they reveal who the employer was.

In the old days I'd have shouted "cry havoc" and started a holy crusade. Now? I really don't see the point 

Perhaps I've mellowed? Perhaps I've just become engulfed in resignation? Perhaps I'm just lulling them into a false sense of security? 

Still it was nice to be told that I was "overqualified". The last time that happened I was being interviewed for a job coordinating the delivery of commodes.

Which just proves the last 15 years haven't been in vain.  

A week without mp3 - Another update

Saw this about a "deluxe*" version of mp3 that's due to be launched. The report lists the format's benefits.

"The new file, MusicDNA, can include things like lyrics, videos, artwork and blog posts, which will continually be updated, as well as the music"

"...as well as the music?"

That little "as well as" says it all. 

*This shouldn't be confused with the last "deluxe" mp3 format "mp3pro". Which died on it's arse. 

...all these people are kinda the same

Following the rant last week about crap recruitment agencies I thought it would be illuminating to let you see exactly what I (and other job seekers) have to deal with

Q1) This screen grab was taken (half an hour prior to posting this) from a popular job / recruitment site. 

Study the image, CAREFULLY, before answering the following question. 

How many jobs are being advertised?

a) 3

b) 2

c) 4

d) 1

The correct answer is  

d) 1*

*Claim based on the job descriptions attached to these roles. And yes I did take the liberty of saving copies of the originals away. Just in case.

Cash4OldRope.

Timing is, as they say, everything. I was going to stick a thing here about those "post your gold to us" advertisements. But in the light of this report I think I've missed the boat. Still it's surprising to realise there still people who actually trust and believe companies who appear from no where, whose only point of contact is a telephone number and a website and who use the dead hours on obscure TV channels to advertise their wears. Worse there is still a large chunk of people who don't scrutinise the claims of companies who offer things that are "too good to be true".   

There' s been a long history of this type of TV advertising. Seemingly targeted, (if I was being generous) at the gullible. Of course there may be circumstances when, through no fault of your own, you might see something advertised on TV that could tide you over, or provide you with just that little convenience or service that didn't know existed. However, and unless you live in a vacuum, I find it hard to believe that people still don't deploy any scepticism. Think of all those ads, promising risk free compensation for injuries were you get 100% of your money, or guarantee to help you clear your debts, or free up some equity, or offer cash for your pension, or will refund National Insurance contributions, or exchanging your old mobile phone (for "wonga"), or help you sort out a refund on payment protection insurance, or offering unbeatable deals on stair lifts, baths, time shares in Portugal, arthritis cures, mattresses, kitchens, conservatories, conservatory blinds, electric garage doors, limited edition coins, life insurance and remote electric shutters. Given the fairly negative press the advertisers of these products invariably attract, wouldn't you at least exercise some caution before doing what they ask you to do?  Wouldn't you at least think (as you sit there, for one last time, in your conservatory with the remote control shuttering, now owned by the equity release company, penniless from spending the money released from your pension fund on a time share (complete with remote controlled garage doors) in a Portuguese golf resort and a stair lift, surrounded by the blinds, mattresses, limited edition plates, coins, carriage clocks, free parker pens (fortunately no sales person called or you'd have been rightly screwed), and the piles of compensation cheques made out in pence, with nothing to eat but useless anti-arthritis pills) that perhaps should have been a bit more thorough in your research before you committed yourself to another one. And then, just as you've resolved not to fall for it again it happens. On comes an ad telling you that they'll give you money for your unwanted gold? I mean who wouldn't be tempted? Who wouldn't believe, sitting amongst the "As Seen On TV" debris of their lives, that the promises of free pre-addressed jiffy bags and best prices, made by a actor in a pirate costume weren't anything other than genuine or trustworthy?  

Exactly. 

I almost feel obliged to apologise for a) the very long sentences used in the above and b) this posts particularly laborious English. But, and this is key, if I want to use convoluted language in this blog, punctuated with a smattering of (seemingly) random commas then, as the noted philosopher and singer Bobby Brown said, that's "my prerogative". 

"Meh"

The suspicions, raised in my last rant, have been confirmed. I know it's only 3 weeks into 2010 but already there's a contender for this years worst recruitment agency award. Again I'm not in the form to list the details, other than to say I reckon they would have won the coveted 2009 award with ease. 

And that's pretty much it. Hopefully, next time, my whinging will be back to it's usual caustic best.      

Additional Odds And Sods. Part II

Just a quick warning. There is a swear word immediately following this sentence.

"Fuckers"

Last weekend when I was scanning the job sites I spotted another job. I couldn't believe it. From the description I'd say it was a 85% match for me. And, shock horror, no recruitment agency. The only downside? The closing deadline for applications was "tight". My fault for missing it I suppose, but nonetheless I threw something together. Actually scrub that. I sweated blood, sweat and tears trying to make the best case I could for them to interview me. And, after much effing and blinding, it was ready. All I had to do, once I'd applied, was wait for the inevitable phone call, inviting me across for a chat. 

And so I waited.

And I'm still waiting. 

I don't look at the job sites every day. They really don't change much. So, on Monday, the role had dropped off the site. I didn't think about it, beyond assuming they were diligently checking all the applications they'd received and were drawing up short lists. I didn't expect to see it again. Why would I? 

So guess what has reappeared since yesterday? The same fucking job. With the same fucking advertisement. With, quite incredibly, the same fucking closing date of last Sunday. So much for the "attention to detail" they'd claimed was such an important aspect of the role.  

Worse, but with depressing predictability, an agency has started advertising a remarkably similar job. Presumably to cover all the bases, and to ensure there isn't some nuance or angle missed, they've posted it, with subtle variations, three times.

Magic. 

Additional Odds and Sods.

So.

My er stubbornness with Gigabyte technical support paid off. They replaced my motherboard with a slightly better one. More importantly the Blu-ray ROM drive I've been fighting with since last Christmas is now working as it should. Okay I had to install Vista, (which was surprisingly straight forward) but so far I've had no problems. 

The job hunt continues. Nothing to report really. I think it's too early to say if things have picked up or not. However there is an interesting anniversary coming up soon.

I was poking around on the BBC website again. Yeah it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. I saw this report about retail sales over Christmas. Obviously I'm going to interpret this as supporting what I said about "icing on the cake" in an earlier post, and the thing about HMV's sales increasing simply due to the lack of competition. The other news of Waterstones sales, despite being having a de-facto monopoly on the High Street, dropping away seems to reinforce what I thought about this organisation. That, ultimately, if it survives it will be down to pure, blind luck. And to think I was joking about being a retail analyst. "Go on givvus a job. I can do that."

*Reading over the last few "Odds and Sods" I've realised that I seem to be referencing a certain, discredited, Movie series. You know the one. This is entirely accidental. Now a few years ago this may have been considered quite a cool(ish) thing to do. So much so, people were able to build entire careers (in TV, comedy and cinema) around it. Now, in these more informed, less naive, post prequel days? Well it's a complete social no no. They can't (or shouldn't) be mentioned in polite company. Or in impolite company either. Ever. I'm sure we've all been there though. Someone, unaware of how circumstances have changed. blurts out a reference, expecting an appreciative response. Instead it's greeted with an embarrassed, slightly disbelieving silence. Now If you haven't experienced this, think of the silence you'd reserve for people freely admitting they like Chris De Burgh. 

Only worse.  

2010 - The year they make contact

Not much to report. Things are much the same. I have registered for with a new agency though. I went to see them last week. I had the usual conversation with the stock promises. What was different was the disdain shining from the other side of the desk. Well I assumed it was disdain, it could just as easily have been the post Christmas blues.. 

So you can probably imagine my utter bewilderment when, they actually delivered. They'd set me up with a telephone interview with a potential employer. Flipping hell! 

Long time readers (Hello!) will now be expecting the "but" and I'm not one to disappoint.  But after doing some research about the company and having a poke around their premises I found I didn't think I wanted the job. Ultimately they didn't want me either so it balanced out nicely. Of course these were pre-interview reservations. Afterwards? They had vanished, replaced by certainty. I definitely didn't want it.

Why?

The interview.

Okay it wasn't the oddest I've ever had*. But it was amongst the most baffling. Now telephone interviews are kind of an intangible thing, however they usually follow the generally accepted rules. So it's fairly easy to get a handle on things, what the employer wants, where they are going and so on. However answering questions about famous people, the weeks news headlines and the last book I'd read, asked with the all panache of a Facebook Quiz thrown together by someone with only as passing notion of "English" (And no I don't want it to access my profile thank you), completely threw me. I wasn't even given the opportunity to ask any questions back. Regardless of what they thought of me, I didn't want to work for them. Especially as I was assured there were "no right or wrong answers." (which, if this was really true, would make you wonder why they'd bother asking them in the first place. I mean you'd think they'd be expecting some sort of answer that fell, at least broadly, into a big category called "right" and another category called "wrong". But what do I know? Obviously nothing.) It just struck me that this suggests a company that doesn't know what they want. Meaning I'd never know what they'd want either. Nor would I be told what their goals and objectives were. I'd just be expected to "know". Worse, in my experience, a company that claims there are no "right" or "wrong" answers, is usually a company that actually has a very clear idea of what constitutes "right" and "wrong". They just chose not to tell you what these are until you've done something "wrong". So I was quite relieved when I got call from the agency telling me that I hadn't been successful. 

Okay it was a false start. But it was still a start. 

*Two others stick in my mind - the first when a guy kept asking me about the fleet of refrigerated lorries I ran - I think he was confused about who "Curry's" were and what they did. The second was one of those "whacky" interview things big companies did. The guilty party in this instance was Canon. Myself  (and a hundred others) were loaded into a room and expected to do a "Whose Line Is It Anyway" with a random object that was left on the desk. I thought "Are you fucking serious?" They were. Needless to say my respect for Canon vanished at that point. Perhaps I shouldn't have mimed that. Or I should have have at least done it in the style of John Sessions doing it in the style of a Restoration Comedy. I mean it always made Clive Anderson laugh.

The Nice And Accurate Prophecies of Angry Since 1967, which

turned out to be wrong. Well some of them anyway.

Three years ago to the day, I posted this. And I was wrong about a couple things. Vista wasn't even a heroic failure and the PS3 didn't become the must have console. Inexplicably it was the runt of the the litter, the Nintendo Wii, that conquered all before it. After the failures of the N64 and the Gamecube who would have predicted that? As it turns out no-one did.  

But I did get some things right. Surveys still prove what they were designed to prove, Blu-ray versus HD-DVD (RIP) continued to be prefixed by "just like VHS versus Betamax" so that people would get the point*. More bands released albums that were a "stunning return to form" and of course you can still get a DFS sofa at a massive discount with three years interest free credit.

*You know, way back in the day I can't believe that I didn't post a thing nailing my colours to the Blu-ray camp. It was always going to win the HD format war. Why? Very simple. When Betamax was launched, it took Sony a (fatally) long time to licence the technology to other manufacturers. Too late really as JVC had already signed up the big ones (Panasonic / Hitachi / Sharp) and were busy walloping whatever badge of convenience on the machines they made (Ferguson / Baird / Telefunken / Nordemende / Solara / Sansui and the rest). Sony were left with Toshiba (along with it's Teleton and General guises), NEC, Sanyo (but,shrewdly not their Fisher subsidiary) Pioneer and (the now all but defunct) Aiwa in backing Beta. Guess which companies learnt their lesson from the Beta days (er Sony and Pioneer) and guess which companies hadn't?  Quite unbelievably the main proponents of HD DVD were Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo. To paraphrase. Backing one failed consumer video format could be considered unfortunate. Backing two? That's simple carelessness. 

Chip And Pin(ched) - Update

I posted this back in 2006

According to this report it looks like my doubts about the "much vaunted" chip and pin devices are slowly being realised elsewhere

Good to see them get there eventually.