Wednesday 29 January 2014

O2 be, or not be, O2

Dear O2, my dear dear O2,

It must be really stressful being part of the largest telecommunications company in the world. The problem is that the stress that comes with such jobs can do funny things to people. Some individuals go postal and embark on a random shooting spree, some kick back, put their feet up, and head off to a mental nirvana no longer capable of coherent thought or speech, others, such as the intellectuals at O2 have decided to take another route entirely.

You see O2, in their stress crazed minds, have noticed that customers pay them money. In fact, they pay them so much of the damn stuff that last year alone they made £332 million. Which, unless someone’s gone and changed how numbers work and not told me, is quite a lot. The problem is though, their customers still have money, and as big nasty Ofcom have rocked up and said that if you put your charges up mid contract that customers can walk away penalty free, O2 can’t get any of it. Sure, they could up their pay as you go charges, but that’d be like robbing a bank and walking out with the security guard’s wallet. So there must be a better idea.

It’s that better idea that the intellectuals O2 think they’ve struck upon.

But first some context, and a nod to Bill Hicks.

Back in the 70s it became fashionable to sue bands claiming that they’d driven someone to commit suicide. The question that was never asked was simple; What performer wants their audience dead? Can you picture the band in the studio? “Christ I’m sick of it. The money, the fame, the groupies, these people buying all my albums, t-shirts and concert tickets, giving me so much that I can have everything I want. We need to do something about this. Hey, why don’t we kill the bloody audience? That’d be great! Then I can go back to being a waffle house waiter!”

It made no sense. At its best it was hilarious, at its worse it was a sad indictment of a miserably low level of education and simple common sense on the part of the prosecutors. It has, since then, quite simply died a death. Nobody tries that kind of drivel any more, as it’s so obviously flawed it’s embarrassing.

Unless you’re O2. Because O2 have decided that while they don’t want their customers dead, they do want them to feel like they’re about as valuable to them as Michael Flatley with Rickets. Especially the ones who’ve been there for a while. New customers are fine, but long term ones? The ones who’ve been paying O2 for years? Screw ‘em. Apparently those longer term customers can happily have their contracted charges arbitrarily increased at a moment's notice and just have to accept it because they can’t leave their contracts early. Not new customers though, those are protected by a recent Ofcom ruling that allows them to leave if their rates are put up. So, for clarity, O2 are consciously, and deliberately singling out their longer term customer base for increased charges because they’re the ones who can’t leave. Yet. And it’s not their call costs, or their text message costs. No, those are costs that can be controlled by the customer through their usage. This is the flat rate contract price for your package. The one you have no choice about. The whole concept is little more than an acknowledgement that what they're doing is one huge motivator to their customers to leave, and publicly acknowledging the fact that that's what a lot of them would do. So, they've decided to leave the people who can leave alone, and screw the people who can't.

I guess what this really means is that their long term customers are the ones they have the better connections with.

Thursday 23 January 2014

On what's wrong with your CV

Writing a CV is hard. Really hard. Trying to show a total stranger that you're qualified, smart, personable, and capable enough to get them to actually want to speak to you. It's a hard, nerve racking experience. So why then would you send off something that reads like it was put together by a schizophrenic toddler with social issues? Because you are. Constantly. I know this because you've been sending them to me. Here's some of the highlights....

But first a disclaimer, because I'm not an idiot. I've tweaked these where required to get rid of all names, companies, and any other personal information to protect the astonishingly stupid. And me. Mostly me.

Enjoy.


1) Don't write your CV in the third person.

Seriously people, it's weird. REALLY weird. The first impression I'm going to get of you is that either a) You got someone else to write it for you, which I've caught people out for on several occasions, or b) You're about as mentally stable as Jack Nicholson's character from The Shining. Unless that's how you communicate in the real world there are no excuses. If that is how you communicate in the real world then I'm not the person you need to be applying to.

I'm seeing this constantly, bloody stop it!

2) There is such a thing as too much information.

I recently got a CV that told me the author liked to keep up with current events. Which in itself isn't exactly news worthy, but fair enough, I know why it's there. Unfortunately the author clearly realised that people get suspicious about what's on someone's CV. After all, they might be lying. The bastards. So in an effort to combat this they decided the best solution was to list some examples of "current events" because that's the part of their CV I was most likely to be suspicious about.

The same person then went on to tell me they'd just started doing Yoga. Which was nice. What I didn't need to know was that they were doing so to "make me more flexible." NOT OKAY!

3) You are not in school, I expect you to write your own CV

There was a time, when I was about 14, that copying off the internet was amazing. Homework done in seconds and the teachers too far behind the times to realise what I'd done.* It was a glorious time to be alive. Sadly, by the time I was 15 that time had passed. So, you can imagine my excitement when I received the following CV for an IT job.

"[Previous company: Fashion label] IT dept.

[Company] is a British fashion retailer headquartered in [Removed]LondonUK.[1][2][3] [Company] now sells menswearwomenswearfootwear, and accessories in 35 department stores and 65 stand-alone stores across the UK, EuropeCanada and the United States.[4][5][6] Currently, 85% of the company is owned by [Removed].[7][8][9]"

That's right kids! Not only did this guy simply copy and paste the Wikipedia article for one of his former employers, he also left in every single hyperlink to other Wikipedia articles too! Presumably he thought that I might become so interested in London or Women's wear from reading his CV that I'd immediately want to get myself onto Wikipedia to learn more!

Oh, and just for some bonus points, he also didn't even bother to change the font to match the rest of the CV either. Just incase I was under any doubt that he was lazy and lacking in even the most basic IT skills to realise what he'd done.

4) Get to the point!

I like the point. It's a great and wonderful place driven by efficiency and with very little time wasting. Glorious. Imagine if everything were like the point. We'd probably be reading this on Mars by now. The point in your CV needs to be gotten to, and fast. Ideally over no more than 2-3 pages. So, to the guy who sent me a 19 page CV, and to the HR department who couldn't comprehend why said no without even turning to page 2, let this be a lesson. If it takes you 19 pages to make yourself look good I don't even want to talk to you, let alone employ you.

5) "Txt spk" is glorified illiteracy.

Apparently this makes me uncool and ignorant of the way young people are creating an exciting new langu....oh you know what, I just don't care. It doesn't matter how many bleeding hearts come on TV to say that we shouldn't look down on such things. I don't care. I pay you, I employ you, your job exists on my terms, not yours. If your first day's training includes handing out a dictionary then I can promise you there wont be a second day of training. Don't like it? Fine, don't get a job then. YOLO.

6) Don't attach a photo

See point 1. It's weird. It also makes me feel excessively judgemental as human nature dictates I've already made assumptions. Also, more often than not you've sent me a passport photo. Which makes you look like a murderer, and I try to keep the number of murderers I'm associated with to as few as possible.

So let's be clear, with your CV you are asking me to be your manager. You reflect on me, if you're shit, and I hired you, I look like shit. As your manager, I am not your baby sitter, your parents, your carer, or your psychiatrist. I don't care if you 'need to work on' somethings. I expect you to have worked on it and be able to function as a useful member of a team. I DO expect to train you, to show you things, teach you new processes, and basically enable you to do your job properly. I do expect to treat you like a decent human being and understand that sometimes shit happens to people, and I need to be flexible when it does. But I do not expect to have to make you a viable member of society before you become a useful member of my team.

The nice bit

Just for balance, there are a lot of things I simply don't care about for you either. Your hair length, your piercings, your tattoos, your dress sense, and all of the other good stuff that makes you a human being. Couldn't care less about them. You're either capable of doing the job or you're not. If you are, you'll get the job. But remember, that's me. Other people are stuck in the dark ages and expect you to jump through hoops and look a certain way. So think about that before you rock up without even bothering to shower that morning. Because yes, that's happened too.

*Let's all just take a moment to remember how awesome Encarta Encyclopedia was.........Done? Cool, carry on as you were.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Cleaning up the London protestors

Good god this has been a long time coming. Finally, after years of protests, riots, and petitioning (most of them nonsense) it's finally happened. Boris Johnson, and the wider Tory Government has taken notice of the plight of the nation's protestors. Most of them are, plainly, disgusting.

"Soap dodging on this scale hasn't been seen since the middle ages." A spokesperson for the mayor's office announced, echoing the voice of the people of Highgate, Hampstead, and Blackheath. "We've heard the voice of the people, and the people are desperate. These uprising's of the unclean need to be addressed, and today we're showing that we're listening, and we're acting."

Government cut backs have already impacted on the scheme with confirmation the protestors would still be required to bring their own soap. But the general consensus seems to be that even without soap in the water, the principal alone should see London move up the list of the worlds cleanest cities.

Personally over the years I've grown thoroughly fed up with seeing legions of angry people shouting about pretty much everything, without even having bothered to take a shower before heading to the streets. Finally this means that we can protect people's right to protest, and help the homeless, simultaneously.

Wednesday 8 January 2014

38 Degrees of separation

I can’t bloody stand 38 Degrees. Not the idea that is. The idea that people can do something that isn’t setting fire to stuff to raise legitimate issues for consideration by the powers that be is, well, quite good really. What I can’t bloody stand is how it’s actually used. You know, in the real world. Where people live. And by people, I mean idiots.

PETITION ALL THE THINGS!

Literally, all of them. Don’t like something? Start a petition. Have a hair brained scheme that you rehashed from an episode of Pinky and the Brain that you watched during a depressing, Special Brew fuelled, YouTube evening? Start a petition. Sick of writing angry letters to the Daily Mail to complain that you’re, curiously, not in charge of everything, and that other people have the nerve to disagree with you? Start a petition.

38 Degrees has basically turned into Twitter with signatures and frankly it’s making us look like a bunch of morons.

My current favourite is this stunningly clever idea that Michael Gove should spend a term teaching. 

Let’s break this little gem down shall we.

Michael Gove, a politician, a man with no discernible capacity to do his own job, let alone someone else’s, should, according to about 100,000 people, spend a term teaching. Should he? Really, should he? Michael Gove is, quite clearly, a dribbling moron who’d struggle with the responsibility of looking after an Ice Cream in an Igloo, let alone the education policy of a nation. And you want him to be in direct charge of actually teaching Children? Not the hypothetical way that he comes up with policies, but in an actual standing in front of a class of eager young minds imparting wisdom and helping them develop their critical thinking way.

You bloody don’t. You don’t want him anywhere near where Children might “learn” from him. What you actually want is for him to get fired for being an inept window licking moron with the intellectual capacity of a Cat Flap and be consigned to a footnote in the county’s more embarrassing history books. But, instead of that, almost 100,000 people have decided he should spend a term teaching in order to be able to do his job properly.For people who like lists (or keep reading BuzzFeed), here’s some numbered points….
  1. Michael Gove is, sadly, an MP. A man with an existing job. A full time job. A job that were he not doing it full time you’d also been complaining about. A job that he won’t be doing at all if he’s teaching in a school.
  2. What type of school? Or do you just mean the one that specifically applies to your child, and your own specific needs. Because having the Minister in charge of Education focussed solely on your own little niche is of literally no use to anyone.
  3. Michael Gove is not a teacher. Which means that he's never had ANY teacher training. Which, to my mind at least, means that teaching isn't really something he should be doing. But don’t let that little technicality get in the way of your irate shouty genius.
  4. By creating or signing this spurious nonsense, what you’ve actually done is legitimise those in charge to completely ignore online petitions entirely. After all, if it’s famous for complaining about things they plainly don’t understand, are making ill informed petitions consisting largely of plainly unworkable ideas, why would anyone who wasn’t taught by Michael Gove want to listen to it?
So there you have it. Well done you. You've successfully turned what could have been a powerful tool of the people into an easily dismissed haven for those who didn't watch enough Sesame Street as kids. Thanks for that. Here's a round of applause for you....