Panto_Villan

Working mostly from home is great for experienced members of the team, particularly senior leadership who want to sit at home in their nice house and already know everyone they need to know and how to do their job. It's much less great if you're a new grad living in a box room in a shared house, who doesn't know anyone at the company or really even how to do their job. Learning all that stuff in a remote setup is much more challenging, as there's a lot of basic stuff you pick up from being around more experienced people (not to mention younger people often want a social life as part of their job). I don't think you can just say "it's just a different way of working" when it comes to the early years of people's careers, tbh. Sure, that's not going to be a massive problem if people are working from home 1 day a week. But a lot of people right now still seem to think that working mostly or fully remotely is going to be the norm in the future. In my experience, that view tends to be held by people who have already spent 10+ years working full time in an office and already have the necessary skills to work from home efficiently (and like doing it, and have a home situation that allows it). I think in reality there'll be a lot of roles where not being mostly office based isn't really practical for any length of time. Yes, you're right that even fully remote work isn't going to die out. I've run a business that's been entirely remote for almost fifteen years now, and it always worked fine for us even before it was cool. But it being the dominant way of working for most companies? I'm pretty sure that's a covid-related blip.

I think this will be a temporary blip, to be honest. Maybe people might be allowed a max of one or two days a week at home at a push, but I think the most successful companies in the long term will be the ones that have all their staff together in the same building the majority of the time. I think most big companies are still coasting on the fact most people have previously been in the office five days a week at that company, so already have their networks / accumulated knowledge / "company culture". But that collectively erodes over time if people are working largely remotely, so while it's great for a while I think in a few years it'll start to cause problems.

It hasn't just been the managers, though - Suso was shown the door early on and replaced by Lange, presumably because they thought he wasn't performing (which in hindsight may have been a tad harsh given most of his signings came good). He wasn't in a position where you'd expect to see people get fired quickly but it still happened. I don't think the owners are at all scared to get rid of people if they think they're underperforming or can get an upgrade. And yeah, of course, if the owners thought they could get an upgrade on Purslow then he'd be gone - I agree it'd probably be in a less abrupt way than you get rid of a manager, but he'd still be gone. Ultimately though it sounds like you're agreeing with me here. If Purslow was anywhere near as bad as the naysayers on here make out, he'd be very easy to replace someone better. The fact he hasn't already been eased out and replaced with someone more competent suggests that the owners are actually happy with the job he's doing, which means anyone who thinks Purslow is an idiot must also think the owners are idiots.

A premier league football club changes the most important member of staff (the manager) on average every ten months or so. The barriers to firing people clearly aren’t that significant; they usually just mean you get a hefty payout. The disruption caused is worth it in the long term. If the owners thought Purslow was holding them back he’d be in the bin immediately. The owners are far too savvy to keep an underperformer around in such a key position.

The post was partially in jest because I recognise it’s nice to appreciate how far we’ve come, and it’s still occasionally funny. But I really don’t think we talked this much about McLeish after he left, or even Bruce or Dean.

I don't spend that much time in Other Football, but the fact that the Grealish thread is no longer on the front page and that the Gerrard one still is is a sad state of affairs. I guess the guy is a club legend now. We should build him a (shit) statue to commemorate the place he'll always have in our hearts.

Was that the Mi-24? Was it mechanical failure? I missed that at the time. Apparently the incident today was even worse than initially thought. People are now reporting a Su-35, a Su-34 and two Mi-8s were all shot down this morning by friendly fire. I guess that’s one way to deal with a shortage of parts.

Seems like Ukraine has been using those Storm Shadows to good effect in the occupied territories over the past 24 hours, along with US decoy missiles to confuse air defences. This morning Russian air defences reportedly shot down one of their own SU-34 fighter jets and two of their own helicopters. Not that they’re spooked or anything. Edit: might just be the one helicopter.

I guess I'm splitting hairs to some extent here, but what you actually want is for wages to increase more than prices are increasing - i.e. for prices to come down relative to earnings. That has the same effect without the problematic economic aspects of deflation. What do you think the powers that be should do about it, though? I agree that quite a lot of people just don't want to accept they are now poorer, but I'm not sure what the solution to that is beyond waiting for financial reality to convince them.

Rumours on Twitter drawing from Russian military bloggers are that Ukraine has launched attacks near Bakhmut and Soledar and started taking ground in various areas. Looks like the first stage of the counter-attack has begun, at least - although obviously it might just be exploratory attacks, or fixing attacks designed to get Russia to commit its reserves so Ukraine can attack elsewhere in a few days. One poster pointed out that all the panic in Russian channels was an interesting contrast to the previous Russian offensive, which had been ongoing for about three weeks before anyone actually noticed.

Love it. I look forward to the day when they're just threatening a "lukewarm response". Missile experts seem to think the picture of Klitchko standing next to the warhead looks correct for a Kinzal, don't they?

Realistically you're going to see prices decline from what they now as energy prices decline to normal levels. They won't fall back to previous levels, but the spike in energy prices was so severe that prices are bound to fall at least somewhat when they correct. Particularly in areas like food prices where energy plays such a big part. You don't want actual deflation, though, where prices are consistently dropping month on month for a prolonged period. That's actually a lot worse than inflation (just ask Japan).

Inflation and its relation to interest rates is an incredibly complex topic, and not even a fully settled question among economists. But yes, this is one of the reasons why the government is resisting giving public sector workers pay rises that match inflation, and why the governor of the Bank of England is saying private companies should not do it either. At the most fundamental level, the events of the last couple of years (e.g. the war in Ukraine, Brexit) have made us poorer - which means things have got more expensive compared to our incomes. You can't escape that with everyone putting up their wages by the equivalent amount, because then companies would need to raise their prices by the same amount, which just entrenches inflation and causes a cycle where wages and prices continue to drive each other up. (Simplistic explanation for a complex topic there obviously)

Yeah, you're right it's logistically difficult. But I think any time you're having a serious discussion about whether it's worthwhile or not to melt them down, it's an indication you probably shouldn't be bothering to make those coins. After all, they'll lose value relative to the metals used to make them as time goes on due to inflation, and you'd expect newly minted coins to last 30+ years. At some point melting them down will become economically viable. I think there's also more boring accounting reasons why it's a bad idea to make coins that cost more than their face value, too. I think if you create money, you're basically creating an asset for the government - effectively you're creating money out of nothing that you can spend on things, which is a great trick to be able to do (although do it too much and you get inflation). But if you're spending £5m to create £1m then that's wasting £4m the government can't then spend on other things. Although I guess they could just print £4m of £50 notes as well, to cancel it out - but again then you're in a situation where you're doing complicated things just to be able to create some coins that are of kinda debatable utility in the first place. EDIT - actually, you've sent me off down a bit of a wikipedia rabbit hole. Turns out people melting down coins was actually a genuine problem in relatively recent times. Pre-1965 the US had half-dollar coins made of 90% silver, and after 1965 they made new ones with 40% silver. What that meant was people looked at the dates on the coins and hoarded the ones that were 90% silver and bought things with the 40% silver ones instead, and as inflation steadily eroded the value of the dollar the silver became more valuable than the coin itself and they were melted down. Then in 1971 they introduced a no-silver half dollar and people immediately started hoarding the 40% silver ones, and the same thing eventually happened. You can just google Gresham's Law if you're interested.

Not really. The problem is that if people can buy 5p worth of metal for 1p, they'll just melt it down and sell it for a profit.

Be interesting to see when the offensive begins. I think this constant stream of small attacks on russian refineries and supply depots could be something that continues for weeks rather than just days, and I read on Twitter that there's about a three week lag from when the rains stop to when the ground is dry enough to drive large numbers of tanks and IFVs over it. If that's true (and I'm not sure if it is) then that'd actually suggest we've got another couple of weeks to wait before the Ukrainians attack in strength.

Yeah, we've definitely made it hard for ourselves with the last couple of results. Had we got a draw at United and a win at Wolves then we'd probably be favourites to get a European spot. But we didn't, and now it's quite unlikely we'll manage it. But quite unlikely isn't the same as being out of it completely, and while people would be foolish to expect us to make it to Europe I just think it's taking it too far to write us off completely like some people want to do. It's not over until it's over.

Don’t worry - Emery is clearly sabotaging Ollie’s performances to give Villa the upper hand in salary negotiations. Once the contract is signed he’ll be unstoppable again.

People were overconfident of our chances before, and now most people seem to have switched to being underconfident instead. Are we likely to get Europe? No, we’re not. But there’s still a chance, and stranger things have happened in football.

That's my council too. Good to know, because I was planning to vote Lib Dem and (embarrassingly) forgot to vote because things are crazy at work at the moment. When I moved here I looked at the General Election results from the election before last and they were mad - Tories had about 50% of the vote, and the next biggest party was UKIP. So the council switching to the Lib Dems is big news. Maybe our new yellow overlords will allow me a slightly larger bin.

Yeah, they’re screwed at this point. Sunak doing his best to be quietly competent is the best strategy that they have, but it’s just the least bad option and they’re still going to get an absolute drubbing in the general election. Anyone even remotely resembling a swing voter is utterly sick of the Tories by now. There’s no escaping that.

Always good to see this thread getting bumped. What's he done now to make everyone angry? Burned down an orphanage?

That would be great. Scottish football has been a two-horse race for far too long!

Meh. I still find it amazing how worked up people on VT get about every perceived slight from the media. I get the point you're making, but it feels kinda small time for a fanbase to be constantly demanding respect (in my opinion at least). But yeah, clearly Emery isn't going anywhere. Even if he thought the squad was better at those other clubs, why would he want to deal with a bunch of inflated player egos and owners who would interfere? He's got it great here. Talented squad who buy into his methods 100%, a professional hierarchy to support him, well-run academy, good stadium and training facilities, and patient owners with deep pockets and the good sense to step back and let a proven manager run things the way he wants. I actually can't think of any other club where he'd get all of those things.

What's been quite unusual is that people started taking notice of us a couple of matches ago (after the Newcastle result), which is usually the cue for us to implode in spectacular fashion. But he's somehow managed to break that curse too.