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Stevo985

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8 hours ago, Chindie said:

A couple of years ago when I was driving into the city for work, I would regularly, on the way home, hit enormous traffic jams that suddenly would completely disappear when I went past a random junction. There were no accidents in the area, the other side of junction would inevitably be flowing fine, the flow across the perpendicular route would be normal. Just my route was nose to tail for 20 minutes. No kidding this once caused me to spend 40 minutes to drive half a mile. And seemingly the only thing causing it was the lights.

A broken down car on the route home once caused a tailback for over 3 miles into the city centre on my route. Which is shite. But at least I could see that the broken down car had caused an issue.

Driving in the city is nightmarish. And I'm not convinced it's just weight of traffic - they're actively trying to make driving worse, particularly on major commuter routes around the city centre. And then they are also openly trying to attack parking around the city as well.

Which wouldn't be so bad. But there's large areas of Birmingham where the public transport sucks. Before I could drive my options for getting into town realistically was the bus, which was shit - slow, unreliable, caught on the same roads every car was. Even when they implemented bus lanes a great deal of the route didn't have the lanes anyway. I ended up getting into town earlier and earlier just to try to avoid sitting on a bus in traffic for the better part of an hour (or more) to do a trip you could quite genuinely do in 20 minutes in a car at any other time of day.

The entirety of North Birmingham is a wasteland for rail.

There was a rumour that the broken down cars were deliberately placed in the queensway tunnel and other major routes at rush hour in order to create as much chaos as possible. I'm sure its not true though...

I started working in the city centre in 1997 and have pretty much worked their ever since, save for a year working in Perry Barr (lovely!). I used to drive into work and park in Snow Hill car park when I worked on Colmore Row and the traffic was manageable. Never any traffic jams. I think I first noticed it getting shit around 2005 and from then on it would get worse every year. I moved to Four Oaks in 2008, mainly because it had a train station and a regular line into Brum. I wouldn't even dream of driving now. A lot of people obviously feel the same as the footfall on the trains has, I would say, trebled since 2010. Same amount of trains and carriages though, making rush  hour train travel a chore. 

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32 minutes ago, limpid said:

The app lets you upload a picture of the safe place you want it left too.

Seems like a risky move letting the public send pictures of the place they'd like the delivery driver to shove their package. 😯

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DPD is the best delivery service by miles. They've actually got business from me when I've needed to send loads of stuff out because they actually offer a good service to me as a customer receiving stuff.

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Just now, Chindie said:

DPD is the best delivery service by miles. They've actually got business from me when I've needed to send loads of stuff out because they actually offer a good service to me as a customer receiving stuff.

I do like seeing exactly where they are in their route and where I am in the queue. I'd **** hate it if I were a driver though.

I could see one of mine was waiting for him to stop having lunch at McDonalds before he turned up!

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Going back to the WFH conversation, I'd struggle to work in an office 5 days a week now. I do 2 days at home, sometimes more, and its great. I save time (2 hours commuting per day) and I spend less. Although no doubt my heating bill will be going up! 

There is still a stigma about it though. A lot of the 'old school' managers hate their staff working at home. Like they don't trust them or something. 

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36 minutes ago, Xela said:

There is still a stigma about it though. A lot of the 'old school' managers hate their staff working at home. Like they don't trust them or something. 

Ah, the shit managers are shit thing 😁 No trust is required. Set KPIs and check them regularly.

My previous boss was like this, so I insisted the business allowed it. He now works from home once a week himself as do his whole team. The weird thing is that he was always good with flexible working - just had a hang up with planning in advance to work from home.

My current team has barely had anyone in the office this week (including me). I'm hoping to renegotiate my contract soon, and I'll be looking for it to be in my contract that I'm allowed a number of days a week at home. If they challenge it, I'll point out that they don't mind me being out of the office when they send me off to Europe for the pointless industrial tourism.

When I move on. I'll be looking to be based at home and charge expenses when they want me in an office - I might have to do it as a freelancer though.

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8 hours ago, limpid said:

1%? corporation tax reduction where a company can demonstrate that averaged over the entire business, employees work within 2? miles of home on at least 2? days a week....[etc.]

I think people using public transport, cyclists (eff off tony :) ), people walking to work, lift sharing etc. should also be factored in. And for now those electricity cars as well.

In a place like ours where people work shifts, manufacture things as well as do desk based work, a mix is the answer. There is a reluctance to let office people work from home, in part justified, but mostly not.

As an aside reducing traffic in and out of site and car parking spaces would also save the Co. a fortune in on site road and car park repairs, lighting, gritting, de-icing and council rates etc. too.

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3 hours ago, Xela said:

 

There is still a stigma about it though. A lot of the 'old school' managers hate their staff working at home. Like they don't trust them or something. 

100%

that's what it's like at my place. If you're working from home, you're skiving.

I actually get annoyed when the guys working for me ask about WFH or leaving early and stuff like it's a massive deal. 

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6 minutes ago, Genie said:

After 27 years of marriage Philip Schofield comes out as gay being is reported, is this some internet hoax?

No hoax apparently.

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12 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

Is anyone really that surprised re Schofield??? 
 

Not really, but I've just read a tweet regarding this which has changed my mindset a little.

Without quoting the whole tweet, "Many guys struggle with this for years before self-acceptance kicks in and your smart-arsed "WELL DUH" replies are crass and unwelcome".

Edit: sorry, this wasn’t me having a go by the way @theboyangel, I just thought it was interesting.

Edited by Paddywhack
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I commend him, he started out in the 80s as a kids presenter, lets not forget this was during the time of Section 28, and panicked finger pointing over aids and hiv. It would not have been good for him to have come out, the press were even more vicious then than they are now. Its no surprise that he is gay, its been known for many many years. I applaud the guy for feeling safe enough, personally and professionally to come out now.

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