Date   : Wed, 27 Jul 2011 05:05:47
From   : heyrick.beebsoc@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: [BeebSoc] Re: Dixons (Was: Risc PC (Was 'Minitel in France'))

On 27/07/2011 11:10, J.G.Harston wrote:

> a Freedom of Information request for all information they have on me ;)

ROTFL! ;-)


> If we'd been expected to eat in a group I would have expected to have
> been told that.

Indeed. It's a bogus reason. Perhaps their termination procedure 
requires three excuses, so they had to stretch...


> making jokes about pulling birds and getting plastered and 12-hour
> gaming sessions, and thinking that because you can get to such a level
> in Crash! (or whatever, it went over my head) that means you can do
> IT customer support.

Sounds like The IT Crowd gone wrong.


> It's the Dixon's KNOWHOW cult.

I'm sorry, each time you write that, I experience a logic fault when I 
read "Dixons" and "KNOWHOW" in the same sentence.


> I didn't actually see very many people actually wearing wristbands,

A wrist-band proves nothing.

I've already said to mom that if my upper moves on and I become the 
"green hat", I probably would keep on wearing the blue one. If I'm the 
guy in charge of... er... myself... then people would know that, I 
wouldn't need a belisha beacon on my head to demonstrate my supposed 
superiority.

I'd not have worn a wristband either, unless it was a cool colour. I 
might, however, have turned up one day wearing a hospital wrist band. 
I'm like that... ;-)


> Each Friday we spent listening in to actual calls. Last Friday one of
> the calls was: "I want my NumLock to be turn on at startup" Oh, that's
> not possible, just press the NumLock key.

God forbid anybody mention the BIOS.


> Afterwards I went against instructions and interveened to tell my
> trainer that yes, you *can* configure a PC to start up with the NumLock

This is why you were let go. He'd probably have had *serious* issues 
with some "idiot newbie":
   1. Knowing more than him.
& 2. Pointing him to the documentation to prove it.


Yeah, J, you're probably better off away. It'd totally melt your brain.


> Because I foolishly spent the last 20 years putting every last penny
> into a pension,

Hehe... Mom's basic state pension, after all the required years of 
contributions, makes people over here choke when they realise she is not 
talking a weekly amount, but a monthly one.


> I don't qualify for any benefits, because I have "assets". Yes, a pension.
> If I take money out of it now, it falls apart. "Oh no, it's assets, use
> that to live on, and once it's all gone, then we'll pay you something".

Yup. Welcome to the way of the world. The rich stay rich and the less 
rich get taxed up the wazoo (and the poor are largely forgotten).

Sadly, changing that situation would be a horrific mess. This is a world 
in which a rich [*] nation is willing to quash a poorer one in the guise 
of "liberty" and "freedom from terror" when what they're really after is 
a natural resource that they consume with reckless abandon. Anybody who 
dies along the way is simply an "acceptable loss" or a "collateral 
damage". We're all pawns in this game...


Best wishes,

Rick.

* - their status of "rich" is, however, debatable.