Well... Would you ?

This report shows some companies are starting to allow employees to work 4 days instead of 5.

Great news I hear you shout, it does mean working 4 long days rather than 5, (for some this would mean us working 4 long days rather 5 long days, weekends and evenings).

This saves both the company money in operating costs, while saving the employee in travel costs and time, nursey fees etc and more importantly, gives them a 3 day weekend.

I'd be in, would you?

ITIL v3
In my quest to further my career, I have spent the last 3 days doing the ITIL v3 foundation course, ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is the standard IT in all organisations are keen to adhere to.
This is all good learning procedures in a classroom, but trying to put it into practice is another thing.

I also took the exam which requires 26/40 to pass. I took 2 mocks and got 28 on both (dangerously close).

We were told by the lecturer, passing the foundation course means an extra £2k on your salary (£15-£20k if you get the diploma). Who in their company would get an extra £2k as simple as that.

As my role as Service Desk Manager (along with a ton of other stuff "The Goona" and "The Conster" give me, I'll if I can put (some of) ITIL into practice

By doing the course, I have learned I am also the following,

• Service Level Manager
• Problem Manager
• Operations Manager

I'd say that's a £100k salary easily, but I wouldn't take the drop...


I'll find out if I passed in a few weeks time.

Fuddle
Is this even a word? I hear it every day at Christmas, and today, was our fuddle at work.

Every christmas time, our token IT Bird Laura arranges a "fuddle" and secret santa. Today must have been one of the best feasts of all time, we admit we're goot at I.T., but we're bloody brilliant when it comes to making food, we are bloody great

Food from all over the world (and Burton) were brought in, we started at 12.00 this afternoon and almost all felt like sleeping by 2.00 as at 10.30 tonigh,I stillhaveno desire to eat, we didn't manage to finish all of the food which means we can carry on tomorrow (Damo eating Veggie Samosa at 8.30am for the second day running).

One must do these things and I got a lovely bottle wine of from my secret santa too...... Thanks Steve !!!!.

Present today were;
Damo 'Fajitas' Byrne, Luke 'the Cake' Johnson, Laura 'Cheesecake' Smith, Ash 'Banoffee Sister' Earp, Dave 'Ninja Dip' McD, Ade 'Chilli' Hyomes, 'Fiji' Keith, Kosher'ief 'Ainsley' May, Colin 'Welshy' Ward, George 'The Greek' Makasis, Anthony 'Red Bull' Lort, Rob '' Gamble, Andy 'Ramsay' Rooms and Amerjit 'Desert Storm' Singh.

Office Party - Follow Up

The Office Party went very well, no fights, no falling out, no drunken behavoiur, Not that I saw anyway, Even managed to get a Most of I.T. Group shot. (which I'll update when I find it).

The Office Christmas Party

Do you know how much radiation a photocopier gives off ?

Tomorrow is our Office Christmas party and I most certainly am going, although only the "first drink is free" I am sure we of the I.T. department can manage a couple of drinks (Read Rounds) out of the Directors and Senior Managers.

I have read up the "Office Party Do's and Dont's" which are listed below

1. Don't Drink Too Much
2. Don't Treat the Office Party Like a Singles Bar
3. Don't Flirt or Act in a Sexually Provactive Manner
4. Don't Wear Suggestive Clothing
5. Don't Let Your Guard Down
6. Don't Tell Dirty or Off-Color Jokes
7. Don't Use Foul Language
8. Don't Talk About People Behind Their Backs
9. Don't Bring Uninvited Guests
10. Don't Underestimate the Importance of Your Guest's Behavior

Looks like I'm not going after all, Rules (1) and (5) rule me out.

EDIT :- Recently added by the Cookster, of which I can only account for... erm, all of them

1. Don't add extra peppers to a colleagues Subway*
   
2. Don't fall down the stairs going to the bathroom.
3. Don't poor Jack Daniels down a colleagues face when he refuses to drink it.
4. Don't suggest that five pint pitchers of Stella are a good idea.
5. Don't drink your colleague under the table so that they get off their train to Coventry too soon, end up trying to walk home and fall into a ditch in a park. Then have to call their Father-in-Law to try and find them and get their sorry ass home.

Although Cookster, you forgot.

Don't buy the Director a Cement Mixer and take photos while he drinks it.

Cement Mixer - He no like it

And I forgot...

1. Don't challenge the Vodka drinking head of the I.T. Department to a Vodka drinking competition, YOU WILL LOSE (If you're lucky, if you're not, see below).

Altogether now.

1
2
3

Back to work

Leah...How many Goals will Derby win by on Monday?

My paternity leave came and went, my week off also went just as quick, now its time for me to go back to work* and back to some kind of normality (and a rest)

I love fatherhood again (v3.0), however its been very hard work, not the baby part, that's easy (for me), Mummy breastfeeds so I can't help there, however trying to support mummy is the hard work.

Cooking I love,
Tidying I don't love,
Cleaning I hate,
Ironing I haven't

Despite all of the above, I still feel useless as I can't help through the night

Whoever says Mothers and/or housewives are lazy and should "get a real job" have never been either.

I have learnt in the past 3 weeks;

1. Too much sleep is not good for me
Going to bed early in case I got woken up by crying, only to sleep completely through it all and wake up in the morning made me feel worse than the XBozx days of 4 hours sleep a night - Althugh i did help SWMBO by bringing "Me Daughter" downstairs at the crack of dawn on a few occasions to let mummy sleep.

2. The internet is a great/bad resource for newborn baby information.
Great - babycentre and babyworld among the best, coming a close second was "12 Things No One Ever Tells You About Babies"
Not Great - You can diagnose just about anything with a quick google, this isn't always good, modern day medical dictionary where you can find something wrong with yourself

3. Midwives are great
Despite the bad press and crap the likes of the BBC and my local paper say, Midwives are excellent.
STOP SLAGGING OFF MIDWIVES - the government/NHS could save millions in compensation claims by employing hundreds if not thousands of extra midwives.

4. NEVER EVER... ...Believe your missus, if shes says "Never again" when in labour. SWMBO walked out of the hospital and decided she wanted another baby - Best contraception ever !!!!

5. Visitors are great, but make it very hard work
Everyone wants to see your new bundle of joy, your new bundle of joy loves being cuddled, however once the visitors have been and gone, your new bundle of joy does not want to go to sleep at night unless being cuddled, I was given the piece of advice - try and get all of your visitors round in the first week. This was impossible, I think we might be half way through now though. The amount of cards and gifts we have recieved is unbelievable

6. Be there for each other
Tiredness is a recipe for arguments, don't let it

7. Listen/Dont listen to advice.
This has been an adventure - everyone likes telling you how to do things, the way they did things 30/40/50/60 years ago. some good ideas, some bad, and some Im sure are now illegal

* After Wembley with the boys to watch The Rams in the playofff final.

Smokers eh!!

Heard today smokers should be given time off work for "giving up smoking classes" in light of the upcoming ban on smoking in public places
What a load of tosh

Clearly I'm biased as I don't smoke, but I still think allowing people time off work is completely unreasonable.

I like a drink, does that mean I can have Friday afternoons (and Monday mornings) off to attend "giving up drinking" sessions, that would be great, I can go off the rails every Sunday night, an get over it Monday mornings, then "Be strong" on a Friday afternoon where I can go to the pub and not drink....

Whatever next...
... Drugs, Sex, - Sign me up, I'll never have to work again in favour of trying to give up bad habits.