Outtamawae

The youth of today. Perfect in every measure, in the eyes of their parents. Educated to the max and ne’er a want to be denied. Bliss.

 

The same could, no doubt, be said of the youth of my day. We were educated often beyond that which our parents had been. Needs met, fed’ and watered. Entertained for free by television and the infant home computing industry. But today’s youth have one subtle difference. They are afflicted with narcissism, an affliction which, had my studies in media been allowed to continue, could probably be attributed to social media.

 

It seems to me, as I walk about the educational establishment where I work, that the youth of today have this ability, or belief, that as long as they do not acknowledge your existence you do not exist and therefore their lives can continue unhindered by such inconveniences.

 

I should elaborate. I have noticed a phenomenon during my travels around the corridors, where youths sit, legs out stretched, oblivious to anyone else’s existence. It’s as if they believe that if they don’t acknowledge or notice you, you will simply pass through their legs with your trolley and life will continue to allow them to remain as they were undisturbed. Indeed, such is not limited to youths sat legs outstretched. Nay, for it has also been noticed that the youth of today also behave this way when they themselves are walking through the corridors too. They should not make way for you unless they acknowledge you, rather than by denying your existence you should pass straight through them ethereally else step aside yourself for their majesty and self importance out weighs any stature or presence you may hold yourself.

 

This does not just apply to lowly trolley pushing IT technicians, this also applies to members of teaching staff, other students and even disabled people in wheelchairs. Moreover, the same tactic is used by the youth crossing roads. As long as the car is not seen, it does not exist and will either stop or pass through you like a dose of senna. This only adds to the woe for future generations.

 

However, take comfort. For although will you cease to exist in your old age unless acknowledged by others, you can be sure of a perfect haircut, outstanding beauty treatment, stunning photography and advice on the holiday of your dreams. For, it seems, the most popular courses remain photography, art, music, tourism and beauty treatment.

 

Those that know me will probably recall a similar cry of woe from me when I worked in a Yorkshire sixth form college. There the most popular courses were tourism, media and photography. I recall feeling horrified at the realisation that instead of the doctors, nurses and care workers to look after me in my frailty; instead of the pharmacists, accountants and legal people to ensure my health, wealth and freedoms, today’s youth were going to flood the employment market with out of work photographers, beauticians and air hostesses. No engineers to fix the bridges and roads and no mathematicians to count the stars. Just beautiful hair styles, perfectly designed web pages and well performed music.

 

Still, it will take my mind off the disgruntled Polish male nurse force feeding me puréed parsnips in between commode visits eh?

A levels? Arse levels

When I left compulsory education back in 1992 A levels were hard. I’m sure they are still hard but back in the day, they were hard. If more than 20 people at your school got A grade A level results fingers would have been pointed and investigations into cheating conducted.

At that time we were told about the various career options open to us. Either you stayed on after GCSE and did A levels with a view to getting a job afterwards or moving on to university. Or you left school, did an apprenticeship if you could find one or joined the armed forces. Because I was bright I was told that my future lay beyond university and that I should focus on what I wanted to do.

Difficulty was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. To some extent I still don’t know what I want to do. So it frequently amuses me how it is universally accepted that 16-19 year olds should some how decide what career they want to pursue and make life changing decisions.

I left school with basic job search skills. I had several ideas what I wanted to do, mostly become a customs officer, but the careers department at school wasn’t all that clued up on careers that didn’t involve a pack of Happy Family cards. All well and good if you considered the police, the ambulance service, being a butcher or baker or an estate agent. However, woe betide any pupil set on a non-typical career such as Customs Officer.

It should be remembered that the Internet in those days was basic if not non-existent. There was no vast careers database available to people at home. You would have to attend at careers service offices who would shrug and tell you that there was no work and that you might as well give up and just sign on until something comes along you fancy.

Over the years that followed, so did my career choice. Customs seemed like a nigh impossible career to break into, few vacancy adverts were placed in the local press and by 1995 my appetite for a career in Law had started to develop.
With a few months of experience in a law office I was convinced, mostly by the assurances of the adults around me, that getting an entry level job in a legal firm would be a breeze. Home printers were few and far between in those days. So all applications would have to be hand written and all vacancies sourced through either the job centre or through the local press.

Bored of life on the dole and constant rejection letters (yes, in those days companies replied to you even if it was just with a “no thanks”) I attempted to make the move into a career in law by enrolling on the only suitable course I could find in the area. That being an ILEX course based at Southport college, more than 20 miles away from my home.

It ran one day a week. Every Thursday I would travel the distance on the train and return on the last night train to leave Southport. This I did until a month from the end of the course the Job Centre told me that they would not fund the following year and besides that they had an interview for me to attend, failure to attend said interview would result in cessation of benefits.

I attended, got the job and stayed in the post for about three and a half years.
Unfortunately, it was not what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted a career in Law. “Fear not” I was told “It’ll give you relevant experience”. Desperate to escape the daily humdrum of no hope of promotion and dead end job, I bailed at the first opportunity. Following the advice that it was best to remain in employment than to leave and look again.
That was a stupid thing to do.

The next 10 years involved working in ICT. I never wanted to be a computer technician. Fuck, I’ve never met anyone who works in ICT that set out to work in ICT. In those days, jobs in IT were easy to get into because few people had the qualifications or experience. Thing was, every day I spent in ICT meant that I was limiting my future prospects to that of ICT related careers. Recruitment agencies would only offer call centre work. Applications for career changes would go without response. Those that did said “No relevant experience” or “Insufficient qualifications”.

Aware that the job market was flooding with graduates with far less work experience than myself I plunged into a Journalism degree on the advice of a career consultant. I now find myself struggling to compete in a shrunken jobs market despite the assurances of my tutors that my worldly experience should make me more employable than my contemporaries. I am back working in ICT. For less than before.

I guess having a career plan  helps. Problem is I am reluctant to fix on one specific career choice. The avenues that lie before me mostly involve further study. Applications to entry level graduate careers receive “No relevant experience” and “inappropriate qualifications”, responses I believe are veiled “You’re too old” replies. And that’s only those firms polite enough to reply.

It’s hard not to think that I’m on some employment blacklist. Even recruitment agencies do not respond. Those that do give the usual “Nothing on our books as yet”. Firing off CV after CV into cyberspace results in nothing. All the time the clock is ticking. Unable to gain relevant experience because I have insufficient experience. I’m 36. I have experience. I can manage a team of administrators and teams of media students. I can type, use HTML, instruct, use computers, communicate via telephone, email and inter-personally. But no. Nobody wants me.

It’s plain to my sight that even when you take into account the lack of jobs out there, there must be something about my CV or work experience, that puts potential employers/HR departments off. Even my companion, who was recently made redundant, gets more recruitment agencies calling than I do.
I bet it’s cos I’m ginger.

Or old.

Regardless, I am conscious of the approaching wave of 2011 graduates. The flood of students with “good” A levels (better grades than me!) up to and including 2015. The lack of industry and opportunity in the UK and the fact that each day I spend in ICT I am making myself more unemployable to my chosen career change.

Qualification:Experience Relevance Quotient

Looking for work is arduous. Filling in application forms time after time after time with the same information, slightly tweaked to promote relevance to post applied for.

I must have filled in more application forms during this period of unemployment than I did during the last period back in the nineties. I suppose this is because everything is online now. You fill in forms, click send, then either you get a “Thank you for your application” or you get nothing. Leaving you to wonder if you have actually just spent the past half hour filling in a form with data that has now gone into the ether or to the great spam folder in the sky.

It has been 3 months now and out of over 100 applications filled only one interview and that…well that we’ll just ignore because nobody likes bureaucracy and, as first impressions work for potential employers conversely the same applies for potential employees.

Not being restricted to looking in one geographical area should mean, according to the laws of probability, that as a job seeker I should be getting a 3:1 interview ratio. But no. This is not the case.

Being a new graduate? At 36? I can’t help think that this is not the boon that I needed to find further employment but the detriment in that employers look at my CV and think “36? Only just graduated? And in a subject unrelated to their existing career path? Must be some sort of mong”

And so the search continues. My email inbox, once filled with playful notes from colleagues and friends, now replete with job vacancies. A surprising number of which duplicate. Indeed, the duplication often means that you could apply for the same job several times. Something that has happened. Several times.

This week  I shall be in one of the aforementioned geographical locations in an attempt to find work by going out and meeting people. Taking Norman Tebbit’s advice and getting on my bike to look for work. Work that, I am becoming increasingly under the impression that, does not exist.

Job search

Probably one of the most disheartening things about looking for work is the fact you constantly fill in forms with the same information over and over again.

 

Ever since I’ve found out my results, in fact no, ever since April, I’ve been looking for something work like to do. It’s so hard. Everytime I fill in an application I think “OMG I’ve had such a shit career how the fuck am I to get a job doing this?". Admittedly, if I was an employer, I’d look at my CV and say “This guy?…nah”. Sometimes I think maybe I should become the employer. Other times I think teaching. Maybe even a stint at Tesco or somewhere.

 

Ye gads. It’s so depressing.

 

And the longer I spend not doing something, the more my qualifications seem like a waste of time. People say “Oh but you’ve got so much experience”. This is true. I have. I am experienced in customer services. I am experienced in IT. I am experienced in wiping people’s arse for tupence ha’penny. But those jobs pay shit these days. My needs are greater in line with aspirations and the like.

 

So far I have applied for 20 jobs and not a thing from any of them. I’m starting to think these jobs don’t exist. And no…I haven’t signed on yet. I can’t face signing on.

Finding the off switch

It scares me how flappable some people get with technology. I have known fairly intellectual professionals get flustered because the mouse had been placed on the left hand side of a keyboard instead of the right.

I’ve seen grown men cry because the simple use of a caps lock button could have saved them hours of reformatting text.

I’ve known air head secretaries who received a fraction of their bosses salary feel all superior because they knew what a dollar symbol was.      (It’s $ <--- one of them if you didn’t know)

And yet there are always the few that continue to surprise with their inability to cope with modern day appliances.

Today I met a classic example of lunacy.

She came up to my desk and proceeded to rant and rave about how “bloody inconsiderate” it was that we had changed equipment without her knowing. How was she to do her job when she hadn’t received training in the new equipment. Didn’t people know she had an important lecture to deliver? How dare we provide state of the art equipment worth well in excess of £5000 to replace the out dated poor quality equipment that was there before.

How bloody dare we!

How bloody chuffing dare we!

So I left the comfort and idyll of my desk. Locked the till, secured the office door. Affixed the “Back in a jiffy” sign. Made my apologies to other people waiting for attention. Because it was clear that this woman’s issue was far more important than any book return or referencing query. I did all this and climbed to the second floor of the building to a room I could have reached via the other stair well in half the time had it not been for the fact that she insisted on showing me which room she was in and proceeded to rant, rave and spit vitriol at how inefficient we were.

I entered the class room gingerly (I had a root of ginger in my pocket and my hair colour is often wrongly diagnosed as ginger") to see….no difference what so ever to the last time I was in the room.

Only…no…that’s not quite right. Because sure enough, there affixed to the wall were new video conferencing screens. Everything else was the same. The conferencing unit was the same, the conferencing podium was the same. The only difference was the screens and really, even they were disputably different.

“I can’t get it to work. It’s all totally new to me. It’s completely different to the one that was here last week.” she repeated for the 35th time since leaving the desk.

I smiled my warming smile and began to inspect the equipment.

It was plugged in.

The mains switches were switched on.

The wires all seemed to be affixed via trunking.

The video conferencing unit was working as the little green light glowed happily from its lofty position above the screens.

So in that situation, what do you do? Panic? Scream blue murder? Throw yourself onto the Town hall carpark from the top of the building?

No. You check to see if the on switch is….on….on the display panel.

Sure enough there, on the side of the panel, was a button marked with the universal symbol for on.

I called her over to where I was stood and told her that I would give her the training she needed to do her work in future. Had I been a bolder man I may have suggested a £40 training fee. But I am not bold. I am more italic. Maybe a bit subscript.

“See this symbol here” I told her

“Yes” she said.

“This is the universal symbol for on.” I replied trying my best not to sound condecending.

“Oh is that what it is” she responded as the rotting salmon of realisation slapped her in the face with the force of a well wielded wood axe.

I pressed the button. The conference suite came to life. She…just ushered me out of the room before anyone at the other end of the conference call heard me tell her what a fucking idiot she was.

My job done, I returned to my desk and the next banal query.

“Do I have to bring these books back?”

“Not unless you’re stealing them” I replied.

It was going to be a long night….

---
For more examples of stupidity go here - http://stegzy.livejournal.com/tag/stupid-users

Viruses

Not having up-to-date anti-virus software on your PC is
as irresponsible as having unprotected sex with a complete stranger.

More foolishness

Some people have no sense





" Afternoon. Computer Services Helpdesk"


"Hello yes. Is that the helpdesk?"


"Yes. How can I help?"


"Well Im filling in this computer form online for computer quota using my computer on the network..."


"yes go on"


"...and theres a part thats asking for my 'real name' . Can you tell me what it means?"


"Erm.....ok...well basically its your name"


"yes but whats my realname"


"your name is your real name! unless you're using an alias"


"yes but I dont understand all that computer stuff."


Blood pressure rises gradually.


"OK. I'll try and explain in a more simple manner. Can you tell me what your name is please?"



"Im Professor Noah Tall*"





"Ok then your real name is....Noah Tall*, unless that is you want to be known as Mickey Mouse or Fred Squirrel or something"


"Oh I see! oh well thats stupid why doesnt it just ask me what my name is?"


"Thank you for calling"







*(name changed to protect the stupid)

Network Printers

Woman comes in. Goes to the information handouts. Picks one of the handouts which is in a pouch clearly labled
"Installing the Network Colour Printer"
and has
"Installing the Network Colour Printer"
clearly written across the top.




Reads it.




Scratches her head.




Comes up to the counter




Like Uri Geller, Derren Brown, Deanna Troi or some other psychic/mind reader/empath I knew exactly what it was she was going to ask.




Lets see if you can guess. Think what she asked.........ok....got an idea.....then click the cut below




She asked "Does this tell me how to install the network colour printer?"




Well???? Where you right????




Why did she ask me that?!!!!??!?!




Comments please!

Gripe

Why is it......that some people that have computers.......run a million and one things in the background that they aint ever going to use? You know what I mean? They have like a million and one icons in their system tray cos theyre running "Instant Cybercustard" "Super Casino" "Nuclear Porn" "Compuparsnip V2" "Electronic Donkey" and other useless things that they would probably never ever use, only use rarely or only makes their PC look prettier. Then have the audacity to call me.....and tell me that the
NETWORK
is running slow and that its my fault! Then when I proxy onto their pc and point out all the "mysterious things that are in their system tray", they say "Oh i never put that there" or "I didn't know I was installing that". Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......i feel my blood boiling already I need to chill.

Dirty

Ewwwwwwwww....we just barred a 3rd year student.....for............




WANKING.....




....under the desk...




....in a busy user area.....




...Looking at porn....




....and leaving a "sticky deposit" on the chair.




Some people have no shame!

Goodness gracious!

I work in the COMPUTER SERVICES DEPARTMENT of one of the Universities in Liverpool. I deal with mindless computing queries all day in the form of emails, telephone calls and visits. Dont get me wrong, sometimes the queries are challenging and quite exciting. But just occasionally.




Today I'm doing email.




Todays STAR STUPID EMAIL is................







"I would very much like to leave my body for medical research, could you


please tell me how I go about it.


Thanking you"





Erm.......how do i answer that????

People with computers

I dont know whats scarier. People with £1000's worth of Computer kit and not having a clue what to do with it or people with £1000's worth of motor vehicle and not knowing how to drive!




Both should be illegal

Down

Today I feel really down. I have no idea why. Well...thats a lie. Im partly down because I have to "work" today. Sometimes this job gets me down. Too many stupid people, wanting stupid things or doing stupid things. I then spend about 30 minutes looking for a job else where but to no avail.




Ok so if in the slim chance, you have a job for me paying £16k or more please let me know!




Theres a key phrase I dread -
"Im no good with computers"
- No shit! That phrase normally preceeds "..
.and I want to turn my PC into a goat"
or "
....can you tell me how to calculate the speed of galaxy B6 using MSpaint?"





Theres no hope for these people. "
Oh but Steve, you know about computers you shouldnt be so hard on these people"
Yeah! I know about computers cos I took the fucking time to learn! I didn't have anyone to ask about how to use internet exploder in 1997.




The little voice in my head says "KILL THEM ALL!" but for the lack of a weapon of mass destruction I have to pass.