Work

In time honoured tradition, I am using my blog to rant about work once again - remember back in the early days of this blog I was bitching about my insurance call centre job? That was before they figured out that allowing access to this site was perhaps an error and made it a banned site.

Well, for those who don't know, I now work behind the bar of a bowling alley. I keep reassuring myself that it is only temporary, until I finish my degree, because it is underpaid, unstimulating, sweaty work that I do not enjoy. Most of my colleagues are illiterate youngsters, I'm the same age as half of the manglement team, older than one guy (he's 20 ffs!).

So the mangler who does the rota is in the habit of giving people the wrong number of hours and hours they can't do. This one girl that I get on with really well, in large part down to our shared hatred of the manglement, she has another job that she works on Wednesday and Saturday nights, in her first few weeks at the Bowl they only gave her Wednesday and Saturday nights and then tried to put her on disciplinary for not turning up! With me, she (the mangler) keeps giving me around 3-4 hours short of the minimum I need to cover my share of the bills.

Last week they put out a memo telling us all that we cannot swap shifts except in an emergency and even then any swaps have to be approved by her or this one other mangler who is just as anal. The memo even said that there has to be give and take and that they do all they can to ensure everyone gets a fair rota. It also said that the rota goes up in plenty of time for us to say if there is a problem with our shifts. But they also reserve the right to change the rota without telling or asking us up to the first day of the week concerned.

This week my shifts got changed twice before the start of the week. At first I had Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Then Friday was added in accordance with me making a fuss that I wasn't getting enough hours. Then when I turned up on Sunday tonight's shift had been taken away, leaving me with 3 again, but one was the one I only agreed to do as an extra. To make matters worse, we had training on Sunday and tonight. When I was given shifts on both these days I was actually quite impressed that they'd worked it so that I didn't have to make an extra trip out there for the sake of one hour's training. But no, tonight's shift was taken from me and I had to go in especially for this training - which was a bunch of arse. SO there is no give on their part, we can't change our shifts but they can change them for us. It's so hypocritical.

Every time Andy takes me to work and picks me up it triples his mileage for the day. So tonight we made a point of him sitting in the bar with a book while I was in training, so as to reduce it to double for the day. On the way home we joked about him taking a second job there so that we can actually see each other occasionally, bring home some extra money and reduce the mileage on the car (be default making the mileage more worthwhile). We were just joking, but by the end concluded that it was actually a damn good idea!

It would also mean that Andy would be in a position and totally free to say all the things to manglement that we would each like to say and it wouldn't matter if he got fired because it'd only be a crappy second job anyway that need never go on his CV or anything.

SO now I'm working tomorrow night, I'm also working Sunday, so Andy and I get another fun-filled weekend in each other's company. Married people shouldn't see each other as little as we do.

Politics & Religion

Ok guys, the time has come to take part in British politics. I've pretty much emailed everyone about it so all I will say here is: take part in huge virtual conference this autumn and have your say about how you want our country to be governed. Go here: http://www.takingpower.org/index.html

On to my other point, religion. As many of you know, I am currently studying for a degree in Religious Studies and Philosophy. The current topic is new age spirituality and a core reason for me taking this particular module. As most of you also know, this is where my own spiritual inclination lies. I am finding it particularly challenging to read about my own beliefs from an academic standpoint and feeling a bit of a dope for thinking so much of myself that I would be able to be critical and objective!

What it has made me realise though, is that I need to persevere, in fact I need to read more widely on the subject. I've always adamantly believed that people should be critical of their faith, they should allow it to be challenged and I am no exception. So I have decided to read a book that I had been desperate to read for a couple of years, but on seeing the author quoted in my course material in an unfavorable light had recently sworn never to read another thing by him. I'll let you know how I get on!

Now, clicky clicky.

Extradition Treaty

Wow, I only just found out about this appalling treaty we have had with the USA since 2003. Basically they can extradite British citizens whenever they like, they don't have to press charges or produce evidence, nothing. Whereas we have to go through all the traditional procedures to extradite US citizens. This Labour initiative was presumably agreed to under pressure by Bush and it's an absolute travesty.

Yesterday the House of Commons voted on repealing this treaty and thankfully the vote went the way of human rights. Only 4 Labour MPs voted to keep the treaty!

Now we just have to write to the Solicitor General to ask him to back the vote. Please help return the rights of all British citizens, take some of the domination out of the USA, they have no right to trample all over the rest of us in this way!

Write to him at:

Mike O'Brien
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

No2ID

From LibDem email:

"Last week the Information Commissioner ruled that the Government should
publish a secret internal report into the costs and practicality of ID
cards.

The secret report produced by the Department for Work and Pensions
examines whether ID cards would really bring the benefits the Government
has claimed.

There is more on this story at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5061242.stm

The Government now has 30 days to decide whether or not to appeal
against this decision. However, the whole episode shows once again how the
Government is being far too secretive about the real impact of ID
cards.

We know only too well how badly the Government runs big IT projects, as
seen in the recent headlines about NHS projects running massively over
budget. Nor does this Government protect our privacy properly in other
databases. My colleague Lynne Featherstone recently discovered that
records from the DNA database had been sent to other countries due to lack
of proper controls -
http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/news1635-dna-database.htm

That's why it is so important to keep up the pressure on the
Government.

They should be open about the real costs of ID cards and publish the
Department for Work and Pensions report straight away. You can increase
the pressure on them by contacting your MP via
http://www.writetothem.com and asking them to raise this issue with
Government Ministers.

If you have a blog or website yourself, you can help by spreading this
story and encouraging your readers to write to their MP as well.

People can also be encouraged to sign our petition on
http://www.libdems.org.uk/noidcards

Best wishes,

Nick Clegg
Shadow Home Secretary, Liberal Democrats"

Jemima

We found Jemima, finally! We were sat by our car pouring cat biscuits into her bowl, hoping the familiar sound would bring her out. It appears that in her hurry to get to us she got herself stuck on a garage roof! We managed to get her down, with the help of the family whose garage it was, whom I had to wake up early on a Sunday morning. She is now home and strutting around looking at us as if to say "What? What d'I do?" in that oh so innocent way. Bless.

Photos

Check out photos of all sorts, including gigs, our wedding and our recent trip up north here:

www.flickr.com/photos/phoenixandy/tags

Cats and Holidays

Andy and I have just got back from our holiday. We spent 10 days with my family in North Yorkshire and had a lovely time. It was an excuse to take Andy to various places that you just don't go when you live somewhere, so we went to Brimham Rocks, Fountains Abbey and the Twelve Apostles - a stone circle on Ilkley Moor. I'm going to put some pics up on our Flickr account, I'll post a link in a bit.

Being away we left our three gorgeous cats with friends here in Bristol, however, when we got back they told us that Jemima had got out and not come back. She's been missing for 2 days and I'm very upset. We're making regular circuits around the streets where our friends live and are assured that she has been seen around by the neighbours. We're going to try taking her brother, Misty over there in his cat box, hopefully he'll make lots of noise and she'll come running.

I will post again with updates, I'm sure we'll get her back with some persistance!