Category: life

Making job applicants wait

I’ve applied for a fair few jobs recently and I’ve noticed that companies seem to enjoy making job candidates wait.

For one position the prospective employer was really keen but took a week to do anything. After applying they got back to you after a week. After the initial interview they took a week to let you know you are through to the next round. When no next round notification happened after almost a week and you emailed them, they took a week to reply to your email. The email said they’ll be in touch in a week. WTF? Is there some internal policy around taking seven days to action anything?

For another position the company said that I was the only candidate. Great, what happens next? They need to talk to the board. After ten days of hearing nothing you reach out. Nothing. Radio silence. You mention to someone you know at the company that you are now looking elsewhere and you then receive an email letting you know that they are still keen to hire you and discussions internally are ongoing. You hear nothing for weeks and continue to apply for other roles. You then receive an invite for a second interview. Hold on, I thought I was the only candidate? You are but you now have to speak to other people in the company before your application can be taken further.

Some of these companies are small, less than twenty employees yet they have so much bureaucracy and red tape. How many perfect-fit candidates are they losing due to these processes and lack of communication?

That is what it essentially comes down to: a lack of communication.

If only these companies would let you know what is going on. The equivalent of the in-progress spinning graphical animation that most software uses to let you know that something is happening and that we haven’t forgotten that you are there. To let you know where you stand, that they are still considering you but that this or that is happening and we will be in touch by so-and-so date. But no, nothing. Radio silence and the hope that you will wait on them.

We’ll get back to you, in a week.

Mini retirements instead of actual retirement

Retirement is wasted on the old. I mean, there’s no guarantee that you’ll even reach it, and if you do that it will be long. So I’ve adopted the approach of taking mini retirements throughout my working life.

When I can afford to I take time off from work. A month or two, maybe three. Sometimes 6-months to a year. On one occasion two years. The point being to blend working with enjoying life. Taking time to travel or spend time working on your home, car, or fitness.

If you do manage to reach retirement, at whatever age, and you do get to enjoy a long one. Then congrats you got to have your cake and eat it. For me, I’m taking as many mini retirements as I can while both enjoying life and working as retirement at the end of your lifespan is not guaranteed.

Short code scams

Short code scams are rife. You receive a text message from an unknown source informing you that you have been opted-in or signed-up to some such service, or you receive an unsolicited text message asking you to reply to this short code.

Your best bet is to delete and ignore them.

Short code scams work by tricking you into responding. Either by messaging the short code or by supplying personal data. The former results in you being charged for a premium service, either one time or repeatedly, and the latter by trying to elicit data such as usernames, passwords, and PIN codes from you, known as smishing.

You can look up short codes at https://www.shortcodes.org/ to see if they are a scam. Although to be honest if you did not initiate or request the message your best bet is just to delete it and not reply or click on any links it may contain. Also flag it as spam if your phone provider offers this service.

It’s the side missions that count

I’m playing a computer game following the main campaign and I keep dying. Over and over again at the same point. It seems impossible to make any progress past this particular point in the game. Not with my character’s current level of experience, armour, and weaponry.

The only way that I can make any kind of progress is by taking a break from the main mission and spending some time in the game world undertaking side missions. This way I can build up my character’s stamina, strength, XP, buy new armour and weaponry and practice combat with easier opponents. Then I can get back on the main path and start to make real progress.

This got me thinking about how relevant this strategy is to life in general. Everyone is trying to get ahead as fast as possible without investing any time in bettering themselves. Improving your skills and experience can only help you be a better version of yourself in anything you tackle in life.

We often forget that half the fun of the journey is who and what we encounter along the way that contributes to small changes in ourselves making us who we are today.

So don’t rush to the finish line. In life sometimes it’s the side missions that count.

An app for Ronin

An app for Ronin

The last company I worked for offered all employees a health benefits package that came with an app. By completing physical and mental exercises each day recorded by the app, you could earn coins and those coins could be turned into vouchers at retailers such as Amazon and John Lewis, essentially gamifying physical and mental fitness.

When you left the company the app still worked but the coins were not worth as much. Still, the offer of free money, however little, in return for activity remained alluring despite many of my colleagues that also left uninstalling the app.

Those of us that kept on using it were added to a public leaderboard, consisting of hundreds of individuals that had formerly worked at other companies. All of us are now Ronin, masterless, completing the activities partly out of habit, and partly for the free money.

When working for my last employer I was always in the top 5 on the company leaderboard but against many many more people I struggled to stay in the top 20, yet the challenge that represented only made me more determined. The more activities I completed the more coin I raked in.

Until it all came to an abrupt end. After ten months of no longer being attached to a company the app announced that my coins could no longer be traded for vouchers unless I joined another participating employer. I could still play without reward, and out of nothing but sheer habit I continued for a few more weeks until an app update resulted in my login details being requested, and as the email address belonged to my former employer I was true Ronin: on my own.

Digital thefts of physical assets

It seems hard to imagine that someone can steal your home but it can happen. With everything becoming digital these days proof of ownership is key. In the UK proof of ownership of a property resides with the Land Registry. It maintains a database of all registered properties within the UK along with the names and contact details of their owners.

A criminal using identity theft can assume the identity of a legitimate owner of a property and then either instruct a solicitor to sell it or a lettings agent to rent it out with the proceeds of the sale or rental agreement going to an account set up in the name of the stolen identity. These types of thefts are often targeted at unmortgaged, rented, or unoccupied properties.

To combat this type of fraud property owners can set up an alert for any properties they own with the Land Registry’s free Property Alert service here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert

After your home your next biggest asset is probably your car. In the UK proof of ownership is a combination of the V5C document combined with receipts from wherever you purchased the vehicle. Scammers target the V5C by attempting to get you to share a copy of it (for example in order to advertise it for sale online) or by applying for a copy reporting it lost or stolen after cloning your identity or intercepting your communications. You can reduce the chance of this from happening by keeping your V5C safe and secure and not sharing it with anyone. Also keep a copy of all receipts relating to the vehicle to support your proof of ownership.

Mythos and Wraith

When I first started creating software for the Commodore Amiga demo scene many many moons ago I did so with two friends known as Mythos and Wraith.

Between us we wrote code, created graphical artwork and digital music, which we assembled into productions known as intros and demos. It lasted a few years then we went our separate ways. I continued for a few more years with other groups of individuals before hanging up my scener hat altogether.

I started wondering what they are up to today, how did their lives turn out? Did they end up with a career in technology as I did, or switch to something else? Are they married with kids? Are they even still alive?

I toyed with the idea of utilising OSINT to track them down so I could answer these questions and maybe even say hi. I can’t remember their real names, only their aliases, but I still have all my Amiga files and a copy of WinUAE, so digging out their names and addresses from back then shouldn’t be too difficult. From there I could use public info and social media to hopefully locate them today.

But why? To see if I could? To satisfy a passing nostalgic thought?

I’ve come to realise recently that people come and go. Throughout your life friends and acquaintances will come into your life, stay a while, then move on. And that’s ok. We are not meant to hold on to everyone we meet, forever, despite Facebook’s original business model. You as a person will change and develop and what connected you to someone at one point in time may no longer be a part of you and if you were to meet that person today you may find that you have nothing in common and would not be friends.

I decided to move on and not dwell on the past. To be thankful for the good times and the memories and to look to the future. Leaving the past in the past.

To Mythos and Wraith I wish you the best wherever you are.

You can’t take it with you

We acquire so much stuff. Items that are precious to us. Things that are necessary to support day-to-day living and to aid in our comfort. Nik naks and trinkets. Things that need polishing, dusting, caring for. Photographs, family albums, memories. Yet you can take none of it with you. We leave this world with what we brought into it.

This thought comes to mind as I visit the weekend auctions. Rooms full of other peoples stuff. Remnants of their estate, their ‘worldly possessions’. The stuff that their relations and friends didn’t want, but was still precious to the deceased.

When my Grandma’s estate was being sorted I was away. I was asked what I wanted beyond what was left to me in her will. I didn’t need for anything so mentioned a face-cast of a saracen mounted on the wall of the spare bedroom. It used to frighten me as a child during stay-overs. I always requested that it be taken down. It reminded me of my visits to Grandma’s house so for some reason I asked for it. Later I learned that others did something similar. They asked for something that meant something to them, or had monetary value. Everything else, clothing, furniture, kitchenware, nik naks, was left behind for the local council to dispose of.

It’s sad really. But the memory serves to remind me that it’s all just stuff.

You can’t take it with you.

Car parking space dimensions

I drive a large car and find it hard to fit it into a UK parking space. As such I loath car parks with a passion, especially supermarket car parks. Having worked on insurance software I know that a lot of reported accidents occurred in car parks, especially door scratches and dents, or broken wing mirrors due to tight parking spaces.

The requirements for the size of a car parking space were drawn up in the 1970s and they haven’t really changed since. In fact recent studies have found that there are over a hundred vehicle models on the road, including mine, that will not fit within your average car parking space today. Cars are getting bigger. Even with camera assist, both the front and rear of my vehicle overhang. The sides are just inside but the doors will need to open into the adjacent spaces in order for the passengers to get out.

With the price of land being at a premium, car park owners are loath to redraw the spaces to give users more space as it means less vehicle capacity and therefore less earnings.

Isn’t it time that car parking space dimensions were updated to reflect today’s vehicles?

A mental base of operations

I’ve learned to create a “mental base of operations”.

Sounds weird but they a places where you can create a makeshift office or space to sort stuff out, get stuff done. A coffee shop, a desk in a corner somewhere, a cheap hotel room. Somewhere where you can relax and get into your own headspace for a period of time so you can focus on what needs sorting.

A place where you know you have half an hour, an hour, or maybe two, where you can just focus and get stuff done.

I worked a contract at a University once working on planning a strategy. When I arrived they had no desk or place for me to work. My office was mobile, all in my backpack. I just needed Wi-Fi and power. I found a quiet desk in the University library. I worked from there for the best part of a week. I was on-site and available for meetings and when I wasn’t in a face-to-face meeting I was in my mental base of operations: a quiet library.

I’ve written articles in coffee shops, an eBook in a hospital cafe, written reports in libraries and spare rooms. I’m writing this post in a gym waiting area. All you need is a little space for a short period of time to just focus and get stuff done.