Hey, at least it’s not us! March 29, 2007
Posted by Dale in : Humour, Travel , Comments
I was on the 55 tram heading to Parkville, stuck at the Elizabeth Street/Royal Parade. It’s not as bad as the Magic Roundabout, but it has it’s moments.
"What the f$%& do you think your f$%*ing doing you f%*^ &**^s" floated in from a car driver.
"Hey at least it’s not one of us being talked about!", piped up a Yarra Trams instructor. The whole tram laughed. Wouldn’t have heard it if I wasn’t travelling to Parkville.
I have always found the Yarra Trams inspectors courteous. Connex inspectors on the other hand.
POETS day. Think I’ll work from home on Friday. It’s been a heckish week, and I’m going to catch up on some "me time".
The Daily Puppy
Awww, how cute. 
The beagle on the right is Saydee. Beagles are such cute, clever dogs. And the Daily Puppy is worth a visit.
And as one thing leads onto another, I think I’ll buy this t-shirt. It’s sums up the whole "not enough for two brains" argument.
Beardy types, in a training course. March 26, 2007
Posted by Dale in : Humour, Leadership, Stories, WhichBank , CommentsI was at a Microsoft training course today, and all the beardy types were there too.
You know, the “we want everything for free” types. They can be found working for the government and schools.
Microsoft are on a hiding to nothing here. The Beardy types have no money, they’re just along for the free food.
Just like seagulls, “Food! Food! Free! Free!”
The trainer asked me, “What are you doing amongst this bunch”?
I had to wonder myself…
Better to have and ….
not need, than need and not have. Was something I learnt some time ago when I first started managing a shift team. Now, in the case of the shift team, the thing you need to have is knowledge. How to do things when “something” goes wrong.
Fire alarms were a prefect example in our building. The alarms were wired to power off the whole two computing floors, in 2 minutes of sounding.
The fire alarm procedure went something like this:
- ENSURE you have your security pass.
- RUN out of the computer room, down the corridor to the fire panel.
- READ the panel to see what tripped the alarm.
- ISOLATE the panel power shutdown function. By now, the 2IC will have caught up.
- TELL 2IC what alarm tripped. Have 2IC investigate alarm if on current floor.
- RUN down stairs to next level. REPEAT same process, without 2IC.
- AWAIT Fire Brigade.
My only alarm in 4 years, occurred at 3:15am on a Thursday morning. I was having a sleep under the desk, we did that in those days. I did the whole process in 25 seconds. A record at the time. The team said they never saw me move so fast.
It’s not just me, a number of occupations devote significant time and expense to ensure staff know what to do when it all goes pear-shaped.
(ie. pilots, train drivers & steel mill workers).