Category: work

Coworkers Talking Too Much

Ashley Bischoff13 Comments

One of my coworkers, E, likes to talk. She’s blonde with big hair and in her mid-20s. And, usually, she’ll just walk into my office and start talking at me. It’s generally friendly in tone, but she just rambles on and on, jumping from one subject to the next — whatever pops in her head.

Each time, it’s a completely one-sided conversation, as I just end up nodding and saying “uh-huh, uh-huh” every couple sentences. Today, I timed it by looking at my PC’s clock as she began a ramble-session: she ended up wasting 20 minutes of my time as I sat there and listened with the occasional “uh-huh, uh-huh”.

I need to find some way of politely letting her know that I don’t have time to listen to her ramble on, especially not for 20 minutes at a time :-/.

Picture Day

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Today was “picture day” at work, where a photographer came in and took our pictures (separately, and as a group), supposedly for the website or something. But, I had to wear a suit today, so that was a bit of a bummer.

During the small talk that photographers seem to do, I asked him whether he was using an F5 (I saw its Nikon badge, so that helped narrow it down). However, it turns out that he was using a digital camera! Granted, this was no ordinary digicam, but Nikon’s D1X, a digital SLR. At $6,000 for the body alone (lenses are extra), the D1X is a very capable camera.

Interestingly enough, the D1X doesn’t have a huge resolution. It “only” has 5.33 Megapixels, and there are other 5 Megapixel cameras available from Nikon at less than a fifth of the price. Of course, the big difference is in confiigurability and picture quality. And, in many ways, I can relate to that sentiment. I’m also starting to look over digital cameras and, though I don’t typically need ultra-high resolution, I would like optimum picture quality.

Anyhow, the photographer had the camera setup with wireless triggers for external flash-stands (the flash hotshoe on the camera just had a box with an antenna). It was really quite a fascinating setup. And, I had wanted to talk to him more about his equipment, but when I came back after I thought all the photographs were completed, he had already left.

Working Time Directive

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Perhaps related to my post yesterday about European vacations, I just read a post from Albanach in the comments of a Slashdot story on work hours that goes over Europe’s working time directive (previously unknown to me).

Indeed, in Europe if they had you working 15 hour days, you could go home at 11am on the Thursday and not return to work until the Monday.

Why? Because the European Union protected its workers by introducing the working time directive which emans the maximum hours you can be contracted to work is 48 per week — you can work longer if you wish and agree, but no employer can force you too, and if you decide not to there's not a thing they can do.

Damn! Remind me why I’m living in this country, again? ;)