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Micro-joys - the little things as an adult that make you happy/ find joy in

Matt N said:
Our figure before was 10-12Mbps download and 0.1Mbps upload, and our figure now is 200Mbps for both. I don't know whether our wi-fi before was particularly bad or our wi-fi now is particularly good, but it feels like living in the future! The streaming quality is impeccable, as are the upload and download speeds!

Funnily enough, we had a similarly hairy experience getting fibre. The provider we went to is Gigaclear, the only people who actually run fibre to where we live (they have separate infrastructure to the regular BT infrastructure, for some reason... their name had become mud locally for a number of years due to the amount of sustained roadworks the installation of their infrastructure caused!), and we had a "pre-installation check" back in June where we were told that there was some issue that meant they couldn't run the cable into our house. Despite communicating with them, we then heard nothing from them until December, when someone came and determined it was fine after all and installed the cable, and then the actual wi-fi installation happened yesterday (someone came, drilled a massive hole in our wall and stuck a separate wi-fi cable through it). Our journey to get Gigaclear fibre has been long and onerous... I hope Virgin comes and fits your fibre eventually!

I'm irrationally happy with it now it's here, though... and we don't even have the highest package! Our package is 200Mbps, and I believe it's the cheapest one, but Gigaclear offers more expensive packages quoting up to 900Mbps!
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200mbps is a limit set by the provider for the price you pay. If you've just had FTTP fitted, the maximum (theoretical) speed through that fibre cable is 100 Gbps (100,000 Mbps) which just blows my mind considering where we were just a few years ago. In 2007 when we moved office, before fibre was available, we bonded 6 ADSL connections together and only achieved 1-2 Mbps from that.



GooseOnTheLoose said:
It really hurts my little goosey head when people conflate Wi-Fi internet access with networks. Wi-Fi is a local networking protocol and delivery mechanism, but the networks which power the backbone are different.

Eduroam is a Wi-Fi hotspot roaming service, which connects to JANET.

I blame age.
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Was thinking the same thing as I was reading the thread but didn't want to seem pedantic!
 
Slugjc said:
You haven't live unless you have trailed a cable across the house, unplugged the house phone and listened to the broadband jingle. Only for it to not connect
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Or the joy of being mid-download when the phone rings and causes it to disconnect.

I still remember going to Japan in the early 2000s and whilst we were still sitting by desktop computers at home slowly watching an image download line by line, they were all walking around with mobile phones that had 3G internet access, it was like jumping in a time machine!
 
Bucket of water...frozen rock solid in an old metal bucket.
Inverted and removed in the thaw, and surrounded by the last of the outdoor fairy lights...and a nightlight in the middle.

Stunning artwork, might put it up for the Turner Prize.

Undecided over the title, either Hot Ice or Valhalla, but a stunning combination of fire, light and ice...
And still going in the morning!

Better than an old Ford Escort under a big doily.
 
A couple of hours ago I got hit with the bone shaking thud of a typhoon breaking the sound barrier right overhead. Second time in my life ive experienced it and it's an incredible thing.

When it happened o was waiting for the bus to take me to Stanstead. I hope that's the last exciting thing happening at this airport today...

1000020820.jpg
 
I just did something that made me feel oddly satisfied that I think definitely qualifies as a micro-joy… I made my first email signature for my Outlook at work!

I’ve always wanted to do an email signature, but I always felt like it was a bit unnecessary for a personal or student email account. But now, I have an email signature for a work email account… and it makes me feel oddly important!

All I need to do now is set up my first out of office automatic reply if I take any leave, and then I’ll feel really important…
 
My first personal email out of office reply got me in trouble at work, even though it was a personal account...

"I'm not here...sod off."

It worked absolutely fine, clarity accuracy and brevity, and one boss tried to say I had to change it...but I have a right to a family and private life, so it remained.


And a fresh micro joy...

As you may be aware, the Volvo is functioning this week.

On the way home from the auto gearbox garage in proud Preston through heavy traffic, there were a number of gentlemen of a certain age drooling all over the fantastic big bright green pleasure machine.

At least half a dozen.

Then the wheel dropped off the following morning.

Cheap fix, business vehicle, tax avoidance taken to new levels.
 
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Alix said:
@Matt N *if* you take any leave? You're working with the CS, finish this Friday and stay off until 5th Jan. Otherwise you're showing the rest of us up! 😉
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Me and my line manager are holding down the fort together over Christmas! Our team like to have at least a couple of people online at any time over the Christmas period, but I imagine it’ll be a slower couple of weeks without some of the usual ad-hoc requests coming in. I physically can’t work Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s, so I’ll get those off, at least!

My plan while I’m on the 6 month agency contract is to take as little annual leave as humanly possible and reevaluate afterwards depending on what the situation is. I’ve thus far taken none since starting on 11th September!
 
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Matt! What on earth are you doing? You need to use your leave allowance to rest and recover - and also do fun things. If you've agreed to cover Xmas you should be taking some of January off - don't be a martyr! If leave is unpaid it's a bit different, but if you have an allowance I'd strongly encourage you to use it!
 
Alix said:
Matt! What on earth are you doing? You need to use your leave allowance to rest and recover - and also do fun things. If you've agreed to cover Xmas you should be taking some of January off - don't be a martyr! If leave is unpaid it's a bit different, but if you have an allowance I'd strongly encourage you to use it!
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My leave is currently unpaid (well, holiday pay is advanced to me upfront as part of my regular salary), so I’m not strongly incentivised to take time off!

If I eventually get a permanent job in my current post, it will of course be slightly different, as they do provide a leave allowance. My department’s is a pretty meaty 32.5 days, apparently!
 
Matt N said:
My leave is currently unpaid (well, holiday pay is advanced to me upfront as part of my regular salary), so I’m not strongly incentivised to take time off!

If I eventually get a permanent job in my current post, it will of course be slightly different, as they do provide a leave allowance. My department’s is a pretty meaty 32.5 days, apparently!
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What about flex? @Alix is equally passionate about her flex...

🍿
 
I wouldnt have thought contractors get Flexi. They don't here. They're paid for 40 hours a week at an extortionate rate so if they need more hours to do the work that's a them problem.
 
As @Alix said, I don’t think I formally benefit from flexi, but have been told to generally stick to 37 hours per week with some flexibility around exact days.
 
Surely you still need to take leave, I'm sure you need to take 18 days a year (including bank holidays). So if you're on a 6 month contract your employer should still be ensuring you take days off that are legally mandated.

Don't get me wrong I don't like to waste annual leave on days I'm not doing anything but having a few three day weekends is always enjoyable.
 
Where I am it is mandatory to take all your leave and you cannot carry without a very good reason. Time off is just as important for work as time in the workshop.

I've done silly hours before (92 hours in a week and 21.5 hours in a shift being some of the nonsense) and if you don't get extra for it, don't do it.
 
Contractors work a bit differently to salaried staff. When my husband was a contractor he was paid a day rate but only for days he actually worked, so if he took leave he didn't get paid for it. However the day rate was more than sufficient to cover the cost of any days off he wanted to take.

Some contractors do just work through a contract, taking no leave for six months, and might then have a month off between contracts. Some of them are even lucky enough to spend that month in the Maldives. It's a totally different way of working, but if you can make it work for you, you're laughing.
 
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