h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No old British monarch for my brain. The Romanian version comes closest to what I thought anyway.

So, it's not your real name then? (Says me who uses an anagam)

No, though as I said, it's hard to be sure these days.

I see my keyboard is ignoring the 'r' again. Maybe I need a new one that is breadcrumb resistant.

Get you a spray can of air. (This was a perennial problem at a former workplace.)

I suspect that somewhere this year our office will be refurbished into a flex-office. So far, I only had to deal with MY dirty keyboard. After that, we will have to use everyone's dirty keyboards...

They're really determined to make everybody want to quit and find a work-from-home job, aren't they?

I love my job. It is a mixture of office desk, test bench and workshop. The latter two are quite hard to do from home, though.

The main issue for me is that I currently have a lot of stuff which wouldn't have somewhere to go in a flex office. (My library of technical literature, The museum of parts I broke in tests to show why we have to do the testing in the first place...)

That's what I thought - the flex-office business is a bad idea, methinks. (Thinking of the only time I worked in a cubicle setting and needed specific reference works, etc.)

So there are the pros and cons of the lockdown: You are allowed to work from home (which was unspeakable before COVID) so now let's make it mandatory because we have 150 desks and 200 employees. (but no more than two days a week or we'll lose control, because if you play it right, you only get to see your boss once a week).

The flexibility is also exaggerated. Initially, some of the colleagues who come in first decided to pick a random place every day (in a two-wing, two-story building). After a month, management decided to designate certain areas for specific groups so that they could be found. I am in another building. There are four designated flex-desks next to me. Nobody ever sits there. (because different building)

You could make a whole story out of that. About a manager in search of the lost R&D department...

You may be right about that, although it's funnier if it's fiction...

I suspect you're right.

Yes

It was office move time for me this week, which had its challenges (the person in charge of the move forgot to add me to the list, so I was last after the storage cupboards, and then nearly allocated me to a standing desk with no computer instead of a sitting desk with a computer) but all seems fine now The person was also reluctant to give me shelf space for my library of technical literature, but I managed to compromise and squeeze it into a smaller shelf than previously, so it is OK so far There will be some logistics on some days, as we only have desks for about 60% of the people in the team, but I work mostly at home these days so that's not too bad

Thanks for the First Prolegomenon DG - I had seen you mention somewhere else about how to pronounce Gheorgheni, so that's OK in my head, but the Romanian pronunciation guide is useful too I appreciate learning how you came to find your name Mine arose when I was a similar age, when the teacher in Russian lessons gave everyone in the class nicknames that were easy to transliterate - I couldn't have asked for a better one

Oh, that's ! I've heard of teachers giving students appropriate names for language classes, but I've never actually seen it done. It's a fun idea - and fruitful for you, it seems.

However we name ourselves, the names are ours.

Yes, it was very serendipitous - the teacher had a list, then gave everyone a choice of two names on the list in alphabetical order. Sasha was first offered to the person before me, and I was sure I would lose it, but I didn’t Nice and easy to transliterate, too

< However we name ourselves, the names are ours.> - yes indeed

My brother (Paul Alexander) was called Sasha by my parents, but he changed it to Sander on his first day to school, age 4. This led to some confusion when my mother came to collect him at the end of the day. (Teacher: Sasha? Oh, you mean Sander...!) Apparently, there was a dog called Sasha in our street and my brother decided he was NOT a dog.

That is such a...four-year-old thing to do.