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

Well it's bben about a year since the last journal entry ~ what's happened ?

No 1 is still at home and still working in retail.
No 2 has moved back home with her husband so they can save to put down a deposit on a house.
No 3 is working as a relief teacher in various schools and is also duty manager at the theatre in the evenings
No 4 has recovered from the stroke and is currently in Australia.
No 5 is hammering his old dad on the X-Box but is still a great guy.
No 6 Is still small enough to get away with being cute, but her autism still causes challanges.
Mrs D. is still married to me (just) and now totally veggie.
Me ? I'm just plodding along. My intention is to be happy, in my marriage, in my life, and with my children, but I don't seem to be doing too well at it.
Work - chaos ~ they're off-shoring more and more work, and ignoring the lowering of quality, because its cheaper.

How did we ever let the bean-counters take over the world ?

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you'l end up tied up to a bouy anchored off the coast of france at this rate!!!!

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We didn't let them, they did it by stealth and it all goes back to the industrial revolution, and beyond that to the enclosures. As soon as making money from trade and commerce became more profitable than doing so by war (for monarchs) or pillage (for chieftains and renegades), the seeds were sown for the rise of economics, economists, and ultimately, the modern day bean counter. In previous times the efficiency, and therefore profitability, of a business was achieved through simple brute force by working people all hours of the day and night until they drop, as in the early days of the mills, and by claiming ownership of other countries, as in empire. But as regulation put the brakes on the former and changing attitudes did the same to the latter, things got more sophisticated and scientific. Nowadays it's done with the dogmatic and unswerving use of formulas, goals, percentages, reduction of costs and maximisation of resources. Either way, making the maximum amount of money regardless of all other consequences comes before everything else, including compassion and decency, but now it's done with spreadsheets (knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing) rather than the threat of poverty and the workhouse.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, my name's Ben Elton, goodnight!

Thanks for the update. It seems to have been very quiet here lately & I've been wondering how everyone is.

The bean counters took over when we elected someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Except, of course, the sorts of items one might come across when growing up in a grocer's shop.

Life is what you make it.seems to me that you've made a good life for you and yours..I don't think anyone could ask for any better.

As for the bean counters..one day they will count one bean too many or one too less and the whole bean counter business will collapse around them and yet again we will rescue them so they can go on counting beans.

I thought that happened 2 years ago ?

Still its good to see so many old names still about. Hope you're all fit and well and growing old disgracefully.

Oh, tres disgracefully So much so, in fact, that the pounds and inches are piling on nicely, if you get my drift

Who said anything about growing old? Some of us are in our prime.

Yes perhaps I should have said older, I feel my year more on the night shifts.

how offten do you do night shifts??

I work a shift pattern based roughly on 5 on 5 off.

So I do 2 days - 2 nights - 5 off - 2 days - 3 nights - 5 off - 3 days - 2 nights - 4 off. Which is a 4 week cycle.

So I do 2 days - 2 nights - 5 off - 2 days - 3 nights - 5 off - 3 days - 2 nights - 4 off. Which is a 4 week cycle.

Basically what my old man is doing.

It's that 4/5 days off that are driving me crazy.

It's a taster of retirement with me having to explain where I'm going and when I'll be back and what I'm doing and yet when I ask for reciprocity it doesn't seem to apply.

i do 7 nights of 11 hours in a row then have a week off

Unfortunately most of the time I come in and work overtime during my 4 - 5 day breaks - I'm averaging about 60 hours a month this year ~ following the staff layoffs.

a month or a week???

60 hours a month overtime.

This week I will work 84 hours - with 48 of that being overtime

no wonder you are not around as much as you were???

Actually I used to do most of most posts from work - but now thwy've laid off so many staff I have to work instead.



(Sorry to use the W word.)

use the W word if you want, thats where i am