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

We had a work 'Away Day' (we were in a different building to normal), which was pointless. We spent half an hour making a process map on how to make .

One of the most annoying things was a presentation by the Deputy Vice Chancellor . I don't know why she thought that using yellow text on a white background and also white text on a yellow background would stand out.

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'Away days' are useless unless if the boss runs them and pursues his or her own agenda.

Is an Away Day the same as a team building event?

I once organised a team building day and set 4 groups off to complete a task. They had to find keys to unlock their lunch - what none of them realised was that all four teams needed to find keys before ANYBODY could get into the room with the lunch. It was quadruple locked.

Each team had a mole from one of the other teams trying to sabotage the team's efforts. Only the moles knew they were moles.

Quite a lot was learned about team working and destructive behaviour. And one of the moles was so good that the team failed to get it's key.

I had spares but didn't let on until after the de-brief.

Away days are deadly dull as a rule.

PP.

I've been on team-building events in the past where nobody attending was on the same team. They were made up of people from different departments. The events may have been intended to teach how to work as part of a team, but they were pointless unless everybody from a particular department attended one. I'm not sure that ever happened.

My Petty Hate for today is people/companies who ask for 5* reviews. I'm happy to give positive feedback when it's deserved, but the feedback and star rating are up to me. If I'm asked to give a 5* rating I often respond by not reviewing them at all.

Bad reviews are so much more useful than good ones. I can't figure out why they don't press you for a 1* review.

I'm just back from a nice couple of weeks in Majorca, nice hotel, half board lovely food. You know when they do buffet style and you walk down the line filling your plate, you can do back six times nobody cares. Why do so many people grab food (usually chips!) and stuff them in their greedy gobs as they're passing? You'd think they were starving! Uggggh!

Today's PH: Multipacks. Went to a local store to buy a new highlighter pen. They only had them in packs of 4 (or more) and multiple colours at that. One will last me years, I don't want lots, or different colours.
I'm going to end up ordering one online

Ugh... I remember those multicolor (4) ball point pens. They were orange and white with four click sliders at the top for black, blue, green, and red ball points inside. Not only would you use up the black or blue first, all the colors sucked. The ball points were "draggy" and left patchy lines. And they dried out easily, requiring you to scribble excessively to get them going again.

The pens were usually too fat to hold comfortably too.

Used to have a pen like that with 10 colours. Even worse to write with.

Regarding multipacks of things, years ago I bought some Post-It strips for marking pages in my course books. They were an assortment of colours in a multipack. I still have most of them and I'm unlikely to use them now, unless I start using them as bookmarks. I have a large collection of bookmarks, so I don't need Post-It strips. And, yes, I could have torn up Post-It notes to mark my course books, but the strips are neater and the different colours could be used for different things.

Recurring Petty Hate: predictive text that overrides what I type, even when my word is valid. Just now multipack became multiparous, and neater became heated.

Youtube is full of awkward autocor-wrecked sentences

The first thing I do when I get a new mobile device is turn off autocorrect. I don't mind suggestions, but if I want to spell something creatively, well I'm damn well going to!

Yeah, y do peeple leaf thad stuph on in the furst plase?

Time for that famous anonymous poem:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its really ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

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Mine works intermittently. I can be halfway through a sentence before the productive sex kicks in.

I quite like the keyboard on my ipad that suggests some options I might be heading for. I do make a lot of mistakes when I type which does cause some bizarre offerings...

I'm with you there, Teaswill. The suggestions from my keyboard are useful. They save on typing and can prevent spelling mistakes. It's only when the keyboard overrides valid words that I get annoyed with it.

My android device just gives options above the area where I type. No overriding ever...

PH: Folks who breakfast in the office, and hog the sink in the kitchenette for hours, scrubbing dried-on porridge from cereal bowls when I want to spend no longer than two seconds swilling out a tea mug.

The masses of ignorant individuals who rally behind these awful cases like Alfie Evans and hurl abuse at the medical staff.