“We’ll be there in ten minutes.” An hour and ten minutes later, and still waiting. Timekeeping is not our forté. Why not just say what you mean? Update: They’re not coming, but forgot to let me know.
Turns out people don’t like Nazis. Who knew?
There’s an easier way of protecting young people from harmful online content than changing the law, requiring internet service providers to take down harmful content. It’s called parental responsibility. Don’t give your toddlers and pre-teens smartphones. And don’t give them unsupervised access to the internet in their bedrooms. My generation, I feel, has widely abdicated …
My superior begs I be admitted to the programme board. “Ooh, ah, unlikely. No disrespect to him, but membership is strictly by invitation.” But please, pleads my boss; he’s the only person who knows what he’s talking about. I get you, comes the retort. But it’s a no. You’ll just have to represent as best …
Tragic that, despite being forever weary of hype, I fell for the hype. Alas, marketing departments are getting better and better at pushing half-baked products as the next best thing, where in practice they’re largely just vapourware. Disappointed not so much with these companies as with myself. How did an arch cynic get so taken …
Today, I asked Microsoft’s AI Assistant, Copilot, if it has the capability the enable me to create a shortcut to a prompt template I might use regularly. It replied, no, sorry, but here’s a work around… “You can create a standard template text and save it in a document or note on your device. Whenever …
I really must stop managers forwarding emails I wrote as if they wrote them, stripping out all indication they were not the author. What’s the harm in giving credit, or citing your sources?
Essential criteria: “Established credibility and authority, and experience of gaining the confidence of very senior colleagues.” In a way, yes, I meet this criteria. But only from behind my computer screen. In person? With my perpetual slouch, wonky teeth, and dithering conversation? Of course, I am not credible. I don’t have the stature required for …
I am a victim of both my success and my failure. The success: achieving the comforts of a decent salary and flexible employment conditions. The failure: not having confidence to approach new opportunities requiring different skills.
Perhaps I’m even too late to hold onto what I have. The ground has shifted around us, bodies have been replaced, new directions forged. And my allies at work? One by one, they’re retiring, leaving none to vouch for me, as the politicking and backstabbing ensues. Should I fear what comes next? Perhaps. But Allah …
The awkward moment when meeting with the CEO that you realise they clearly have no idea what your team actually does, and has based all their plans on that misunderstanding. Worse than that, their throwaway remarks that accidentally (or not) completely undermine the confidence of the team that they have a decent future here. To …
I can understand an office worker whose early career spanned the 1980s and 1990s struggling with technology in the workplace. But we’re now twenty-five years into the new millennium, where the internet and personal computer have been a constant presence. It perplexes me that so many staff can have such an abject lack of skills …
My web team proposal is officially dead. Nobody has any money. In its place, an AI-augmented single-person model. An annual saving of £140K right there. Not that this kind of spend was ever seriously on the cards. But we must moot these figures to focus minds should I mention automation or custom tools. No, but …
I did everything necessary to exit an unwanted contract on time. Produced the options appraisal, made a sound case for termination, won executive approval, all agreed well in advance. The problem? The head of service tasked with notifying the supplier forgot to action it, after confirming in writing they would. Yet more evidence that if …
