The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

The Guardian is doing a round of redundancies - which are now being announced. According to the Press Gazette (a media trade paper) the redundancy letters have accidentally been sent out with insufficient postage. So members of staff will have to pay the difference (to receive their redundancy notice) and then claim the difference back

[Tamas]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

[Sheilbh]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

I know, right?

We are not a minimally functional country. But what makes it worse is that so many of the issues are just kind of like the basic project management fuck-ups everyone in a white collar job sees every day. We are The Office

[mongers]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Tamas, wrong thread?

Didn't you mean to post this in the Coronavirus Megathread?

[celedhring]

The Guardian is doing a round of redundancies - which are now being announced. According to the Press Gazette (a media trade paper) the redundancy letters have accidentally been sent out with insufficient postage. So members of staff will have to pay the difference (to receive their redundancy notice) and then claim the difference back

You still have to send those via physical mail? Last time I had a non-freelancing employment I had the pleasure of being fired digitally 

[Sheilbh]

The Guardian is doing a round of redundancies - which are now being announced. According to the Press Gazette (a media trade paper) the redundancy letters have accidentally been sent out with insufficient postage. So members of staff will have to pay the difference (to receive their redundancy notice) and then claim the difference back

You still have to send those via physical mail? Last time I had a non-freelancing employment I had the pleasure of being fired digitally 

I don't know if it's all paper based, but I know redundancy here is a very formal process so I think you probably do need to a lot of it by paper. There's like multiple stages of notice: notice you're at risk; redundancy consultation; redundancy plan; individuals being made redundant etc.

[garbon]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Tamas, wrong thread?

Didn't you mean to post this in the Coronavirus Megathread?

I think it was intentional as he is speaking about the Guardian screw up + the PHE screw up.

[celedhring]

The Guardian is doing a round of redundancies - which are now being announced. According to the Press Gazette (a media trade paper) the redundancy letters have accidentally been sent out with insufficient postage. So members of staff will have to pay the difference (to receive their redundancy notice) and then claim the difference back

You still have to send those via physical mail? Last time I had a non-freelancing employment I had the pleasure of being fired digitally 

I don't know if it's all paper based, but I know redundancy here is a very formal process so I think you probably do need to a lot of it by paper. There's like multiple stages of notice: notice you're at risk; redundancy consultation; redundancy plan; individuals being made redundant etc.

Fair enough, to be honest I'm not that familiar with the process over here. That particular job the whole "you'll be fired after 3 months" was pre-agreed from the start, and the compensation payment was actually folded into the negotiations for my salary.

[Tamas]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Tamas, wrong thread?

Didn't you mean to post this in the Coronavirus Megathread?

I think it was intentional as he is speaking about the Guardian screw up + the PHE screw up.

Thanks Mongers but yeah it was in reaction to the Guardian thing.

[celedhring]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Yeah. Do you guys still use oil lamps over there? 

[Sheilbh]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Yeah. Do you guys still use oil lamps over there? 

There was a really bad cyberattack on the NHS a few years back - basically because parts of the NHS IT infrastructure was unpatched Windows XP

I understand that there has been quite a lot of money spent to upgrade systems and improve cybersecurity now

[celedhring]

Looking at this and using Excel for a country-wide database, and I am like "and I feel bad when some minor shit in my shitty little project doesn't go exactly as planned" :p

Yeah. Do you guys still use oil lamps over there? 

There was a really bad cyberattack on the NHS a few years back - basically because parts of the NHS IT infrastructure was unpatched Windows XP

I understand that there has been quite a lot of money spent to upgrade systems and improve cybersecurity now

Oh, don't get me wrong. Spanish health care IT is a fragmented mess of legacy systems, it just makes me feel somewhat better than the UK doesn't seem to fare that much better 

[Richard Hakluyt]

I wonder if there is a national healthcare system with an excellent IT system? I mean the banks have crappy systems too; probably because of the scale of their business and early adoption.

[Sheilbh]

I wonder if there is a national healthcare system with an excellent IT system? I mean the banks have crappy systems too; probably because of the scale of their business and early adoption.

Yeah - I think scale and cellotaping lots of legacy systems together make it very difficult to unpick and fix. Plus I cannot think of higher cost big project that is likely to fail (at least initially) than huge IT overhaul.

[Sheilbh]

Love this map (zoomed in of centrali-ish London) breakdown of electoral wards by second language: