Stop Protesting and Start Studying Physics!

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Time Magazine announced in 2011 that their Person Of The Year was “The Protester”.  It seemed a lazy option for Time, to avoid selecting a specific person for the honour.  Weren’t they aware of my pioneering work in combining brilliance with modesty?  Perhaps they could have made protesting the Activity of the Year or Hobby of the Year.  It certainly was popular.  Especially for students.  Every time I turned on the TV there was a student protesting.  None of them had bought their homework either.  Tragic!

Students took to the streets over the issue of tuition fees.  The government had allowed universities to charge up to £9,000 per year for undergraduate courses, up from £3,375.  This means that students are going to be left with a sizable debt when they finish their studies.  The students claimed this was unfair, the government claimed it was necessary.  What no-one mentioned is the country is up to its eyeballs with debt.  The students are in debt, the teachers are in debt, mom and dad are in debt, even the government is in debt.  Too much war, not enough oil it seems.

It is widely known that investing into your next generation through education will create benefits in years to come.  However, I don’t see the benefit to this country if our students are getting worthless degrees.  I know a guy that got a degree in American History.  He never went to America, he probably never will.  All his degree proves is he can write a report and swat for an exam.  Maybe this is why we had to create so many public sector jobs for guys like him?  Maybe this is why the cure for cancer continues to elude us?

What people haven’t accepted yet is that the world has changed.  We’re no longer a manufacturing power, we’re a service culture.  So rather than fire up the furnaces and try to compete with China and India in a futile battle over raw materials, how about using our heads.  Really.  Let’s invest in the kids to become the next generations best scientists and engineers.  We can’t compete on mass production and cheap labour, but we can compete on brains.  Invest in innovation.

So when the students are screaming for reduced student fees, give it to them.  But only on the condition that they drop their worthless degree and actually study something useful to the country.  The greater the gap in the skills, the greater the reduction in the fees.  Everyone wins.  The nation gets its boffins and some neat inventions and cures, the kids get a cheap education.  The taxpayer stops feeling ripped off and anyone that wants to study their hobby gets to pay for it themselves.  Why should society pay when society doesn’t benefit?

Taking a stand…against people taking a stand against St Valentines Day

 

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It’s St Valentines Day and suddenly we are surrounded by highly principled people.  A sense of anti-materialism appears to have been conjured from thin air as people declare their refusal to participate in this conspiracy designed to fund card manufacturers.  But that’s okay, because these brave rebels happen to spend their whole year expressing their love.  There is no shortage of love and affection from these romantic heroes; indeed their partners must struggle to describe the erotic bliss they experience 24/7 to friends and colleagues without causing jealousy or nausea.  It is a little strange though, how these campaigners against commercialism managed to spend so much money at the end of December, and why they decorate their homes with cards on their birthdays…

Truth is, I actually enjoy hearing about people like this.  I enjoy hearing about women having this view because it reminds me how fortunate I have been in my choices of generous partners - particularly current ( yes folks, she reads my blog…behave!)  I really love hearing about guys being anti-Valentine because I know it makes me look so much better in comparison.

So here’s my suggestion to all the anti-capitalist, anti-commercial, anti-saint and anti-fun readers – have principles every other day.  Stop being a cheapskate and buy your partner a present.  You can go back to “making every day Valentine” tomorrow, you romantic superstar.  Have fun.

The 22nd Century is calling – they’re calling you a wimp…

People live in the moment, even the cautious ones.  We don’t really look too much to the past for guidance in difficulties and we never consider the long, long term future.  Sure, we contemplate how our lives will turn out in the next few years and we worry about the lives we will face when elderly and vulnerable.  But we never think much further than that.  It could be that we’re so pessimistic that we think the human race will fall victim to some ecological disaster,  be wiped out by a devastating war, or we may all die in our beds from some horrible infection that could have been prevented by people being more hygienic.  Let’s face it though, it’s much more likely we’ll survive.  Our children will grow old, so will theirs, and so will theirs.  They’ll all be scared witless like us, but they’ll make it.

As we’re so busy living in the moment, we don’t have a sense of perspective.  We judge everything as it happens to us, just dealing with things as they land in front of us.  We’re so busy getting stressed and depressed about our current situations that anyone watching would assume we enjoyed it.  I imagine this problem isn’t unique to this generation, but this generation does carry an additional burden that makes our lack of perspective even harder to bare – a false sense of entitlement.

I grew up in comfort, as did all of my friends.  Okay, I know there are a lot of bad things that happen behind closed doors, so I’m not going to imagine everyone had the sweetest of childhoods.  I spend my adolescent years growing up in Walsall, an area recognised by local authorities as an area of deprivation.  But despite Walsall scoring pretty badly in areas such as health, employment and poverty – I never knew anyone that starved to death.  Despite the violence in the town, I never knew anyone that got killed by a hostile invader.  Despite the Manor Hospital scoring badly every time I dare look at CQC’s scores, I’ve not buried my family because one day someone came home with flu.  So trust me people, I grew up in comfort and if you are of a similar age and from a developed country – odds are you did too.

As we’ve spent our lives in comfort, we actually feel it’s what we are entitled to.  However, that sense of entitlement has crept past the justifiable enjoyment that we aren’t in a constant life or death struggle.  It’s crept into our materialism with a belief that we are all entitled to the latest technology and entertainment.  It tells us we should all be earning a minimum wage, even if market forces say otherwise.  It lets us believe that we should have free (at the point of service) health services, even if they are unaffordable.  It fools us into believing that our savings and pensions are guaranteed to deliver our expected quality of life without consideration that all financial investments are made at risk.

Our sense of entitlement has made us sloppy, but worse than that – it’s made us weak.

A government changes and everyone has to look at whether they are standing in the winner’s camp or the loser’s.  Whether you happen to be rich or poor, you will find one party is prepared to throw you more money whilst the other is trying to take it away.  Nothing new there, but our over-inflated sense of entitlement makes us vulnerable to such changes.  A pay freeze, a pension that’s not growing, a bonus that’s been denied – suddenly you’re suffering.  You’re looking for the new job because your current one’s at risk; your salary is reduced so say bye bye to Sky Sports for a few months; your profits are down so you may only get one holiday this year – ski or beach?

But here’s the good news buddy, you’re not going to starve.  Not even in Walsall.

The bad news, I suppose, is you’re going to have a terrible reputation.  All of us will.  In a few decades people will look back on these times and will see how we cried about all the things we had “lost” without considering all the things we have.  And they will judge us as the wimps that we are.  That’s something we are entitled to.

My complaint(s)

I’m getting cranky with age. I must be, I’m constantly complaining. Well, that’s not completely true. I’m complaining about poor customer service whenever I encounter it. It seems to happen a lot these days. Have companies moved away from valuing their customers?

Do companies even try to understand their customers? Consider parcel couriers Yodel. Their task is a fairly simple one. Take an item from someone and give it to someone else. Addresses are fixed; it’s not like they have to track you down. But they will only deliver on weekdays, during the day. If you happen to be working and don’t live with anyone that’s a shut-in, then you get home to find a slip instructing you on how to reschedule your delivery – on another work day! So you either have to use your annual leave to sit home waiting for a parcel or you have to lose your job and hope your package doesn’t show up whilst you’re trying to sign on.
Take a moment to go on Twitter and search the keyword Yodel. See how many happy customers there are in comparison to angry, frustrated customers. And these guys never asked to be customers. That role was forced on them by stores that present a range of choices for products, but none for delivery. These include O2, Amazon and Early Learning Centre. How about a choice of couriers? I’d pay an extra pound or two for delivery from Royal Mail if I could. Go ahead, take my money. And this is costing the seller. I opted to not buy from Virgin Wines last week as they deliver with Yodel. I could arrange to pick up the parcel from their depot, but would rather not travel over 60 miles round trip to the nearest one.

As you’ve guessed, a lot of my complaining coincides with dealing with companies like Yodel who lack even a basic understanding of the customer. But my biggest complaint is aimed at a company that doesn’t even have to deal with your complaint. A company with a monopolistic hold over telecoms in this country.

If you move house and there wasn’t a phone line connected or activated at your new address, you will have to deal with BT Openreach. Doesn’t matter if your service is provided by BT, Sky or Virgin – it has to be Openreach that will show up and connect you. Which would be acceptable – if they actually showed up. On the two occasions I have (unwillingly) used their service I have lost a total of 5 work days waiting for these jokers to show up. No notification that you’re being cancelled, no call to rearrange. So you waste day after day sitting at home for a guy that’s not even coming. Is this what house arrest is like? Is this what unpopularity is like?

So you complain, but they’re not listening. They tell you to complain to your provider. Well, the best that achieves is your provider gets a complaint for failing to handle their suppliers whilst the true culprits go unpunished. So why do your providers use them? Because there is nobody else. BT Openreach have no competition in the market. As a result they are unaccountable, untouchable and completely secure in their position. And don’t waste your time complaining to BT, they’ll tell you (accurately) that they aren’t the same company. Yet their relationship looked a lot cosier when the BT sales guy was selling you a phone line and Internet.

Currently I work in the NHS where complaints actually have an impact. You may think nothing happens after you moan about the state of hospitals, the quality of care, etc but it does. They receive less money. Allocations of money are withheld in contracts unless performance targets are met. This has the negative effect that they are unable to spend money to improve if they are being penalised for failure, but I’m sure you could imagine the implications in the private sector. Imagine if an engineer doesn’t show up on schedule, so the company gets a fine. A delivery doesn’t arrive, so the courier gets a penalty. Wouldn’t this improve services?

So I’m complaining more. But I’m also doing more than complain. Wherever possible I refuse to do business with companies that use shoddy partners like Yodel, and I explain to them my reason. I tweet about it. I sign the petitions. And now I write a blog. I guess I can’t blame my age if I’m young and handsome enough to write a blog. I guess it really is their fault!

Rant over…for now! Feel free to comment, but no complaints. I hate moaners.

Computers to be feared

Now that I’m a blogger (add that to the list – project manager, boyfriend, hunk, role model and now blogger) I have decided to upgrade my laptop. My needs are quite minimal as I only really need to use online services. I’m not a gamer and most of my document creation takes place on my work computer. So I am happy to get something entry level to replace the 2 year old HP Pavillion laptop that overheats so badly you could cook your dinner with it.

I have considered Dell, but I’m never home to receive deliveries. Apple are a little out of the budget. So I’ve taken my search to the tech stores of Milton Keynes. I’m avoiding HP, so on my current budget I’m looking at Toshiba, Acer and brands I’ve never heard of.

So the question I’m asking is whether there are bad computers anymore? My negative experience with HP has turned me off their devices, but as the technology of these laptops is so similar I wonder if I’m being unfair. Are there brands we should seek to avoid? And if so, is that fear justified?

I write this from outside Currys/PC World which has been evacuated because of a fire alarm. Maybe someone left a HP Pavillion switched on overnight…

Getting smarter

I’m 36 years old but my brain is 40 years old.  I remember when it was good to hear your brain is getting scores higher than your age group, like at school when you’re 8 and you’re reading things for teenagers.  But I’m 36 and the Brain Exercise app I downloaded last night has given me a brain age of 40.  I’m not sure when it became undesirable to have a brain age older than the rest of me.  Is there a chart out there that gives an illustration of when our brain and our body are supposed to be the same age?

Worse than having a brain 4 years older than the rest of me, the app also said it was “average”.  Average.  I’ve got an average brain.  The last time I did an IQ test – about 10 years ago – I was told I was a genius.  So in a decade I’ve gone from genius to average.  What state is my brain going to be in by 2022?  Will the latest app tell me I have an 80 year old brain and it’s a bit thick?

Well, I won’t just sit back and accept this.  I am resolved to make use of all the self improvement materials at my disposal.  I shall use Tony Buzan’s speed-reading course to triple my reading speed.  I shall use Paul McKenna’s hypnotic CD to get smarter as I sleep.  I will eat right and get plenty of sleep.  I will exercise 4 times a week, drop a stone and hulk up.  And I shall be a genius once again.

Or I may just decide to not trust brain tests that only cost £1.49.

Hello world!

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Hi all!

I have no actual content for this first blog, but I didn’t like the standard “Hello World”  you were getting by default.  I’ll do all the introductions later, so just consider this a placeholder for now.

First blog – I’m off to lunch.  Byeeee.

Stuart.