Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Senior moment time again
A couple of years ago I did work with three IT service companies, spending a fair bit of time with them. All quite substantial outfits. For some reason I now try to call them to mind and can only name two out of the three. Maybe the third - the one that had a building badly damaged in the oil tank fire near Hemel Hempstead - will surface in a day or so.
Meanwhile, keeping the brain in gear with the Christmas jigsaw which is now around 90% or 900 peices complete. One peice, searched for for a couple of days, did turn out, for once, to be underneath the carpet, unlike the vast majority of carpet candidates which turn out to be under one's nose. Now struggling - to the point that by the evening when there is no natural light (mystery why it makes so much differance - maybe it is just that our eyes have evolved to work in that sort) progress more or less stops - so down to the sort peices by shape routine. On reflection, I decide that there are only six possible shapes. No lumps through to four lumps with two varieties of two lumps - opposite and adjacent. The two lump adjacent sort seems to be the commonest - I wonder whether this has something to do with the fact (guessed rather than checked) that it is the only shape with which one could tile the jigsaw by itself. No lumps and four lumps seem to be rare. No doubt with a bit more effort one could work out an equation linking the numbers of each type - like that rule I dimly remember which links the number of corners, edges and faces of a polyhedron.
Devotees of management matters will be pleased to hear that Wetherspoons is now a mainstream enough organisation that it's bar staff can aspire to be shift leaders and team leaders. A small prize to whoever first discovers which is the senior position and what the job titles translate to. I wonder whether one of their bars actually has a manager who is devoted to it full time or whether they run the operation more like the flocks of CofE churches which are served by teams of clergy (which conspiracry theorists might suspect of being a wheeze to up the number of lady clergy without actually having to let them be in charge, heaven forfend. Never mind about the various other special interest groups which have to be accommodated these days). They certainly do not look or feel much like the pubs of old, despite the cheap beer and the number of punters. The deadness which comes of not having enough TLC - rather in the way of hotel bars and hotel rooms.
Meanwhile, keeping the brain in gear with the Christmas jigsaw which is now around 90% or 900 peices complete. One peice, searched for for a couple of days, did turn out, for once, to be underneath the carpet, unlike the vast majority of carpet candidates which turn out to be under one's nose. Now struggling - to the point that by the evening when there is no natural light (mystery why it makes so much differance - maybe it is just that our eyes have evolved to work in that sort) progress more or less stops - so down to the sort peices by shape routine. On reflection, I decide that there are only six possible shapes. No lumps through to four lumps with two varieties of two lumps - opposite and adjacent. The two lump adjacent sort seems to be the commonest - I wonder whether this has something to do with the fact (guessed rather than checked) that it is the only shape with which one could tile the jigsaw by itself. No lumps and four lumps seem to be rare. No doubt with a bit more effort one could work out an equation linking the numbers of each type - like that rule I dimly remember which links the number of corners, edges and faces of a polyhedron.
Devotees of management matters will be pleased to hear that Wetherspoons is now a mainstream enough organisation that it's bar staff can aspire to be shift leaders and team leaders. A small prize to whoever first discovers which is the senior position and what the job titles translate to. I wonder whether one of their bars actually has a manager who is devoted to it full time or whether they run the operation more like the flocks of CofE churches which are served by teams of clergy (which conspiracry theorists might suspect of being a wheeze to up the number of lady clergy without actually having to let them be in charge, heaven forfend. Never mind about the various other special interest groups which have to be accommodated these days). They certainly do not look or feel much like the pubs of old, despite the cheap beer and the number of punters. The deadness which comes of not having enough TLC - rather in the way of hotel bars and hotel rooms.
# posted by Jim @ 7:18 AM 
