Hammonds crash on Sunday night

A few years ago, I took an introductory course, CLAIT Level 1 I think, to get the piece of paper.

It was very basic stuff that anyone leaving school should know. Computers have been in schools for long enough. I spent my time doing things like doing a graphics module without using the mouse--just keyboard short-cuts-- just so there was some challenge to it.

Well, I have the certificate.

And a couple of other students were recent school-leavers.

I'd suggest that instead of worrying about GCSEs and A-levels, there should be a bit more attention paid to stuff like that. There's been several different basic-computer-use things, such as ECDL, but they could pretty well all be covered, together with numeracy and literacy, by some sort of School Leaving Certificate.

Of course, this would rather knock a hole in the further education market, but a lot of this particular part seems to be Blairite bandwagon jumping. Though it may have started before the '97 election.

On or around Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:46:23 GMT, "Julian" enlightened us thusly:

I wouldn't bet on that. The safer conditions in industry in general didn't happen 'til many years later.

They also took a huge number of people from widespread rural communities and gathered them together in tight-knit urban communities with not only inadequate facilities for waste dispopsal but also without bothering in many cases to teach them about the need for better waste disposal, with inevitable results in terms of disease.

A.J.Cronin's "The Citadel" is a good insight into the state of industrial communities in the early part of the 20th century, and that's some time after the "beginning" of the industrial revolution.

On or around Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:39:32 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@btopenworld.com (Tim Jones) enlightened us thusly:

yeah, pity that. There'd be a lot of sense in having 4 days on, 3 days off

- make life a lot better for the families of workers, for example. 12-hour shift 4 on 4 off would I think run you foul of the European Working Time Directive in terms of weekly hours. In general, I approve of the EWTD - it makes a lot of sense to limit the hours people work, both daily and long-term. Most of us can work 12 hours (or more) once in a while, but long-term it's not good for you.

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I think it does, but some exceptions exisit, maybe maritime, certainly avaition.

Over an average time period there is an element of rostered overtime, but just a little, and that is paid for. I would hate to work 9-5 M-F. Weekends at B&Q are horrendous and you can't trog off to places like Beamends on a Sunday! Doctors, dentists etc etc it's all a PITA.

You say it's not good for you - maybe, maybe not. Just remember that 4 days off every 4 days is so good for relaxation and projects etc. Also, take 4 days leave in a block (from your annual entitlement) and you get 12 days off. You hardly ever seem to work at all! I worked with about 50 people all on the 12 hour shift, not one person would ever opt away from it.

Julian.

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

True, but compare like for like. Peasants who made a living off the land lived in truly dreadful conditions and died in droves when the harvest was bad.

Hmmm, the choice was there's - no press gangs involved! look at a mill town like Bolton, and the lovely terraced housing and pubs etc. To an illiterate uneducated peasant it must have represented a fantastic opportunity.

Sure, life is a bed of roses today, even the idle get looked after.

Julian.

They want people who, as much as possible, can hit the ground running. Presumably you think businesses don't need people who can write english properly and talk on the telephone or have basic maths skills? It seems businesses disagree.

They do point you to accessible courses but they need people who are as close to what they need as possible, for a start if someone has a degree in economics then an accountancy firm will be able to make up any deficiencies they have with training, but if they don't have such a degree or similar proof that they're up to the maths, then the company has to take the risk that the person isn't capable of completing the training.

It's complicated. They do averaging, and I think it's over longer than one week. So that shift pattern is 42 hours per week, on a long term average, but how is the shift rotation done? Is it four days plus 12 hours or four days minus 12?

Yonks ago when I was unemployed I was sent on a restart course training me to use computers. One week we were doing basic DOS commands, the next week we were being taught about microcode in microprocessors. Microcode is not assembly language, at the time a processor like the x86 line had a range of basic instructions, and the more complex instructions were implemented inside the processor using microcode programmes, written in extremely low-level instructions, even lower than assembly language. We spent a few weeks being taught about this, despite it only being of use to people who actually design microprocessors. Next week we were introduced to the basics of Windows, a few weeks later we did a week of Pascal programming. It was the most ridiculous course mix I've ever seen, like going on a first aid course and being taught artificial respiration for 10 minutes, then going on to doing a fortnight of the more complex elements of brain surgery, then going back to how to put a bandage on a paper cut.

I got thrown off the course the week before the exam for spurious reasons, I'd been complaining about the course mix and the lecturer being so drunk he could hardly stand after lunch. They kept me on for as long as they could as they got paid for it, but made sure I didn't get any paperwork out of the course. Thankfully at the time I was halfway through a degree in comp sci at Reading uni so wasn't that fussed.

The idea of the courses was that the long-term unemployed would be taught at the taxpayer's expense to enable them to get a job and start paying society back, it's just a shame that the training companies were running on a shoestring and the syllabus was so poor. Most of the poor buggers on the course really really tried hard and wanted to learn, certainly not layabout scroungers, mostly victims of mis-spent youth trying to make up for their childhood and teenage mistakes. They were being let down badly IMHO.

On or around Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:09:04 GMT, "Julian" enlightened us thusly:

not exactly what I meant. Just trying to say that places like Bolton, albeit better than starving in the countryside were no bed of roses in, say, the latter part of the 19th century.

They do ECDL as a timetabled thing in some of the high schools here. I'm not sure if it is compulsary but i think it might be at the moment in one school.

Lizuh, Ah's draggin' weeds ....

Yes, 42 hours over 7 days. There are three common shift patterns. All 12 hours. 1) day, day, (24hrs off) night night then 4 days off (less 12 hours)

It's been several years since I worked such a system, now I get a personal roster produced by the company which is never repetitive. The company have to abide by legal constraints regarding days off, max duty periods etc.

Julian.

I would have thought that any hire firm which had been in business for more than 5 minutes would have already taken into account the likely percentage of use of the hire period and adjusted their rates accordingly, obviously you think not.

Big contractors usually buy their plant or lease long term unless they require that particular machine for only a short period.

Always look for the simpler options, they're usually cheaper.

I used to build those useless, unreliable, piece of s*it road repair machines. They are merely a band-aid until a proper repair job can be done.

On or around Thu, 1 Feb 2007 21:11:22 -0000, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

well, yeah, they would. They'd know that surfacing machines hired out to the council only get used about 6 hours in 24, max. and the rate to hire it for 24 hours is based on that.

however, they doubltess budget major repair or replacement on a monthly or yearly basis - and changing from "6 in 24" to "18 in 24" as a usage pattern will mean the machine needs servicing 3 times as often and wears out 3 times as fast, so the rental will go up to match. At the end of the day, they're looking for each machine to both pay for itself and make a profit before it needs replacement, and if they can only expect 4 years out of it instead of

"Austin Shackles" wrote :-

They'd know that surfacing machines hired out to

But if someone pays for 24 hrs hire and uses the plant for 24 hrs in that period, there's not a lot they can say or do or are likely to do if it only happens occasionally.

Most plant and machinery is fitted with an hourmeter, simple job to keep track of it (if they bother, but IME most of them don't) and adjust the rates accordingly.

Martin