North of the Stupid Line

I’m cracking up with laughter as we speak because I am having an MSN conversation with my mum.

Why do the older generations have such difficulty in dealing with the complexities (!) that is MSN? Actually, let’s extend that a bit further: why do the older generations have such difficulties using PCs?!?

Many of them use the fact that they didn’t have computers when they were our age, they’re too old to learn, blah blah blah, but I reckon they’re just lazy or too scared of looking stupid.

I’ll give some examples. My mum knows how to use a computer, but only at work. I have tried to teach her how to use the computer at home, but because it works differently to the one at work, she doesn’t have the confidence to use the computer at home without my dad or sister around. Weird! I’ve recently persuaded her to speak to me via MSN on a Sunday, as she normally rings me on the minicom. We all know how ancient minicoms are, and I hate using mine, so I was quite pleased when mum agreed to use MSN instead.

However, today, she’s had me in stitches, because she specifically said to me (after having a few conversations on MSN) that I’m not allowed to type too much (I’m rather prone to typing more than one particular related or unrelated topics in any given minute, which renders my mum utterly confused!), and that from now I can only type one-liners and I have to type GA when I’ve finished i.e. like a minicom conversation!! For example:

After a bit, mum’s computer disconnected, so she was befuddled once again, and then she tried to ring me on the old minicom (argh!), but that didn’t work either, so eventually we agreed (via sms) to give up!

There’s Rachel’s parents too – they’re both deaf and they don’t know how to use a PC, which is a shame as this would mean they’d be able to contact people via email and MSN, which will be especially important when Rachel moves out to live with me!

Why do older generations find it so difficult to cope with? It’s so perplexing!

Can someone explain something to me? Why did a train journey that usually lasts 1 hour 45 mins take almost 3 hours today? I left Newport at 17:39 (or thereabouts) and arrived in London Paddington at 20:23. The time on my ticket says I should have arrived at 19:25. So what happened?

Well, apparently, it was scheduled! It was meant to leave at 17:39 and arrive at 20:23! This happened two weekends ago as well. Another thing, the normal route is Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Didcot Parkway, Reading and London Paddington. Today and the last time I got the train to Paddington, it was Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, Reading and London Paddington. CHIPPENHAM?! Chippenham is in the wrong bloody direction! It’s nearer to Bristol than Swindon!

According to the FGW www, on Sunday 23 January 2005, South Wales services will be diverted via an alternative route NOT calling at Didcot Parkway.

It doesn’t mention being diverted to Chippenham. Perhaps it was announced on the tannoy, but hello! Deaf??

My logic tells me that: the line between Swindon and Didcot Parkway is being subject to engineering work, which means that the trains need to go from Swindon and Reading via a different route, and because of the complexities and general crapness of the national railway infrastructure, the only way FGW were able to achieve this was to divert the train to Chippenham after Swindon, bypassing the Didcot Parkway section of the line completely. I’ve had to work that out myself, FGW certainly haven’t gone to any great lengths to explain this to me.

As a matter of course, I don’t bother asking staff at stations or on the trains because they are generally unhelpful, or respond with a grunt and a squeak.

This comes after a Christmas and New Year fiasco with seat reservations. The whole rail network has been undergoing a transfer to a new national seating reservation system, which has meant that between Christmas and now, it has been impossible to reserve seats, even on the busy trains, which include the two trains that I catch between Newport and London Paddington. I have literally had to run onto trains to be sure of obtaining a seat. There’s no way I’m standing up for two hours. It seems to have abated now, thank goodness, but myself and my mum have made numerous phone calls to Trainline.com asking to reserve seats, with operators giving vague impressions of the problems, so that customers are just left bewildered and confused.

The irony is, I pay ?31.20 for every return ticket I purchase, but I get such a crap service. The rail network needs some SERIOUS investment, and the sooner the better.

Just got back from my second LLM residential weekend in Leicester. Boy, was it an intensive one! I enjoy these weekends, but I sure find it hard to go back to work the week after having had no break from work/thinking!

Anyway, it was a good weekend. We had lectures by Professor Olga Aikin, Professor Patricia Leighton, Dr Adam Cygan, Dr Mark Bell and Dr Peter Davis on a wide variety of topics, ranging from contracts of employment and employment relations to the composition of the UK labour market. We had workshops on assignment writing and disability discrimination as well.

The accommodation was the Belmont Hotel, served up some nice food and refreshments, and I had a lovely ensuite double bedroom all to myself! I met up with Ian as well, and it was nice to catch up with him. It felt a bit strange being there on my own, not really knowing anyone, but I got chatting to a few people, so it wasn’t too bad. No one who could give me a training contract though, unfortunately!

Back to the practicalities: I’ve got a 5,000 – 7,500 word essay to hand in on 28 February 2005, plus shitloads of reading to do before the next residential in June, as well as another assignment. Can someone please remind me why I’m doing this course?!

This is something that I wanted to comment on a while ago, but didn’t get round to it.

If one looks at this post at Woolamaloo you can see that Joe Gordon has been sacked from Waterstones simply “because he kept an online diary in which he occasionally mentioned bad days at work and satirised his “sandal-wearing” boss” (Guardian Unlimited, 12 January 2005).

What does this mean for bloggers everywhere? I could potentially be a victim like Joe Gordon simply because I post about RAD, my employer. Does that mean I’m bringing my employer into “disrepute”? I don’t say anything derogatory about RAD – I could say a lot of bad things, but I don’t, because I respect that some things should remain confidential. However, Gordon didn’t say bad things about Waterstones. He simply satirised his work colleagues and the work he did. No one would be able to identify just who or what he was talking about that easily.

This issue is quite timely. I’m currently researching for an essay with the following title:

You can see here that I am required to discuss an employee’s right to privacy. The Woolamaloo case is certainly relevant here (and will allow me me to bring a bit of topicality into my assignment! )). Essentially, what it all boils down to: how do you achieve an equal balance between an employer’s right to protect his own interests, while ensuring that an employee’s basic human rights are not infringed, including Article 8, which is to the right to private and family life, his home and correspondence?

Personally, I think Waterstones have gone too far. If Gordon was posting to his blog in working hours, thus preventing him from doing the work he was paid to, then they *might* have a reason to dismiss him, but all posts were made outside working hours. Go figure.

I will be keeping my eye on this case, to see whether Gordon takes Waterstones to an employment tribunal. At present, an appeal was held on 25 January 2005, and Gordon is awaiting a decision.

You know what? Sometimes I feel like I want to scream. Why? This training contract thing. I’ve been trying for four years, yes you read right, four years, to get a training contract, without success. It wouldn’t be so bad, except, I’ve got plans.

Rachel and I are getting married on 19 August 2006. She is adamant that she doesn’t want to live in London, and I don’t blame her. I would rather live in South Wales than in London, but unfortunately, the legal jobs are mainly in London. Plus I want to bring our kids up in South Wales, not London, so that our families are around for the kids during their childhood.

But. And there is a big but. Most law firms recruit two years in advance, which means that most of the applications I’ve made this year have been for 2006. Most of them are in London. That fucks up our plans a bit, doesn’t it? I don’t want to spend our married lives apart, and yet I don’t really want to have to commute back and forth to Wales.

What makes it worse is that now most applications for 2006 have passed, I’m looking at applications in 2005 for 2007! My LPC will expire in 2008, five years after completing it, so if I don’t secure a training contract before then, I’ve wasted ?7,000 just to do the LPC.

It infuriates me. Why is it is so seemingly impossible to secure a training contract? What do I have to do? I moved to London when I got my current job with RAD because I thought it would be a great opportunity to make contacts in order to secure the training contracts. I’ve made contacts yes, but none of them are able to offer me a training contract. I applied to Beachcroft Wansbroughs with encouragement from Clare Norriss, an Employment Solicitor and a good friend of mine, who works there, and I didn’t even get an interview. I was Chair of the GSD for a year, and even though I met loads of solicitors, it didn’t get me anywhere.

I’m starting to feel really lost now; I’m losing my sense of direction and aims for the future. I don’t know what to do next apart from keep applying and keep getting turned down. It doesn’t do much for one’s confidence and self-esteem. Would I really be that crap a solicitor? Is it because I’m Deaf that I’m not getting the training contracts? Why do my A Level results, which I obtained six years ago for fuck’s sake, matter so much to all those bloody law firms?

I may as well give up and go into teaching. But I can’t do that; I want to be a solicitor so much. I’ve worked so damn hard to get this far, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give up.

But when the odds are stacked against me, where do I turn … ?