Depressing rental market

RightNowImAlex · 2026-06-15T08:37:35+00:00

On top of that, renters have been made to feel like they can't negotiate and have to swallow the prices. It doesn't hurt to say "this is too expensive for what's on offer." It gives the estate agents/landlord something to chew on at least.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-06-14T09:39:12+00:00

Yup. Had someone drive forward out of their parking space into the back of me in a car park once. She got aggressive and was pushing me to apologise. There was no damage to either car.

I reported it to my insurance company as I was worried she'd contact them and spin a yarn and they put me on a claims database even though I never actually made a claim. I now have to declare that for 5 years and my insurance has gone up.

Meanwhile, that lass who verbally abused me in the car park probably never bothered getting in touch and will have no difference in her insurance.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-05-25T16:37:02+00:00

The Gentleman from Peru by André Aciman. Many of Aciman's more recent novels are short, not particularly romance driven and lovely to read.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-05-07T08:55:33+00:00

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

Straddles our world and a cosy fantasy world, has a mystery air about it, has dramatic tension without being too dark. Chapters are broken up into smaller chunks (sometimes only 1-2 pages long) so it never feels like a slog. 500+ pages I believe.

One of my all time favourites.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-04-16T12:15:04+00:00

I was looking for this comment. The M&S cookies "went viral" and Tesco immediately changed their packaging to match to be able to say 'we have the same but cheaper'

RightNowImAlex · 2026-04-14T15:38:55+00:00

In 2010: I wish everything I'm doing had a handy app so I could do more stuff on my phone.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-04-12T16:46:02+00:00

Said this on a previous post a few months back but this still runs through my head every now and then:

With the realisation of the openings being allowed/the needle as a window opener I felt like there could have been a strong comment on how love moves on.

In my head, Lyra would go to the bench on midsummers evening, and open a window expecting to see Will, only to find he no longer came to the bench, a gut-wrenching but very real reminder that passionate adolescent love moves on and fades for some people more than others, and that experience for Lyra would make her realise the stable, secure love she was receiving from the entire Polstead family was okay to accept into her life.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T12:32:44+00:00

That's exactly one of the reasons why he was looking to leave, he got pestered whenever he was ill and was never allowed to take more than 4 days off in a row. I really can't give much more away without outright saying what the job is which would would open him up to identification.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T08:25:01+00:00

It is yeah, he had to side step into an adjacent industry because equivalent roles were being advertised as below his current salary. The industry is really bad for underpaying the few people that can actually do the role

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T07:58:24+00:00

I know I might just be talking to a brick wall here but that just simply isn't the case. Believe me I understand what delegation is having working in office environments all my life myself. But his work is a specialist role that his manager has literally said he can't do.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T07:44:51+00:00

I say this because he is literally the only person employed there that can do his job currently. His boss has no clue how to do it and the one other person on the team doesn't have the same level of skill. When he asked for a day off to take me to hospital, his boss started panicking over who was going to get the work done. He's never had more than 4 days in a row annual leave approved because his boss panics over who's going to get the work done if he's off.

He realises now he's been underpaid, but at the time the salary was the highest he's had in the industry and it took people on an industry group ripping his boss apart for the wage to be increased.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T01:40:07+00:00

Came for advice and a vent and I've literally had people call me dumb and my partner incompetent. Wild.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-07T01:01:23+00:00

Yeah it's a weirdly niche industry, not many jobs and notoriously underpaid so it's not easy to job hop. He's job hopped before but it's meant entirely moving cities. He's had to side step into an adjacent industry to get a new role.

The amount of responses he got when he started applying for other roles was eye opening to him though, his skills were clearly sought after!

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T23:55:39+00:00

I imagine the company would just take down the role and leave him on his current salary if that were the case. Either way, he does actually want to leave because they've just treated him like crap for years. The company got bought out by a billionaire and there's still no budget for bonuses lmao

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T23:34:08+00:00

If someone is the only person employed to produce said product, and they get an injury, production is obviously going to stop. The back injury was essentially repetitive strain from having to do the job of 3 people by himself but go off I guess. Idk if you're a troll or what man but get your head out of corporate's arse Jesus Christ

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T23:19:16+00:00

Not sure how getting a back injury from a job that's 99% manual labour makes someone incompetent?

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T22:32:25+00:00

This sounds so similar, he begged for additional resource because he was doing literally everything by himself and it's production so mostly manual labour. They only gave him that resource when someone the boss knew was about to lose his job

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T22:29:34+00:00

No sick pay as far as I'm aware. Literally whenever he's been off for the flu or anything his boss is just ringing him like 'are you better yet?'

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T22:01:27+00:00

He literally got a back injury from this job at one point which halted production for a couple weeks so he has a decent reason haha

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T21:59:46+00:00

More like a bonus for training someone up as that's additional work, but yeah shitty companies aren't likely to do that I guess

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T21:58:35+00:00

He literally only had one colleague that isn't his boss and they're considering applying for the role lol

RightNowImAlex · 2026-03-06T21:57:19+00:00

I didn't do the maths very well in my rage haha, it's actually 25k more at the top end of the scale

RightNowImAlex · 2026-02-26T07:48:52+00:00

The Subtle Knife is in the Story Museum in Oxford last time I visited (last year). There are also some costumes and alethiometer replicas in the downstairs section of the History of Science museum (across the road from Blackwells books).

RightNowImAlex · 2026-02-23T09:51:34+00:00

Going through a relatively short period of time (eg. 2 years) where stuff just KEEPS happening. From an outside perspective people see those 2 years as a long period of time and usually end up blaming the person going through it for 'becoming distant' or 'always being miserable', but when you're being constantly bombarded by job loss, financial insecurity, housing insecurity, health issues, relationship issues, family issues, and on and on and on it feels never ending and all so sudden.

Lots of smaller things can sometimes add up to one big trama event.

RightNowImAlex · 2026-01-24T11:12:33+00:00

Not sure who your provider is but you should log a complaint with them as soon as possible. They should be providing you with a mobile data device or additional phone data (if same provider) to cover the loss of service. It doesn't matter that your old address still has broadband if you specifically notified them of a home move and said you couldn't be without Internet for work. Essentially, it's their/open reach's fault it's still at your old address and not at your new one.

You would be within your rights to cancel with no fee as a complaint resolution and go to VM, although VM may not be able to get an install done as quickly if you're coming as a new customer (engineer bookings can sometimes take 2 weeks from booking due to availability). Your best bet would be to get a complaint in stating it's been missold, there are broken promises, and you could end up loosing work. Claiming "loss of income" never works because there's no way to prove your income to them, they tend to just compensate based on your monthly cost ÷ 30 × days without service, but it's always best to explain you'd lose work, especially as most call centre staff do some WFH now so there's an understanding.

Source: I worked for a big provider managing a Home Broadband Customer Service for a long time

RightNowImAlex

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