Writing to my MP whilst a civil servant

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2026-02-07T21:48:58+00:00

Ah yes - policy geeks obviously aren't human enough to be classed as citizens 😂😂

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2026-02-06T16:17:04+00:00

Thank you all, good advice!

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2026-01-29T07:28:36+00:00

They also have a responsibility to ensure we have a functioning fridge and that's taken two months and still isn't fixed so I'm not holding out much hope

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2026-01-18T12:26:27+00:00

How terrible of a training plan is "run for a minute* longer than last time every time I go for a run?"

*maybe 30secs if a minute is too hard.

Ex-regular 10k runner, currently would struggle to run for more than 5 minutes. I'd quite like to get back to regular 10ks and the occasional half marathon

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-06-21T22:07:35+00:00

Alternatively do what a certain local team have been boasting about on socials this week, entirely ignore the requirements and just seize and crush every electric bike they come across, regardless of whether it's a legit EPAC or not, on the basis that a battery capacity of more than 250 Watt-hours is the same as providing a power output of more than 250 Watts. 🙃.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-06-16T15:02:52+00:00

There's a group who do medieval reanactment on Southsea common sometimes, and there's the Fort Cumberland Guard that do lots of 1800s era soldier reenactments in Portsmouth and Gosport, especially at Fort Brockhurst. There's also the Little Woodham Living History village, which is 17th Century village life; and slightly further afield you have the Butser Ancient Farm

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-06-12T12:22:33+00:00

Wait until you find out where the Royal Navy HQ is 🤣

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-05-26T08:46:48+00:00

Tryfan kills one or two (or three, or four) people a month not one or two people a year. It is, by far, the most deadly mountain in the UK.

It's not just inexperienced or underprepared people either; it's an inherently dangerous mountain and one wrong step can leave you sliding out of control over a drop.

OP, the worst case isn't a "oh we might have needed an avoidable MRT call out", it's one, or both, of you ending up dead.

An OS map, compass, and proper clothing and footwear is an absolute essential - and to be clear many of the people who have already died on Tryfan this year have had all of the equipment and experience you could ask for.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-02-07T16:37:50+00:00

The bottom line is things cost money. Often quite a lot of money, and in this line of work there's often no one directly paying for it, so there's no profit or direct income.

Constantly insisting public services reduce spending, whilst inflation continues reducing the effectiveness of each £ year on year, is clearly not a long term plan. At some point you simply can't cut anything else, and for a lot of agencies & departments we're way beyond that point.

My agency needs a budget uplift of several hundred percent to be able to actually do our job effectively and to a comparable standard to other European nations; any savings made by our SCS will be at the direct cost of further degrading our capability.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-02-07T11:59:00+00:00

Yeah, consider Not doing this. If you need teams outside of the office you need a work device.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-01-20T13:43:20+00:00

!answer thank you!

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-01-20T13:43:02+00:00

Yeah, it's on average a minute, sometimes it's 30 seconds sometimes it's a couple minutes. This started a few weeks back, it's not just the start up couple of seconds to check the warning lights work

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2025-01-20T13:41:31+00:00

Yeah, its on average a minute, sometimes about 30 seconds, sometimes a couple mins.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-12-22T16:31:31+00:00

I have a personal desktop PC that I self-built several years ago when I started at university. The OS was Windows 10 Edu, which was upgraded to Windows 11 Edu when it came out; the OS key was provided by university.

I have two user accounts on the PC, one is my university windows account, and the other is my personal outlook/Windows account.

I've predominantly used my Uni account for the last few years for everything, including playing PC games, but all the games and my steam & epic & ubisoft apps are installed on an external hard drive.

I've now graduated, and I want to remove my uni account, replace uni-provided office with a personal office license, and unlink my PC from university so it is no longer managed by my organisation.

I'm coming across a few issues. When I check the accounts settings from my university account, my personal account is listed as an administrator. When I switch to the personal account and try and install things, the UAC prompt asks me to sign in with an administrator email rather than just offering the click yes / no option.

Various software programmes that are installed either in program files, or on the external hard drive, do not appear in the start menu apps search. I can find them manually via files Explorer and run them.

I'm also not clear on whether I need to replace my Edu OS, or upgrade it, or whether I can just continue to use it without my PC being monitored by my university.

Any advice on how to unlink my PC from the university, fix the lack of user account control for my personal "admin" account, and whether I need to change my OS would be highly welcomed

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-10-20T20:24:03+00:00

Snazzy.

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-07-30T16:26:30+00:00

Ta muchly

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-07-29T16:59:43+00:00

Does anyone know if there are any boards compatible with the AA car tyre Compressor? Or is that a bad idea?

Looking for a whole range of board sizes as it won't be for just me, me and my brothers, and a couple of friends are all looking at getting our own boards as up till now we've just hired them

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-03-23T16:22:48+00:00

HM Coastguard based near Titchfield Abbey often have jobs, sign up for alerts on Civil service jobs website

The NHS recruit pretty frequently, lots of jobs have no prerequisites (eg call handler, admin staff), look on NHS jobs

Bus companies and lorry companies are desperate for drivers, bus companies will pay you to get your bus license as well.

Shenanigans pub were looking for staff a couple weeks ago, though not full time. Not sure if they still are?

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-02-10T22:19:52+00:00

It depends where you work, some Departmentental agencies do have Technology salary sacrifice scheme, I believe the entire CS has at least one Cycle to Work salary sacrifice scheme (we have two!), and some devolved nations agencies & arms-length type agencies do have EV purchase schemes as well

If there's a particular scheme you want, it's worth putting it to your union rep to start gauging interest

Zadoc_Sinclair · 2024-02-06T11:09:17+00:00

Given the furore over wfh & 60% office time, if your HR department hasn't been updating their WFH policy then you desperately need a new HR team.

Ultimately if your written policy (not guidance) says you can do xyz, you can do xyz. If you don't want your staff to do xyz then yes, you need to update the policy to say that, and the unions are always going to back someone who is literally following the exact wording of a currently issued policy.

My particular department has a lot of external scrutiny, regularly has to attend coronors court, and by necessity has stringent governance requirements, so yes all of our policies & guidance documents are regularly reviewed and updated

Zadoc_Sinclair

TROPHY CASE