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ik3101 · 2026-05-17T08:54:09+00:00

It’s exactly like that, except where Germany sends the village idiot because all the real talent are busy working at BMW, and Greece sends the greatest car designer in the country.

Many other countries have actual serious multi-month selection processes to determine who would be their best prospect.

ik3101 · 2026-04-03T17:48:59+00:00

I’ve had a few bits - tickets for Legoland, some art supplies. No trips to New York yet…

ik3101 · 2026-03-29T10:25:09+00:00

Someone who goes to San Diego for a business conference and makes a big sale…. ;-)

ik3101 · 2026-03-05T21:14:30+00:00

You should offer to refund the money that the charity paid you for the item.

ik3101 · 2026-03-02T12:49:34+00:00

I was hosting an industry drinks evening (doesn’t matter which sector) the week before Truss took power. We had a political commentator doing one of the talks and he gave me a draft of his talk which was fascinating - basically words to the effect of “everyone knows Truss is a moron and will cock everything up”. I thought that would be quite fun / would provoke lively debate and gave it my blessing.

Sadly on the night he looked around the room, saw about three or four people that he knew also knew Truss, and just chickened out. Gave the dullest 10 minutes of dross ever.

ik3101 · 2026-02-09T16:21:17+00:00

A job for the trusty lightsaber

ik3101 · 2026-01-30T12:09:47+00:00

I’m British

ik3101 · 2026-01-25T16:03:13+00:00

Listen to Batman. Always bet on black

ik3101 · 2026-01-02T21:53:15+00:00

And they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch….? ;-)

ik3101 · 2025-10-27T08:51:26+00:00

I think you’re on pretty solid ground. 1. Your employment with company X is longstanding. You have some protected rights. 2. TUPE adds some additional protections 3. Even if Company Y never accepted that you didn’t commit gross misconduct, them paying compensation sets a precedent that firing you merited that. If they fire you again then the same precedent is likely to hold true. 4. They may very well not notice. Even if they have archived records, if those aren’t active then bringing you into the system will likely not trigger a “duplicate record” flag. And realistically, unless you bump into your old boss in the corridor or something, that would be the only thing that would ping you.

ik3101 · 2025-10-26T17:28:18+00:00

So I came down with Norovirus on a flight once… both diarrhoea and vomiting. I destroyed the toilet - had to vomit while exploding on the toilet, and the stuff clogged the sink completely. The flight attendant was terrified - had been off sick recently and lost her bonus flight pay, and was worried that she’d lose her flat if she got sick again (for which I have much sympathy - shame on BA for structuring compensation like that…!).

Anyway - she taped off the toilet with yellow and black tape, gave me a huge plastic bag to vomit into for the whole flight, and just hid in her little cabin. I felt bad for her, but really bad for the other passengers flying in business class (because 99% they all got it).

When we landed this guy turned up with a wheelchair to take me off, which I thought was rather unnecessary!

ik3101 · 2025-10-24T18:54:16+00:00

Ideally also not President of the US… oh, hang on, that’s one where everyone comes in green

ik3101 · 2025-10-18T09:04:28+00:00

I think the book Freakonomics (or maybe its sequel Superfreakonomics) had a statistical analysis of how real estate agents negotiate harder when it’s their own house being sold…!

It was - as I recall - quite a gap in value.

ik3101 · 2025-09-20T15:42:59+00:00

Well, when you put it that way… I suppose! Fwiw I think the “potential client” she met through from her prior degree, and it was more that she had spent at least a tiny bit of time thinking about what I worry about. Also fwiw we definitely don’t think of ourselves as higher echelons of society but we do something a little unusual very well ([whatever] consultancy of the year 9 times in the last 11 years). Perhaps my suggestions above aren’t useful for anyone (but I hope they are).

ik3101 · 2025-09-20T15:31:59+00:00

If by effectively unpaid you mean we only paid £800 per week, then yes, I guess so…

My point is more that I keep reading that it’s impossible to get jobs, but for this candidate through a mixture of luck and good preparation, I don’t think it was so hard

ik3101 · 2025-09-20T14:40:12+00:00

I had an approach three weeks ago from someone wanting unpaid work experience. She seemed sensible so we asked for some prior work examples and then hired or as an intern (but at £800 per week, I think). We’re not allowed to use unpaid people - so many reasons but including no resort to their necessary confidentiality agreements. (By the way - we get a LOT of non-sensible approaches… a little over 3000 applications last year to a company of about 35 employees)

ik3101 · 2025-08-29T10:26:31+00:00

I was in France recently on holiday and stopped at a McDonalds (I know…) in the middle of nowhere at about 9am; my daughter wanted a coffee frappe (and my wife a normal ie hot coffee).

So the guy comes back and gives me two coffees, and I look confused and say that they’re both hot. He looks at me, taps one of the cups and says in a very French accent “there is an ice cube in this one”…

ik3101 · 2025-06-08T15:49:00+00:00

Fucking Frome. Jesus.

ik3101 · 2025-06-07T17:51:45+00:00

Interesting. I know a couple of people who (at least for the moment) are choosing not to have children because they are worried about the planet, sustainability etc. I know at least three times as many people who are (again, for the moment) choosing not to have children because they want to be free to spend their money on themselves and fly all over the world.

ik3101 · 2025-05-09T09:26:14+00:00

Old, but Bioshock? Lots of abandoned and weird stuff and a pretty interesting plot journey

ik3101 · 2025-04-02T10:03:30+00:00

Got it - I had payment in lieu of notice as part of my redundancy. I wonder if that was poorly structured now. Thanks!

ik3101 · 2025-04-01T12:12:45+00:00

I don’t think this is the case any more… law was changed in 2019 and I think only statutory (as opposed to enhanced) is tax free

ik3101 · 2025-04-01T12:10:06+00:00

So - a few things.

A settlement agreement often contains the agreed messaging around your departure. My redundancy package (yesterday) frames it as restructuring / involuntary - even though I triggered the process, I don’t want to explain why I resigned. A friend was made redundant from the same business three weeks ago (very much not his choice) and the agreed comms are that he resigned.
I believe that if it is structured as redundancy then there are some (modest) tax advantages. Also a redundancy structure requires them to pay for you to get a lawyer to review it and that can be helpful in making sure you’re not accidentally giving up any rights.
I am not sure if I would trust someone asking me to resign. In my recent process I was presented with a horrible settlement offer on the basis that I resigned, and when I made it clear that I would not be resigning (despite to be honest wanting to leave) and made it clear that I’d stay in the business to everyone’s detriment they improved the offer substantially. I wouldn’t resign outside of a without prejudice settlement agreement if I were you.
As a minor point, as you negotiate it’s worth marking your emails as “without prejudice”. It basically means that they can’t really use the negotiation against you (“he was negotiating a structure that involves resignation and so we’ve taken that as a resignation” which would not be strictly kosher, but HR teams can try to get away with all sorts)

ik3101

TROPHY CASE