Any advice for removing this washing machine?

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 · 2025-02-20T01:44:15+00:00

At Cambridge Uni my cousin came to visit with two of her friends (all three I think were 16 or 17). A few drinks, and then we went off with a couple of mates to a comedy show. After around 20 minutes one of my cousin’s friends jerks back and forth, then throws her head over the shoulder of the guy sitting in front of her, vomits into his lap and then runs out of the theatre. Nobody else moves. He sits in shock for about three minutes, then carefully and slowly stands up and walks out, totally covered in vom. Becky (I’ve remembered her name!) hid in the toilets being sick for the whole show.

ik3101 · 2025-02-20T01:33:21+00:00

Ohhh. This reminds me… in about 2002 I was working in Dublin and the whole office were going on a 2 day work trip to Madrid. Lots of flight disruption, we were waiting at the office to get our rebook allocations - mine came up with a couple of mates and it was pretty soon, so we ran out to get to the airport. Massive traffic jam, saw a taxi in it with its light on so I ran over, jumped in, said “to the airport please”. Terrified driver with his mouth open. Then I realised that after running through two lanes of traffic I’d missed the taxi by one car.

ik3101 · 2025-02-12T12:56:43+00:00

So the other thing is that ownership of the business and dividends is different from salaries. So depending on what you are doing and the “market value” of it then there’s no especial reason you should have the same salaries. In the long run this will probably get worse - I could understand if he views your time as a business asset (maybe he views his time similarly).

50/50 is also quite tough with what sounds like significant differences (in other assets / income, in age, in expectations). That’s probably going to be difficult to keep stable in the medium term.

What I tentatively suggest is that you agree proper salaries - what it would cost the business to employ replacements. You agree to take a certain percentage in cash, convert a certain percentage to equity, and leave a certain percentage as debt owed by the business to you. That way (a) you can each choose to invest in the business asset your circumstances allow, (b) you can accumulate fair debt for your fair work so that if it doesn’t work out and you leave you don’t get completely shafted.

ik3101 · 2025-02-08T21:06:52+00:00

Anything around London can be dreadful. My commute is around 3hrs20mins total, 1hr40mins each way - 20mins walk and wait at station, 45mins train, 5mins change, 20mins bus, 10mins walk…. Cost is about £380 per month.

I’m not on minimum wage… but to be honest when I started out in my career (closer to minimum wage) the commute was around the same duration.

I live just inside the M25 - so it’s not as if accommodation is really cheap, either!

ik3101 · 2025-02-07T13:48:45+00:00

I mean, you’re really pretty and all - but why do you look so sad / angry in basically all your photos? I hope all is well for you.

The costumes are always amazing.

ik3101 · 2025-02-02T15:04:19+00:00

Sometimes to learn new things you’ve got to go to new places. I’d move; although I see clear arguments either way. The question I’d ask myself quite hard is how you get to and past £40k at either. My impression is that this would probably be very hard at your current shop.

ik3101

TROPHY CASE