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Google have announced a new feature in their Webmaster Tools. In a nutshell it will display all pages that link to a missing page on your site – you have a chance to fix it or take advantage of it.

So, if a site was linking to an erroneously spelt page then you could create a redirect for this to the correct page – ensuring you still get the visitors to the appropriate page.

BMTG was okay (apart from a misspelling on my own blog, so I was able to correct that) as was Copy+. However, I can see the advantage of this tool and will be keeping an eye on it in future.

Some time ago, probably a few years now, the company I worked for removed individual bins from under their desk and replaced them with recycling points dotted around the office. These consist of a series of bins where items can be separated – different bins for different areas, but usually, at least, a general bin for “miscellaneous” disposal. Even at the time this seemed a little odd because it might going out of your way each time you want to throw away an apple core, sheet of paper of paper cup (and odder still as 2 of those 3 items they don’t recycle – not food waste, including tea bags, or paper cups). Of course, there’s probably 2 reasons for these changes…

1. They have a third party contract for cleaning. I suspect not having to empty individual bins around the office saved them quite a bit of money
2. It’s environmentally sound

Which of these you think was the priority depends on how cynical you are I guess.

Anyway, I brought in my own bin for general waste. I provide my own bags and empty it myself. Recyclable materials I take to the appropriate bins. It remains environmentally friendly and doesn’t cost anything more for cleaning costs.

None-the-less I have been hassled by management ever since. Yesterday it happened again with a threat of confiscation (how does this work if it’s your own property?) so I’m taking it home. I’ve had enough. I’ll just pile my apple cores and yoghurt pots up on my desk. Nice. And one more hit against my work morale.

Remember me saying how things seem to keep going wrong at the moment (of the “it’s going to cost me money” sense)? Well, today is another such day.

I get to work to get a very early phone call from my wife. The shower’s not working. The light on the pull switch is on but the standby light on the shower is doing nothing.

So, I ring an electrician who says that it is, quite probably, the shower so I should get a new one and then ring him again and he’ll come around and fit it. Now, I don’t want it to be a big job and I don’t want new holes in my bathroom tiles, etc, so I decide to plump for the same shower (or as near as damn it) – a Mira Sport Max. I ring around the local DIY shops and none have it in stock. The local plumbers merchant don’t have it “but could order it”. Bum. My plan was to get one today and get the electrician out tomorrow.

Anyway, if I can’t get that model I’d get something similar so confident, I’ll get something at least, I ring the electrician back to ask him to pop around. “May be able to do this week – maybe last thing Friday”. Oh. Well, I’d ideally like a shower earlier than that, but it will have to do.

Meanwhile I’m chatting to my work colleague Ganesh. He asks if I’ve tried ScrewFix, a company I’m aware but haven’t bought from before. Sure enough they stock it. Great, I can get it for next day. Even better, I’m told, there’s a depot just around the corner. So I visit and pick one up.

Well, the day’s getting better I guess. The stress of the shower has already stopped me eating.

Then a van driver backs into my car in the ScrewFix car park. No damage is done other than a small ding in my number plate, but I take some details anyway (although he seems strangely reluctant to give any).

My colleague had also said that showers were dead simple to fit in, so I should do it myself. Yea. Stupidly, I tried it. Well, I say “stupidly” without meaning it – because I did it! One fitted shower, all working. Better than the original.

However, I have a dinged car and I’m lighter by £240 (yes, that’s how much the shower cost!) plus petrol. At least I don’t have to pay the electrician – which reminds me, I should cancel his visit. After we’ve tried the showers in the morning 😉

If you didn’t know already, I work in IT support. I started off, briefly, in my career performing mainframe development. However, being a creative sort, I soon got tired of programming dull batch applications, all of which were similar to the last. The one highlight was learning about DB2 and being sent on various advanced SQL efficiency courses – nerdy, technical but brought out the analytical side of me.

But I moved into Support. More specifically, EPOS support. One of my managers was, shall we say, not a “man” manager. His inter-personal skills lacked but he was very technical and so, whilst still getting on with the “day job”, allowed you to perform side-projects that could tax your artistic side. One of those projects won me an award for IT Excellence.

As the IT department changed, the EPOS support and development teams were merged. But as emphasis on making money took over the support team was whittled down to… me. And my manager, now a different person, had no time for me or my work. I was desperately unhappy.

So I hatched a plan – I bypassed various levels of management and sold it directly to the director of support at my company. He liked it and I moved out the team (now known only as a development team) and back into a support team “proper”.

New people, new desk, new things. And for a few months it was exciting again. But now, I’ve realised the work is still dull, easy even, and nothing I haven’t done a million times before. When in my previous team I tried the escape route – but 18 years at the same company didn’t make me saleable. It just made me stagnant and the few job interviews I had went badly. I want out of support now. Ideally, I’d like to get into web development – something that’s still new, exciting, cerebral and interesting to me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how many websites I’ve worked on, I have no commercial experience. And I don’t own multi-hundred-pound development tools – I write everything in code, by hand. Personally, I think the latter is the better, but what do I know?

Actually, no, what I’d really like to do is go into teaching. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Sadly, I don’t have a degree so the doors are firmly shut (no matter what my experience is). One option, in time, is to take an Open University degree. That’s certainly something I’ll consider. In the meantime, I’m back to the job hunting – but I’ve learnt my past lessons of going to recruitment agencies, so will be avoiding them this time.

So, if anybody would like to offer me a job (and with a family and mortgage, I need something permanent), you know how to contact me. Google, are you listening? 😀

Meantime, I feel like I’m doomed to wander the planet alone forever. Like the Incredible Hulk¹.

1. The Wedding Singer ↩︎

Ah, barely into October and I’m discussing Christmas already. Well, if Tesco can set up an entire aisle of Christmas snacks then, yes, I can.

We went shopping tonight and because of the aforementioned aisle we’ve started our Christmas shop. Organised, yes, and damn useful. Every week we buy a couple of items we’d normally buy for Christmas – snacks, food items to go towards the Christmas meal, drinks, Christmas tree decorations, advent calendar, etc. And by trickle buying it we hardly notice it in the budget. Oh, and you avoid the last minute rush later on with a sense of self-satisfaction (and smugness).

Having said all that, I can’t see the point of the Mince Pies which go out of date in November. Or the Cheese Footballs (a Christmas essential) that only last until the end of December. Some things have to be bought later.

But we did come back with some After Eights and an individual Christmas Pudding (my wife doesn’t like them).