Programmers are good at writing step by step instructions. After all, that’s all a computer program ever is – a set of very simple step by step instructions. Of course, modern programming languages try and make it more complicated, by adding objects and events, but in the end, everything comes down to a set of instructions.

That said – you should never ask a programmer to give you a step by step guide. He’s used to dealing with very literal devices, so the odds are that a step by step guide to making a cup of tea would take a week to complete, and fill 3 narrow spaced pages of A4. Of course, that’s a stereotype – a bad programmer would get it short and wrong (take cup, add tea), and a really good programmer would recognise the actual needs of the situation, and get it right.

Still, in general, we’re good at the step by step instructions thing. We’re also good at following said instructions; okay, sometimes we’re arrogant and think we know better, and can skip a step, but generally, put a programmer in front of a set of instructions, and we’ll follow it accurately and to the letter.

The trouble is, that’s what we assume everyone else will do too, so that’s how we write our instructions. Real people have a strange (to programmers) tendency to wander off from the written guide, and try to do their own thing.
Programmers don’t expect this, so we don’t guard against it. For example, I had this conversation at work today:
Me: So what did you do next?
User: I closed the window.
Me (thinking something is up): How did you do that?
User: I clicked the X in the corner
Me: Why did you do that? The instructions say “Click Accept”
User: Oh, but clicking the X is faster… it takes a couple of seconds when you click “Accept”
Me: Sigh… yes… that’s the program running to do the work you asked for… Clicking “X” cancels it.
User: Oh, well why didn’t the instructions say that?

In the end I changed the program, so clicking the “X” did the same thing as clicking “Accept”… and no amount of arguing will convince either the user that the instructions were right, or me that they were wrong.

I’m sick of the negative media. For months I’ve been convinced that if, instead of going for sensational headlines of doom, the press were just a little more optimistic – balanced even – then the financial markets would probably sort themselves out. Even though that’s probably a bit too optimistic, having spoken to a wide range of business analysts in the last few months on the subject, I’m firmly convinced that even if reporting good news wouldn’t help, reporting all this exaggerated bad news is certainly making things worse.

Sadly, it’s not just the news-hounds who hate people having a good attitude. Baroness Shriti Vadera has been publicly shamed today for daring to voice optimism in this current economic climate. According to the Tories (who I supposedly support), saying “I am seeing a few green shoots” demonstrates how out of touch and insensitive she is…

The trouble is, no-one wants to admit the question that this was in response to. According to Sky News, the question asked was when would we be seeing green shoots – so the words themselves were put in her mouth by the reporter. No-one seems to want to discuss that…

Not only that, but it’s true. As I was driving home today, Radio 2 was talking about the thousands of new jobs – a little research finds that both Tesco and Sainbury’s are looking to expand into new stores, creating over 10,000 new jobs between them. That’s surely a green shoot?

The best comment about it I’ve heard was that Norman Lamont said this “at the height of the last depression”. So… that’d be just as it was turning around then?

As well all know – the egg came first; long before there was ever a bird that might even be considered an early ancestor of a chicken, things laid eggs.  The question of “Which came first, the Chicken or the Chicken Egg?” is more tricky – I’ll leave that one for the philosophers.

The question for me though, is which came first – the content or the readership?

Let’s face it – if I set up a site and advertise it, but there’s nothing there, people aren’t going to stay.  It’s one of the mysteries (to me, at least) of sites like FaceBook; how on earth did they get their first 1,000 users?  Obviously, there comes a point when a site has enough momentum to expand on its own, but those first few readers, visitors or members… how do you get them to sign up?

So clearly, content must come first.  Somehow, I’ve got to put together enough Angry Rants, General Musings and useful technical information that someone visiting this site will feel that their time has been well spent – and not only will they come back and check for more content, but they’ll tell their friends to do the same…

On the other hand… Right now, I have a grand total of 2 readers – and one of them is me.  When writing for such a limited audience, it is tricky to get motivated – and even when I am motivated, it feels like the worst kind of shameless egotism.

Maybe – just maybe – a Blog is the wrong way to start a site… or is that heresy against the principals of Web 2.0?

In vino veritas is a well-known Latin phrase. It means “in wine [there is the] truth”.

I’ve had a lot to drink tonight – perhaps (though I hope the spell checker will help with this) you will be able to tell this from my typing.  It’s an odd conundrum – although it is thought that alcohol is supposed to bring out the truth, I find myself quite an acomplished liar after drinking.

The trick to a good lie is two parts truth to one part lie.  The secret to drunken lies is to let slip the first “truth” while you’re still sober enough to remember what you’ve said… once that’s done, you only need to remember to tell the lie – the other truth will come out by itself.

So remember, all of you – Just because a person is drunk, doesn’t mean all he says is the truth!

I work in a so-called “Managed Office”. This is where my company leases a number of rooms in a large office building, and gets use of the communal spaces, reception, car-park etc. – the idea is to get all the facilities of a large corporate office without the overhead.  I say so-called, becaues I’ve never actually seen these people manage the place at all!

There are some huge disadvantages to working in a place like this.  One of them is dress codes – some companies in the building may have a different code than others, which can sometimes look unprofessional when you have visitors…

Another disadvantage is that you’re sharing the communal areas – kitchen, break room, post room etc. – with maybe 100 people over whom you have absolutely no authority.  In fact, you don’t even have a way to raise issues.  Without futher ado, here are the 10 worst abuses of the communal areas in my office…

10 – Cooking Smelly Food

This is one of the traditional ones, even in normal offices.  You can’t complain about it, since the person cooking the food clearly likes it – and probably thinks your dinner stunk even worse!

To be honest, I don’t really care about the smells.  Yes, it’s annoying to go in to the kitchen to make some tea, and discover it smells of curry – but it’s better than some of the terrible flavour air fresheners that the facility likes to use!

9 – Listening to Loud Music

I’ve never understood this one at all.  There’s a company in the same office building that’s hired a number of fairly junior staff members – they can’t be much older than 18, if that – and they seem to love spending their lunch breaks playing the loudest music they can find on their iPod speakers.

This time though, it’s not the volume of the music that affects me – it only takes a couple of minutes to make a cuppa, and my eardrums can handle it.  No, instead it’s the choice of music – can anyone stand “Never Miss a Beat” by the Kaiser Chiefs – the scary thing is that I suspect these kids actually subscribe to the philosophy!

8 – Hiding from your Boss

Hiding from your boss is really the best way to avoid getting too much work on your plate – after all, if he can’t find you, he can’t give you more work to do.  Similarly, if he knows you weren’t in the office, he won’t expect you to have read the emails either.  I can’t fault that – but why hide in the break room?  It’s the first place to look!

7 – Building a Fort

Why would you build a fort in the office break room?  I’ve never seen it happen yet, but I’m sure it’s not far away…  I did once find twice the number of chairs, and a few spare tables, but I was too busy (making my tea) to have time to rearrange them appropriately.

6 – Growing Cannabis

Again, it hasn’t happened yet – but there were two completely random poinsettias there over Christmas.  I’m quite a fan of pleasant decoration in an office, but the most frustrating thing is that the so-called office managers didn’t think to organise any kind of care or maintenance for them – so when we came back in January one was dead and the other very sad looking.

5 – Doing your Laundry

Actually, this one’s my fault… I managed to spill coffee all down my shirt, and ended up standing in the kitchen wearing nothing but my coat and trousers, washing my shirt in the sink.

I know, it’s totally anti-social, but in my defence it was still 6:45am, so I was unlikely to be interrupted, and I really didn’t want to go to my important-ish customer meeting with a stained shirt.

4 – Storing Dirty Dishes

This one gets my goat.  It only takes 30 seconds to wash a plate, but some people refuse to do their own.  Luckily, I’ve never spotted the culprits bringing the dishes into the room or leaving them in the sink… I suspect they’re too embarrassed to walk off and leave them when someone else is there to see it.

The most frustrating thing about it is when the sink’s so full you can’t even wash up your own plate.

3 – Meeting with Customers

In a normal office, any room – even a break-room – can be reserved for one-off use for a meeting with customers.  You can email around the company, and let everyone know that a Microsoft representative will be coming – and not to disturb anyone for a particular period.

In a building like ours though, booking a meeting room costs extra, and you can’t ever book the communal areas for exclusive use.  So having a meeting with an important customer or supplier is the worst kind of foolhardiness – you’ve got no idea who might walk in at any time; it could even be one of the Know Nothing Crew!

2 – Shooting a Publicity Video

Marketing departments love to organise publicity stunts – brochures, videos, webcasts – but never seem to like to think about reality.  Let’s face it, a film showing a room that’s a complete mess and full of dirty dishes is never going to make a good impression.  Somehow though, the marketting department always wants to show scenes from the break room, not just from the offices where we really work.

1 – Holding a One-to-One Meeting

Top of the list – the worst thing that people seem to use our communal areas for.  Almost every week, I walk in on yet another one-to-one, or appraisal – whether it’s one of the Know Nothing Crew getting assessed for their performance, or lack thereof – or someone getting corrective training on making sales calls.

I know why they do it.  Booking a meeting room costs money, and it seems a waste to do that for just two people to have a meeting.  You can’t just stay in your normal office, because there’s always people there that will know everyone being discussed, and you can’t have an honest appraisal in that atmosphere.

However, in the end, it works out badly for everyone.  The person getting the appraisal is continually interrupted by strangers walking in to make cups of tea and coffee.  People from the same company as the person being appraised know about the meeting, so they can’t get any hot drinks while the meeting is going on.  Finally, people from other companies like your truly feel embarassed to go into the room for a drink – and often end up hearing un-necessary details about other people’s working lives.

So come on people – leave the communal areas alone, and plan your meetings properly!

Expatriates (see, I do know the right spelling) are people temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person’s upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin ex (out of) and patria (country, motherland).

Now, there are many reasons to leave your home country.  War, famine, oppression, love – these are all good and valid reasons to move away from something that perhaps you have no control over (or in the case of love, a valid reason to move to a new country).  However, in recent times, the tendancy has been for the British to move away, not for legal or ethical reasons, but to enjoy better weather and lower cost of living.

I have no problem with people moving to a new country for any reason.  What gets my goat though is people who expect to be able to have their cake and eat it too.  Today’s Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 included a wonderful call from a lady who had willingly chosen to leave old Blighty and move to the warmer climes of the South of France (or Spain – whatever), yet was immensely put out that this left her unable to benefit from the best savings deals at her particular English banking establishment.  For once Jeremy agreed with my views on the subject – and in not so many words told her to quit whining – there’s pros and cons to every decision to move, and oh dear, this was a con.

The other side of the coin of course is the asylum seekers and foreign immigrants who leave their home countries for slightly more pressing reasons – political oppression, famine, war, poverty etc. – and yet expect to be able to continue living by the laws of the country they left behind.  This is no more acceptable than Mrs Jones expecting all the benefits of English banking when in France, and should be seen as just as ridiculous.

For some reason though, the opposite has taken place.  Despite leaving their homelands for the freedom and equality of the British Empire (all 3 islands of it), Muslims moving to this country seem determined to maintain the laws – that would be lack of freedoms – from their homelands.  In fact, Sharia law has now been adopted by the UK.

You know what – I have a theory: This isn’t immigration or asylum seeking – it’s just a very slow invasion!

Okay – that’s a bit extreme… but what else do you call it when a large number of people move into a country and start changing the laws and culture to suit themselves?