From what I saw at one point, just having a degree counted when it came to applying for a job, regardless of what subject it was in! Your friend's degree sounds like quite a heavy combination of courses, but oddly interesting too ;) :D

yep yep. they are all doing well :) Little Carmen's been sleeping in her wee bed we got her at Christmas. She loves it. It's on the coffee table so she's not being pestered by Melody. How's Pusur?

thank you :) lol well I thought I've had all these skins but not used them so I thought I'd give it a go and try to use them.

here's hoping. I got a shot in my ankle today so it's really hurting. But it's supposed to calm the pain down. It's been very unfun

loving your new ha

certainly all my zombie skins just sit gathering virtual dust in the wardrobe :P Today's look is perfect! :D

Ironic isn't it, that something to calm the pain is that painful when they've done it o.O but hopefully that'll ease off and tomorrow you'll not have a painful ankle to deal with ;)

Thanks - I couldn't resist nabbing that new hammy ;)

Grandad was seen by the paramedic who works with the local doctor's surgery today. The paramedic says Grandad has delirium and needs to be in hospital. So in the space of less than an hour, that decision was made, and the transport arrived! (when Gran needed to go to hospital, because she needed an ambulance, it was a 4+ hour wait). They've currently got Grandad in a side room (they isolate all new patients just in case they have covid), and apparently they'll test for infection, and also do a brain scan (as he'd had that mini-stroke and falls where potentially he could've hit his head), plus the consultant is meant to assess him later today (in 'normal' wards the consultant only tends to work like 9-6, so that's unusual they have them working later ;)). So that's a huge positive really, as it means hopefully they can figure out what's causing the delirium and potentially resolve it.

LOL never a dull moment with those two around I am sure. Bless. :) Glad they are both well. Pusur is his usual overly affectionate self. I have to cover my mouth when I am going to sleep, as he will lick me right on the mouth. Ewww!

And for some places they would say I was overly qualified and they were worried I would leave as soon as a "better" job came about. I heard that applying for retail jobs (I have experience) with a degree. To be fair, there is a lot of psychology probably in the criminology field. My subjects were mostly really boring when I studied to become a librarian as you can imagine. :P

that's true - I think it all changed just as I was laving retail, as several companies had a graduates scheme where anyone with a degree would be able to join on their management training level, rather than having to start out on the shop floor first like I did. But having said that, you learn a lot more about the workings of the shop by working on the shop floor, so I think my way was probably better! :P

I can't imagine that librarian studies are all that riveting at times!

I think all managers should work on the floors for a bit too before taking on more responsibility, for the reasons you mentioned. For manager positions of course they wanted someone that had experience managing, which I don't. So I was kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place, since finding something in my field was difficult too.

Especially those lectures on cataloguing. I don't miss those. :P

nods when we had the busy time in the run up to Christmas, management were meant to help out on the tills when it was mega busy. I was the only manager (well, I was a trainee) who'd ever worked on the shop floor, so I had the job of working on the tills while the other manager was packing people's shopping into bags (for the other till points, there was one 'packing' person shared between two till points, just to help speed things up).... but he got bored after about 10 minutes and wandered off :K

Even getting a job in retail in the first place was hard, as they all wanted experience o.O

laughs I guess there's not really a way of making cataloguing sound any more interesting while they're doing a lecture :P

yeah it is ironic. Today if feels a bit better so we’ll see if i can skip the pain meds tonight lol

I really hope that they can get him sorted out. Hugs

true that lol. Aww bless. He’s a dear. Heart

ooo I love the wildcat look today :D Did you manage to skip the pain meds last night in the end? squishes gently

Well I just emailed the local Toyota garage to ask about replacing the rear-view mirror (the mirrors kind of failing, as there's black splodges on the bottom edge of it, so I'd really like it to be replaced). I've seen some generic ones online for about twenty quid. The Toyota garage want fifty quid just for the part, and another seventy to fit it o.O jaw drop So I've given up with them, and I've emailed the nearest non-brand garage instead, in the hope they can offer something more realistic!

Mum went to see Grandad on Saturday, and he seemed even more confused than he was on Friday when he went in. He'd also fallen again, while they were trying to get him back into bed. But today she's phoned the ward, and they've got him on antibiotics again, and the person she spoke to said that Grandad seemed a bit better. Mum's planning on visiting this afternoon, so it'll be interesting to see how he is then, as the delirium can fluctuate wildly across minutes and hours, so there's no real way of knowing if it's stabilised just yet ;)

thank you. And i like Niamh’s nighty-night look xd No, I spoke too soon. Eww thats pricey! Good luck with the other ones. Aww man, thats gotta be frustrating!

She wanted to do a birthday party look, but I told her she'd have to wait for tomorrow :P Aww that stinks :K has it eased off from the last couple of days at least?

nods Seeing as when Dad needed a new bulb for his brake lights, it cost less than a quid for that same Toyota garage to supply and fit the bulb, I thought it would be a good idea to ask them.... but I guess they're a bit sniffy about an older car? The other garage I've emailed, was the one that had a look at my old car's fuel leak (when they didn't find anything, they also then didn't charge anything), so I'm hoping they'll be a lot more realistic on their pricing!

I'm hoping with Grandad that the antibiotics will kick in and actually get shot of whatever infection he has (potentially they had started working when he had antibiotics at home, but he only had a week's worth, so I reckon the infection hadn't quite gone by that point). If he can clear the infection, then hopefully the delirium will also disappear.... but also until that point, there's no way of knowing what level he'll be able to regain in his independence!

ah. Speaking of, I regret to tell you we must delay sending a present. Hugs. Its been difficult with the extra bills to the doctor.

Good luck!

Ugh. All those unanswered questions are hard to deal with. Hugs.

I'd guessed the doc visits and all that weren't going to be cheap squishes And that's no problem - I can just extend the celebrations ;)

They're moving him to a different ward later today (he was on the kind of old people's a&e ward, so there's a 72 hour limit for how long they can be there), so Mum's hoping to be there when he gets moved, so she can go down to the new ward with him, just to help him get settled in.... also, to make sure she knows where she's going, as Mum gets lost quite easily! :P

[edit] (edit Monday afternoon) Other than a temperature, the infection seems cleared, however he's still not himself. Mum thinks he's probably just given up (they've now stopped him from eating his favourite biscuits because of the risk of choking, and he couldn't have lunch today as the speech therapist had to assess him first - then by the time she had, lunch had finished). He very clearly said he didn't want to see me.... Mum asked why, and he replied "because it would be too upsetting for us both"....

[edit] (edit Tuesday afternoon) And they're moving him to a different ward yet again, because now he has covid :(

He is my little buddy. :) Now he got his nose dug into my arm and resting. Snoring away.:)

Working retail in December always seem to be a nightmare. I don't think it is cool not to help out your coworkers if you can, sounds lazy to me. I get that working the till is not always fun, but still. nods Not to mention the unhappy customers that are kept waiting.

Exactly, and how are you suppose to get experience if no one is willing to give you a chance? So stupid. People can learn.

It would have taken a very special person to make cataloguing sound remotely interesting. :P But it was of course important. I did get to use what I learned when I did work experience at the local library here though. ;)

The worst day was the last Saturday before Christmas (luckily I didn't work Sundays, so I didn't have to experience the last Sunday before Christmas in there :P), when the queue for the tills actually ran the entire length of the store .... that year the assistant manager decided to go and hand out sweets to all the customers waiting at the tills to make them a bit happier - it seemed to work, as I only had one complaint on that day (and that was someone saying I should open up another till.... so I had to point out, that what they were referring to, was actually a computer used for ordering, not a till anyway!) ;) I kind of expected the manager who was meant to be helping me on the tills to wander off - he didn't ever get on with stuff like that, if he could find an excuse to avoid it ... but he was my boss, so I couldn't really complain either :K

And even if you have experience, it isn't all transferrable between different companies anyway, as their till systems & training methods are all wildly different! :P

At least you were able to put it to good use :D That was one thing I found with taking Maths A-level (that's the level below university study) - I've never really needed to use any of it

Happy birthday! :D :D :D I hope you are being properly spoiled today. :D

That sounds like when I was a cashier at a supermarket. The store was huge, we had like 18 tills open and still had lines throughout the store. O_o I do not miss that job. It is even worse when you can't complain. I had coworkers that liked to close their till and wander off, leaving me to do to take care of the customers. Drove me nuts. I could never leave to a take a break as it would leave us with no tills open or too few.

Exactly. Every place has their own way of doing things and systems. Training people is not what they usually want to spend their resources on, but everyone needs some guidance when they start a new job.

A-level Math sounds like a nightmare to me. :P I was so glad when I didn't have to take any math classes anymore. It all felt very useless to me, since I knew I would not need this advanced math ever.

thank you! :D

Thankfully I was never in a store that large - the supermarket I was in had 4 till points(!) and the other shop had three :P It's never helpful when others just wander off and don't let you take your break - I'd always ring the bell for a member of staff to take over if they were late when I was due to have my lunchbreak 😇 Actually, when I was meant to be on the refunds desk, I had to cover the main till because the staff member had wandered off.... I just kept my hand on that bell the entire time, as I'd had to leave the refunds desk unmanned while I was doing that other staff member's job for her :K

I was always in charge of till-training the new staff, so I decided rather than making it long & boring, I'd add as many different payments into one training purchase as I could.... it was totally unbelievable (part cheque, part credit card, part cash, part credit voucher and part gift voucher - there was a particular order it all had to be done to make it work properly 😇), but it meant they didn't have to sit through an hour or more just to cover it all :P

Well it wasn't as bad as A-level physics! I dropped that subject half way through, as I couldn't manage to keep up with that as well as English Literature and Maths 😊

The supermarket I worked at was one of the 4 largest in the country, so it was pretty big. It also meant you were hired in one department only. So I was stuck only being a cashier, and not doing other tasks, like stocking shelves. :P Some variety would have helped. I ended up almost getting carpal tunnel from that job! I once ended up calling the service counter and had them ask for my coworkers to come to the registers over the speakers.. 👼 My coworkers told me they understood after and were okay with it thankfully.

That sounds like a good way to teach someone. :D I did train people too on occasion. I was always worried I would forget to tell them some things. But it seemed to work out okay.

A- level physics does sound worse if possible. I never took physics either, since I would not need it for uni/college going forward. I chose social studies, german etc instead. Easier for me. I was very sick and tired of school and wanted it to be as easy as possible.

yeah and he’s discounting heavily too. Its been really hard to get online because the pain has been so bad. Im over it.

Man he can’t catch a break :(. Hugs.

aww bless. Sorry I haven’t been on much. Too much pain.

Totally understandable. I am sorry it is taking so long to heal. :hugs: Just take care of yourself. :)