Why you should stay away from Talk Talk

This article is probably the one I have the least pleasure writing but is a deserved one.

A month ago I moved to my new flat in Limehouse in which the internet is provided by Talk Talk. We have their (advertised) 24Mb service. From the beginning I felt the speed wasn't very fast but for normal web navigation it was bearable. It was when I had to send my first email with a 5MB attachment that I noticed something was definitely wrong. It timed out a few times and when it finally was sent it still took some 15 minutes or more. I decided to take their speed test to find out our speed was actually 1.5Mbps dowload and 0.02Mbps upload. Called them, endured the standard obvious questions and finally the guy told me there was an issue and he was going to fix it in 48 hours. Two days later, nothing, new call, obvious repetitive standard questions and finally a helpful guy who recommend us to connect our router directly to the test socket. That implied disassembling our BT wall socket but that night we saw 8Mbps download speeds and 0.24 Mbps upload speeds, the fastest we ever got!

A few days from then slow speeds again, for example, it was impossible to do a Skype video call and even sound calls were difficult. We called them, answered the same repetitive questions and this time they sent an engineer who might have charged us £50 if the issue was inside our flat! The guy came 2 days later, brought his own router and did tests for a hour. After which he concluded the issue was not at our place but probably on the local exchange. He also filed some sort of report so the issue would be fixed.

After a few more days without any improvements we called them. At every call they would always give us the same BS about checking our wireless connection or about trying connecting with the cable, etc, etc. This time the phone operator had the nerve to say he could fix anything! 5 min later he admitted he couldn't actually fix it, LOL! Then he said he would escalate it. Later we got a text message asking if it was fixed. Obviously it wasn't. In another phone call the guy asked me to change the Router Wireless Channel, I tried to explain him that wouldn't fix the issue and even so he insisted me to do it...

More or less at the same time I exposed our situation to @TalkTalkCare on twitter, they asked the standard boring questions and provided me a form. I filled and.... you can guess: nothing!

We finally got tired of this, my flatmate called them (yes, they tried to ask the scripted questions even though we have a long story with them) and asked to speak with a manager. The manager said our connection was "normal" even though or download speeds were varying between 2-3Mbps, our upload speeds between 0.02-0.15Mbps and since we had internet no reason to complain. He also said he could send another engineer for £130!!! My flatmate asked "will that guarantee the issue is fixed?" Answer: "no". Since we were not having the service we hired we asked to cancel it and get our money back. Unfortunately Talk Talk charges £140 for contract cancelations!!! Their solution? Subscribe their fibre optic service. In my book this is only comparable to extortion.

I've been speaking about speeds because those I can objectively measure on their website but that's not the whole story. Quite frequently the connection is down momentarily where I have lots of ping timeouts, I drop out from gchat and msn messenger and downloads/upload get dropped. It's quite sad that in this day and age Talk Talk provides such a bad service and is not willing to do anything about it. It seems I'm not the only one complaining according to this article from BBC.

If we ask me why Talk Talk is called Talk Talk, my answer has to be because they talk a lot and don't do anything.

PS: My flatmate just told me that today a so called Talk Talk "specialist" phoned her, said he had just fixed the issue and asked her to confirm if it was fixed. She answered she would need at least a week since the speed varies and he was offended by it. Later during the call she asked for a refund and he said we weren't paying for our broadband as in the invoice it only said phone line. That's brilliant, apparently we hired a phone line and the broadband comes as an offer, love you Talk Talk! Our speeds tonight, before a 5 min connection failure:

Travels

Some friends say I travel a lot so I've decided to do some statistics since it's been almost a year I moved back to London. So, in
12 months I've made
40 flights in
19 trips, from which
12 times to Portugal and
7 outside,
3 new places and
0 new countries.

Same will say it's a lot but I do know some people who travel more than that, usually professionally or academically. On average I went to Portugal once a month for festivities, birthdays, weddings and to visit family and friends. Ironically I don't know the UK that well which is a shame.

Juhannus

Juhannus is Finland's celebration of Midsummer (equivalent to S. João in Portugal) and it's their most important holiday after Christmas. During Juhannus Finns flee from the cities into wood cottages near the water. This year I was fortunate to be invited to celebrate Juhannus in Finland with 20 people from all over Europe.

My trip didn't start the best way, my first flight (to Helsinki) was delayed 40 minutes. Upon arrival I had to run full speed to my next flight's boarding gate barely arriving on time to find out that flight was late 40 minutes. Life has its ironies... From Helsinki I flew to Tampere from where part of our group drove to the eastern coast, somewhere around here (google maps).


We reached a peer and took a boat to my friend's cottage which is in small island with some other 10 cottages.


The cottage has no running water or toilet but it has a sauna! The toilet was located outside in another sort of cottage. And it has a window so one could contemplate nature while he did his thing :) Quite relaxing!


But life in the cottage implies working, usually before doing sauna, or as the Finns say sauna Hiki (to sweat before sauna).


Here is a boulder we dug up to move it to the lake. It took some 5 or 6 of us, a couple of heavy metal rods and two logs used as levers and a hour or so. But after that hard work the sauna felt sweeter :)


Juhannus is all about tradition, so we had Karelian Pies for breakfast (pastries filled with rice and covered with egg butter).

We also had our Juhannus birch tree.

On Juhannus night we did a big bonfire near the sea, of course.

We also had 90 liters of Sima, a typical Finnish homemade brew ranging from 5% to 9%. Very pleasant and refreshing :)

And on Juhannus day we had pea soup! Not the best tradition...

Another Finnish tradition, the vihta, made of boughs of birch tree it's used in the sauna to beat oneself on the back for relaxing the muscles and calm the skin after some mosquito bites (which were huge there). We ended up beating each other not very gently :)
After sauna we usually went to swim in the sea which felt quite good. We usually alternate between sauna and sea some three times. Here's the access we used to dive in the sea.

We usually would this till quite late. At that latitude it never really became dark so we never quite knew what time it was... The sun rose at 4:30

The rest of our cottage life was relaxing, some traditional games, some barbecues...
Enjoying nature...

And of course, drinking.

O Student Loan

Uma das coisas que tenho vindo a apreciar no Reino Unido é a forma como eles financiam as licenciaturas. Em vez de se recorrer à ajuda dos pais, tipicamente financiam-se usando o Student Loan. Aqui, a partir dos 18 anos existe uma forte independência financeira dos pais aliás, ouvi várias vezes casos em que os pais emprestam dinheiro aos filhos em vez de o darem.

O Student Loan é um empréstimo oferecido pelo governo para pagar as propinas e despesas relacionadas com a faculdade. A taxa de juro é 3% mais inflação. E (esta é a parte que é interessante) o empréstimo só começa a ser pago quando o aluno aufere um salário superior a £15000 anuais, sendo as prestações automaticamente deduzidas do seu salário. Isto é interessante, porque um aluno que tire um curso e fique no desemprego não tem que o pagar.

Recentemente o governo inglês aumentou as propinas das universidades para que estas fossem, quase na integra, pagas pelos alunos em vez de financiadas pelo povo inglês. Isto gerou alguma controvérsia e confusão, mas associado ao Student Loan tem uma vantagem: a educação superior é aberta a todos e financiada pelos que beneficiaram dela!

Justiça inglesa: despesas dos Membros do Parlamento

Este assunto não é propriamente novidade, mas no outro dia vi umas penas de prisão serem anunciadas e achei que valia a pena escrever sobre isto.

Em 2009 o Telegraph expôs Membros do Parlamento (MP) que fizeram pedidos de reembolso de despesas indevidos. Os MPs têm direito a ser ressarcidos por despesas feitas no exercício dos seus cargos e na altura não havia um controlo das mesmas, limitavam-se a confiar na sua palavra. Com o trabalho do Telegraph veio-se a descobrir casos de MPs que recebiam reembolsos por casas que não utilizavam ou, por exemplo, que uma MP pediu o reembolso de uma conta de TV por cabo que incluía canais para adultos. Na altura isto foi um enorme escândalo, nenhum contribuinte gosta de descobrir que anda a pagar este tipo de entretenimento ao pessoal do parlamento.

Uma grande investigação foi lançada e os nomes de todos os MPs que reclamaram despesas indevidas foram publicados, bem como o montante "roubado" e foram obrigados a devolver esse dinheiro (podem consultar a lista aqui). Mas, como descobri recentemente, a coisa não ficou por aí e vários MPs foram acusados judicialmente e apanharam penas de prisão que chegam aos 18 meses!

Acho isto um excelente exemplo de como ninguém está acima da lei. Estes infractores acabaram mesmo por pagar um preço mais pesado por serem pessoas que deveriam dar o exemplo. Pena que noutros países os políticos nunca cheguem a ser acusados por delapidar o erário público ou levem apenas palmadas nas mãos.

Koninginnedag

Koninginnedag or Queen's Day is a national holiday in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Celebrated on 30 April (the 29th if the 30th falls on a Sunday), Koninginnedag is Queen Beatrix's official birthday. (...)

Koninginnedag is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt ("free market" or flea market), at which many Dutch sell their secondhand items. It is also an opportunity for "orange madness" or oranjegekte, for the national colour, when the normally straight-laced Dutch let down their hair, often dyed orange for the occasion. -- Wikipedia

This year I went to my first Queen's Day. I flu to Amsterdam on a Thursday (gladly Prince William got married on Friday so no need to waste a vacation day) and got there in time for dinner and then a techno show featuring Richie Hawtin & Marco Carola!

Next day there were some preparations for Queen's Day such as buying beer and lastly there was Queen's Night. Queen's night is like the warm up for next day. We had dinner at a friend's place, went out to a square where there was a stage with live music and lastly we hit some bars. The streets were crowded and a general good mood with most people dressing orange. In the end riding our bikes home was quite an adventure :)


Finally Saturday. We all put on our orange shirts, mine already had a few years but was the first time I wore it. We managed to go out around 14h which was rather late as festivities start in the morning. On Queen's Day the streets are full of stands selling all sorts of things, everybody is dressed orange and most people are drinking and carrying beers (we had backpacks full of them).



Every other square has a stage with music and people dancing. The atmosphere is fantastic!




People celebrate not only on the streets but also at home and in the canals.


And dress in all sorts of ways...




At 20h all stages close down (strangely early) but I suppose it's because there is a lot to clean...


For us the party continued indoors where he had music and some 80Lt of beer for 40 people! Surely an unforgettable day...

A efectividade no trabalho

No outro dia um amigo meu perguntava-me acerca do meu contrato aqui, se já era efectivo ou parte dos quadros. A minha reposta foi um "mais ou menos", porque realmente não é muito fácil fazer um paralelo entre a minha situação cá e os contratos de Portugal, mas vou tentar fazer aqui a ponte entre as duas realidades.

O meu contrato é de facto sem termo o que por definição me torna "efectivo", mas fazendo parte de um Graduate Programme é esperado que progrida para a posição de Associado em 2 ou 3 anos. Se tal não acontecer posso começar a procurar emprego noutro lugar, o que de certa forma se aproxima de uma cultura up or out, mas mais moderada que certas consultoras de topo. Nos degraus acima não há tanta pressão para se ser promovido, mas más avaliações consecutivas levam ao mesmo destino. Podem ler no meu post anterior sobre como essas avaliações são feitas. Em tempos de crise, como há dois anos atrás, não são necessárias muitas avaliações negativas para se ser despedido, basta estar-se entre os piores. Nessa altura a empresa despediu muita gente de vários níveis hierárquicos para conseguir sobreviver à crise.

O despedimento de um efectivo aqui é bastante mais fácil que em Portugal, mas isto também tem as suas vantagens:

• É mais fácil uma empresa cortar a "gordura" nos maus momentos, sobreviver-lhes, e voltar a contratar nos bons momentos (em vez de sucumbir sobre o seu próprio peso).
• Nos bons tempos, permite à empresa renovar-se com pessoal mais qualificado. Quem consecutivamente tem avaliações negativas obviamente escolheu o emprego errado.
• Move o papel social de garantir um salário (mesmo a quem não o merece) para o estado em vez de ser a empresa a fazê-lo.
• Não se desmotivam os trabalhadores (que realmente trabalham) por verem colegas não merecedores a serem recompensados.
• Resumidamente, torna as empresas mais eficientes e eficazes.

O Reino Unido é dos piores países no que toca ao proteccionismo no trabalho, mas isso contribui para a sua economia pujante. No outro extremo, temos Portugal, um dos países onde existe maior protecção dos efectivos. Num artigo muito bom de Álvaro Santos Pereira, este explica como a reforma laboral acordada com Troika nos pode ajudar a melhorar a nossa situação. Nesse artigo ele mostra este gráfico da OCDE:

Indíce de protecção do emprego (0 para menos protecção, 6 para mais protecção) na OCDE

O que não é imediatamente óbvio é que este proteccionismo promove a precariedade do emprego. Devido à dificuldade (ou quase impossibilidade) de despedir um efectivo as empresas evitam ao máximo tornar quem quer que seja em efectivo. Não consigo censurar a Merkel por sugerir que Portugal devesse baixar o seu proteccionismo no emprego para os níveis da Alemanha, ainda estaríamos bem acima da média da OCDE e ajudar-nos-ia a diminuir o desemprego. A "justa causa" necessária para despedir um empregado é tão generosa que permite a este roubar dinheiro ao patrão e, após ir a tribunal, manter o emprego. Mais detalhes sobre esta história aqui. A triste realidade é que ser efectivo em Portugal dá uma garantia semelhante à reforma: um salário sem ter que fazer nada. Lembro-me de uma história caricata e de fonte segura, que num certo hospital para "despedirem" enfermeiros incompetentes colocavam-nos num serviço em que passavam os dias sozinhos a fazer tarefas aborrecidas, na tentativa destes desistirem e se demitirem. Foi a isto a que chegámos! Aqueles que chegaram tarde, e até são bons, não conseguem empregos efectivos porque os patrões têm medo que se acomodem...

Não sugiro saltarmos subitamente para as leis do Reino Unido, mas precisamos de flexibilizar o nosso código do trabalho para promover uma meritocracia e vencer esta crise.