[johnmac11]

Re: Qualtex

I will get one from you at Sibson if thats ok.

John

[johnmac11]

Re: complete engineer

So if you buy the disk and it the software crashes after a couple of months do they give you £250 back as a 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} BER rate 😈

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Greyhound racing…

I’ve got two cocker spaniels do they count. Went to Peterborough dog track for about four years ago, good night out but came back skint,sloshed with not one winner under my belt.

John

BTW

Why are you wearing Kevins jockstrap, do you know where they have been? 😆 😆

[johnmac11]

Re: Breakfast At Kev’s

c’mon Kevin, you can tell us.

go on, go on, go, on, go on, go on, go on, go, on, go on, go on, go on, go, on, go on, go on, go on, go, on, go on, go on, go on, go, on, go on,

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Advisory Council

Don’t wear g-strings, especially slightly soiled ones

We all know who does though 😀

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Advisory Council

Dave_Conway wrote:And what the hell are you buying/selling on Ebay then ? ;)Dave.

Just about every bit of IT equipment I have in the office came from Ebay. In only buy from Dabs and Insight if I need equipment fast. Got a Compaq ML370 G3 server last year, brand new in the box with 3 year guarantee. Came with twin 2 gig xeon chips, 6 by 36 gig scsi hard drives, twin power supplies, 1000tx network, raid board and full redundancy for £1000. Cost from Dabs with all the extras £5k plus vat

The machine has not been switched off for more than 6 months and I use it as a server with 8 pc’s and 3 laptops on the wireless network, it is just about running on idle!!!!!!

Ebay is also great for stuff like toner, meters and tools etc which you can pick up at about 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of retail. Accountant is always asking me what all these paypal invoices are for though 😀

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Advisory Council

I, as do most on here use a nickname/alias. The only reason I use one is that I tend to use johnmac11 on ebay, connect, agora and every other web service that needs you to log in ( apart from DASA 😆 )

I would say that applies to most on here and I have no qualms with my real name being used as an AC member. I can’t speak for Del and P45 but assume the same applies also.

If a complaint is made about a member, one of the AC would have to contact that member to make enquiries. We can hardly contact them anonymously so they would have to know who the AC members were.

I also think that influencing the councils decision would not come into play at all. I cannot see anyone giving me a big backhander or putting a horses head on my pillow to force the outcome of a council decision.

Lastly I dont think the council is going to be overworked in the coming months, I assume 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of all complaints will be sorted by the firm involved and the council members will do what councilors do all over the land, nowt much.

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Advisory Council

kwatt wrote:

Where it is a member of the AC that the complaint is about one of us can step in or we can nominate someone, your call.
K.

Sean and myself have talked about this and thought that Alex might step in if this case arises, though if you look at this forums members we have a good cross section of the trade in here so I suppose any mod could step in.

I have done one e-job so far so the odds of me getting a complaint have shot through the roof 😈

John

[johnmac11]

Re: Fleet Policy – Low Cost Vans

This is one I would go with but the only problem I can see is getting a consensus on a manufacturer. Is it possible to attach a survey to this thread to get the feel of the members.

I currently have 2 Transit Connects and 7 Kangoos and the Kangoos outperform the Fords in MPG, tyre costs and servicing and they have the added bonus of only needing serviced every 18k so my vote would be for Renault.

John

[johnmac11]

Re: British Gas…time to tell all

The main problem with B.G. pitching for all the insurance work is that it has already been tried and failed.
Kevin Moat & the posse from National Homecare had at one time 33 different accounts ranging from large (D&G & Mastercare etc) to small insurances and promised the earth including same day appointments up till 12.00 or £100 if we fail in this.
Once the engineers found they were working all hours and travelling great distances in order to meet the demand they started leaving in droves causing failed promises and crap work to the point of Nat Home going bust.
Can we all joyfully hope the same fate will befall B.G.
Kevin (not John)

[johnmac11]

Re: British Gas…time to tell all

No way would I have them back. If, sorry when, it goes tits up we will have a glut of engineers looking for jobs and I would probably, if I was looking, go for the ex homecare engineers who at least know how to spell ohhm 😀

Not too current on the Comet situation, though I new a guy who worked for them a couple of years ago and he said he was on £15,500 max with the insult of having to buy his own tools and toolbox. Comet did kindly give him a megger and multimeter though. For comet to become a player in this they would probably need to increase salary by £3k to compete and that wont happen.

Going by their past history Comet seem to go through phases where they want to do all their own in guarantee work and then find they cant handle it and pass it back to the manufacturer.

John

[johnmac11]

Re: British Gas…time to tell all

There is no doubt in my mind Alex that they are being poached.

My 1st one to go to British Gas was about a 18 months ago, engineer was in Birmingham. Within 3 months 2 others went who were also working in Birmingham.
Then in August last year one went in Leicester and I was told almost immediately that he would get a bonus from BG to convince others to move( £500 was the quoted figure ), upshot was the engineer that lived 2 miles from him left a month later and the next area engineer is going this month.

Now the guy that is going next month worked for Whirlpool for 13 years and for me for 3 years, in the 3 years I have had him his salary has went up by 12{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} and I also paid him full pay last year for 4 months when he did his back in, so I thought I would get a bit of loyalty from him but sadly no. He has said that he was approached by BG and the only way they could get him was through an ex engineer giving his details.

What really pisses me off with this situation is that they are leaving me for about a £1000 more a year but they have to do weekend standby for that and it has been said before they are working blind on every bit of crap out there with no technical knowledge or parts.

Mark my words this outfit wont be on the go in a couple of years and when they go I for one will be having a party/wake 😆 😆

John

[johnmac11]

Re: cd/radio/bluetooth car kit

Not at all Martin, if it works the way my Sony kit does you do not need to switch between headset and carkit, All you do is make the carkit the first connection on your phone and when you switch on the ignition the carkit takes over from the headset automatically.

John

[johnmac11]

Re: British Gas…time to tell all

I keep getting letters from British Gas asking for references for engineers they have poached from me so I faxed them a letter.

———————————————————————————
For the attention of Jackie Hulmes, British Gas HR Dept.

I have today received a request for a reference from you for an ex-employee of mine who now works for British Gas.

I hope you will forgive me for not send this reference back as this will be the 5th engineer you have poached from me in the last year with a 6th coming your way next month.

I have a small company in the midlands employing 10 engineers in total and it seems as if I am employing non trained or partially trained personnel and spending 1 year to 18 months training them for their new career in British Gas.

I have also noticed that when an engineer leaves me for British Gas that some of my remaining engineers get a call from your management trying to encourage them to join you.

So can you please make a note not to send me anymore more reference forms to fill in as you can guess where they are going to end up.

Regards,

John McKenzie

[johnmac11]

Re: British Gas Homecare

I would love to know a couple of things about them, like

How many engineers do they have nationwide at roughly £19-21k each?
What their First time fix rate is?
What their speed of service is?
And how much it costs to send an engineer to a house?

If we had the true figures for the above and had to pay them ourselves I am sure that the trade membership in here would be extinct overnight. This appears to me to be a corporate exercise that has a massive budget thrown at it but will come with a timescale to reach a profit and when that profit is not achieved then bye bye staff.

I expect the story will be on the front page this year or next at the latest.

John

PS. do you think anyone will notice that I am not a fan of British Gas 😈 😈

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