Reality Factory

I spend an awful lot of time in the garden growing my own veg

You must send some up to me

My name is derek I'm 38. I'm a security officer, I live in Dublin Ireland. I have a partner named Ann. and have 4 brats, Derek 11 Cameron 9 conor 8 and my princess Lauren 4.

I mess around with RF and Liberty basic i play RPG's The right way around a table with friends ie Call of The big C or the the one about that mad computer.

I don't drink a lot of tea, but the IRISH pass time of drinking alot of the other stuff

ie the black stuff or the light brown stuff.

I've been working on my on game baseb on the film "where egles dare" for the last 1.5 years but only have 3 buildings and some landscape done.


Lets keep this topic going and gat a new NEWBIE forum up and running soon

We used to play an awesome RPG called Traveller. A space-based game. I really liked that game. I used to play a female charcter who would trade sexual favors for information. My buddies thought I was nuts, but I always seemed to get the roll of the dice. Men are SO easy!!

@bernie - Designing Telephone exchanges? That is cool. Like civil engineer type work. You actually laid out like who was on what lines and so forth? That has to be rough. A lot of orginasational skills there, my friend.

Does it rain much in Ireland? I know, all I thionk of when I think of England is gray skies and mist. When I think of Barberton, where I'm from, I think of unemployment. A defunct industrial center. all the jobs went south.

Does it rain much in Ireland?

Quote of the year I 'd say.

It's not called the "Emerald Isle" for nothing you know. All that lush green is the result of fresh water falling from the skies. A more reasonable quote would be " does it ever STOP raining in Ireland". The gardening has to be done between the spots LOL. Two seasons here 1) Summer ... warm rain. 2) Winter ... cold rain and wind. The weather might not be good but it's God's country and I love it.

The design and planning of exchanges and extensions to exchanges was working out the Type and amount of equipment needed, placing the orders, supervising the contractors who installed it and commisioning. Quite stressful and I'm glad to be out of it.

Quote of the year I 'd say.

Accepting for steven8. . .

Thank you, thank you.

It sounds beautiful, bernie. The most important thing is that you love it. I am trying convice my 9 yr old to take some time in his life to enjoy where he lives, rather than just be excited about everywhere else that he reads about or sees on T.V. The grass isn't always greener (although in Ireland it probably is ) on the other side of the fence.

Did you have any inhouse people who performed any installation, or was it all contracted? I worked at Goodyear for 4 years, and got laid off when they wiped out research here in Akron. I now work back here with a contracted group from Exel Logistics, scheduling freight movements across the U.S. and Canada. When I came back, I was amazed. Almost no one here is a Goodyear employee anymore. We're all contractors.

I do know one thing though, at this stage of my life. . .I am going to make a GREAT retiree!! I can't wait.

Yes we did have our own exchange construction staff doing small extensions etc. I used to do that myself before going onto the planning staff, but I was planning from 1973 onwards. Like yourself though most of the younger staff are now working for contractors. BT shed a load of staff in the late 1980's early 90's. You know, the leaner and fitter strategy. Not too sure about that myself. Those remaining wondering if and when they are going to get the chop and therefore not working to their capacity. It can be a self defeating strategy. But then "Ours is to do or die not to reason why".

"Ours is to do or die not to reason why".

Ain't that the truth of any company these days. I do not like the contractor strategy, myself. Nothing wrong with being a contractor, but it takes away the desire to become a part of a company 'family' and make it your life's work. That is why the average worker will have something like seven different jobs during their working years these days? Something like that. You create an atmosphere of interchangeability rather than permanence. No one is loyal to anyone anymore.

The idea behind contractors is that now our company doesn't have to worry about there benefits. That is someone else's worry. We only have to pay a contractor fee. You see it more and more. Soon, the contractors will be contracting out . . .