Going rate for boxing day repair.

In message , Dave Plowman writes

We don't drive on Christmas Day - or other bank holidays if we can avoid it.

Turkeys don't have fat and we don't eat it anyway and if we did tip hot fat on our toes we'd deal with it ourselves.

Oh yes we would! I've even put a plaster cast on a son's broken arm because he refused to go to A&E.

Oh come on! A skiiing holiday??? The Fishers??????????

Come to that - a holiday? We had eleven days on the Isle of Arran in a tiny and primitive caravan round 9/11, the nearest thing to a holiday we've had.

I am very aware of how poorly paid are paramedics, believe me. We have one in the family. Not so sure about the undivided attention bit but that's unimportant. We try NOT to use ambulances, we try not to go to A&E, we have enough skills in the family to treat most things ourselves.

I don't really understand your point.

Come to think of it, accidents on most skiing holidays wouldn't involve British paramedics ...

Mary

Why should anyone NEED a plasterer on Boxing Day?

The difference between wanting and needing is, quite rightly, expensive.

Mary

At the risk of alienating some within the IT sector, I don't think we should overlook that some so-called "IT Consultants" were taking the 'p', yet not actually doing anything illegal as the rules were defined (and still are defined). These individuals were paying themselves a salary of say 5K a year topped up with divvies of 50K per year. Divvies were not subject to NI payments, and the individual could save themself maybe 10K+ each year in tax payment (if I refer to NI as a tax). This was quite a good game for those involved!

These '5K a year' consultants were often working alongside permanent members of staff doing pretty much the same job and who were earning the going rate for the job of say 25K per year, without the divvies and NI breaks that incorporation offered. It's little wonder that these permies felt aggrieved sometimes.

I'm sure someone will point out holiday and sickness benefits encapsulated in a permanent employment contract - but contractors were often earning more than enough money to take 3 months holiday a year without income if they so wanted.

Whilst I'm not going to into an argument about whether this was fair or otherwise, it did raise a red flag with the government who could not of course be relied upon to act fairly - and are still not intending to do so - in the latest pre-budget announcement a short time ago Herr Brown advised that he's going to have another go at freelancers who incorporated. This is all part of the Brown master plan - remember a couple of years ago in his budget he encouraged people to incorporate by offering tax breaks? Now he's coming back at those who did in order to collect his money.

The tide for exporting jobs to India and other places may be turning at present - reports are starting to emerge that companies are taking jobs back in-house after getting stung by offshoring and customers starting to vote with their feet. It's still a mass exodus of jobs, but common sense is starting to creep in if I read the news stories correctly.

PoP

If you really must use the email address provided with my newsreader please be aware that the email is processed with spamcop. As a result your email to me might be treated as spam!

However, we should not assume that the total number of jobs remains finite. Undoubtedly there is an export, but the effect of that is not necessarily a net reduction

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Already illegal. No further legislation was required.

Apologies I missed the switch from quoting actual (in the wallet) amounts to 1T hourly rates and didn't reverse check my maths. Still =A36.00 1T isn't a brilliant pay level.

=A36.00/hr is crap for doing that job, considering the s*it (both literal and verbal) that gets thrown at you by your "customers".

Of course using the term "paramedic" implies additional medical training over and above van driving. There is a world of difference between driving a hospital transport minibus (M-F 9-5) and being a crew member of a front line paramedic ambulance (24/7). I guess the "management" consider you no more than a glorified minibus driver. B-(

I agree, that was my point. I wish some one had told my ex wife that.

-- Adam

adamwadsworth@(REMOVETHIS)blueyonder.co.uk

My brother's a teacher and a Tory, and he certainly did. As was my widowed mother with the Poll Tax. A life long Tory also.

Err I never felt more persecuted than I did under the Tories until a few months ago. The Tories whacked me stealth taxes - at one point I was paying *four* dollops of poll tax (mine, wife, two daughters) - because they made the "head of household" responsible for every penny. And the Tories saw my mortgage rise to laughably high levels, at one point I was at Heathrow about to kiss goodbye to my wife as I left for Switzerland and they stated that Lamont was about to put mortgages up to 20% (possibly more). We seriously considered leaving and never coming back.

I feel the same now but for different reasons.

Green sticker in the window or front door, all medication and past medical history in a bottle usually kept in the fridge. Good idea if the relatives aint there.

Was that meant to be an insult or question?

Yes I am a Paramedic (state registered), I also drive. As for my additional first aid skills, I am fully qualified to dispense a range of drug treatments and invasive procedures including canulation, peadiatric and adult intubation, cricothyroidotomy, needle thoracentisis, intraosseous cannulation, and many others. Thats why it took me 5 years of training. I can also however stick a plaster and bandage on. ;-)

I wasn`t moaning about my pay, I was moaning about what I had to pay others for work I could not do myself.

Excellent, I'm glad you are aware. Could I be really nosey and ask what area of the UK you are in? (Doesn't need to be specific).

I'm aware that the Thames Valley Lions Clubs are pushing this out, not sure about the wider audience in the UK.

In case anyone else is wondering what we are wittering on about:

Is there a standardised, generally recognised form of the sticker(s) and forms? If so it would be handy do be able to download and print out rather than have to contact the local offices - convenient and might allay some suspicion about "registering" and "they'll take me away if they know"

Barley Twist (Please put out the cats to reply direct)

Phew! And Hurrah!

Well said, John :-)

Mary

From today, for two weeks, I'm on jury service. From 9 am to 4.30 pm today I sat with 149 other people waiting for The Call. You have to be sociable at such times.

One of my colleagues on our table of five told me that her CH had broken down and they were without heating between Christmas and New Year - it was VERY cold here at that time. What did she do?

Every day they went on long walks on the moors where, as she explained, you're SUPPOSED to be cold!

The rest of the time they piled on clothes and huddled. Sounds cosy :-)

Mary

No. But good idea - I'll see what I can do and put it on our Lions Club web site:

Lions are distributing these materials to doctors surgeries and possibly pharmacies in their locality. So you could check with your local doctor about these too. However I'm not sure about the coverage in the UK so you might find your area isn't as well covered as others.

PoP

If you really must use the email address provided with my newsreader please be aware that the email is processed with spamcop. As a result your email to me might be treated as spam!

Isn't that actually *fair* - there are four of you using four times the amount of finite resources, creating four times the amount of rubbish. Virtually every single elderly person owning their own home was better off with the poll tax.

And to buy the same property now will require a mortgage many times larger than was needed in 1992 - and I suspect the (absolute) payments will be just as great - and then there's the council tax ...

Where no-one can afford to buy a house

Shame you changed your mind