| Non-motoring > Idiot Business Man | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: zippy | Replies: 30 |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 12:21
Idiot Business Man - zippy
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A client is struggling to recruit in a high employment area and is actually losing staff. Colleague asks him about what he's paying staff and if he has offered a pay-rise given his business has been doing well but turnover is clearly down this year as staff have left. No, he hasn't and doesn't intend to. Apparently inflation is temporary and when the govt get it back under control then prices will go back to what they were previously! He didn't get the concept that they would stay at the inflated price unless there is deflation! Oh well, it takes all sorts! |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 12:35
Idiot Business Man - Bromptonaut
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>> He didn't get the concept that they would stay at the inflated price unless there >> is deflation! A common misconception. During the inflation in the seventies my Mother taught in a residential school near Leeds. As it was residential there were house staff as well as teachers. The entry qualification for house staff was not high!! Mum was regularly infuriated by folks moaning that, although inflation was going down, prices were still rising. One or two reports on the current public sector pay rounds seem to have come close to the same trap. Hear more than one suggesting that inflation falling back as the post Ukraine fuel cost rises drop out of the annual calculation will somehow ease the situation. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 15:01
Idiot Business Man - smokie
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My first instinct was to say that inflation easing is simply an early stage of deflation but I suppose it's not that simple. Especially as this time round it's affected by sharp rises in many items which will drop out of the index at 12 months. Whatever, I must be an idiot too as I thought that if (e.g.) fuel prices drop back to say half of what they currently are, then the prices of other goods which include an element of that item in (e.g. everything) would also fall by some amount. But then I doubt any who gain a decent pay rise on the back of it won't be offering it back. And I doubt companies who have established a new price point for some items would not want to go backwards. It isn't straightforward!! |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 15:11
Idiot Business Man - zippy
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Undoubtedly (I hope) some prices will fall but generally unless there is actual deflation, many / most goods will stay at their current levels. The problem for the guy referred to above is that he is spiting himself. He has fixed overheads which are not being met because he refuses to pay staff the going rate to do the job and they are all going to other local businesses. We have the figures to see what he can make and they're detailed enough to show that even if he increased his wages bill, he would still come out with a decent profit but if he can't keep production going then he's not even going to be able to cover overheads. There's an element of greed and stubbornness I guess. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 15:07
Idiot Business Man - Terry
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Absolutely no surprise. Independent research for decades has shown the UK slipping down the international numeracy league at high cost to UK GDP. Surveys have shown that ~50% of adults have the numeracy skills expected of an 11 year old. Even if surveys were seriously wrong and the real figure was 30% it would still be a disgrace. Simple questions many of us would use without thinking everyday - basic percentages (mortgage, credit cards, discounts etc), basic division (cost per 100g, divide a restaurant bill etc), simple add or takeaway (is my change correct etc). Yet Rishi is ridiculed fo suggesting maths education is holding UK back and needs to be taught to 18. Truly pathetic! |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 15:18
Idiot Business Man - zippy
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>>Yet Rishi is ridiculed fo suggesting maths education is holding UK back and needs to be taught to 18. Truly pathetic! Excellent idea, but many people think "A" level maths are to be taught. I'm not proud to say it's a like a foreign language to me, but basic mathematical literacy should be taught - life long if possible. Life long - it's almost impossible to find adult education locally now - there are very few affordable evening classes locally. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 15:19
Idiot Business Man - bathtub tom
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>>Surveys have shown that ~50% of adults have the numeracy skills expected of an 11 year old. Two of us in a pub. Bill came to £29. Said to waitress, round it up to £32 and we'll pay half each. She couldn't do the maths! |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 18:16
Idiot Business Man - henry k
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>> Two of us in a pub. Bill came to £29. >> Said to waitress, round it up to £32 and we'll pay half each. She couldn't do the maths! >> I put my payment on the counter. The amount was such that I hoped to get a single coin or a note as change. Before the amount was offered to the electronic till I got the response " You have given me too much money".......... |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 16:11
Idiot Business Man - Bromptonaut
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>> Yet Rishi is ridiculed fo suggesting maths education is holding UK back and needs to >> be taught to 18. Truly pathetic! If you've not got it at the sort of level you need to round/split a bill or compare unit pricing per 100 grams with per kilo by first year at senior school then I'm not sure trying to din it into you for another six years will help. Part of the issue with our current education system is the emphasis on testing. Even if they're not officially pass/fail pupils who are not making grade know they're failing. If you're consistently treated as a 'fail' then by the time you're 11/12 it's likely you'll lose interest and stop engaging. When I was at Primary School I read fluently very quickly and was well up to speed in writing and other studies except for number in which I consistently lagged. Although I passed selection for Grammar School I was slow at Maths all the way through and only passed O level at the third attempt where I fluked a B. Frankly, numbers frightened me. Early experience at work of having to do a daily cash balance thoroughly racked my 18/19 year old nerves and probably resulted in me being re-posted to a role not involving cash handling etc. Only much later, in my mid twenties, when I had time to do account reconstructions, reconciliations and error finding in my own time and my own pace did I acquire the confidence to discus and justify calculations to my bosses. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 17:14
Idiot Business Man - Manatee
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>>Yet Rishi is ridiculed fo suggesting maths education is holding UK back and needs to be taught to 18. Truly pathetic! Well we know how in touch he is. If students have not mastered basic numeracy after 10 years in school they either haven't been taught it or they aren't going to get it. I suspect (know) there are plenty who have GCSE maths who haven't either. I remember recruiting for an analyst role. I got hold of a suitable test from HR that gave percentile rankings to the results, supposedly based on a graduate level population. The questions involved interpreting graphs, and I remember a series of questions about 3 power stations with different fixed and variable costs, in which the candidate had to say which power station could most economically supply different levels of demand. Among the applicants who barely reached the 50th percentile was a maths graduate. Not everybody can grasp number manipulation and self-check their answers instinctively. That is what needs teaching, and well before mid-teens. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 17:01
Idiot Business Man - Manatee
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>>He didn't get the concept that they would stay at the inflated price unless there is deflation! Neither did the BBC interviewer I heard the other day asking the RCN if they thought that they would "miss their window" to resolve their pay claim, designed to restore their wages in real terms, should inflation come down before agreement is reached. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 19:29
Idiot Business Man - Timeonmyhands
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| 50% of people under 25 cannot do maths and the other three quarters aren’t much better. |
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New Sat 14 Jan 23 22:29
Idiot Business Man - Terry
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Maths ability is not somehow inherited at birth or genetic. That much of the rest of the world has overtaken the UK is clear evidence that basic maths can be taught. The only other conclusion may be that despite breeding outstanding scientists and engineers during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, genetic degradation now means the average Brit struggles to master adding up. This is not a political but social issue - treating as acceptable or understandable something that is clearly inadequate. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 11:16
Idiot Business Man - Fursty Ferret
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>> Surveys have shown that ~50% of adults have the numeracy skills expected of an 11 year old. >> Even if surveys were seriously wrong and the real figure was 30% it would still be a disgrace. This seems to me to be a cultural problem as much as anything. People are publicly proud of being innumerate. When not being able to add up is seen socially as not being able to read, perhaps things will change. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 13:56
Idiot Business Man - Terry
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The modern British way is to be empathetic, sympathetic, understanding - blame someone else for your problems - parents, government, poverty etc etc. Gone are the days when personal pride was the commendable product of self reliance, stoicism, hard work etc. Folk should take principal responsibility for their own outcomes. Ridicule, not sympathy may reinforce the message. Removing benefits from the innumerate who refuse lessons may be a motivation. Taking pride in ones inadequacies is making a virtue out of sloth. This reads somewhat over the top. I am well there are some who, through no fault of their own, are unable through disability or serious learning difficulties and need to be helped. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 15:17
Idiot Business Man - Bromptonaut
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>> Folk should take principal responsibility for their own outcomes. Ridicule, not sympathy may reinforce the >> message. Removing benefits from the innumerate who refuse lessons may be a motivation. Carrots usually work better than sticks. Making the poor poorer and impoverishing their children as with the Benefit Cap and Two Child Limit is simply cruel. Neither of those policies has had the slightest effect. What is the actual problem the PM is trying to tackle with Maths to 18? If we need more people with a grasp of real maths, the sort needed to progress in engineering etc, then he may be on to something. If however the problem is the sort of arithmetical numeracy I mentioned earlier, which should be well developed by the start of senior school, then he's on a hiding to nothing. The problem is at 6-8 not 16-18. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 15:33
Idiot Business Man - sooty123
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l. Neither of those policies >> has had the slightest effect. >> I'd imagine it's aim was to cut the benefit bill. Nothing more. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 16:25
Idiot Business Man - Bromptonaut
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>> I'd imagine it's aim was to cut the benefit bill. Nothing more. Both were justified as influencing behaviour. Within the last couple of weeks the old line about the two child rule making benefit claimants subject to the same 'affordability' issues as the rest of us has been trotted out. It boils my blood every time I hear it. I must have spoken, over three and a half years on Help to Claim, to hundreds of newly single parents where the third child was perfectly affordable at conception and birth. And that's before you get to ill health.... I think headlines in the Mail etc for George Osborne were BIG part of the plan too . Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sun 15 Jan 23 at 16:30
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 16:51
Idiot Business Man - sooty123
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| Did the plan cut the budget as intended? |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 16:54
Idiot Business Man - Bromptonaut
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>> Did the plan cut the budget as intended? Not really no: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmworpen/1477/report-overview.html#content |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 16:58
Idiot Business Man - sooty123
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| Looks like a failure then. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 16:55
Idiot Business Man - BiggerBadderDave
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I don't know why I carried on with A level maths because at 15 or so, I intended to be a designer. Lucky really because I wouldn't find it an easy path to be a designer, typesetter or illustrator without maths. And in the late 80s we were trained before Macs appeared. So if were to typeset a novel I'd need the word count, the page extent, page size, margins, text width, leading and font - all to be resolved numerically. If it were text/image integration you'd have to work out the surface area for the pictures too. If you screwed that up, you'd be standing at the drawing board with a scalpel, forever tryout to sort it out. Of course Macs make everything easier but you still need to work out everything first. You don't want to finish your complicated encyclopaedia then realise after 120 hours of work you've got 20 blank pages to fill. You have to do your maths. Even for fine art I need to know my numbers. I transfer my illustrations from mac to canvas with a projector and a pencil and it's all about percentages. I've just finished doing Terry Hall by the way. 50cm x 70cm acrylic. Anybody wanna buy it? Jeff Beck next week. Pelé is in the pipeline. |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 17:17
Idiot Business Man - John Boy
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| Did you go to art college, BBD? |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 18:15
Idiot Business Man - BiggerBadderDave
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| Yeah, I did an art foundation course where they assess you either as a fine artist or a commercial artist. They told me fine art so ignored them and chose a graphic design course for my BA. I specialised in typography. Mostly because I've always loved the printed page since I learned to read. But partly because I was far more likely to make it in the commercial world. Future prospects and all that... |
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New Sun 15 Jan 23 19:04
Idiot Business Man - John Boy
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My foundation course in the early 60s was mainly taught by fine artists. They seemed to me to create an atmosphere where anyone, who opted for anything other than fine art, had "copped out". Consequently anyone who did graphics, industrial or fashion design had already decided on that before they started the foundation course. I opted for fine art on the new Diploma in Art and Design course, but got the elbow, along with 6 others, at the end of the first year. In retrospect, I think they did me a favour. I was too immature, having gone straight from school, and was only interested in girls and motorbikes. If I'd done the course when I was thirty, I would have lapped it up. Even at the time I could see that too many fine artists were being turned who would struggle if they couldn't get a part-time teaching job. I think Mrs Thatcher spotted that and did something about it. |
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New Mon 16 Jan 23 10:04
Idiot Business Man - Fullchat
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I struggled with maths at school. Took me 3 goes to achieve a scrape an O level. The issue was that quite early on during secondary education the teacher lost me and you cant build on a foundation that's sketchy. There's no further learning to be had. I took this with me into my much later role as a trainer, constantly reinforcing that if someone wasn't fully understanding then asking for clarity, being approachable and regular knowledge checks /assessment. You can guarantee if one person isn't getting it they are not on their own. Last edited by: Fullchat on Mon 16 Jan 23 at 10:04
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New Mon 16 Jan 23 11:34
Idiot Business Man - martin aston
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Going through to the Scottish system in the 70’s there was a compulsory Arithmetic O grade. I struggled with Maths but found Arithmetic much easier. It has also proved much more useful in subsequent life. Googling suggests it’s been long subsumed into a Maths exam. I guess Arithmetic was seen as the poor relation and possibly as an easier subject to boost your overall grades. If it has indeed gone as a separate subject it seems a shortsighted move. |
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New Tue 17 Jan 23 22:06
Idiot Business Man - BiggerBadderDave
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'My foundation course in the early 60s was mainly taught by fine artists.' So was there anything 'arty' in your career in the end, JB? There were 4 subjects in my foundation course - fine art, surface pattern, ceramics and print. I loved them all (except surface pattern). The print wasn't commercial at all, it was etching and lino cut, I enjoyed doing that. Ceramics was just a lark - me on a pottery wheel - everything started as a vase but ended up as a floppy phallus. Fine art was fabulous, the tutor was one of those teachers you'll never forget. Can't remember his name now... But he taught me never to get precious about my work (that's crucial in my field, everyone's a critic and I'm my own worse) and to how to meditate. That was certainly the best year of my education. I was permanently on heat, had my own car ('79 Peugeot 505) and there was always a sleepover at someone's house, somewhere - it felt like that, anyway. I got away with the minimum effort (just about) and at one point a very angry tutor said to me that if I would improve my marks and my attitude he'd take me out in his car. No, he wasn't a perve, he happened to drive a Morgan and I was always pestering him for a ride. I left with a Distinction and I did get that ride. Ashton to Rochdale and back, driving like a nutter. Think I wet myself a bit... Proper education in those days. |
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New Wed 18 Jan 23 13:43
Idiot Business Man - John Boy
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Immediately after art college I broke my leg in a motorcycle accident and was in and out of hospital for about 18 months. Eventually I ended up in London where a visionary had persuaded the education authority to invest in lots of audio-visual equipment. He was recruiting people (media resources officers) to work in schools and colleges helping staff and students to use it. I was one and we were given training in the use of audio, video, reprographic and photographic technology. Photography was taught by Albert Watson* in the period between him leaving the Royal College of Art and moving to the USA. It was a revelation to me to discover that, if you understood how a camera worked, you didn't have to hope that the picture would "come out" - it could also become a creative tool. I liked his attitude that a photographer should be able to get the best out of any camera, however humble. He would discuss camera types, but not the manufacturers. After training, I worked in a girls' comprehensive for 6 years and then for 20 at a polytechnic, which later became a university. It was the perfect job for me - early on I remember thinking I would do it for no pay! At the poly I was able to use multi-projector tape-slide and video to produce teaching material with a team of technicians. I did a part-time teaching qualification and taught photography and other techniques myself. The only drawback there was the internal politics. My main success in that respect was to negotiate early retirement at age 51. I was good at the job, though, and did it with an enthusiasm which was missing from my time at college. I know I went to art college simply because I could draw. * albertwatson.net/all-photos |
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New Wed 18 Jan 23 15:33
Idiot Business Man - Kevin
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>Photography was taught by Albert Watson.. You lucky B. I noticed his work quite a few years ago when I was still doing a lot of B&W stuff. |
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New Wed 18 Jan 23 15:57
Idiot Business Man - John Boy
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>> >Photography was taught by Albert Watson.. >> >> You lucky B. >> Yes, I found him really inspiring. The next time I saw him was on an Alan Wicker TV programme about people from the UK who had made it big in the States. |
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