Working nine to nine
Dagenham's sixth most prominent VAR boss reports on hard-working techies, crack-smoking solicitors and meat-printing millionaires
As someone who spent the first two series of The IT Crowd thinking it was a documentary, I was beyond stunned to read some deeply unimpeachable "research" this week claiming that the average tech bod crams 7.5 days' work into each working week.
According to data from (VESTED INTEREST ALERT!) recruitment specialist Randstad, only one in three IT goons thinks their job contains about the right amount of work for one person. Some 26 per cent think they need a part-time cohort to cover their duties, 17 per cent think their role requires two full-time people, while a clearly tired and emotional 14 per cent think they do enough work for more than two people. Crivens.
This averages out (apparently) at each IT worker believing they do the work of 1.5 people. Which, if you extrapolate the data in a highly scientific way, means they all do 7.5 days of work a week. Or something. The average across all industry sectors is 6.5 days.
"This isn't a sustainable model," wailed Randstad boss Mike Beresford. "Won't somebody please think of the children?!," he added. Probably.
I dunno, Mikey, this model's worked pretty well for me for two decades. The trick is to incessantly chip away at their self-esteem and joie de vivre until they're technology-savvy putty in your masterful hands.
A crack team
In the seemingly never-ending litigation and counter-litigation between Apple and Samsung, the Mac maker and its lawyers have been accused of many things. But this month marked the first time the legal eagles have faced accusations of taking class A drugs.
With four hours remaining on his 25-hour case-making clock, Apple lawyer William Lee named the 22 witnesses he intended to call to close his case. I'm no expert in the delicate art of inference, but I think judge Lucy Koh considered this proposal to be far-fetched.
"Unless you're smoking crack, you know these witnesses won't be called," she mused.
Nicely put, Lucy. And don't listen to anyone who tells you it doesn't become a judge to sound like some street tough from The Shield. (Never heard of that one meself, but Dave Jr insisted that no-one knows what Z Cars is nowadays.)
Follow my Leeds
I was intrigued to hear this week that a channel exec is a little touchy about the precise location of his dwelling.
The chap, let's call him Larry Leeds, is a proud denizen of West Yorkshire's largest city (yeah, I had to look that one up too). But one day when he had to give out his address, his colleagues - not to mention some less-considerate vendor execs - noted that he has a WF postcode, denoting Wakefield. But he doesn't actually live in the city that arose around the majestic river Calder.
"It's on the boundary, but it's definitely in Leeds," he said. "Wakefield's a real flat-cap and whippet town."
This is surely a moot point. Everyone knows that everything north of Watford and west
of Marble Arch - be it Aberystwyth, Aylesbury or Aberdeen - is pretty much a godforsaken wasteland.
Meat your maker
I wasn't massively surprised to see that big-name investor Peter Thiel has sold his 20 million shares in Facebook, being as the social network's market cap has predictably plummeted from its starting point of 10,000 gazillion trillion dollars to about 64 cents.
More surprising was the news that he is investing some of his moolah in a meat printing company. Yep, meat printing.
Start-up Modern Meadow claims it is using "tissue engineering to create meat and leather without the need to raise, slaughter and transport animals".
As a vegetarian and environmentalist (don't look so surprised), this seems like welcome news. But, Mr Thiel, if you're looking for a way to reduce your reliance on cruel and carbon-unfriendly meat products, might I suggest you plunge a few bob into my patented methodology. It's called The Diamond-Geezer Eating More Vegetables and Grains System.