OK, OK, it's technically now 9th May but I have a good excuse for being late with the end of day. Today was Rich's last day and we've been out in Sheffield to see him off in true Plusnet style... so if there are typos in this post please forgive me you have been warned... But good luck Rich and take care, I'm sure we'll see you again soon. But now, let's get on with the posts before I have to go to bed... First from the Community Moderators is Barry:
Lots of hot topics on the forums this week. The 21CN ADSL2+ trial has been producing some good feedback and the community are coming together with some very useful tips on how to maximise your connection once you are upgraded. As usual, the main culprit is internal wiring but it does seem like the new kit that powers 21CN is much more responsive than vanilla ADSL. That's good news for people on slightly more unstable lines than normal.
There are also some 'interesting' topics on some of the recent worldwide issues like the Swine Flu outbreak and the next Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7.
Plenty of fun to be had in the Chit Chat forums - the most popular topic at the moment seems to be ASBO's addiction to Wireshark! It's amazing exactly which threads draw attention 
Last but not least, I shall leave you with a beg and a grovel. Help me raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust by sponsoring me on the Dumball Rally. It's a great cause and very worthwhile. It also means that you will manage to get rid of me for a week or so as of next Friday, so surely a bit of peace and quiet is worth a few quid?
Enjoy the weekend, till next time.
Barry.
Next is happy Spurs fan James from the Comms Team:
It's been an interesting day today, with both Matt and Bob off on holiday, and Mand working from home. (of course, Bob is supposed to be on holiday but seems to be glued to the forums anyway. You can take the forums out of the boy and all that...)
So a quick roundup of what the rest of us have been doing:
Chris has been researching Caffeine over IP, with a view to being emailed his morning allowance. In between, he's been mulling over exactly where belly-button fluff comes from. (Does anyone have any thoughts on that??)
James has been working on his management skills, the first and foremost of those skills being delegation. So far, he's managed to delegate out his entire days work to a team of trained monkeys running the latest IMPS software although there do seem to be a couple of bugs in the latest revision. As I write this, he is currently sat with his feet up, monitoring his elite Simian team.
As for me, I've been doing the usual - flame, death and destruction with a side order of mechanical chopping and munching. Have a good weekend!
BAGGER 288 Over now to Kriben from the Provisioning Team:
Good evening to one and all, I will like to introduce myself, My name is Kriben from the provisioning department. The team worked really hard this week, however we experienced a few technical problems and system downtime today. We plan to keep all our provisioning pools under control and within SLA. We also want to say a big thank you, to Rohan Singh who continuously motivates the team and provides his expertise.
And last today is Laura from HR:
Hello, this is the week in HR from just two of us.
Gem
Reviewed all employees with 5 or more episodes of sickness in the last 12 months and had conversations with line managers where needed.
Chased outstanding performance reviews.
Created an EIN plan of remaining actions so all employees have EIN numbers.
All three of us helped Finalised Steve Woods induction programme and book flights to SA
Employee relations issues.
Finalised some recruitment activity and supported interviews.
Rich Smolenski's Exit interview.
Me!
This week I have had a somewhat strange looking, noisy air-con unit to keep me company (Ed: it looks a bit like a Dalek). I have been organising possible venues for forthcoming MDLPs, chasing people who still have outstanding important tasks open, sorting out various travel arrangements and attempting to regulate a normal temperature in the reception. Oh and how can I not mention how exciting it was when the ice cream van showed up!
And that's it for today... tomorrow should see James becoming sad James as Spurs get beat by Everton... I shall be there and texting him whenever we score Take care everyone and catch you all again next week....