Tag Archives: work

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 10:37 pm on 08/04/2023
Tags: autism, Carroll's, Darndale, dirt bike, , Noonan, , ps5, psvr, psvr2, scumbag, , work   

Oh hi

Oh, hi there. It’s been a minute. So let’s catch up. Again.

I no longer work for Noonan. I still do security, but now it’s for a retail company instead of a security company. I work for a gift shop called Carroll’s Irish Gifts. I chose it herbage it pays better. Noonan was minimum security wage, which I believe is €11.65 per hour. When I got started they’re, I got €13 an hour. A few months ago i applied for another security job that paid €14. When Carroll’s found out, they offered me more money. Not €14, but 13.50. I accepted it for 2 reasons. Familiarity, and the job I applied for would have been working in Dealz (basically the Irish version of PoundLand in the UK). So yeah, I still work in Carroll’s. Although I am still looking for other jobs that aren’t security. I have made some good friends there though. Some of the best I’ve had since I moved to Ireland. They feel like a real family.

What else? Errm, I still have a kid. He’s 7 now. Officially diagnosed with autism. I can’t remember if he was when I last posted. Think he was all but diagnosed officially. He has sensory processing disorder and speech delay. He doesn’t speak as well as he should be, and he has trouble handling his emotions. Loud noises can upset him, which is unfortunate in Darndale because scumbags ride around on dirt bikes everywhere, including places you’re not supposed to. I hate Dublin.

I still have a girlfriend. She still hasn’t left me yet, somehow. I’m sure she’ll see sense one day. But it’s been 12 years so far.

OK, what else is there? I have a PS4 Pro AND a PS5. Lucky me, eh? But it did cost. A LOT. I really want a PSVR2 though. But it costs a bit more than an actual PS5. I do have the first PSVR, but I don’t really have the room to use it much.

I can’t think of anything else and I’ve just finished a 9 hour shift, and I’m tired. So bye

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 11:46 pm on 02/12/2017
Tags: , , , , , l, , , work   

A fresh new update

Oh, hello. It’s actually been over a year since I last posted a blog. But now here I am.

Baby Daniel is bigger. Time does that. He loves running all about the place. He loves climbing things. He loves throwing things. He loves blabbering random sounds. He’s in creche now, for 4 hours a day. A slight relief five days a week for Tracey, and one day a week for me.

So. Work. I got a security job, the one where the office is in Swords. They started by putting me in different places, mostly in the city centre. Penney’s, Dunnes, Northside shopping centre, H. Samuels, sometimes even Croke Park, the Gaelic games stadium. But now I’m permanently in Dunnes in the Ilac centre in town. So come see me if you’re around. I work most days except Wednesday and Sunday.

With the decent money I get from work (€11.05 an hour), I managed to get myself a PS4. A white Destiny one. Not a pro though. Not yet. And a Vita. I’ve also been getting upgrades for my Amiga 1200. I have an ACA1221EC accelerator, a gotek floppy disk emulator, and a little adapter that goes in a slot at the back so I can plug in a compact flash card. But I think I broke something and it doesn’t come on. So I’m devastated. I might have a look tomorrow.

What else? Oh, I have Elite: Dangerous on PS4 now. I’ve been waiting ages for it, and I love it. I have a HOTAS flight stick to go with it. It’s a lot more immersive with one. Official PlayStation magazine also gave away a unique paintjob for the Cobra Mk III, which I obviously got.

Oh and I also have a new phone. New as in a couple of years old, but still the best one I’ve had so far, even better than the decent Timmy M9. It’s a Sony Xperia M4 Aqua. Only problem is the lack of storage, like Sony tend to do.

Anyway it’s late and I haven’t been getting much sleep these past few weeks thanks to Mr Wake-up-at-5am. That’s Daniel.

So toodles

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 3:56 pm on 16/11/2016
Tags: , , , , work   

Some more changes

As usual, it’s been a while since I did a blog post. I know I keep saying I’ll do them more often, but stuff happens.

So, the work subject. After the short trial thing I had at McDonald’s, they let me go. So I’m currently unemployed. Again. So I started handing out CVs.

I gave one in to a cinema down the road, and left. And the security guard dude came running out after us (Tracey was with me) and asked if I considered a job in security. I did once, but I didn’t get the job for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. I told him I applied for a security job before but didn’t get it. He then told me I could do a security course and if I passed, he could get me a job in security, and gave me some details about it.

So I did the security course. It took up a few days over a couple of weeks and cost me €250. I passed. I actually got a much higher mark than I thought I’d get. Anyway, long story short, I’m now a qualified, soon to be licensed security guard. Minimum pay for it is €10.75 an hour. McDonald’s was €9.20. I didn’t know that the security guards at McDonald’s were making more than us, more than the managers I think.

I already have 2 jobs lined up. One is fairly close in Swords, the other is across the city in a place I can’t remember the name of. Well them are the places I’d be trained in anyway, they’d put me in a store or something in a different place.

So yeah, that’s good. I just have to wait to get my license to work for the close place, but the across-the-city one got in contact with the governing body of security, the PSA and asked them to make an exception for me, with a letter that lets me work for 90 days without a physical license, but only with that company. But my license shouldn’t be too long anyway. I’m hoping to work with the close one of course.

That’s enough work talk for now. I’ve got a new phone. Well, newish. I’ve had it for a few weeks and it’s been around since last year, but you know what I mean. It was really cheap as well, because it’s actually a Chinese phone. It’s called a Timmy M9. It has good performance for it’s price. It was €45 I think, and has 1GB of RAM, a 1.3GHZ quad core processor and an 8 megapixel, 1080p camera. Not bad for €45! It’s a surprisingly good phone. It even comes pre-rooted, so that’s saved me the job.
Of course a new phone is going to be one of the first things I buy when I’m working, after a computer, a phone for Tracey, a PS3 for Tracey and a PS4 for me. And I’m sure I’ll be getting baby Daniel lots of toys and stuff. The spoilt git.

Anyway that’s enough for now. I’m trying to get the baby to sleep. Toodles

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 8:26 pm on 27/07/2016
Tags: , , , , flight, , joystick, lesbian, , megan, news, niece, simulator, work   

Lots of News

I hath returned, my fellow heathens. As you can imagine, looking after a lil bub takes up quite a bit of time. That’s what I’ve been doing a lot of these past 6 (well, 7) months. So I’ll update you on how baby Daniel is doing.

He’s still a big, hairy baby. He used to have hair on his legs, but that’s gone now. Now he just has hair on his back and at the top of his bum. It’s quite cute and funny. He has the power in his legs to stand up. He just can’t balance. But then he’s not supposed to at 7 months. He also still has lots of hair on his head. In fact he’s scheduled for a haircut on Saturday.

He can kind of crawl. Just not in the direction he wants. Actually, the exact opposite direction. He goes backwards. He can turn fine. He can roll over fine. He just cant go forwards. He’s also strong. He can lift himself onto all fours nicely. Even make an arch sometimes.

As for sleeping, he’ll generally sleep the whole night, although the past couple of weeks he’s been waking up a couple of times, just crying for what seems like no reason. I usually just change his nappy, feed him, and he goes back to sleep. He often moves around in his cot as well. We’ve found him with his head where his feet should be.

Overall though, he’s a very easy to handle, quiet, fun baby. He is also super cute, has a super cute smile and laugh, and loves eevryone. Although the cats don’t love him as much. He likes to pull on their tails. Spock nearly scratches him because of it. Spock, for no reason at all, bit his head once. I think it was because he wanted to eat his hair.

Thats enough about the baby. I have some other news. On 10th August, I officially start a job! It’s at McDonald’s. May not be too glam, but right now, I’d scrub crap off a floor with a toothbrush if i got paid.  I have an “orientation” tomorrow. I don’t know what that is. Presumably I get a tour of the restaurant, get told about health and safety stuff, stuff like that. It’s full time, and is only a short bus ride towards town.

It looks like i’ll be working with someone i know as well. Tracey’s niece, Megan. Brill. She’s talkative and loud and gossipy. But she’s nice. And single! And a lesbian. So if you’re a young lesbian in Dublin, she’s your girl. She’s also the one that helped me get the job, so thanks Megan!

Also, for Father’s Day, Tracey got me a HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) joystick, I’ve been after one for a while, mainly for the open source game, Oolite, which is a modern remake of the legendary 80’s game, Elite. There was also a sale on Steam recently, naturally i bought Elite:Dangerous, another game i can use the joystick with. I’ve also been raiding computer game shops for flight sims, like Flight Simulator X.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m goingto bed early because I have to be up early for the orientation thing tomorrow. I’ll be in bed watching Enterprise with Tracey for a bit. So see you net time. I’ll try not to leave it months next time.

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 5:59 pm on 05/07/2013
Tags: eight, let's, pages, play, slender, slenderman, , , work,   

Let’s Play!

Hello me ole chums.

So guess what i did last night. Not that, you dirty bastards. I made a Let’s Play! video on YouTube. As i type this up, it’s currently processing. But when it’s done, i’ll have my first Let’s Play video up. I’ve been thinking of doing one for a while. So there’s my first one. Ooh, it’s done! I’ll paste it below for your viewing pleasure. And yes, that is my real voice

It’s about 8 minutes long and it’s in full HD, so if you’re on mobile, it’ll eat up your data and battery if you’re not on wi-fi. I’m quite impressed with it. The sounds were a bit loud though, i should turn them down for next time.

On another note, i’m still unemployed. Employ me, someone. I’m quite good with computers. I think that’s all I have to say for now. I mainly just wanted to tell you about my new video. So go watch it and let me know what you think.

Toodles

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 11:24 pm on 26/02/2013
Tags: body clock, , , redundancy, , waking, work   

Redundancy

Hello my oddball  friends.

Well, we could all see it coming. It’s been made official. There was a meeting last week  officially announcing that we are closing down and everyone i work with is being made redundant. From 20th April, i will be unemployed. Unless i can find another job of course.

Now we all have to go looking for jobs. I’ve been looking and i’ve applied to a few places, especially today. I’ll let you now what happens of course. If anyone out there who reads this blog wants to employ me, and is in the north of Birmingham, UK, there are plenty of ways to contact me, there’s a link to my Google Sites website on the title page of my blog. I’m quite good with computers and i love gadgets and technology.

One decision I made early on in life is that I don’t want to work in a supermarket. And so far I haven’t. I’ve only had the one job and it’s quite sad that I’m losing it. It makes you appreciate the job you do have. It was good pay for not very much work. Especially nowadays since we’ve been getting a lot less calls. At times, I’m sitting there for 15 minutes between calls. A lot of time is spent just talking to each other, or the past couple of days, looking for jobs.

It even managed to get a news article in a local newspaper. The article is here.

Ah well, such is life I suppose. I’ll sort something out. At least it gave me the push to start the job search I’ve been wanting to do for ages anyway.

Oh, one more thing. Recently I’ve been waking up fairly early. Around 8 or 9ish. That’s early for me anyway. That’s always good. Ok that’s all for now. Toodle Maybe my body clock is actually sorting itself out.

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 7:39 am on 04/02/2013
Tags: , dvd, dvi, , headache, hearing aid, ide, , , shifts, , tired, vga, , work   

Deja Vu

So it’s that time of the rota again where I have to do early shifts. There was a point where I asked one of my supervisors to change as many as my shifts to lates, which she did for a few months, but then she got injured and was unable to do them for a while.
So now I have to be up at 5.30 for work most days this week. And we all know how hard it is for me to get to sleep at night. I worry about things. Money, Tracey having fibromyalgia and not getting enough sleep and being in pain, ironically knowing I have to be up early keeps me awake. Stupid body. I had a splitting headache last night as well so I had to pop a couple of pills, which slowly worked. And things aren’t helped by my dad’s constantly beeping hearing aid. By constant I mean constant. Not beep beep beep. I mean beeeeeeeeeeeeeep. All night.
So now it’s 7.20am at the time of writing. And even though I only got about 4 hours or so of sleep, I’m not feeling as tired as you might think. I’m actually quite awake. And no, I haven’t had any caffeinated drinks. Except Dr pepper, but I was feeling awake before I started drinking that.
On another note, I’ve more or less finished building my computer. I’ve got it working.  I just want to put more RAM in it. But I’ve got windows installed on it, I’ve got the blu-ray drive working, a DVD rewriter, the old IDE hard drive and two solid state drives. There’s a CD rewriter that doesn’t work because there’s no more IDE connectors, but I can live with that. But other than that everything works. I just want a DVI to VGA cable to connect my small monitor for when I’m using the PS3. And oh yeah, my windows product key has stopped working so I only have a couple of days to activate it before… Something happens
Anyway, back to the grind. Adios amigos
Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 4:37 pm on 24/01/2013
Tags: shoes, snow, , work   

Snow

Hello again butt munchers.
 
Yes, I’m going to talk about snow. Anyone in the UK knows it’s been snowing. Probably people outside as well.

The Snow on my Road in Great Barr

 

Normally, snow wouldn’t be a problem for me. I like snow. I think it’s very soft and pretty. But the problem is my shoes. Monday to Thursday I need to wear formal shoes to work. Obviously they have very little grip in the snow.
 
I’ve been thinking about buying them spike things you put on your shoes for more grip, but I haven’t had any money and I don’t get paid until tomorrow.
 
Obviously the snow also causes problems at work. My job is to give out bus timetables. As you can probably imagine, people want to know if their buses are running. Because apparently they don’t want to phone the bus company directly. They prefer to phone a 10p/minute phone number to find out what they usually already know anyway.
 
The most annoying thing though is when they want us to predict whether buses will be running tomorrow. Because apparently we’re the met office and can predict the weather.
 
I actually started this blog a couple of days ago. At a really bad time, at work, when we was really busy. And I hardly get any done. Just like the first couple of lines. And I forgot about it until now. I am ash work now but it’s pretty quiet as usual.
 
Anyway I’m done here I think. Until next time chums
Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 2:06 pm on 18/11/2012
Tags: , language, work   

Language

Hello my little monkeys. I  don’t know what I’m actually going to blog about, I’m just winging it. I just thought it was time I did one, so hi.
 
Right now I’m at work, as usual it’s quiet. Since I don’t know what I’m blogging about, I haven’t put anything for a title. Obviously by the time you read this, there will be one. Ooh I know what to blog about. Let’s talk about English.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to the talk about the differences hetween “who” and “whom”. Mostly because even I don’t know the difference. What I want to talk about is when people say things like “u r” instead of “you are”. Or worse yet, “yhhuuu areee”. Them are just  a few examples.

There was a time when typing like that was an advantage. When you was limited to 160 characters when texting. But now people usually get a lot or even  unlimited texts, making typing like that obsolete. But it’s still common nowadays, even on chat sites and apps like WhatsApp or whatever, with no character limit. It makes people look retarded. People don’t see that. at least not the people that type like that. It doesn’t even help people type quicker usually. It usually takes me longer to work out how to shorten words than it would be to type them out properly.

Also, Black Country people (the Black Country is an area west of Birmingham), especially Wolverhampton people. They say things like “Where am ya?”. That just annoys me. There’s just no point.

Black Country Map

Anyway, I think that’s all i wanna talk about. Like I said, it was a spur of the moment thing, I just had an urge to do a blog, and I didn’t know what about. So job done. Unil next time, chums!

Unknown's avatar Michael Collins 10:29 am on 05/03/2012
Tags: awake, body, night, , vitamins, work   

Sleep

Let me tell you how well I slept last night.

I had to be up at 7.30 to be in work for 9.30. Now, I have enough trouble getting to sleep, and I got to sleep soon after 1.30. So that would have obviously been 6 hours. But for no reason whatsoever, my body decided to wake up just before 5.30.

So that’s less than 4 hours. I wasn’t even able to get back to sleep either,especially with my dad vacuuming and shouting. My body hates me I’m sure of it. And I don’t sleep any earlier if I go to bed earlier. I just lie there thinking.

Someone recommended vitamins but I keep forgetting to get some.

This has been a really short blog but I think I’ve made all the points I need to make. And I’ve been trying to write this blog for quite a while but I’m at work and we’re quite busy.

But now I’m done, so until next time, citizens!