The IE6 glitch seems to have been resolved. Let me know if any others come to light. In the meantime, I'll try to work out why the application of the 'float' attribute appears to be less reliable in IE6 than in IE5....
Apologies to anyone viewing this page in Internet Explorer 6 - Dave's pointed out that what can probably best be described as 'weird shit' is going on because of the new stylesheet. I don't have time to sort it out right now, but I'll try and do so as soon as possible.
I've just watched the launch of the rocket taking the 'Internet Millionaire' Mark Shuttleworth into space as only the second space tourist. It cost him fourteen million pounds for the priviledge, apparently.
Much as I'd love to go into go into space, even if I could afford it, I'm not sure I'd spend that kind of money on the trip.
Topically, given my last posting, I've been out with ChrisR for beer, food, and a general putting the world to rights, taking in along the way the practical application of an ethical standard to running a business.
Also along the way, he mentioned that a regular reader of this site had told him that he got a sense from here that I was quite 'reserved' (you know who you are....). For some reason that I obviously can't fathom, Chris had found this amusing.
By way of extension to that, we pondered what the opposite of 'reserved' was, and as we were sitting in a restaurant, the best that came to me was 'available'. We both laughed at that, but you probably had to be there.
On other fronts, I'm uploading a few changes and additions here:
Yet more sites linked on the People page.
A new phrase in Words.
And a changed stylesheet to get rid of the infamous wrapping at the bottom of the left hand boxes. I know I said I'd give it a week, but the view seemed fairly unanimous, and it was the one thing I didn't like so much about the layout myself. I'm planning on adding some new boxes over there anyway in the not-too-distant future. The non-journal pages are already changed, and I'll do the journal templates in the next few minutes.
Rambling and pondering (you've been warned):
Chris and Derek at the warm company note the following in their what we believe page: ìWe believe in abandoning the traditional notions of clients, suppliers and staff.î
Some words I wrote for an equivalent page are that we will ìTreat everyone with whom we have a working relationship; clients, suppliers, and employees, with the respect we would like to receive ourselvesî with some details provided later for each of the three.
Both of these reflect that thereís a traditional division in business between the people you work for (clients/customers), people who provide you with things (suppliers) and people who work for you (employees).
This traditional division is challenged by what is an unfortunate ëbuzz-speakí usage that crept in during the caring sharing 90s which tried to replace this distinction by calling all of these groups ëpartnersí.
Insofar as the word ëpartnerí suggests a mutually-beneficial relationship, itís actually a pretty good catch-all (assuming that those relationships are run with a view to them actually being mutually beneficial).
The question Iím pondering is whether the terminology matters. Iíve been an employer and an employee, a client and a supplier, and generally-speaking, what I remember is whether or not my relationship with the other half of each such partnership was a good one or a bad one. On top of which, it seems to me that they all inform each other ñ I had a bad employer once, and if I subsequently needed a supplier in their industry, I wouldnít use them. Likewise, I wouldnít work for a company that had treated me badly as a client or supplier.
We use the words as labels because we think we know their meaning, but in actual fact, the relationships are really all that matter. Whether youíre in the theoretically stronger position, (customer, employer) or not, you still have the ability to deal honourably with each other, to work with respect and honesty, and to ëdo as you would be done byí.
Yet still, there seem to be many, in all of those relationships, who donít act in this way. Stories of companies treating their workforce badly, or suppliers dealing with their clients shabbily are legion, no matter the number of ëgood employment practiceí and ëservice deliveryí workshops and courses attended. Which is bad enough when you deal with this on the level of ëcompanyí, but what is a company but a lot of people? Itís not the companies that do bad things to people, itís people doing them, and thatís even more depressing.
My model, for what itís worth, is to try and treat everyone I interact with, both personally and professionally, as if they were a friend, and apply the same standards of openness and honesty to them as I would to the people I cherish most in the world. It would be nice to think I get the same back, but Iím not that stupid.
So does the terminology matter? Yes and no. No in that, by the standards of behaviour involved, they should all be viewed in the same way, but yes, because the world isnít ready to handle such communality just yet.
Give it time though.
If everybody lived like me, we'd need 2.6 planets. I'm deeply ashamed.
I meant to post this for Earth Day, and like a moron, forgot. Check out your own Ecological Footprint on the Earth.
[Via Metafilter, where almost everyone would need even more planets, scarily....]
According to Channel 4's "How Gay Are You?" quiz, I'm 20% gay ("Are you sure anyone even spots that you're not straight?"), which is less gay than three allegedly straight men I work with.
In other news, according to the same channel's Snob Status quiz, I'm only 25% snob, which is up to 64% less snob than at least one of those same people.
So go on then - your turn.
Bit of a scare yesterday when a glass of water was spilled over the laptop keyboard while I was meeting a client. I've been drying it out overnight, and apart from a bit of glitchiness around the cursor keys, things seem to be back to normal. So a few things I was going to do around here didn't get done - maybe tonight after I've met up with ChrisR
What is it with St George's Day this year? I've never seen so much attention paid to it. The bar downstairs from the office even has a St George's Day menu for today, and it's far from the only one. Even Google has gone for a themed logo....
A conversation that Barnaby and I have occasionally had is whether Christopher Price, the presenter of Liquid News on BBC Choice can manage to get more extravagantly camp than he has been to date. He certainly won't now, as he was found dead at his home yesterday.