And finally, news broadcasts get even more frivolous

SHERMAINE WILLIAMS

A writer’s lot is a hard one. Why are you scoffing at the back? Well, I suppose it does all depend on the type of writing that one undertakes and how successful they are, but I reckon most writers are in the same boat.  

While everyone thinks that ‘writer’ means you’re getting paid like JK Rowling or Stephen King, the reality is often that a ‘proper’ job is also required in order to ensure the bills get paid. Oh yeah, this industry is all about the glamour.

One of the worst things about writing for (something of) a living is that switching off from work is like attempting to stop the wind from blowing. The laptop is always there no matter what you are doing, taunting you with its ability to travel ‘look at me—I’m portable!’

Beware the temptations of the internet

SHELLY BERRY

Ah, the internet. You have to love it, don’t you? How did we ever live without it? Communicate with our friends? Find out the name of that actor in that obscure film on the telly last night? Find a recipe that includes the random contents of our fridge at one in the morning? It doesn’t bear thinking about. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to read this when you’re supposed to be writing that important report or sorting out that account for your boss, would you? You might actually be doing some work. Perish the thought!

Having said that, the internet is not all good. Oh, no. It is a dangerous place indeed. And no, I am not talking about online stalkers, viruses and scams. I’m talking about its convenience. It makes life easy. Too easy. Especially when it comes to spending money. Let’s be honest here. Paypal is the shopping equivalent to the atomic bomb: just press one little button and the result can be catastrophic. It is even easier than a debit card. When you use that in a shop you have to physically hand over your form of payment to another person before you part with your hard earned cash.

Telesales: the worst way to start the day

LAURA DEMETRIOU

I had been wondering what to write about next. The world has seemed a very polite place for me recently. Train journeys have been pleasant, service at shops has been efficient and courteous and the postman even said hello to me when I walked past him the other day. I know, I know. It’s like something from a Disney film. I half expected the bin men to break out in song and dance. They didn’t.

My dream of a perpetually polite world was shattered when I received a phone call at about 8:00 this morning. Who calls at 8am?!

The unwritten rules of life proclaim that all weekday calls should be made after 9:30. This gives people ample time to get into work, stare at a blank screen for a few minutes, fill the kettle up and indulge in a tea/coffee before the drudgery of the working day really hits home.

The customer is always right- at least when allowed an opinion.

ALICE LINLEY-MUNRO

Why hello Mr PC World man who was steadfastly ignoring me until you realised I was female and had a low cut top on. Yes, you can indeed see part of my cleavage -*gasp*- and yes I know I am the most devastatingly gorgeous woman you’ve seen in a very long time but here’s the deal – you can be a supermodel like I am and still not be a complete moron when it comes to buying a new laptop. To be fair to you I did look a little bit blank when you started prattling on about graphics cards and one of the questions towards the bottom of my list was going to be ‘does it come in any other colours’ but I’m still not an eejit.

You didn’t even give me a chance to explain what I wanted before you started trying pigeonhole me as a customer and then attempted to baffle me with your superior computer geek prowess. I’ve never worked in a computer shop before but I would have thought that a great jumping off point with a customer would be to ask what they were looking for rather than leaping in and recommending a machine which was the polar opposite to what they wanted.

Tapping at your last nerve: two perspectives on the pitfalls of office typing

NAOMI SAFFERY

There are many, many reasons why working in an office – any office – can be a challenge for those among us who would rather be lounging by a pool, with a cocktail in hand and generally enjoying a life of decadent debauchery.

One reason why working in an office is so challenging is the furious – nay, frenzied – speed at which people type. Is it just me or are there people in offices who genuinely feel that waving their administrative schlong around via typing at warp speed, will land them in the boss’s lap, complete with promotion, bonus and an all-round pat on back?

Job hunting isn't half hard work

SHELLY BERRY

A few weeks ago, I watched the last ever episode of Ugly Betty. And cried. I admit I was touched by my little Mexican friend’s optimism about life, and was genuinely happy to see her succeed. It gave me hope that one day my labours of love will become fruitful, and I too will have my dream job. Then reality kicked in.

You see, like a lot of people who work in the public sector, I might be facing redundancy. Bummer, I know. So, along with everyone else in my department, I am frantically applying for one of the few jobs that will be left come April and keeping my fingers crossed that I will be one of The Chosen Ones. But, let’s face it, I can’t rely on a position in my current place of work for much longer. So, I must look elsewhere.

The problem is that looking for a job has suddenly become a lot more complicated. Gone are the days when you bought the paper, kept your eyes open for notices in the window of local businesses and popped down the job centre. Oh, no. Things have got a bit tricky.

Whereas in the past I used to buy The Guardian on a Wednesday and forget about my endeavour to find employment for the rest of the week, I now feel obliged to check their website at least every three days. Their search options mean that if I leave it longer than that I have to search every single job on the entire website, which can be an awful lot when you are searching as broadly and desperately as I.

Then there is the plethora of other job websites which I dare not ignore just in case something well paid and lovely comes up. By the time I have searched Indeed.com, lgjobs.co.uk and a handful of other sites that promise me the world, it is half-past midnight and the closest I have got to a new career is stacking shelves at Aldi.

It doesn’t stop there. Next on the list of tasks one must do to get ahead is social networking. And no, I am not talking poking your friends on Facebook or following Stephen Fry on Twitter. I am talking grown-up networking. As in, professionally. This is not the time to be posting photos of yourself at NYE with a glass of Cava in one hand and a Harvey Wallbanger in the other. In my opinion, this makes the likes of LinkedIn not only dull but a little bit confusing. What on earth am I supposed to put as my status update if I don’t slag off the office bitch and moan about Him Indoors leaving the toilet seat up?

So, those of you in steady employment or lucky enough to be a student before a degree costs the same as a small fleet of Ferraris, think of me as you snuggle up in front of the telly with a glossy and the SATC box set as I trawl the net looking for my lucky break. As for the rest of you? I wish you luck. But please, whatever your circumstances, don’t tell me about any other websites, forums or networks that I need to join to secure my future happiness. I don’t think my Favourites can take it. Read more by Shelly.

For the consideration of others, please turn off your phone!

ROSIE DAVIES

Mobile phones. They have become so ingrained in everyday life that we would most likely not know what to do without them; holding them has become second nature, almost as if they’re an extended part of our hands.

Fiddling with their buttons absent-mindedly, or attempting to crack the various levels of games offers one way to pass time when waiting for a train, a bus, or friends. Issues with dodgy signal, the expense, the inevitable radioactive brain freeze and the weird deep-vein thrombosis feeling in your arm after using them for a decent length of time aside, they are extremely useful and in some instances life-saving.

But let’s all agree for a moment. At times, isn’t it easy to think that they’re the bane of modern life?

They manage to creep into every single facet of life, including places where they are categorically not invited. The theatre and the cinema are two that spring to mind. We’re all familiar with the ‘don’t let your mobile phone ruin the movie’ trailers, but as I’ve experienced so far, they don’t really work. I recently saw Harry Potter in one of those huge Odeon cinemas. Ten minutes into the film a girl four rows down got out her phone to browse Facebook. For crying out loud.

Aside from the fact that the light from her phone was terrifically distracting, who the hell starts social networking when they’re at the cinema? Who is that much of a slave to their cyber social life? And who has the attention span of a gnat to give up on a film so quickly? I personally managed forty minutes of The Wedding Crashers, a film so bad I have had constant nightmares about Owen Wilson’s nose ever since, before walking out. Even then I didn’t resort to my phone for comfort.

Then there’s the theatre. It’s more of a treat to go to the theatre, a little more cultured. Most of the audience will be of your parents’ or grandparents’ generation, so you’re lulled into the assumption that the majority have the decency and manners to turn off their phones, if they even own one.

Not a bit of it. Last night, whilst at the glorious Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, a woman at the back let her phone ring three times before the eventually the actors intervened and gave her a good mouthful. Luckily, the play itself involved mobile phone sounds, so the cast could be fairly good-humoured about it. despite the outraged huffing and puffing from the audience. Unfortunately, the offender didn’t do much to help her fast-growing reputation as public enemy number one by calling out ‘I don’t know how to turn it off!’  Who has a mobile phone they can’t operate? I hope she thanked her lucky stars it wasn’t Shakespeare.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not 100% chaste. I’ve definitely heard mine whirring away in my bag on unsuitable occasions, trying desperately to cough loudly enough to cover the noise up. But I am bemused at the situations in which people think it is perfectly acceptable to use their phone, forcing everyone else to join in on the experience, whether they wish to or not.

We’ve all been next to the guy on the train forcing everyone within the radius of three carriages to know that he was ‘TOTALLY FUCKING WASTED LAST NIGHT’, and the vacuous girl who manages to have a conversation that doesn’t actually involve any real information. ‘I know, I was like totally…yah, I know, I just said to him like, it’s…really?! Yah, I know…I was like…oh my God, I KNOW!’ Why don’t the socially inept and those with little or no manners realise they are just being a plain sodding nuisance?

And then there’s dating. Most definitely NOT the time to constantly fiddle with your phone. We’d all like the person we’re sat opposite to think we are at a least relatively interesting, or attractive. However, here’s a stark warning: there are people out there who, on a date, will not only make you feel invisible by regularly glancing down at their mobile, but who actually have the nerve to text someone else whilst you’re talking to them, as if you’re just an interruption to their evening. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the hat trick: they’ll wave their phone in your face at some point to let you know they’ve received a text message which they are powerless to ignore, and make up some wet excuse to leave. I think I’d even prefer the fake emergency phonecall to that.

So, what to do? We can hardly get rid of them. But, just in case you do come face to face with those who ignore basic etiquette and manners from time to time, make sure you order enough surplus popcorn to throw at tossers in the cinema, and thoroughly enjoy the self-righteous moan you can have in the theatre when the perfect moment of poignant silence is broken. If in doubt, practise your best angry glare, and, if you can, move seats on the train. Better still, keep it in your bag once in a while, to savour the messages when you do finally have a quick peek at work. And most importantly of all? Sometimes, just sometimes – turn it off. Read more by Rosie.

Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery

SHERMAINE WILLIAMS

It’s not me that has the identity crisis, you understand, I am perfectly aware of who I am. It’s other people who don’t seem to get it. The trouble started when a friend of my sister reliably informed her that she had befriended me on Facebook. Hmm, really? That must have been difficult seeing as I didn’t have a profile and I hate Facebook. Yes, I said it! And, no, I won’t be going to see the movie about its creation.

After some CSI type investigation, I found out that someone was posing as me on the website, albeit without any pictures and getting my date of birth wrong by several weeks. Clearly someone that knows me, but not actually me. Though I’m not entirely sure what this nameless moron was getting out of their endeavours, I still didn’t want them doing it, which forced me to become part of the hated ineffective waste of time that is ‘the F word’. 

In addition to my justified anger at the individual who has too much time on their hands, I do have to wonder how it was so easy for someone to create a profile impersonating me. To add insult to injury, I not only had to create an account to tell them that they had an imposter, but wait an age for them to do anything about it. To a certain extent I can understand when cretins do this sort of thing with celebrities. I don’t fall into that special category. So really what benefit do they get?

Not like the donkey that hacked into my eBay account in order to sell e-Gold – whatever the hell that is – and gained access to my credit card details. Oh, what fun to be told by eBay that I shouldn’t give out my password to anyone! Of course, I don’t give out my password to anyone; I know about phishing emails and the like yet somehow I’m still to blame. No wonder internet security firms are making massive profits.

I do have to be grateful that I got off lightly when compared to some horror stories about people who have had their identities’ stolen. I can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to prove that you are who you say you are all while battling some criminal waster for your own identity.   

Supposed advances have brought us Chip and Pin, which allows you to show your PIN number to a whole queue of people. Genius. Paranoia about people standing too close is no longer confined to concern about traditional pickpockets, no, they’ve gone high-tech.

How is it possible that barely a day passes without the arrival of some new mobile/gadget/thingimy-wotsit to waste money on, and yet, there seems to be no way to prevent fraudsters from taking other people’s money? There is something very wrong when criminals can outsmart those who design the apparently secure systems.

Even basic procedures that should be secure are far from it. I seem to get a new person delivering my post every few weeks and – shock horror – have had many instances of expected mail going missing. Maybe it's incompetence, maybe it's fraud, either way, I would love to know if all these people are vetted. An errant household bill may seem trivial, but it becomes much more significant when it is used as a proof of address to get credit. 

When criminals are able to steal the identities of dead children simply by requesting a copy of a birth certificate we are really making it too easy for them. Roll up, roll up! Come get your fake driving licence and passport! Get away with crimes, apply for a credit card, apply for benefit you’re not entitled to! We’ll give you the tools and won’t check a thing!     

Never mind Slim Shady, make sure no one else stands up when the question 'will the real [insert name here] please stand up' is applied to you. Read more by Shermaine.

Facebook brings out the inner teenager

ROSIE MCGEE

I like to think of myself as a grown up. It’s taken me a while to get here but now I feel I can fairly call myself an adult. I have a mortgage, I keep my bank statements in a labelled box and I watch Newsnight, sometimes. This adult status means that I’m sufficiently calm and able to deal with life’s little tribulations without slipping into adolescent conduct.

Yet some things still have the power to bring out the inner teenager. These include my mother telling me I’m intrinsically selfish, my hair refusing to go into a style I’ve coerced it into many times before because I want to impress someone and, so it seems, people from the past. They bring with them all the joy of laughing at old shared jokes but also a sense of who you were then. Maybe you see your juvenile self reflected in their eyes as you giggle together. Whatever the reason for this phenomenon, it’s a force to be reckoned with.

I know this because last Wednesday night I ended up outside a minicab station at 11.30pm screaming and waving my arms in a performance worthy of any Jeremy Kyle guest. Once inside my taxi, with a mounting sense of shame, I pieced back together the chain of events which had led to this.

It goes way back to the 90s when Friends was the funniest show on TV and coolness was measured by how many pairs of Kickers you owned. A dark time when I used to wear a black bomber jacket, complete with faux fur collar, which could be completely reversed to bright silver.

Thankfully I grew out of it, went to university and began to slowly lose contact with almost everyone who’d witnessed me in such a cringy phase of my life. But, a few years down the line, along came Facebook. People you’d long forgotten about crawled out of the woodwork, requested your friendship and snooped through your photos to find out if you’d got fat.

Many of us happily accepted requests from people we’d not set eyes on in years. With some, a message or two was exchanged. But aside from pestering the masses to join this group or play with that stupid app, most of the forgotten friends remain just that. However, there will be the odd person who you actually strike up a proper friendship with. Often someone you didn’t know that well years ago, but the intervening decade has turned you both into people who have something in common.

It was at dinner with my new-old 90s friend that the trouble began. New-old friend is a man and also friends with someone I had a brief and very teenage relationship with in 1999. For the mathematically slow, that’s coming up on 11 years ago. After a glass too many of wine it slipped out that we had previously been spotted in the heinous crime of having a drink together.

This serious offence caused the convening of some sort of committee meeting by friends of the ex-boyfriend to discuss what was to be done about such unacceptable behaviour. New-old friend was then forced to go to ex-boyfriend (from 1999) and seek his permission to carry on being friends with me.

This is quite clearly ridiculous. Anyone sensible would feel a sense of acute embarrassment for those to whom so little of interest has happened in their twenties that they still carry on soap opera-like melodramas from their teens. Sadly, upon having this story relayed to me, I ceased to be sensible.

Floods of indignation welled up in me. How dare these people all sit around and discuss me behind my back? They were all no more than a very faded memory to me. Why was I still a larger-than-life character who clearly posed some sort of threat to them? I hadn’t done anything wrong. It just wasn’t fair.

Imagine those statements yelled in rage as I stormed along the street arms flapping around, and it’s a pretty faithful rendition of what happened. Initially I wanted to know: why didn’t new-old friend stand up for me and defend our newfound friendship? But, demanding loyalty is so teenage. We adults accept we may well have friends who don’t like each other, for whatever reason. So everyone behaves diplomatically and known foes are not seated next to each other at your birthday dinner.

I think what it comes down to is that some relationships come with too much baggage, even though it’s not immediately apparent. It’s these weighty appendages which drag you down to being someone you wouldn’t be at any other time.

I only wish I’d had this moment of Zen-like enlightenment before I got home and began publishing my rage through angry status updates on Facebook: the ultimate in immature behaviour. Still room for a little more personal growth ... Read more by Rosie.

The 'F' word

SELINA NWULU

Way back when, before the likes MySpace and Twitter, If I’d referred to ‘the ‘F’ word’ we'd have all known that I was talking about the four-letter expletive. Now, in the digital age of blurbs, blogs and celebrity Twitter pages, it has taken on a different meaning. It’s grown. It’s got double the letters and a few more spikes. I’m talking about Facebook, and yes, this ‘F’ word is beginning to make me feel as dirty as the profane version.

(If I could just throw out an informal, backtracking-before-I’ve-even-begun disclaimer: I am on Facebook. Although I’m not on it very often, everything I say applies to me too.)

In the good old days, Facebook was only for uni students and you were safe in the knowledge that any mishaps would be kept between you and your fellow students. It was a comfy place - and then your mum, your nextdoor neighbour and his cat (literally) and your great, great aunt all jumped on the bandwagon.

Now we all have to tread so carefully. Suddenly we’re haunted by stories of people being fired after inappropriate status updates about skiving off work or entire relationships dissolving at the click of a button revealing: ‘it’s complicated.’

It uncovers the narcissistic nature in us all. Hours are wasted choosing the most fitting, attractive but cool yet nonchalant profile picture. Nights out become punctuated with cheesy Kodak moments and squeals of ‘Ooh I'm going to tag you in that!’

Unwittingly we’re engaging in an unspoken competition to see whose life turned out the best. We’ve all spent hours weeping at the wedding pictures of first loves before stalking the new spouse in question to discover faults - like that Rick Astley fan page on her profile.

We know better than to go on Facebook when feeling down. Your mopey self inevitably ends up reading status update after status update of vague acquaintances saying things like ‘Oh I’ve just got my dream job and I didn't even try!!’ Not to mention the sickening, ‘I have the best boyfriend in the whole wide world; he made me breakfast in bed’, or some do-gooder letting you know they’re ‘feeding Nepalese orphans after having built a school with my bare hands in India’. I’m drowning in everyone’s fancy, overachieving, loved-up, saving the world-spangled lives.

Think, when was the last time you actually wondered what someone you used to know was upto? Can’t remember? Well neither can I, because they are all on Facebook! These people could have been anybody in our imaginations. The troublemaker from school could have been the graphic designer his talent suggested he could be. Instead he turned out to be the waster everyone predicted, still knocking around the same haunts and spending too much time on Facebook.

It takes away the element of mystery and reminds us of the sheer banality of other people’s lives. I know what almost everyone from school became. Surely no good can come from such knowledge. Didn’t we learn from Friends Reunited?!

In the beginning it was so enticing. I was drunk on the power of knowing, of being reacquainted, but that interest dwindles. After the initial curiosity is sated and you soon realise that you are forever stuck with their inane comments about Home and Away, and you realise why you lost touch with them in the first place

More than just disappointment, there’s also the whole new level of malice: the delete button. ‘She upset me ... that’s it, I’m deleting her ass off Facebook. That’ll teach her!’ Sometimes it has to be done. Realistically you are never going to see the guy wearing the Guinness hat at that house party again. But what to do when you bump into someone you deleted on Facebook in real life?! Play nonchalant? Be coy? Feign indifference? Thinking about this brings me out in cold sweats.

Who knew there was an etiquette to it all? People get upset if they’re not included in a note. And if I personally take the time to write someone a long message, the last thing I want to see is them updating their status every two minutes about the growing levels of mould in their fridge instead of replying to me.

I decided a long time ago to distance myself from Facebook. I’m still there because we can’t deny it does have some brilliant uses. Yet I even find myself generally drawn to those who don't have a Facebook profile; they’ve become like the new elite cool set people I want to get to know. Conversation is a delight with those ignorant about pokes, fan pages and tags, and who know the forgotten joys of emailing. Brave new world!

I feel better for having got that off my chest. Now if you don't mind, I’m just off to post this link onto my page ... Read more by Selina.

Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let me on the techno bus!

SHELLY BERRY

I like to think that as I go about my day-to-day life I cope quite well with modern technology. I listen to my MP3 player on my phone on the way to work, I use wifi when on trains and in cafes, I can carry out basic tasks in Microsoft Office and even produce a newsletter at work on desktop publishing software.

But beneath the façade is a technophobe desperately trying to hide her panic whenever someone starts talking about the latest gadgets on the market that are said to be the “next big thing”.

It’s not that I don’t like technology. I think modern technology is great. I love my little netbook, and can’t wait until I am due a new mobile upgrade so I can get a BlackBerry (I have one for work and it’s AMAZING!). I think my problem with it is that by the time you have got to grips with something, those boffins at Microsoft or Sony or NASA decide to introduce a new and improved version and, before you can shake your Nokia at them, all your techno treasure is once again outdated, null and void.

Take DVDs for example. I will never forget the day I walked into my Blockbusters to find out that they no longer stocked movies on VHS. “What???” I screamed. “What if you don’t have a DVD player?” The assistant chewed his gum nonchalantly. “Well, maybe you need to go out and buy one.”

I was outraged. OK, so you can buy DVD players for about twenty quid, but that wasn’t the point. I had a perfectly good VHS player, thank you very much, and a nice selection of videos to go with it.

I didn’t bother to buy a DVD player. In fact, technically I still don’t have one. I just watch my DVDs on the fella’s Xbox, and have a portable CD drive to use with my netbook if I want to watch one in the bedroom. You see, I have made progress. It has been slow going, but I am getting there.

About three years ago I went to work with a floppy disk. You remember them, right? I was nearly laughed out of the building when I complained that my work computer didn’t have a floppy disk drive. Sulkily I went to Argos on the way home and bought one of those USB memory sticks. I admit it was a revelation. I haven’t looked back. True, I still have only one and should possibly look at getting one of those hardy ones you see on the Gadget Show, but I made that leap of faith and was rewarded.

Thing is, even though I feel I am making progress, I still keep missing the techno bus. Take Facebook for example. I finally signed up to it about two years ago – and about two years after everyone else. And I think it’s great. I even have my own blog  – as well as contributing to this one – and I managed to set up my account on Blogger all by myself (well, once someone told me how easy it was). But even now I feel I am falling behind.

People keep going on about Twitter. I went on the website once and didn’t get it. Then there’s Flickr. Sounds fabulous but I haven’t dared even go there. A few weeks ago I got talking to a journalist about how to break into the writing market. I told her about my blog. She suggested I send my e-newsletter to magazine editors. I smiled and nodded, panicking that I didn’t have a clue how to set up an e-newsletter, let alone mail it out to prospective eds.

It doesn’t end there. I still buy CDs and have never bought a download in my life. Although I have an MP3 player on my phone and have inherited my fella’s iPod shuffle, it still takes me about three hours to figure out how to change my playlists on them. And as for uploading my photos from my phone onto my computer, well, it’s a task I put off until I absolutely have to. Like when my phone is finally being replaced or it has run out of memory.

Speaking of mobile phones, mine recently came up with an error message telling me to contact the manufacturer. I took the phone into my local O2 store and they sent it off for me to get it fixed. I got it back yesterday, with a little note telling me they had upgraded the software. And making a point that I could actually do that myself as it’s all very simple really. No need to be patronising, Mr Techie!

So, despite my ignorance, I get by. I have nearly replaced my VHS collection with DVDs and even though I haven’t quite figured out how Sky works a year after having it installed, nor figured out how to use my answer machine (or 1571), I live a relatively pain-free existence. That is until Blu-Ray takes over the world, we go digital and CDs go obsolete.

All I ask, techies, is that you give me a little bit of notice so I can figure out how to use your new equipment before it’s too late and I fall into techno-hell oblivion. Read more by Shelly.

Image (DVD drive): Gregory Szarkiewicz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image (flip phone): Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net