Here we go again...

It must seem like a pretty regular blog subject here in the world of blue_pixel, but sadly once again the spectre of redundancy rears his ugly head here at NXP. I've been here at Philips/NXP just over five years now and four out of those five years has seen redundancies. A meeting last week revealed the need to 'let go' another 10% of the head count here, another 38 poor unfortunate souls to loose their jobs. Added to that all of the sub-contractors on site are to be terminated too, that's another 50 heads going. So, a grand total of 88 people.
All the job cuts will be done and dusted by the end of May apparently, which seems a long way off and it's a long, long time to wait not knowing who's for the chop.
With the job market in the semiconductor industry looking flat and sadly deplete and with the economy looking a little grim, it's going to be a tough time to loose your job.

Watch this space...

Pussy in a box (part II)

As documented earlier, our old ginger moggy Tybalt, loves curling up in his new cardboard box bed from Lidls. Just thought I'd add another picture of Tybalt enjoying it.
We tried to get a slightly bigger version of it at the weekend, as he has already broken one of the corners, but Lidls didn't have one.

Wasted phone call...

I've just had the strangest telephone conversation with a young lady from a local job agency.
Before I joined my current company, Philips/NXP, I pumped my CV/Resume out to just about anyone that would take it, you may find you have a copy on your PC somewhere... LOL!!
One of the local agencies contacted me last Friday saying they were updating their records and was I still 'looking' for a new position.
I replied via email as requested saying that I was indeed still looking for that elusive 'ace' job and attached my updated CV/Resume for their records.

This morning I had battled through hell and high water getting to work, accidents and queues everywhere and had JUST sat down with the first coffee of the day at 9:30, when my mobile rang. The number wasn't one I recognised, but it started with 02392, so I knew it was local so picked it up.
A very, almost overly, polite girl introduced herself, saying that she had just received my new CV and would I mind answering a few questions.
She then proceeded to ask me a series of questions, that if she had only looked at my CV in the first place, she would have been able to answer herself !!!

"Where are you working?" - errr, it's on the front page of my CV !!!

"Are you in employment?" - wasn't this not answered by the first question?

"What industry would you prefer to work in?" - err... look in my CV... 20 years of semiconductor testing !!!

"What kind of job are you looking for?" - hmmmm, with my skill set, maybe a barrister in Starbucks !!!

What a total waste of time !!!

It has put me off using them totally as to me this just isn't very professional.

Hey ho....... it takes all sorts I guess !!!

Cat in a box...

No, not a variation of the Dr Suess books...
We shopped on Friday evening in a store called Lidl. Now Lidl don't give you any bags for your shopping, oh they're happy to SELL you a bag or three, or they're happy for you to help yourself to any boxes you like for you to get your produce to the car, but they don't do bags.
We opted for the 'help yourself to the free boxes' option.
Once home with the shopping all neatly put away, I turned round to see our over-sized ginger cat, Tybalt ( the name Tybalt was taken from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet ) curled up in one of the very undersized cardboard trays !!!
He seems to have made it his own now and if you haven't seen him for a while.... take a look in the kitchen and he'll probably be curled up in the tray asleep !!!

Funny ol' weekend...

It was one of those weekends that just flew by in a rush but yet somehow seemed to go past really slowly, if you get my drift. The entire weekend seemed to be filled with fiddly chores that failed to yield any pleasure in their completion all mixed up with lots of chauffeuring to and fro of daughters to visit friends, to shops, to work or to clubs. Meeting up with friends seems to happen out of nowhere with no real structure or organisation behind them or even given a passing thought as to how they're going to actually get there or even get back home again... maybe they just casually assume that good ol' Dad is really happy to stay up into the wee small hours just for chauffeuring duties because he loves to stay up late waiting for the call to pick them up when they've had enough fun for one night. Just for once I'd like them to think about the other people that have to get involved in their last minute organisational chaos.
Oh well, maybe I shouldn't complain.