www.simoncollier.ca

Have you heard of the Alberta Advantage? I hear about it all the time.

But then I hear that Alberta’s health care in not financially viable as a public service. I’m hounded for money by homeless people while I walk down Whyte Ave. I pay far, far more on insurance than our neighbours in Saskatchewan and BC. I even pay more at the gas pump than many other Canadians, despite Canada’s huge oil industry.

So that made me wonder. For your average citizen, your everyday person who works full time, drives a car, and relies on public services being there for my protection and safety… What is MY Alberta Advantage?

Check out my website… www.alberta-advantage.ca. It’s a work in progress, but if you have your own site or web space, please consider linking to it with the words “Alberta Advantage”.

This is an email that was forwarded to me, which I absolutely LOVE. Here it is, copied and pasted for your reading pleasure.

01. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children’s art. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

02. Don’t write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.

03. When an I.T. person says he’s coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won’t be there when we need your password. It’s nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.

04. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what’s keeping you from getting it. We don’t need to know that you can’t get into your email because your computer won’t power on at all.

05. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We’re just testing.

06. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

07. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

08. When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it.

09. When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person’s chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

10. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don’t have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

11. When an I.T. person tells you that he’ll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: “And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?” That motivates us.

12. When the printer won’t print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.

13. When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.

14. Don’t learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by “My thingy blew up”.

15. Don’t use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

We’ve all seen the commercials, so here are some parodies.

South Park Mac vs PC

Mac or PC Rap

Upset Mac User (classic)

And some UK ads:
Trust Mac
Tentacle
Office Posse

Okay, so that’s a bit of a dramatic headline, but the link is very interesting.

A project is underway to find Wikipedia articles that have been edited by people with a less than impartial view. Examples include universities beefing up their descriptions, FOX news editing Al Franken’s entry, WalMart editing it’s wages information, and Sony removing information about the DRM built into blu-ray.

The information is taken from the IP addresses registered by Wikipedia as having edited a page, and cross-referencing them with publicly available information on who owns the IP addresses. Cunning!

Check this out!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/vote-on-the-top.html

The BBC is reporting that the UK national minimum for paid vacation days is rising to 28 day per year, a requirement of EU law. Typical EU member minimums are slightly higher at around 34. Canada’s is 10.

Reports show that productivity of workers increases after a vacation. This is backed by statistics that show France to be the second most productive country in the world, despite having a 25-30 day average for vacation days per year (or 39-day average, according to Expedia’s study).

Maybe it’s time we start looking at our own life as being at least as important as our work life. It might do our employers some good.