Tag Archives: Work

More finance shenanigans

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The trap

So…after a few days of excruciating pain and finally moving the pain to an amber alert I am able to type a little.  Fortunately, for a man bereft of interesting things to blog about, there was an interesting diversion today where I work.

A well dressed businessman, complete with briefcase tried to gain access to the building today and to say he seemed a little peturbed doesn’t do it justice.  I believe he was calling our beloved CEO some names that would make even the hardiest sailor blush.  He also claimed that he had one million…what I am not sure..other names to call out maybe.  Surely if he had one million, he would be rather happy.  I know I would.

Suffice to say that our ever astute security team decided that this was one meeting that the CEO would rather not take and proceeded to block said businessmans entrance.  They finally escort the gentleman from the premises, only for him to give them the slip and head back in via the revolving doors.  That was a mistake…our revolving doors are the ones that no matter how hard you push, they never really go any faster.  So within a split second, the faster of the guards decided to grab the door to stop its revolution, just at the point that the man was literally trapped.

It is at this point that our security team looked, it is fair to say, like the house cat that finally catches the mouse and doesn’t quite know what to do with it.  Furtive glances were exchanged in a sort of “Now what?” manner between the guards while another simply sighed and called the police.  Eventually, the police showed up and took him away.  I say that they missed a trick though, they could have released the latch that stops the doors moving fast and had a kind of abusive russian roulette.  Spinning him round at high speed must surely fall under “subduing”.

This guy clearly misunderstood the nature of our business…we are in banking, but we are not a bank…nor do we handle investments as such, so any loss he may have occurred simply cannot be attributed to us.  This is something I tried to explain to some guy calling on … what can only be described as … a tin can and string, from India, to ask me as Head of IT (I love it when they do that…regardless of how untrue it is) to answer a 5 minute survey on IT within Retail Banking.

Him:  Do you have 5 minutes for a survey on IT within Retail Banking?
Me:  No, but even if I did, we are not a Retail Bank
Him:  It onlytakes 5 minutes
Me:  It doesn’t matter, we are not a Retail Bank…as I have already said
Him:  It will probably take less than 5 minutes and is just asking questions about your business
Me:  Not if you think my business is Retail Banking it isn’t.
Him:  But surely you have 5 minutes?
Me:  OK, what is the survey about
Him: Retail Banking
Me:  And what have I said that my business is NOT about
Him:  It’s just 5 minutes though
Me:  *click*

I appreciate he probably had a script and I had deviated desperately from it, but still….PAY ATTENTION FUCKTARD…seriously!

In other news, how the hell is it possible to go to bed on a Thursday evening feeling absolutely fine and wake up ON MY DAY OFF in pain so bad I can’t move?  Is it some sort of karmic retribution for deciding to take a short notice Friday off?  If that is the case, surely it would punish me more to have me be completely recovered and healthy on Monday morning?!?  Not, still sitting in frickin’ agony on Wednesday evening.  Admittedly, my recover may have been speedier had I not decided to drink some of that fine German painkiller on Saturday night…forget the pain….and then dance around to cheesy old music all night…but still.

Well screw you karma, Zs girlfriend IP is a physiotherapist and she is helping fix me.  I have managed to progress to actually getting to sleep and staying asleep for a few hours before the pain hits again.  In your face karma….in your overly judgemental face!

At least they are honest…

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Financial CrisisNow I know that the current financial crisis is causing problems in the industry.  I know that banks and their employees are in a semi-permanent alternating state of catatonia and panic.  I didn’t, however, realise that it had gotten so bad where I am working.  I went to the smoking area today and there is a meeting room next door, it is one of the posh meeting rooms where they have signs outside announcing the meeting going on in that room.

Today, this particular meeting room had the following sign:

SOILING TEST MEETING

Now, as the title says, at least they are being honest.  I appreciate that the Germans have a reputation for being methodical and organised about everything, but if people are shitting themselves all day at the moment…surely they don’t need a test?  Of course, it is worse if you consider that they might not be shitting themselves currently, but have planned a session in the near future and want to ensure that all of the staff have their emergency nappies and moist towellettes within easy reach.  Perhaps they are demonstrating the quickest ways to remove various clothing items.  It seems like they are a caring company…most would focus on soiling avoidance, but these guys are with you every step of the way.  “Shit away, we don’t blame you..but do it properly and it doesn’t have to be too bad”

I fully expect to see more meetings like this advertised over the coming weeks.  Maybe a course in hurling ones self from the top of the building, with the focus on minimising trauma to any witnesses and of course taking into account that the landing site is easily accessible by the authorities so that half of Frankfurt doesn’t need to shut down for the Spatula brigade to scrape you up.

You could have hari-kari 101, cyanide application training…vehicle exhaust re-routing seminars.  Of course, in this industry you will of course have people that aren’t quite ready to “cash out” so to speak.  For these people there will be “Scapegoat Cultivation and how to apportion blame without guilt” and of course the very popular “Embezzlement, it’s not just a funny word…it’s a lifestyle choice”.

The irony of Embezzlement of course…..where do you put your ill gotten gains….you wouldn’t seriously want to put it in a bank would you?

Eek!

Bring on the victims…I mean candidates

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Martina HaagSo recently I have been interviewing people for a job in my team.  I regularly get asked to perform technical interviews for a number of teams, not just my own it has to be said…it goes without saying that some of the people you end up interviewing would struggle to get out of bed in the morning, let alone get a job in IT.

SP and I invariably carry them out together, and spend most of our time sending little messages to each other over Google Chat..normally about if an answer was good etc…it works well doing this as SP knows immediately if we should proceed to the next stage with the candidate and the candidate doesn’t have to wait around for a decision.

It does however, allow for us to have a little fun when we are dealing with a particularly bad candidate…

In no particular order, I give you my top 3 favourite candidates of recent times…

Candidate 1:
After being told at length that the team is very technical and experienced…comparable to most companies next level of support, this guy continuously asked for reassurances that he wouldn’t be a secretary.  After the fourth time of asking, I actually had to say “for the fourth time, this job is nothing like that”.  This guy also seemed to be the subject of a man-hunt as it sounded like he was running alongside a motorway with various Police sirens going off around him.  When SP was going through his post-interview speech about giving feedback to the agency…my statement was “Feedback will contain the phrase, Candidate should just end it all and jump off the motorway bridge he is so clearly standing on”

Candidate 2:
2 weeks ago I interviewed a guy so bad at computers, I was almost disgusted that the blatant lies on his CV had fooled us.  Bearing in mind that the job is general support, having someone tell me that he is a database specialist halfway through the interview…and then have him fail a basic database question…kind of concerned me a little.  He was so bad, SP had to hide the phone as he was genuinely concerned he was going to laugh.  He did once, but managed to cover it up with a cough.  Suffice to say that my conversation on chat with SP was cut short as he started to do his post-interview statements…he said he couldn’t risk seeing what I was going to say whilst he was trying to talk.

Candidate 3:
I loved this guy, for no other reason than he had balls.  I asked him a question, which was by no means a requirement to have the answer as it is something we train everyone on anyway.  Anyway, the answer was “I don’t really know anything about that”.  I said not to worry, but does he know anything at all about it.  Then nothing, silence on the phone…I could hear a faint click-clacking in the background…after literally 2 minutes I had to ask if he was still there….at which point he reeled off the answer in it’s entirety..completely telling me everything about what I had asked…to a level that I couldn’t do from the top of my head and I hold certification in this topic.  Google for the win I suppose.

If you are going to be having an interview, here are a couple of top tips:

Know your own CV – I know that sometimes agencies don’t give all the information about a particular role, so knowing the job you are applying for might be hard…but you should really know what is on your CV..and therefore be able to answer questions on topics relating to it.

Remember who you are talking to – Again, telephone interviews can be quite full of information, but try and remember who introduces themselves.  Calling me John does not give a good impression.

If you don’t know…don’t lie – This should be fairly straightforward, but apparently not.  I am by no means an auditor, and I deliberately don’t make the questions unnecessarily technical, but I will know when you have a genuine idea of a subject and when you are making things up.  I will call you on it, you will look foolish….you won’t get the job.  Simple really.

Try not to panic – Especially if I end the interview relatively quickly.  Ending the interview quickly does not mean that you have failed (it can…but not always).  I just need to get information enough to make a decision, with some people that takes 5 minutes, with others…an hour.  The key thing to remember, if you are being interviewed…you have already been accepted as being capable of doing the job on the strength of your CV…you just have to confirm what I already think.

I will be honest though and say that there are definitely two sides to me during an interview, and they are normally set pretty early on.  SP calls them Teddy Bear and Evil.  If someone pisses me off real quick into the interview, or fails on pretty much any of my top tips points….Evil Dave turns up and won’t give you a break…normally though, Teddy Bear Dave is there and will be all cuddly and nice…I may even help you out on questions and reassure you.  Just be careful which one you force to arrive…..

Interviews going badly are not always the fault of the candidate though.  I had to hang up 5 minutes into an interview last year as Zak had fallen and badly hurt his head in the park.  Trying to explain that rapidly on the phone to a candidate to whom English was not their first language was fun the say the least.   I also got caught out by AV..basically, I had a lot of fairly technical questions prepared and I swear it was like he had the sheet in front of him.  I couldn’t trip him up at all (and that never happens)…essentially I started floundering around and making questions up on the fly..which never goes well.  Actually, I would take that as a good sign of a successful interview, but what he must have been thinking is beyond me.  The least he must of thought is “holy crap, how technical is this job”…the most would have been “who is this stuttering idiot!”

Anyone need a job?

All interviewers are bastards.

Twisted

Working from home…

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2008AUG121652So over the last couple of weeks I have just been completely unable to get anything done at work.  Either I have spent entire days in meetings, or when I am actually at my desk, operational things get the better of me and I don’t manage to get anywhere with my tasks.

I suppose these are the trials and tribulations of my job really, but the other day I managed to get approval to work a couple of hours from home.  Surprisingly enough, in 2 hours I had achieved what had taken me weeks to get less than a quarter of the way through.

I am one of those people that benefits from being able to have a smoke, drink coffee and avoid the phones.  I stick my music on and get into a groove of writing…unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work for writing the blog Frown  Maybe I am just picking the wrong music for that…the Benny Hill theme tune is probably more appropriate.

If I am going to work from home though, I can’t get into my usual routine of getting out of my work clothes and sticking a pair of shorts on.  I have to stay in my work clothes or I actually start to relax and nothing gets done.  Which is not normally a problem, unless I am on a mad deadline…like the other day I suppose.

It is dangerously easy to get distracted though.  Despite getting everything done in 2 hours, it is fair to say that the 2 hours were not entirely contiguous….

Things I definitely did not do (in case my boss is watching):

Watch the latest Prison Break
Go to the shops to buy stuff
Check things out on Ebay
Watch the latest Heroes
Watch Dylan Moran
Surf and find new and interesting diet methods… and then ingest my bodyweight in snack foods
Exercise

Things I definitely did do:

Work solidly the whole time I was at home until the work was complete.

See…aren’t I good Smile

I think the mistake was becoming half-relaxed.  I knew that if I got out of my work clothes, nothing would get done…so I kept my trousers on, but took everything else off.  Lending itself to this state of half work/half relaxed.

I also couldn’t help thinking of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets to work from home.  Ok, so I wasn’t wearing one of those “big guy” dresses, and my failure to concentrate wouldn’t cause a potential nuclear meltdown and cause me to become a human plug to save everyone…but still…

I suppose on reflection, my innate British fear of being caught doing anything wrong, led my working from home experience to be somewhat dull…

What would you have gotten up to?

Argue much?

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Calm down, calm downIs it bad when your boss starts sending emails that end with things like “Ask them to change it, but try and be nice”?

Sure, I can argue and I can do it pretty well.  At work I can get quite aggressive, which is in direct contrast to what a soft cuddly teddy bear I am outside of work…no honestly.

But my boss has recently started adding lines much like that one to emails…and more recently in direct conversation.  I wouldn’t mind, but he regularly drags me into meetings I have neither the desire nor inclination to attend, specifically so that he can utilise me as some form of verbal weapon in the war against more work heading to our section.

Initially I thought it was as a result of my general knowledge and skills, however, I now realise it is simply because I am an opinionated and obstinate bastard.  Not that I am complaining, it is nice to have members of senior management in fear of me.

My rants are fairly well known in the office and I think that most people just humour me until I inevitably fall back from the ceiling.

The thing is, generally I am not argumentative outside of work.  I can have debates or disagreements, but rarely do I get as vein bulgingly irate as I do at work.  I am not sure why this is, maybe the fear of personal injury is somewhat enhanced outside of work.

I have a philosophy, based entirely on my opinion of myself as reasonably intelligent (read: Not stupid), which centers around the fact that I am right…until you prove me wrong.  I am willing to be proven wrong (sometimes) and in fact openly tell people that if they want to beat me in an argument they just have to be able to backup their facts.  I will then admit defeat and add the knowledge to the future argument munitions dump.

I like winning arguments.  I win a lot of arguments.  I especially like winning unwinnable arguments.  Back in my college days, we had a class entitled “Communications”.  Quite a vague name for a class, but I enjoyed it.  Basically, I discovered really early on that I could start an argument amongst the class, sit back and wait for the lesson to end.  It was here that I found my joy at going for unwinnable arguments.  I am not sure how or why, but some of the guys in the class were talking about cars, one of the guys mentioned how getting anything and driving it above 60mph was pointless due to fuel consumption.  I argued that you may use more fuel, but you get there quicker, so it all evens out.

To qualify the statement, I entered into the ridiculous.  I posited that if a car (for arguments sake) travels 100 miles at 50mph arrives in 2 hours and uses half a tank of fuel, the same car travelling at 100mph will use twice the fuel but arrive in half the time, therefore still only using half a tank of fuel.

It is quite possibly my most favourite argument as it is utter, utter bollocks.

I won, and had 25 other classmates convinced that it was true.

In the same class I argued that the British Armed Forces should pay Poll Tax (The old Council Tax) when away on Aircraft Carriers.  My statement was centered around the fact that another country stepping foot on a British Aircraft Carrier without permission could constitute an act of war.  Therefore, a British Aircraft Carrier is considered to be British soil.  The same argument works for British Embassy buildings and their grounds.  The best part about that argument (which I won btw) is that I disagree with my own argument entirely.

I do this a lot, I argued recently with a Linux fan, from a stance where I really know very little about Linux.  I got the guy so flustered that he couldn’t argue his point.

I could be a politician, but I enjoy telling the truth too much….to tell the truth

In true form, I have no idea where this is heading so let me try and drag it to a succinct and informative close

I am an obstinate bastard

Nuff said

Uncle Fester??

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Christopher Lloyd as Fester in The Addams Family film (1991).So I thought I would explain about the whole “Uncle Fester” thing..Although it could quite easily be about a shaved panda.

Many moons ago I was the main guy responsible for support of an up and coming software company.  When we started having some serious issues.  To cut a long story short, I ended up averaging 21 hours a day, 7 days a week for 9 weeks.

After I collapsed from exhaustion, I have ended up with huge black bags under my eyes whenever I get even slightly tired.  When I get really tired….I look like Uncle Fester.

I just wish I had the clothing style though – I just can’t carry off the goth look unfortunately.

I was a workaholic for a long time and often put work ahead of personal life.  When I was doing this, I managed to convince myself that I was doing it to enable a great personal life.  Bollocks, I was doing it for the praise and success.

For a guy who is skint all the time, its weird that I place more stock in praise rewards rather than financial.  Once again…damn you mind of mine.

More recently I realised that I could work harder during the normal working day and achieve just as much.  Unfortunately this has now managed to kick me in the arse too.  I guess I can’t always win.

Still, a company came a’knocking from Zurich the other day.  You never know, I could end up there in the next couple of months.  If it happens I will be in the land of skiing….meaning I can find new and interesting ways to fuck up my ankle.

Speaking of Switzerland (nice link eh?)…I have been watching the Euro 2008 Championship and am following Spain with particular interest (as are most Liverpool fans I think).  I read somewhere the other day that an English football chant has been converted for just this purpose by a load of Liverpool fans.

Normally we take the “H A P P Y, I’m H A P P Y, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m H A P P Y” song and convert it to “England till I die, I’m England till I die…etc”

The latest conversion seems to be “Spain until July, I’m Spain until July…etc”

Sounds good to me

Viva espagna….or something

SP…the true spirit of Christmas

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No…I will not call it Xmas just to satisfy the PC brigade…

Anyhoo, this is a story about the inimitable SP from many moons ago, it was the 2006 works Christmas party, and, not knowing any better we all tagged along.

Free food, free beer and something resembling free entertainment (Genius really, 90% English speaking contingent….entertainment all in German). On a boat, travelling up and down the Main. We were trapped and forced to consume all that was put before us….and some that was put next to us, behind us and occasionally hidden behind the bar.

The beer had been flowing rather well and a good time was being had by all. When I decided, as a joke, to mix my full glass of red wine into my half pint of lager. One taste revealed just how bad of an idea it was, but still – it was worth a try. The old saying is true, you really shouldn’t mix the grain and the grape.

Further along the table, a somewhat inebriated SP was entrenched in conversation with people and had turned away from his pint. As the evening wore on, he didn’t spot that his beer never seemed to require being replaced, he had obviously found that holiest of holy grails…..a never ending beer glass.

Not noticing the perpetually full nature of his glass was actually the least of his troubles, every time he drank some of his beer PH would top the level back up with white wine. This went on for a looong time, so long that I think he must have drank at least 3 pints of nothing but wine. Every time someone asked what he thought of the beer, they were met with the response that it was pretty good.

This was also the night where we met the lunatic edge that is KT on the dancefloor. More energy than the Energiser Bunny and less control than an incontinent alzheimers patient with a leaking bag and broken zimmer frame. Still, it was fun watching him practically pogo and mosh his way to various strains of Take That and New Kids On The Block, dancing around various corporate types.

Christmas parties are definitely the place to learn about the people you work with…that much is certain.

Confidence is a tricky thing

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So, with some of the stories you have read on here, and certainly for some people that know me…you may think me to be a reasonably confident individual in all situations.

Not so, I have never been confident with public speaking or speaking with the ladies.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have managed to overcome these things to a degree, but I become rooted to the spot, I get very hot and my throat gets dry. It’s weird, I find it a lot easier to overcome this deficiency at work than I do in my personal life.

For example, in my job I am regularly called upon to give presentations or training or take meetings etc…Inside I am going mental, but normally manage to overcome it and do a good job. Outside of work, the fear washes over me and I struggle.

Now, you put me in a situation with friends in an informal setting and I can hold my own at the center of any conversation. You stick me on a stage with the EXACT same group of people in front of me and I freeze.

Which is why my wedding speech consisted of almost passing out before it was due, trying to put it off as “Everyone is enjoying themselves”, an inability to eat and possibly too much beer. Culminating in my award winning “Thanks for coming….Lets get pissed” speech. Yes, I am proud of that myself Oops!

I don’t know what it is that makes people confident or not. When put in a pressure situation, or if I am pissed off…no problem. I guess that is down to distracting myself from what is actually happening.

Now in the past, with the ladies….I have had to find other methods that overcome this hideous fear of rejection. Including trying to employ a small measure of psychology, which surprised me by being reasonably successful when I was a lad. Of course, back then I didn’t have the Uncle Fester thing going on and was fairly popular anyway…so it could have just been that I guess Oops! Still, I put it down to my amazing techniques….and I would share them with you now, but I probably couldn’t handle the ridicule, plus if any of you tried them and failed you would no doubt seek me out and beat me for spreading misinformation and humiliation.

Of course, confidence can kick you in the arse too, and by that I am obviously referring to over-confidence. We get a lot of it at work, NNES (Non-Native English Speakers) that have been working in English for years feel confident in correcting my documentation and have actually argued with me on the correct useage of English words. I wouldn’t mind if they were occasionally right, but having to find a dictionary or real life example to demonstrate that I am correct is beyond belief. I can’t give specific example…or I would have to kill you, or make this thing self-destruct at least……and frankly it had enough of that a few weeks back.

Speaking of over confidence, especially in ones own ability – Have you seen Britains Got Talent, X-Factor, Big Brother or any of these type of reality shows. It may even go back to my last post…how can parents seriously encourage some of these people. They can’t seriously believe that this…

…is talented? Unless the talent is to induce vomiting and blood loss through the ears as some sort of WMD for future wars. Somebody somewhere must have helped this delusion along. Ok, I will admit, if I had been involved in the “development” of this “talent”, I would have been evil and twisted enough to want to get them on a show like this for a laugh.

Gotta love him

Maybe this is where my confidence could be best used, whilst the police and armed forces are looking for

chemical weapons and nukes, I could smuggle William Hung into any country and hold them to ransom….

Pay me 50,000,000 immediately or he starts singing

Genius

Tired and back…sort of

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sleepy raverWell, I am back home and should be back online around the 16th of this month, a little while after they originally said, but not too bad I guess. It will give me the opportunity to get my apartment in order I suppose.

I had a hell of a week, but it was very enjoyable…I got to see the kids, me and Sarah had fun, I saw my family and friends. All was good.

I did NOT enjoy the drives though Frown

Let me break down my travelling, in a form of therapy it may help me understand why my body feels like Mike Tyson has done a number on me.

Tuesday 1st April/Wednesday 2nd April:

06:30 Wake up, get ready etc
07:20 Head to work
16:30 Leave work, wait 30 mins for Lesley to pick me up and go collect the van
17:00 Collect van, head to old apartment to collect last few bits
18:00 Head to new apartment to unload van and collect last bits to go to UK (Forget mirror…sorry Sarah)
18:30 Head to Angelas
19:00 Begin loading van
21:30 Finish loading van – Eat Pizza
22:30 Realise that I need postcode for delivery of Angelas stuff…Angela makes some calls
23:00 Go to bed
00:00 Woke up by Lesley on the phone who…can’t find my fridge…….it’s in a cupboard lol
02:00 Wake up, coffee and ciggy
02:30 Start the drive to Calais
09:00 Arrive at Calais, get asked if I want to get straight on the train – I do Smile
12:00 Arrive in Pagham, unload Angelas stuff
15:00 Arrive in Bournemouth
01:00 Goto bed

Total time awake: 42.5 hours (less 3ish hours sleep)

Thursday -> Sunday

Enjoy time with kids, spend time with family and friends – A few journeys to various places

Monday 7th April/Tuesday 8th April:

07:00 Wake up, have breakfast with kids
08:30 Take kids to school
09:00 Little bit of shopping with Sarah
13:00 Arrive back at Sarahs house
13:30 Build last couple of bits of furniture, setup entertainment units and connect all devices to internet
16:00 Collect kids from school
17:00 Have dinner with kids and Sarah
17:30 Say bye to kids and Sarah, wend my merry way back to Germany
21:30 Arrive at Eurotunnel
22:50 Get on train
06:30 Arrive in Frankfurt
07:00 Hand in van, pay, head home
08:30 Sleep
16:30 Wake up, potter around
20:30 Watch Liverpool batter Arsenal Wink
00:30 Bed

Total time without sleep: 25.5 hours

Sheesh, no wonder I just almost fell asleep in a meeting Confused

It was funny on the way to the UK though, I swear that customs were going to search the van – That is of course until they opened the back door and saw just how full it was…..they quickly decided to let me through. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to cover a 32″ Widescreen TV with an old blanket and put it on the passenger seat of the van – That took some explaining.

Also, I may or may not have forgotten to pack a case for my week away until I had been in bed 2 hours on Monday night. I may or may not have forgotten to get any British currency, and then panicked when the machine in the UK wouldn’t accept my card as it was broken.

Ah well, normal service should be resumed shortly….my apartment looks like someones garage right now, stuff just piled in there Frown

Pick and choose…apparently

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Had a great one yesterday at work. As I have said before, I run a Service Desk and this means that we are responsible for logging all user issues into a ticketing system.

Sometimes we fix them straight away, other times we have to pass them on to other teams. Yesterday, we transferred a ticket to the 3rd level team as there was a serious issue with a users account.

Following investigation, the ticket arrived back in our queue with this comment:

“There was a huge mistake in the creation of this account. Find out who created it and have them fix it!”

Genius…”Ooh, that looks bad, I ain’t doing it”. I wasn’t aware that was an option when you are assigned the task of fixing something. That is of course ignoring the fact that the account was created months ago…

It goes without saying that I gave the ticket back with the message “I don’t care who caused it, just get it fixed…please”, but it strikes me as interesting that this particular support member decided that he wouldn’t work on complicated things today….

I love my job sometimes.

CrashThis will probably be my last post for a while, I move apartments tomorrow and will lose my net connection for a couple of weeks. I am also taking the furniture back to Sarah (and a friend) in the UK next week*, so won’t be posting from work.

Ok, now you have stopped cheering about my inability to tarnish the name of blogging for a while….see you in a couple of weeks Smile

* Frankfurt to Calais – 7 hours, Calais to Folkestone – 40 mins, Folkestone to Chichester – 2 hours (unload some stuff), Chichester to Bournemouth – 1 hour. Spend the night in Bournemouth. Bournemouth to Nottingham – 4 hours (unload the rest). Just call me “White Van Man”