test please delete

[ladymuck]

I take a photo of them as I buy things - same as you would do for expenses.

Yes there is still a slight argument in the shop but it's not like you have zero evidence.

What I've found recently though is that I think something is x years old and then discover when I go and doublecheck its x+y years old - and is therefore time served.

I'm fastidious about receipts for expenses but totally the opposite for home purchases.

[ladymuck]

I remember repairing a Dualit toaster for a chap in work.

I spent many happy hours burning shedloads of receipts kept by Strangelove Mater.

I may have mentioned previously the two spikes kept in the pantry that had receipts going back to the 1920s.

Apparently it's quite simple to replace the elements and they also have a workshop in Sussex you can post things to for repair.

Their top troubleshooting tip is to prewarm the elements so I'm going to give that a try to see if it improves performance.

[NickFitz]

Quite a busy morning, but mainly Teams chat relating to the thing I'm working on rather than any actual work on it. Although it's a fairly standard thing within the department, it's not properly documented anywhere how to go about making it from beginning to end. So the consultancy want me to document the process, partly to help other people who need to do it, partly because it'll make them look good in the eyes of the department which helps with getting future work

I popped out for my prescription, slightly later than planned because of said chats, and found the recycling bins had been done; so that's been trundled back in, then the walk walked, the prescription collected, and the green ring closed

And once back, lunch was a bowl of chicken, tomato and lentil soup with wholemeal bread

Now I'm settling down to watch a one-hour video I've been sent which is one of the few sources of truth about Building the Thing. I could watch it at my desk, but I'm going to AirPlay it to the Apple TV instead so I can sit in my armchair; after all, it is Friday

[eek]

Quite a busy morning, but mainly Teams chat relating to the thing I'm working on rather than any actual work on it. Although it's a fairly standard thing within the department, it's not properly documented anywhere how to go about making it from beginning to end. So the consultancy want me to document the process, partly to help other people who need to do it, partly because it'll make them look good in the eyes of the department which helps with getting future work

I popped out for my prescription, slightly later than planned because of said chats, and found the recycling bins had been done; so that's been trundled back in, then the walk walked, the prescription collected, and the green ring closed

And once back, lunch was a bowl of chicken, tomato and lentil soup with wholemeal bread

Now I'm settling down to watch a one-hour video I've been sent which is one of the few sources of truth about Building the Thing. I could watch it at my desk, but I'm going to AirPlay it to the Apple TV instead so I can sit in my armchair; after all, it is Friday

+1 - I'm sure the biggest (and most important) brownie points I get is from working out what needs to be documented and then just getting on and doing a first draft with instructions that future people need to follow them and add any changes / improvements that they wish to make.

And these documents aren't complex (but can be long) as they are usually screenshots with comments as to how to get to the next step.

[ladymuck]

I love documenting 'how to' type guides. It's something I often wondered if I could ever make a proper living out of but it never seemed to materialise that way.

[vetran]

I love documenting 'how to' type guides. It's something I often wondered if I could ever make a proper living out of but it never seemed to materialise that way.

Doesn't pay well.

My sister is an award winning technical author she wrote how tos and instructional manuals for household names. salary topped out at £45k. She moved to Sales for more cash.

[eek]

I love documenting 'how to' type guides. It's something I often wondered if I could ever make a proper living out of but it never seemed to materialise that way.

Mrs Eek now has to suffer a new core software package. Beyond the fact I offered to help with procurement (for free, as all I wanted in return was an easy life which they didn't take me up on) they now have a completely unsuitable and unusable system - which is made worse as no one has documented how to do things.

Worse because of the way it works - documenting it is impossible as it's all running on VMs in a cloud to which they connect from an remote desktop in the first place

Strangely the very poorly paid IT post my wife jokingly suggested I apply for isn't on my to do list of possible future career paths.

[eek]

Doesn't pay well.

My sister is an award winning technical author she wrote how tos and instructional manuals for household names. salary topped out at £45k. She moved to Sales for more cash.

Yep - there is zero money in writing. The only reason I do it is because I've got the process down to a very fine plan of screenshot, add to document move to next stage. In reality I could simplify it even further and probably will be writing a script to take a set of screenshots and add them sequentially to a word document to which I can then just add the text round the edges.

Edit to add - I suspect it wouldn't be quicker doing the latter approach but may be less obvious if that was a requirement.

[ladymuck]

Yeah I know it doesn't pay well, which is why I've never properly pursued it. But I do tend to stick my oar in and offer it out when I can as it's always a nice little add-on as eek and NF have both alluded to.

Returning to Heathrow the last time was fun when one of the permies (a) thanked me for doing such a thorough job of documenting their key system and (b) complaining that because I'd done such a thorough job it had become their job to maintain it when there were system changes because it had become the system bible.

That made I very happy

[ladymuck]

Ooh! Lupin is back on Netflix!