How hard can it be?

Very, very, impossibly hard.

Mending the screen on my smashed ‘phone, btw.

Finally got my two toolkits (one from abroad, ETA next month so I bought another,UK, set. Both arrived same day*sigh* only a couple of quid, but still)

Yesterday I got finished early so cracked on. The youtube video has him stripping the ‘phone down, peeling off the glass, putting a new one on, job’s a good ‘un.

Bollocks!

It came apart relatively easy but then tore the digitizer screen when I was trying to get the glass off. No worries, I had the replacement sealed unit. That was, upon closer inspection, still attached to part of the frame and the back board upon which are mounted all the electronic gubbins. Except on this they weren’t. So I had the option of trying to remove the screen and use my back board with electronic bit attached or rip all my bits off and hope they just popped back on to the new board. I had no idea how I could do the latter, or if it would work, so I removed the screen and digitiser. Successfully, I might add.

I reassembled it, just as on the video, but somehow the power button had disappeared off the side of the ‘phone. I used a screwdriver to depress the button inside anyway, just to get it to power up. It didn’t. Took it apart, made sure everything was all as it should be, put it back exactly as shown, hit the power. Nothing.

I was thinking I’d been sold a dud screen, it was obviously second hand off a scrapped ‘phone as it still had the back thing on. I took the screen off again to try my old screen and the bloody thing snapped.

That was me, head in hands, cursing roundly, with a dead ‘phone.

I had to run out as soon as the shops opened this morning and buy a cheap smart ‘phone and stick my sim in. I’ve been setting it up today and it’s surprisingly OK. The camera is crap and the memory is tiny (upgraded with an SD card for £10), but for £89 a Kitkat 4.4 ‘Droid is fairly awesome.

This will be my penance for trying to be a clever dick. Leave the techy shit to the techies. I was going to replace my Nexus 5 with another one, sim free, but at £260 that’s a lot of cash to throwing about. Of course, I could have save the £70 for the screen and digitiser, the £10 for the screen, the £89 for the Moto E and the £10 for the memory card, added £80 and bought a new one, but hindsight is 20/20 and screw you. I was trying to do it on the cheap, the video looked simple enough… Bah.

 

Enough depressing, irritating shit.

Other stuff.

I went about that new job with the agency on Monday,

I was apprehensive and wary as befits agency experience. So far it sounds alright. Working for Next who have opened a new distribution centre at the bottom of Cromwell Avenue, about 1.7 miles from my front door.

Days. Mainly Monday to Friday, good pay. I said I wanted something reliable, not the odd shift here and there and the guy said at the minute they are doing month long block bookings.

So I did all the agency signing up bollocks, rafts of paperwork, at the Trafford Centre in Manchester, always a delight to get to on a Monday morning. I went on the bike, but the traffic wasn’t too bad.

Then it got tricky, the guy rang me up saying the assessor was coming down from Scotland for the day, I either had my assessment on Wednesday or not at all. This was Tuesday morning. This is tricky because of the driver’s hours laws. If I’d have driven it would have counted against my driving time. If they’d have then sent me to Maidstone or Southampton I’d have run out of driving hours and they’d have been very miffed that I was cocking the job up driving for someone else.

The long and short of which was me handing in my resignation, effective the same day, yesterday. Ha. Screw ‘em.

It was a crap job.

It did put a bit more pressure on me today, mind. Putting all my eggs in one basket. And then killing my ‘phone. Not a good night’s sleep.

Today I got my ‘phone (yay!) then went to the interview. The guy was fine. Had me drive down through Winwick and back around. Not a problem. He said that it was quite tight to get on to the bays in their yard so if I could just pop it on one…

It wasn’t tight, I chucked it on no problem.

Right, if you can just reverse into that nice open space… Oh, someone’s parked there. Right, put it in that tight as buggery, snug against the wall spot.

Super.

I got it in without too much stress, but I couldn’t believe it. Assessment over, just park up, hardest part of the drive. Typical.

After yesterday’s debacle it was an easy reverse. They sent me to that back street in Manchester again, where the cars park either side of the road and you have to wriggle past them in reverse to get to the bay. Some utter twat had parked at the top of the road where I needed to swing the unit to get the trailer on the bay. I was missing it by an inch while crawling back, when some warehouse guy, who’s heart was in the right place but had no idea how artics work, came out to ‘help’ me. He was looking at the arse end of the trailer and shouting “Loads of room! Come back.” I was busy not smacking the car right beside my cab. Then he walked around the back of the trailer, out of my mirrors!

By this time I was having a sense of humour failure, some idiot making the job harder wasn’t appreciated.

Anyway, it was a wonderful primer for today.

I passed with flying colours and have to return for the proper site induction tomorrow morning.

Cool.

Let’s see what this job is like.

One of the drivers was bantering with the assessor and said to me “you’ll love it here.” Drivers are renowned for always moaning and he had a face like a yard of tripe so I burst out laughing, thinking he was being ironic. “No, you will.”

Bloody hell. I’ve never heard any driver say that.

Fingers crossed.

Eventful times.

Later,

Buck.