Work, work, work

Apparently, last Friday was Work your Proper Hours day.

This is one of those subjects, like smoking and hunting, that everyone seems to have a strong view on. You are either for or against it, you either do it or you don't and having a day to "celebrate it" - like National Non Smoking day - is probably not going to change your attitude or behaviour.

Personally, I can't remember a time when I worked my "proper hours", apart from when they coincided with the hours in which I could actually work. e.g. the hours when the shop was open.

[But retail staff probably can't even do that anymore, unless they do 16 hour shifts or longer, I guess.]

And its never bothered me. Perhaps like a lot of people, I just work to get the job done because I enjoy what I do.

But equally, if I ever feel I need a break from work, I just take it. And this is more likely to do with someone or something that has really annoyed me to the extent that I adopt the "flight not fight" mentality - than with the hours I have worked. I'll just shuffle my commitments around so I can leave work early or go in late until I feel ready to cope with the situation again. No big deal.

What I did find interesting was the article in the Guardian which said that, according to new research, public sector staff work longer hours than their city counterparts.

Having worked in both the public sector (for 8 years) and now a city-type organisation for the past 7 years, I find this laughable.

For a start, most public sector workers I knew then and now get paid overtime. Or if its not overtime, its flexitime. Whereas city businesses, like the one I work for, pay no overtime at all apart from to junior staff. So public sector workers often have an incentive to claim longer hours.

I can't recall any public sector colleagues, apart from some schoolteachers I know, ever working weekends doing unpaid overtime. However, I have known loads of city workmates who have spent Sundays travelling to get to their place of work for the next week - unpaid of course.

And when I think back to my public sector days, I probably worked just as many hours as I do now. Except that I got credit for the extra hours in the form of flexitime, which equated to around 6 extra weeks, yes weeks, a year holiday!

Which meant 6 weeks of not working - as opposed to 6 weeks' of extra hours simply given to my city employer.

Public sector workers work longer hours? Next, they will be saying that chocolate doesn't actually make you fat.

Free tours on International Tourist Guide Day

According to the BBC London web site, this weekend is International Tourist Guide Day.

Just like guides around the world, London's Blue Badge guides will be kicking off free walks around London on the hour every hour from 10am to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. Their walks usually cost around £5 per person, I think.

Walks will mainly start from mainline train stations such as Kings Cross, Waterloo, Liverpool Street and Victoria.

For more information, check out the Blue Badge Guides web site.

Sounds like fun. Might even have a break from my family history research and do one of these walks myself.

The family records centre

I have recently started documenting and digging further into my family history (10 convicts and counting).

Many of my ancestors came from England and so when I read that the Family Records Centre in Islington, north London was holding a free family history talk, I took the opportunity to go along to it.

After encountering the modern day Dick Turpin (in the form of Westminster parking inspectors), I found my way into the centre. - Tip 1: if you are going, either go by public transport or be prepared to pay £6.50 to park in the NCP parking centre near Bowling Green Alley.

So what does the centre hold? Basically, the ground floor contains shelves and shelves of big books listing births, deaths and marriages that have been registered in England and Wales from 1837. And loads of people pouring over them.

And the first floor contains things like census records, held either in microfilm, microfiche or on computers. And loads of people peering into them.

Its a place where time has been documented yet also stands still. You can lose yourself for hours among all the records. Tip 2: before you go there, have a bit of an idea of what you are looking for and take some basic information with you. Great grandmother's possible birth years, the names of the people who once lived in your house 100 years ago, whatever. This helps you to make the most of your visit, in my view.

I didn't manage to find any specific records to help fill in the gaps in my family history, but I did eliminate some possibilities. I now know that poor Emily May, whose husband James Wall died when she was only 25 years old, didn't die in the ten years that followed his death in 1904.

So I guess she got remarried - sigh, time to go back to the Family Records Centre again, when I have more information.