Budgetting

I'm grappling with a course assignment at the moment - I have to work out a week's menu for a  family of four with a budget of just over £36. The course I'm on is all about healthy eating, so the menu has to show that even on that low a budget you can eat healthily. I've been working on it for about two weeks now and it's been interesting trying to work out the right balance of meals. It's messing with my head as a vegetarian as I'm recommending meat and fish meals.
This year I have felt the pinch made worse by my guilt for not having earned any money for nearly six years. A few large bills (repairs on the car, repairs to the house due to the rain last year) and it's tipped us over the edge of being comfortable, to having to watch our pennies. But even so, we are not struggling so much that we have to give up all treats - it's relative isn't it what a struggle is for one family compared to another. We treat ourselves with food but we won't be going on a holiday abroad this year (or probably the next). I know that most of our bills are over £40 for food a week and there are only 3 of us. Shockingly, this is with a mostly vegetarian diet and home-cooked meals. I would dread to think what our bill would be if we ate more meat, bought more processed meals and ordered a take out out more than once a month.
As part of the course I've been volunteering on some cooking courses - I come across people who are much less fortunate than me and who are going to struggle even more when the benefit changes come in. It is so shocking that in 21st century Britain, families are starving. The thing is, these are not lazy benefit scroungers. Some are in this position due to the lack of employment, living in areas where there is less choice in terms of food outlets, others due to learning difficulties or mental health issues.
Then there are those that never learnt to cook well - didn't have parents to teach or inspire them. I am grateful that both my parents taught me about food in their own way. I'm obsessive about food - watching lots of shows, poring over recipe books, wandering around supermarkets and markets looking for new foods and for bargains so that I can try something out. I'm lucky.
I hope we don't have any other large bills as I fear it would catapulted us over the edge of being comfortable into the realm of scrimping and I wouldn't be able to feed my obsession which would really mess with my head.

Working from home

So the new CEO of Yahoo Marisa Mayers, wants to stop all working from home. We should applaud her for having a baby and returning to work in no time at all.
Sorry, what was I writing....we should be appalled that she had a baby and returned to work in no time at all! Mind you, I'm sure she has a help with the kid, something that's not available to all people with Yahoo.
Of course, if she improved access to childcare (either onsite or with flexible working) then that's a different matter. Then I would go back to applauding her.
In the days I worked in the technology industry, I used to feel it was something hated by HR staff, or by  managers who didn't trust their staff, or those who felt their importance was measured by the size of their teams and so had to be visible to all (trophy designers...I like that!) were the ones who were not keen on working from home. It doesn't suit all industries nor all people...some people like structure of the office rather than having the  discipline  to work from home. I didn't want to do it all the time as designs ideas benefit from being bounced off colleagues (and even the odd sofware engineers) and yes, I do agree with the Yahoo CEO that a meeting can be a lot quicker when it's done face to face. But when you had to concentrate on something and had to have a deadline to meet, working in an open plan office with constant interruptions was not ideal.
Then there is the costs to think about - transports costs for your staff getting to work or getting to other offices for that face to face meeting, office costs for housing them all, meeting room space that has to be found. I used to resent the travel time to work as it was less time get stuck into work. And at the end of the day, resented the time to get home and have a life. And while meetings can be faster face to face, there is also the lost time wasted  chitchatting which I found did not happen as much in remote working.
I wonder how the policy will play out. I know that HR managers around the world must be dancing with glee in the hope that the policy sticks.

Oh no, Taleo

A few weeks ago, I spent an agonising day filling in a job application using a HR programme called Taleo (talent acquisition system). To say it was painful is an understatement. It's suffers from very poor usability and is very inaccessible to those with disabilities...which is ironic as the post I was applying for was for a Usability and Accessibility specialist. I think part my issues were multifaceted:

1. I needed to fill in the same information in a few different ways. It was annoying. Even when they let you upload your own formatted CV, the system still insisted on a plain text CV. Why enable the former if the system demands the latter?
2. It took a lot of time to fill in all the form boxes. I'm lucky that I was able to take a day to do it - a busier (perhaps more qualified) person would not. I must admit there were a few points where I just decided to jack it in but I kept going
3. According to some reviews I read online, the applicant may be very suitable but if they do not put in the right buzzwords, they will not pass the TALEO phase of applying for the role. Now I realise this is not an issue unique to the TALEO system - even a paper based applications has to contain the right language to appeal to the recruiter.
4. It feels very impersonal - I wasn't sure when, if ever, a human would read my application. Two weeks later I was lucky to receive a rejection email - some companies that use the system do not bother with this courtesy. I am still not overly convinced a human has been involved in that decision but there is no way I will ever know as I never talked to a human about this job.

My biggest issue is that I know after taking 5 years out to raise my child, that it is going to be very difficult to find any job in today's recession, let alone one in design or usability. It was bloody hard when I was single and very single-mindedly driven about my career to get my ideal position. I know in retrospect that when I took the decision not to return to work that I should have kept my hand in doing freelance work. Hindsight is a wonderful thing huh...shame it's not a buzzword that robotic HR personnel deem important.