gosh...isn't it getting better all the time.....not

[BAJR]

11 hr days @ basic rate.

I must be slipping... I missed that... (I think I got distracted with another! ) anyway.. I am on this the morrow.

The rates will get you over 520 quid a week (as I read it) but I will check

As I have said before.. check and ask when applying.... also the Work Time Directive does give you the right to refuse. - but hey.. there you go.

I stress the advert is legal. - I will jsut check a couple of things.

[Dirty Boy]

I think inter-personal skills are part of the skill set, but all merits have to be weighed and balanced. Somebody who never gets the knack of seeing features, but is really, really, really nice or married to the director doesn't belong on site. Nor does the super excavator who pulls a knife on anyone who looks at them funny. But that wasn't really the point I was making in my usually badly spelled way.

If nobody knows why X and Y fell all those years ago, maybe it's better just to really read the cv, interview Y and if they don't sound like the demon spawn hire them. People change, too. There's no law that says you have to employ them perpetually if they turn out to be rubbish. For all we know X and Y might've fallen out over a girl in uni. Wouldn't that be a stupid thing to stymie a career for?

Completely agree trowelmonkey.

There is also the converse of this issue though. Checking the CV, skills set and experience is very important but it does get tiring seeing people who shouldn't be on an archaeology site continue to get work because no-one ever checks a reference! With that comes the proviso that people can bring their game up over time, and that a bad reference from one person doesn't tell the entire story, and should be checked against a phone interview.

[BAJR]

Absolutely.

[brazier]

All this insecurity (interpersonally or otherwise; real and imagined) stems from the "scramble" for digging (the majority but not exclusively all of the) work, so often advertised with a week's notice or less to deadline - can't be healthy for decision-making - Pavlovian, but the nature of the beast - nothing happening nothing happening oh god tons of work landed on someone's desk and need for people yesterday....no time to check refs...? no time to interview...? odd process.... And what with the spectre of economic downturn of Seventh Seal proportions haunting the landscape it's brilliant that firms keep people digging at alll. Good on the unions, and I hope the professional body takes the RICS as its model of professionalisation; ADS and OASIS and all others, combine them all into one excellent cornucopia of information, charge your members a higher fee to gain secure access to this, provide a fund for those fallen on hard times (why not, it's not beyond the capacity of the profession, though its numbers be small) and basically let the employed and self-employed work in the knowledge their jobs, rents, even mortgages are not so insecure as they look. It can work? Just break through some of those ATHENS barriers (rather shocking so much info can't be accessed without being of a certain status - and odd how some of that info can be accessed through your humble lending library's card's code....!) and get the academic work available too in the cornucopia. Considering the mine of info here BAJR what about getting this professionalisation pushed?

[Dinosaur]

Can't help concluding, having read all the above, that maybe it's better putting stuff out as 'grey literature' rather than submitting it to journals which then become the province purely of university types? - could all this restriction of information to e-subscribers explain why various journals I used to use (as paper copies) in Durham Uni library (which has an amazing collection of obscure regional journals etc by the way) seem to disappeared off the shelves? - although I'm guessing the Winchester Lankhills report has just been knicked by a student whatever the computer catalogue says....:face-crying:

[Jack]

...............Because so little value is placed on the quality of work compared to its quanity and conformity, and because Authority generally judges on 'charecter' ratehr than archaeological performance, it is easy for Dissent to be suppressed and good work buried.

I wonder at who you've been working for (OBVIOUSLY RHETORICAL - dont mention names) to have such a low opinion of employers.

I can't speak for others, but I try to be fair. When choosing a team, I look for a mixture of experienced diggers and keen inexperienced diggers. Teamwork is often important, but even the most cranky hermit can still work as part of a team (often on a lonely trench!). Aspects of some peoples personalities make them unemployable however, threatening other team members, indecent exposure and lying to hide their inexperience, then making stuff up that just isn't there spring to mind. As does terminal laziness or unwillingness to even pick up a mattock - a lady digger once said to me, i'm not using a mattock, thats mans work!

The archaeological world is a small one, its very easy to find someone who knows someone, and as we all love to moan and gossip, so word gets around. BUT, I always give everyone the benifit of the doubt.....until they prove me wrong - I once caught an 'experienced' digger re-drawing a plan of a feature in the site hut (some 20 min walk from the site) to make it more circular. I could never understand why, they just rubbed it out, then re-drew it freehand! When I checked it against the feature, they'd got it right first time! This was the last in a long line of unacceptable behavior, meaning I told my manager that I didn't want that person on my team anymore.

[Odinn]

...no time to check refs...?

There is always time to check references. All it takes is a phone call once you have your shortlist. The problem comes when the referee is not entirely honest about the reference. That's the point at which you wind up with the poor quality staff because someone else wants rid of them.

[Odinn]

Teamwork is often important, but even the most cranky hermit can still work as part of a team (often on a lonely trench!). Aspects of some peoples personalities make them unemployable however, threatening other team members, indecent exposure and lying to hide their inexperience, then making stuff up that just isn't there spring to mind. As does terminal laziness or unwillingness to even pick up a mattock - a lady digger once said to me, i'm not using a mattock, thats mans work!

I totally agree with this last bit. A person with poor interpersonal skills and no ability to work as part of the team can easily disrupt that team, at which point everyone else starts working less well. Then you lose time and money sorting the issues out, just because they want to "express their individuality" or are too busy "fighting the man", which can lead to the archaeology getting done less well and everyone getting pissed off. It affects everyone negatively and is neither useful nor helpful. I have seen it happen too often. In my experience the best diggers have generally been those that are enthusiastic about the archaeology and want to learn more. This positive attitude leads to them being more willing to work as part of the team and not to the realm of cranky hermitdom. I'm sure there are exceptions, but I cannot think of any from the past twenty years at the moment.

[Dinosaur]

....I once caught an 'experienced' digger re-drawing a plan of a feature in the site hut (some 20 min walk from the site) to make it more circular. I could never understand why, they just rubbed it out, then re-drew it freehand! When I checked it against the feature, they'd got it right first time!....

Don't worry, there used to be a major site director for a major unit who used to spend his evenings and weekends in the site cabins 'improving' the site plans in a slightly more severe way than you're describing - my parting gift was engraving all my drawings with a 12H and then filling the grooves with 2B so that they looked like normal site plans, but.... }

[Oxbeast]

Was he MIfA:face-stir:?