Morning all.
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Good Afternoon Everyone.
Forgot to say Good Morning when attacked with meetings.
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Good morning! Came to wish those with young ones happy Back to School Day, see @Beo already beat me to it 
Good luck Mr & Mrs @Beo!
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Start of G12 for my youngest, one more year then the nest is empty. Daunting prospect when 24 years of my life has been dedicated to my children.
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Afternoon everyone.
Hope it went well @Beo.
@Shrike You can enter a new phase with your children where you transition to adult relationships.
I happen to have 6 schools on my way to work.
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Our one started Grade 2 today. It was an incredibly easy day - he was actually excited and didn’t want us to accompany him to drop-off and help carry the load of stationery. It was a bittersweet moment - proud and sad at the same time. And he has an excellent teacher this year.
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I remember my oldest daughter’s first day Gr1. I had to carry her like a screaming kicking sack of potatoes into the classroom. Once she was in and saw the other kids and the bright pictures on the walls she stopped and was fine.
It will stick in my brain for the rest of my days.
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Morning all.
10 hour fibre maintenance in our area yesterday has now turned into 26 hours of down time. And there’s no indication of when it’ll be back. Very frustrating.
But anyway. C’est la vie. May the road rise, and all that.
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Funny how kids define our lives and you anchor most memories to something that they did / do.
We had the first parent-teacher meeting last night to get introduced to the teacher. We couldn’t have asked for a better teacher. As our son said, he is in the “Lego class”. The teacher has Lego EVERYWHERE in the class. She and her husband are self-proclaimed AFOLs. Her husband teaches coding and robotics at the high school, and she offers extra-curricular coding and robotics classes for grades 2 and 3.
So, we’re entering our son into her after-school classes, above the standard class he has on a Wednesday at school as part of the standard curriculum. The Lego, coding, and robotics are very much aligned with his interests - he’s been saying for the past 2 years he’s going to be an “engineer building robots” one day. He’s also been binging and rewatching Mark Rober’s videos the past couple of months (not that I like the guy all that much - he’s WAY too vain and a little narcissistic).
Might as well start early in developing those skills!
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I am a big advocate for using Lego to problem solve and for critical thinking. One the best creative tools anyone can use to unblock themselves and think outside the box.
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So very true. To this day, she is an adult and when something goes wrong in her life I attribute her choices to the characteristics she had even as a very young child. Probably totally erroneous but that is the way it seems to me.
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Morning everyone
Looooooong week from hell is far from over
Mental Jackass has been pissing people off since he came back from holiday.
and my let it be motto is already struggling. Then I spent all day in Groote Schuur Hospital for our cleaning lady who is 7months pregnant and who was in a taxi accident. At least she was cleared and baba is all good.
I gave her the day off today so yay mefor cleaning since we have a very important client coming today at 4…which means if I am lucky I get to go home at 6
and its for the irritating jackass so he is demanding special pastries for them (3 people and he wants up to R700 in snacks)
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Feeling very demotivated and uninspired today.
On a side note, how accurate you think/feel this data is?
Sauce: Cost of Living in Cape Town. Jan 2026. Prices in Cape Town
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Thats a very interesting website. My friends in Cape Town have been trying for years to get us to move down… But I used a Cape Town vs Ballito comparison now to argue my case for staying.
What that site does not include is a Quality of Life measurement, which I am sure the rebuttal will include 
Luckily the QoL in Ballito is pretty darn high and hard to beat 
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Funnily enough I was looking at rentals in Ballito the other day, and they aren’t far off from local pricing. I have also opened up discussions with my manager about possible 100% remote and a option to moving back to KZN.
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I go into the office once a month or so, so I’m effectively 99% remote. While it sounds great, and we all like not spending the whole day in our cars, there is a great deal of anxiety that comes with not seeing your managers and colleagues face to face often. I make a point of greeting the people I don’t interact with in meetings when I do get to the office, just so they remember I exist.
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I don’t trust any number Numbeo provides. This is the same site that every now and then pops up for claiming that Pietermaritzburg is the most dangerous city in the world.
It turns out, if you look at their methodology page, that this crime index of theirs is 100% self reported. It doesn’t take any actual crime or police stats into account, its purely user driven. If I look at the cost of living calc methodology, it looks a little better, but I can’t trust anyone willing to publish the above drivel.
Also, safety index? It’s 100 - the crime index? Why even have it?! IT SAYS NOTHING!!
Bad stats make my blood pressure go up.
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One hundred percent relate and share this sentiment. Well said (typed).
This is why we are pushing for 50% split - 2 or 3 days in office (if they are at clients then that counts as in office) and we are lienient about what time you come in and go home so that guys dont spend 2 hours one way and 2 hours way back
Also haaaaaaaaaaaai all
I am happily working at the office bascially from 9;30 - 4pmish to avoid the worst of the traffic - my other reasoning is simple - I dont take lunch - so I make a salad and work through lunch - so that is why they are happy with the times and we understand laods of our teams have standups at 9am - they normally come in after that and leave before the worst traffic hits and knowing my devs they work after hours and dont log it
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