Elron's Place

Just being thinking about the friends I've lost in my life time, Sam Mcdonald, Simon Allonby and Dan Gardner. No matter where you are, what you do or whatever you believe in please make sure you enjoy your life. I hope Sam did, I know Simon's last 6 months were good and everyone who knew Dan knows he did. Make sure you don't go to bed angry and when you wake up you have something to look forward to. If you don't enjoy your life then find something to do you do enjoy and bugger what the rest of the world thinks. If you hate your job then find one you don't hate, not everyone can find a job they love but at least find one that doesn't make you feel ill as soon as you wake up in the morning. I have been there and a change in job affects your entire life. If you can't change it due to circumstance then make sure it isn't the focus of your life see it as something you have to do so you can live and enjoy spending time with, family, friends or your partner.
If there is anyone reading this who needs help to enjoy there life and there is anything I can do then please message me, be it a sofa to crash on or someone to talk to, I was able to be there for Simon when he needed someone and that made all the difference to him and me. I am so thankful to him for the number of chances he gave me, he may of had his issues but I could have been there for him more then I was and I am glad I was able to make it up to him in that last 6 months.
I know most of you won't care about me expressing these thoughts, you have bigger worries, but just stop and think for a second. Is there anyone in your life who needs help, in any way. Could you help them and have you been ignoring them? Be it your best friend or the man next to the corner shop who begs for change. Helping someone can change their life and will help you to enjoy yours, therefore helping yourself as well.

With the rise in unemployment there has also been a rise in opportunities for Scam Artists; three times now I have been targeted by these miserable dregs of society and luckily being a pessimistic person I have managed to escape being caught out each time. Never has the old adage, if it is to good to be true then it probably is, rung truer and I hope to goodness that everyone who gets targeted has the presence of mind to Google these thieves before they hand over their bank details or any cash.
Most recently I was targeted by Computrain-uk (not to be confused with the Houston based CompuTrain) who offered me a job as an IT Engineer that I had supposedly applied for, if I could get through their stringent interviewing process. Recently I have being applying for jobs in the IT sector so I was tricked for a while and agreed to a second telephone interview. However the guy emailed me to confirm the date and time of the second interview and when I picked up on the company name I was suspicious. After some quick web browsing my suspicions were confirmed, it seemed that the job offer was non other then a carrot dangled to make me take the running leap into their money trap. They offered, as far as I can tell, legitimate Microsoft Certified qualifications with a guaranteed job at the end or your money back. Even that sounds tempting until you look at the facts: the jobs they were offering were fake, the "getting your money back" is next to impossible due to small print clauses and a lack of any British address to track them down to and the qualifications themselves are fairly redundant these days and will only get you a very low level IT job, if one at all. I came across numerous forum posts cursing this company to high heaven and discovered that they were actually a Dutch based company. With new eyes I went over their website with a fine tooth comb as well as that of their sister company CompuCareers. I  was disgusted by my findings, their website was OK except for the lack of any contact details, only an 0845 number, however their sister website was atrocious with no jobs posted since the beginning of 2009 and no contact details either, as well as a fake British Gas advert - the website was just bad.
I attended the online interview anyway just to see what they had to say: it was neither stringent or an interview, instead it was a blatant sales pitch, trying to get me to buy their training and when I challenged them about the state of their websites and the lack of up to date job posts they were rendered fairly speechless and ended the call quickly.
These Scam Artists achieve their goals by exploiting peoples' hopes and trusting natures, using them to shield themselves and add a fine gloss to there own shoddy work. So I hope if you are targeted by such people be cautious, look behind the lies and amazing offers as well as the friendly guy/girl who contacts you and see them for what they really are, low life scum who aim to make a quick buck from your misery. I am glad I wasn't caught out and aim to raise awareness about these cheating, lying individuals so that others aren't either. The one big thing to take from this is if it sounds too good to be true, then Google, it probably is.