The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:01am on Sunday, 6th April, 2025:
Anecdote
Because the university wants a clean break with its volunteers for its severence scheme, we have to sign an agreement to this effect. The university doesn't want to be saddled with law suits alleging unfair treatment while an employee or anything. This is fair enough in my view. However, to make sure that we can't claim not to have known what legal rights we're waiving, we have to engage a solicitor. The university will pay the fees of the solicitor, up to a certain amount. This is also fair enough in my view.
Now, because the university was hoping for something like 200 VSS candidates (I think — it was spoken of in terms of what Surrey's VSS managed), this would be somewhat difficult for individuals to organise within a month. There are maybe 20 law firms in Colchester, few of which have expertise in employment law. The university therefore industrialised the process. They recommended a particular law firm (although we can of course engage a different one if we want), which has set up like a conveyor belt system for holding 20-minute interviews with VSSers.
Because these solicitors charge by 6-minute blocks of time, it's in the university's and client's interest (if not necessarily the solicitors') to automate as much of the process as possible. This actually worked quite well. I received a 3-page summary of work, a 14-page set of terms and conditions, and a 3-page letter of engagement (that I had to sign digitally).
I also had to prove my identity.
Step one: upload a photo of my passport. Not a scan, a photo. Not a photo I took earlier, but a photo I took live, using my phone, paired to my PC. A photo of the passport picture pages, no glare, in focus, nothing intruding on it.
Step two: record a video of myself using my computer's camera. Not one I did earlier, but one taken live. Look at the camera, rotate to show one profile, then rotate to show the other profile.
Step three: upload a photo of my driving licence. I was allowed to use my scanner for this, so I did.
Of these, step one took ages. It turns out it's quite difficult to get a passport to lie flat when open at two pages.
Step two was, surprisingly, a doddle.
Step three was only hard because I couldn't find my driving licence in my wallet. It was hidden behind a coffee shop loyalty card.
With luck, everything I did will be approved on Monday, and I'll be sent a FAQ to read along with a time when I can have my 20-minute interview. If it goes well, I'll sign some paper that says the university will pay my solicitor bill, and I'll be added to the "done" folder.
It's a bit of a palaver, but much better than if I'd had to have organised it all myself.
Hmm, maybe I should take my driving licence out of the scanner now.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).