What is it that you do again?

I am sitting here in a very long conference call, pondering the old and the new.  I work in a technological world, and my mobile phone and with my laptop, via email, instant messaging, phone conferences and web conferences, I am able to do my job sitting at a little desk temporarily setup in my bedroom.  Prior to sitting in my bedroom, I sat at the dining room table, and was observed by, and had conversations with, the builders.

Now, theirs is a proper job; you use a shovel and a little skid-steer digger to make a hole; you fill it up with concrete, bricks and stones; you rip out old stud partitions, ceiling plasterboard and associated insulation (or to be precise, what the previously builder laughingly call insulation, because the handkerchief in my pocket offers more); you sit three abreast in your van as you arrive and leave.  Now, I am not paranoid by nature, even if the b@stards are talking about me, but I have to say that they really must be wondering what the hell it is I actually do.  All I do is sit around all day on the computer, spend half the day on the phone, often looking out the patio doors to see what is going on with the building work, and there is not a hole dug or filled up in sight.  I have to say I have some sympathy with them, because on my darkest days I do ponder pretty much the same thing myself.

And what with Starfleet announcing another round of consultation, from which often flows voluntary and then involuntary redundancy.  We are still feeling the real effects of the last round, and so there is a slight cloud of doom floating above our heads.  At this stage, I am not so worried about my own position, however if I am one of those left after people are taken out of the business, then I do wonder what kind of organisation that would be.  Things seem hard enough right now with the lack of resource; the thought that this could get worse does not bear thinking about.  So I won't.