And . . . relax

Another week over.  Potential new job not yet sent out a formal offer, so I am in a holding pattern waiting for it to come through.  In the meantime, there has been an internal article on NN painting it not in the best of lights, which, I have to say, put the willies up me slightly.  I have since had a chat with an ex colleague who works at NN, to find out what it is really like, and he was able to confirm that it is a "nicer" place, that it is not so different from Starfleet, and that the work/life balance challenge is probably about the same there as here.

So not totally one thing or another really.  I also touched on job security, and again, NN is not so different to Starfleet, with routine announcements of job cuts happening alongside recruitment drives.  In truth, this is about (to quote a rather hideous phrase presumably thought up in the HR dungeons)  "de-layering", or to be less euphemistic, getting rid of the commoditised roles and dead wood, and adding to the fine young men and women further up the tree.  So, not sure that I am really any further forward in my overall assessment except that, there as here, the trick is to be climbing up the slippery pole quicker than the redundancy water is rising.

At home, we have the cup final on Sunday.  The team have not had training for a week and a half, so very much need it tomorrow, in readiness for the game, which is midday on Sunday.  Weather permitting, should be fun.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

Saving money

I have just rung my broadband provider, since they have put my bill up mid-contract, and the rules dictate that this allows me to cancel if I am not happy.  Today, therefore, I rang to "cancel".  I would have done it actually, since another provider can do a better deal, however the nice lady on the phone was in a benevolent mood and she was able to give me a sizeable discount on my current bill to stay with them, this one including free* calls to mobiles too, which will contain our costs nicely.

Sorted.

We are also "saving it large" (as I think the young people like to say on the corners of the streets on which they like to meet to sing songs and swap football cards) with our new Sparks card.  Oh yes, we know how to live.



We have a fab day in London on Wednesday, meeting up with Brad and Angelina.  We went up the eye, ate food and visited the market at Covent Garden, stopping only to watch a very entertaining magician.

=======================================
* I know, there is nothing for free in this world.

And . . . definitely time to relax

Another busy week at work.  We are due a big decision next week about my day job, not for me personally, but for the team, and I guess for Starfleet.  Will they, won't they?

On a personal-business level, I have only been and gone and done it.  I have verbally accepted an offer, which needs to be put in writing both ways before I can raise it with my manager, a process that I am, quite naturally I think, itching to start.  Then there will be the mandatory three months of notice to work, for which I have decided that, to quote an old cliche, as life is handing me some lemons, I plan to make lemonade, so my approach is going to be to go out with a bang (you never know what I might need in the future), and spend this time as three months of concerted and diverse personal education.  It will be tough; there will be tears, but it will be worth it.

I should therefore hopefully be starting at NeverNever early February.

After a hectic month or two, I have also decided to try stay off the beer until Christmas.  I could do with a break, and goodness knows I could do with the calorie reduction to kick start my weight loss campaign (which, not to tell tales, was meant to start when I got back from holiday in the Summer).  Time will tell quite how successful I have been, but I would like to try.  We all love a trier.

I now start nine days away work, having all next week off.  There is no sport this weekend for the Maggots, so it is likely to be off to the car showrooms to start planning for a car purchase, for what will be the first car I have ever actually owned.  I know, fifty-one, and never owned a car.  All rather exciting, but also rather nerve-racking, since I now not only need to do water for the washers, oil if I remember and that diesel thing, I will now have to contend with tax, insurance and servicing.  I am looking at it as all part of the growing process.  Others have been less kind.

I hope you have a good weekend, and speak next week.

And . . . relax

Fairly busy week.  Second interview on Tuesday.  Was not sure how well it went overall; he did a lot of talking, which saves me having to do it, but the little he did ask of me, I was not sure that I actually gave the best of answers to his questions. I have learnt that such a reaction to an interview can be either really good, or really bad.  In this case, it was really good, because the HR person, who I met after my interview and seemed like a very nice chap, rang me the next day to make me an offer.

This offer was not what it needed to be, so I made a counter-offer, and I am just waiting for him to come back to me.  I probably need to consider my BATNA too.

At home, we have our usual sport-filled weekend, but with a meal at ours for our friends Saturday night, which should be great fun.  Sammy has a cup game Sunday, which I rather enjoy, so other than having to get up too early, that will also be fun.

Have a great weekend, speak next week.

And . . . relax

Work has been fairly steady.  As I said previously, I have just migrated to Starfleet's new web-based email system, which is meant to "reinvent the inbox", and I have to say that, for me, it really has.  I am liking it very much and continuing to be more organised and have less stuff queued up in my inbox.

I am also having a second interview for an external role.  The first interview was by phone, and it went very well I thought, and I think the other side must have thought something similar to call me back to a face-to-face second interview, where I need to take all manner of documentation and proofs (hmm, is that a word?) of identify, which may be standard practice, but certainly feels encouraging.

The question will be whether I actually want the role.  All I can say is that my gut feeling so far is good, and that the prospect of leaving my current employer after 13 years of service (17 with my TUPE entitlement) does not fill me with any fear, in fact it rather excites me, so if you should go on such things, all is positive.  The real sticking point may well be the spondoolicks.  Can they make it financially appealing enough to entice me out of my slippers?  Time will tell.

On the home front, we celebrate Maggot 2's tenth birthday.  This is some achievement, not for him, but rather for us putting up with him.  Only joking*, he has been a pleasure to get to know, and his drive to independence and self-reliance is ahead of schedule in some areas (he acts like he is twenty), and perhaps a little behind in others (he is a lazy tike who likes to be waited on and to have as many strokes as we are prepared to give him), but I guess it is all our fault, and he has a few years yet to iron out the wrinkles.

We have a family party tonight, having had the friend party last week (four  hours of football, FIFA15 and climbing our trees), and the rest of the weekend is the usual sport-packed two days, with an evening and David and Samantha's on Saturday, which is well overdue and much looked forward to.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend.  Speak next week.  Probably.

==========================
* as I have often said, never let the truth stand in the way of a good story

And . . . relax

Another week over.  Not that much to report.  I have a new email system.  Not such astounding news I hear you cry, and you are right, and wrong.  This is "email reinvented", and it really is changing the way I work, for the better.  I am basically aiming for "inbox zero", and am using the various workflow and task management features to achieve this.  It is bizarre, but I am really enjoying using it to manage my work.


At home, we are wresting with a much more serious problem, that we are invited out on Saturday night, when ENGLAND PLAY WALES IN THE WORLD CUP.  Do people not know there is rugby on.

I think I am going to start to rub down the woodwork in the utility room in preparation for glossing.  That will start in the afternoon, with the mornings taken up with the usual sporting obligations, with the addition of drumming lessons for Maggot 1.  LO is also away for a few hours, visiting the site that will host her school's Year 6 away-day trip, so it will just be us lads until mid-afternoon.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

Better late then never

I just plain forgot.  To blog, that is. It may be seen is a sign.  Or it may just be something else altogether.

We had a good weekend.  Maggot 2's team won 4-2 against a local team who, in the closed season, beat us 4-0, so it was with some satisfaction that the final whistle blew.  And when it did blow, I got a further small insight in to the machinations of junior football.  The ref was provided, as is standard protocol, by the home team, and he managed to make 3 minutes at the end of the match last for 9 minutes, presumably in the hope his team could close the gap.  Our dads, certainly those who have been on the scene for a while, were very vocal, since apparently this particular ref has defied the space-time continuum in the past.  Anyway, we won, after a shaky start, and the victory was very much enjoyed by all.  The opposition team, according to Maggot 2, were not so sporting during the post-match handshakes, employing all sorts of "intimidating" actions, such as sqeezing hard, banging shoulders, and for three of the team, crying a lot.  It is going to be a long season.

Otherwise, we did not do much.  We had A&E over for dinner Saturday night, and as is often the case with our sociable friends, we perhaps over-indulged in the social juice, so Sunday was, after football, a bit of a washout.

I did manage to watch some rugby over the weekend, and now am definitely a Japan supporter.  What a magnificent game.  With time over at the end of the match, and a penalty awarded to Japan, they could have kicked, and drawn the game, but oh no, they chose to scrum, twice I think, before then ran in a try to win the game.  Such audacity, such sound belief in their abilities, and a great never-say-die attitude.  Can't wait to see more of that.  It is going to be a long, but very enjoyable, six weeks.

I hope you had a good weekend, and have a great week.

The sun is still shining . . .

I am very much enjoying what is probably now officially Autumn sunshine.  I suspect it will not last, so all we can do is enjoy it while it does.

On the work front, nearly all my team are back from holiday, so that means that we are at the start of getting back in control of our group's workstack.  There is always a bit of a lag while the bronzed returners pickup their work and make progress, but we are getting there.

My potential new job seems to be fading in to the sunset.  Or so I thought.  It started with a conversation with my manager, a person who does not really manage me*, suggested that these are "tough times" and he would resist any departures from his area.  It ended with me having a chat with "my new boss", and he was a bit more chipper on the whole subject.  I learnt from other sources that one of my colleagues, someone who I worked with when I first started my role, someone who works in the same office area as "my new boss" and knows him well.  It seems she may have been offered one of the roles, which makes sense since she is more of a known entity.  I happen to know she is caught up in the same "no departures" issue.

Knowing she has been offered a role gives me hope, that there is something tangible out there, and also slightly concerns me, someone else already has the role I want.  As always, things move mysteriously as well as slowly, and if I have learnt anything, and the jury may well be out on that, it is that you cannot force the rhythm of someone else's process, least of all in a large corporation that exists in its own space-time continuum.

At home, we are trying to get used to normal life.  This weekend is a fairly normal one, football, tennis, football, but with the addition of a family party for my father-in-law, who is seventy.
Maggot 2 is loving his new room.  I am likely to be given my Autumn Schedule of tasks, which will include, amongst other things, replacing the silk with gloss in the utility room, which equates to three doors, my favourite, although one is a sliding door, and not quite worked out how I will paint the hidden bit yet.  I suspect getting it off its rail is the only option, but time will tell.  I will also do the skirting and two windowsills as well, just so the whole lot is done.

Anyway, that is me.  Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

===================
* Google "matrix management" to get a view on what this means

And . . . relax

I have had some fun at work, and son anti-fun.  These have appeared at each end of my week, separated by a Wednesday, because as any physicist worth her salt knows, if you mix fun and anti-fun you end up in Scunthorpe.

That reminds my of the old "Acrington Stanley, who are they?" advert.


At home, we have finished decorating Maggot 2's bedroom, which is looking lovely, so lovely in fact that a smile almost broke out on Maggot 2's face, something the teen police are investigating as a potential case of excessive exposure of teenage joy.

We have a wedding this weekend, just for adults, starting with a "quiet" couple of beers and a curry tonight, and all day tomorrow from 2pm.  I am even wearing a tie, which does not sit well with me, but a necessary evil to gain access to all the free drink.

Maggot 2 has football training Saturday and a "friendly" match on Sunday, against the team now named as our number one nemesis.  Let's call them The Team Who Cannot be Named.  We are due a win, and after last week's positive showing (by effort if not score) against the team who will likely be top, or near the top, of the league this coming season, we hope to give The Team Who Cannot be Named a right tonking.

If the weather stays fine, I may even cut the grass.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

And . . . relax

We are currently decorating Maggot 1's bedroom.  This is something of a "coming of age update" in that we are changing it from a child's to a teenager's bedroom.  So it is both satisfying to get it looking clean and new, and touching to be setting him up for the next phase of life.  I have also stated to anyone who will listen that this is it now until he leaves for Uni, when we will be renting it out before he thinks to come back*.

So, out is the mid-sleeper bed, currently on eBay, and in comes a "normal" bed, a wardrobe with hanging space** and a desk for homework.

The decorating itself has been as bad as it gets.  Our house, built around 1900, is of solid-wall construction, actually it does have a very small cavity according to a neighbour, though it behaves a lot like a solid wall building, which means that the inside walls need to "breathe".  Lining paper and silk emulsion on Maggot's 1 walls, combined with some external cracks***, meant some crumbling of plaster.  Removing the lining paper also removed, in plenty of places, small or large bits of plaster, so we have had to strip it right back, fill and sand, paint a scratch coat, fill and sand again as the paint shows up all the imperfections, and finally paint again. 

Maggot 1 wants a feature wall on the only internal wall, so the three external walls are now painted with white matt (the same as the ceiling), and the ceiling and three walls have taken 7.5 litres of white paint.  We have done four coats I think, but that is a massive amount of paint for what is a normal sized room.  The end result is very pleasing.  The worst wall will need some remedial work in 3-6 months I think, but overall it it is looking great.

As for the feature wall, Maggot 1 had originally set his heart on a metalic blue paint we saw in a DIY shop, but that is obviously so popular that we cannot find it anywhere.  He has gone instead for wallpaper, a white brick-effect paper that will give it the New York Loft effect, which, combined with the Plumen light fitting, will make it just right.

Maggot 2 has a football match tomorrow, but other than that, it is time at home for the whole weekend, finishing the room so that we can build and install the furniture and clear out the library, currently chocka block with stuff.

Have a great weekend, speak next week.

===========================
* Only joking son
** now that he has shirts and blazers
*** which you may recall we fixed last Summer with a marathon cutting out of cracks with a grinding disk, filling in the mess we made, and and re-painting with several coats of masonry paint, a job that took most of the Summer

Now I need to relax a bit less

I am now at the end of my first week back at work after two weeks away.  It is always hard to return, what with the inbox overload, the "do I give a wotsit?" feeling and "wow, doesn't the real world go fast".

We had a most fantastic holiday.  Our accommodation was a static caravan, perhaps a "lodge" may be nearer the mark.  It was compact, but had everything we needed, including air-conditioning, which was very welcome on may occasions.  The lodges were fairly crammed in, certainly more than the online images had suggested*, but once we were in, as is usually the case, we got fairly comfortable with both our lodgings and our surroundings.  We had a table and 3 recliners on the decking, and a barbeque in our "front yard".
The main draw was being 1 minute from the beach.  We spent most of the first week on the beach, and most of the second weekend split 50/50 between the pool and the sea.

We snorkeled, we swam, we played volleyball, beach tennis and read**.  We ate pizza, drank 1664, and visited a number or excellent places, including Montpellier, Pezanas, Sete and Carcassonne.  We all got tanned.  Three of us got a little burnt***, but not too bad.  My legs, which started three shades whiter than the whitest colour known to man, even got a little colour, though if I am being honest, it is hard to tell.

Overall, it was just what we wanted.  It was not perfect, but as time went by, we did not want it to end.

Our journey down was horrendous.  We booked the tunnel about six months ago.  Good value, quick to get to France, just what we wanted.  On the day, however, Project Stack was in action, so we took an hour and a half extra to get there, and were delayed around an hour at the terminal, but we did get over to the other side without too much pain.

We then hit all the traffic, which added a further three hours to the journey.

Our hotel, half way, was very nice.  A local, one-off hotel, but neat, tidy, clean and good value.  It was in Bourges, which turned out to be a lovely town, full of interesting architecture, from Elisabethan onwards.

The second day should have taken five hours.  Unfortunately, and rather naively I expect you will conclude, we did not take in to account the French holiday season, which started on that very day, so our journey down was shared with nearly every French citizen from the North of the country.  The whole journey down followed the classic concertina principle, going from eighty miles an hour down to zero, over and over and over again.  After maybe three hours, we made an executive decision to get off the peage and go by "A" roads, all free, and much slower.  We managed to clear an hour an a half of the journey (at normal rate or travel) in around three hours.  The up side was that we got to see a bit of France, which was nice, though it did also mean plenty of villages and towns and their forty kilometre an hour speed limits.  We were aiming for a town on the Tom Tom, and we stopped there for one of our world-famous car picnics, the size and extravagance of which is in proportion to the hassle of the journey proceeding it, so this one was gigantic.

Once refreshed, we got back on the peage and had a fairly clean journey for the final hour or two.

Following the adage that there is no point getting old if you don't get crafty, for our return journey we decided to "leave early".  The alarm went off at 4am and we were out before 4.30am.  Our car was outside the site because the gates are locked overnight, and we set off on what should have been a five hour journey, to find that it was actually a four hour fifty-five minute journey, meaning we arrived at the hotel before 10am, and had to kill several hours getting some food, and doing some shopping, the latter inhibited by the fact that it was a public holiday that day, so many of the shops were closed.

Day two and the alarm went at 4.30am, and we were out by 4.45am, and again, the five hour journey took four hours and fifty-five minutes, so we were at the tunnel very early, so early in fact that we had to pay a supplement to get on the next departure, money we paid with pleasure to get home. 
Having been really worried about the French side of the Tunnel, in the end we had no hassle, saw no immigrants, nor any evidence of problems, apart from a small pile of burnt something, probably the remnants of the French lorry or ferry workers strike.  How those chaps love their burning tyres.

Now we are home, and are cracking on with the decorating of Maggot 1's bedroom.  It needs stripping back to bare walls, before we put it back together again.  I have help from Maggot 1 and this weekend should see us finishing stripping, filling and sanding, and maybe even getting the ceilings done.

While we were away, my dad also re-decorated the back room.  We wanted the silk replaced with gloss****, some general cracks and marks cleaned up, and wallpaper on the main wall.  The latter, I have to say, is absolutely fantastic, really lifts the room and if anything, makes it lighter, which does not make sense, but is empirically true.  We are absolutely delighted with it.

Finally, LO and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage on Wednesday, so with the nine years it took us to getting round to tying the knot, means twenty-four blissful years.  I am speaking for LO of course.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

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* What kind of fool believes the online pictures? Ed
** The Paperwhite Kindles coming in to their own
*** Me being the most sensible one
**** As part of your ongoing campaign to banish all silk woodwork paint.  Never again will we use anything but gloss

Nearly there

Another week over, and after today, just four more working days before we are departing for our Summer Holidays darn sarf.

In between we have a weekend, when we will be preparing for our trip, and on Sunday, weather permitting, we will have a football tournament.

I really need a break.  Had my mid year review and the main feedback was "it seemed like you were not coping very well when under pressure, so we have marked you down", which seemed to me to be a "you were not smiling enough".  I challenged what stuff I did not deliver during that period, and my manager did not really have an answer to that.  The truth is, I did deliver, and during a month period when I had some kind of mild illness, I still delivered, but obviously I was not cheery enough about it at the time.

To be honest, I have so far been fairly lucky with this process, however this is the kind of nonsense that it can throw up, strange "parallel universe" type scenrios where you look back on the conversation and wonder if you had been dreaming it.

Oh well, holiday in a week, and I will then have the chance to step back from the front line, ponder life and my options, and return with renewed vigour and determination to change jobs.

I hope you have a great, if wet, weekend.