Thursday, 14 March 2013

never bloody here!

Well, as mentioned earlier this week I am away tomorrow and next Monday.

Next week I am also attending a training course on Wednesday and Thursday.  I'm not sure if I will blog on the Tuesday and Friday.  I expect I will have stuff for a post or two, but whether I sit down and write that up next week or the week after I'm not sure.

The timing of this stag isn't the best if I'm honest.

Friday is actually comic relief.  I have no idea if we'll encounter it or not, but it could be a bit of a pain.  The Saturday there's a big rugby match on (it's the 6 nations, but I don't care so I haven't a clue what match it is).

It's also the first race of the new Grand Prix season.  Now that's sort of okay in that I'll be coming back on the Sunday so should be back in time to watch it on the BBC, except the race is in Australia so will actually be run very early on Sunday morning.  Normally I might therefore be able to avoid it (or record the Radio commentary and listen to that as soon as I get up) but I'm guessing I will be told or hear it on the radio or something.

Anyway, point is this is the last post of the week and I'm not sure I will post at all next week.  The week after is the one leading up to Easter so is only 4 days as well - it's a really weird month for me actually.

SimCity turned up on Tuesday and I've lost two evenings to it already, so I must be enjoying it.  However, I'm also finding it a bit frustrating.

I think I'll blog about it later - I'm actually kinda wondering if the stuff they've disabled due to the server issues (no cheetah speed and a lot of region stuff is essentially disabled) isn't part of the issue.  I suspect it's magnifying some of the bugs or making some things that are meant to cover the "asynchronous" region play seem like bugs.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

future employment

This is going to be a particularly difficult post.

My problem is that what I want to talk about is technically confidential information.  I mean, I've not signed anything but the information was relayed in confidence.

Basically last Friday they outlined the future of the company.  Well... ish.  It wasn't really done that specifically.  I mean, I've been told some stuff and that didn't feature in the thing in Friday directly, but the meeting focused on that area.

See - it's difficult to say without saying.

I guess the thing I wanted to post about was that it wasn't quite as I expected.  In some ways that's good, but in other ways it's bad.

A particular bad point was the length of time.  Apparently this thing they've set up could take 10 years to come to fruition.  I found this a particular punch in the gut - there's no way I want to be hanging around here for 10 years.  To be honest I don't really feel like I want to be here next year.

However, a good thing is that it won't cost me anything.  In effect it's a free gift and there's a degree to which the expression "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" has to apply.  Better to have the gift horse, even if it's a bit dodgy, than no horse at all.  Of course, the problem is that said horse may be a poison chalice - looks like a good thing, but actually isn't.

I had a chat with my dad about it over the weekend.  He was more positive about it than me.  His main point was that it's something for nothing and I felt a bit more positive about it looking at it from this point of view.  The problem of course is that he doesn't really know how stupid some of the stuff here is and when I explain some bits of it he's always a bit stunned, because a lot of it is really dumb.

Anyway, we'll actually be getting individual info packs across this week where some of the more specific details are provided, but if I'm honest I'm not expecting this to really answer all of the questions I have.

I'm sure it will answer some but I don't think it will address the key ones - the ones that I need answers to in order to consider staying here.  They have said we can ask questions and I will but I don't I think the key ones will be ones they'll be willing to answer.

Tuesday, 12 March 2013

piss poor timing

So SimCity didn't turn up at all over the weekend.

I'd taken Monday off and was hoping that the game would have arrived, but no sign of it.  This was a little mystifying I have to admit, since it was posted last Thursday and something that was posted last Friday did turn up on Monday.

To be totally fair their free delivery thing is within a 5 day window so it's not late or anything, just a bit puzzling that something sent afterwards has arrived first.  And I wouldn't want you to think I took the day off just to play the game - I was owed the day as time in lieu and I wanted to take it as soon as practical.  The alignment with SimCity's release was just a coincidence.

It would be nice if I was able to say that I'd "done loads" with my extra day off, but it didn't really work like that.  I mean, I did some stuff, but I wouldn't really say it was massively productive.  Most of the time was spent doing nothing in particular - I did a lot of lazing about with a bit of telly watching thrown in for good measure.

One thing I did do was go to the Sports Direct in Farnborough and buy some golf-related stuff.  I used to play Golf quite a bit but since starting my current job (where no-one has ever been a golfer) it has kinda withered on the vine.  Part of the problem was that the only cheap public course nearby has terrible drainage problems and I once played a bit of a round that basically destroyed half my gear.

I wasn't going to buy quite as much stuff as I did but they had a sale on that was really good value - everything I bought was 50% off so I got loads of bits including new golf shoes and a bag and it was less than £80!

So why am I buying this stuff now?

Well, obviously because I'm going to be playing golf next week.  The game is part of a stag weekend for an old friend of mine.  The golf game is on Friday (weather forecast up until now was that it would be bone-chillingly cold, but now is that it will piss down - hurrah!).  I'm sure there will be drinking that evening, and then we're going clay pigeon shooting on Saturday and more drinking that evening before heading home on Sunday.

As per usual I'm a bit trepidatious - I'm nervous and quiet around new people and there will be a lot of new people there (loads of his other friends I've never met before).  Hopefully it will be okay and at worst it's two days.

I'm not sure how I will be on Sunday but I've taken Monday off as well, just in case.