I got a bit of a shock on Sunday when I weighed in, as I'd actually gained 3 pounds, meaning I now weigh 21 stone.
This obviously puts me above where I've been since my supposed recent push to try to lose a bit more weight. It also means I'm heavier than I have been for quite a while.
I have a few excuses, but the honest truth is I've lost my way a bit. I've been feeling rather down if I'm honest - looking for a new job hasn't resulted in anything, even when I changed my "search parameters" to loosen them up.
I've had a fair few interviews, but no real sniffs of a job. I actually went to an interview on Tuesday (it was one I was contacted about before I stopped for Canada, but has taken ages to result in interviews).
I think it went well as an interview - certainly better than most of the others I've had; however, I don't think I'm quite what they were looking for. I'm therefore anticipating that there will be someone with more relevant experience that they will interview (I was first). In fact, they may have let the cat out of the bag in that they have a temp covering for someone who was on maternity and then left, so I wouldn't be surprised if really that person will get the job.
The honest truth, though, is if they offered me a job I'm not sure I would want to take it. I mentioned above that I'd widened the parameters, but I think really in my heart of hearts I don't think I want to stay in this sector (it's quite difficult to explain as I can't really say properly!).
I've actually now stopped all of the automated search e-mails and turned my CV "off" on the job websites. Once I'm back from Canada I'll fire it all back up again and go back to looking outside of my current sector. Trouble is I'm really not enjoying working at my current place any more, which is why I loosened things up in the first place, to try to get something to happen quickly.
Either way, my current focus is to get real on the diet - I can't have a situation where even my old clothes don't fit me because I've put on weight! I mean at the very least it would be ruinously expensive to have to buy everything in bigger sizes again!
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
that's yer lot
I'm just going to do the one post this week.
Yesterday I was snowed under with stuff and tomorrow is my last day for the week, as I've mentioned before. It's actually two people's last day at the office tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll be going to the pub, which will probably eat up what spare time I have where I might write a blog post.
One of these leavings is not a surprise as he is retiring, but the other came as a bit of a shock, as I was given the person's leaving card to sign yesterday and that was the first I'd heard about it!
For such a small company, communication is terrible here.
Weirdly, I actually had an offer of a job interview for on the Thursday - I'm still looking to move on, of course, but have put everything on hold for a few months until after Canada so I declined. To be honest, they've also not filled me with confidence given they've taken so long to contact me and finally did so only 4 days before the interview, which is miles away in Bristol. I'd rather not have another depressing waste of my time where I'm just making up the interview numbers and it's costing me a fortune to attend.
Anyway, I'm going to use some of my couple of days off to buy the stuff I know I will need for Canada, both in terms of online and in the real world. Obviously the disappointment here is that my grand plans about losing a few stone have not borne fruit, so the clothes I will be buying will be big size stuff.
Speaking of which, I'd dropped 2 pounds on Sunday's weigh in. I can't say I was surprised by this as such - I don't think it represented a genuine loss, as such, more the reflection of the fact that I was weighing myself after a more "regular" week, as opposed to after the weirdness of the Easter weekend. I therefore now weigh 20 stone 11 pounds.
Yesterday I was snowed under with stuff and tomorrow is my last day for the week, as I've mentioned before. It's actually two people's last day at the office tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll be going to the pub, which will probably eat up what spare time I have where I might write a blog post.
One of these leavings is not a surprise as he is retiring, but the other came as a bit of a shock, as I was given the person's leaving card to sign yesterday and that was the first I'd heard about it!
For such a small company, communication is terrible here.
Weirdly, I actually had an offer of a job interview for on the Thursday - I'm still looking to move on, of course, but have put everything on hold for a few months until after Canada so I declined. To be honest, they've also not filled me with confidence given they've taken so long to contact me and finally did so only 4 days before the interview, which is miles away in Bristol. I'd rather not have another depressing waste of my time where I'm just making up the interview numbers and it's costing me a fortune to attend.
Anyway, I'm going to use some of my couple of days off to buy the stuff I know I will need for Canada, both in terms of online and in the real world. Obviously the disappointment here is that my grand plans about losing a few stone have not borne fruit, so the clothes I will be buying will be big size stuff.
Speaking of which, I'd dropped 2 pounds on Sunday's weigh in. I can't say I was surprised by this as such - I don't think it represented a genuine loss, as such, more the reflection of the fact that I was weighing myself after a more "regular" week, as opposed to after the weirdness of the Easter weekend. I therefore now weigh 20 stone 11 pounds.
Thursday, 17 April 2014
easter
Well, last day of the working week today as it's Easter.
I must say it's kinda snuck up on me this year. I think a big part of that is because of the weather - it feels like it's rained continuously for almost an entire year, and the seasons have virtually disappeared, so it's almost weird now that it's actually spring-like. It feels kinda sudden, somehow.
The training thing yesterday was horrendous.
Not because it was badly done (though the food at the venue was horrible - rather dried out and sorry looking), but because they'd crammed what should have been two days of stuff into a day - less than a day, actually, as it ended at 3:30. It was in London so it was a very long day as well. And then I couldn't get to sleep until quite late, so I'm pretty knackered today.
Oddly, it's the Chinese grand prix this weekend. I say oddly because usually they time the grand prix so that they don't land on "other" days.
China is usually a good race and I think the new engines will suit it so I'm hoping it will be as good as Bahrain. Unfortunately the BBC is only showing highlights on the TV again, but I'll listen on the radio.
My other plans for Easter are pretty minimal as I'm trying to save pennies for Canada.
I'll probably do a bit of a swap around with some stuff that's out in the shed - if the nice weather continues I'll need to get my shorts out and put away jumpers and stuff. I'll also probably do a full back-up (I keep all the drives out in the shed too). These aren't quite as firm as my landlord recently told me he is actually going away a few weeks after Easter and it's usually easier to mess about in the shed when he's away. However, the weekend that this covers I'm also booked to go and see a friend.
I must say it's kinda snuck up on me this year. I think a big part of that is because of the weather - it feels like it's rained continuously for almost an entire year, and the seasons have virtually disappeared, so it's almost weird now that it's actually spring-like. It feels kinda sudden, somehow.
The training thing yesterday was horrendous.
Not because it was badly done (though the food at the venue was horrible - rather dried out and sorry looking), but because they'd crammed what should have been two days of stuff into a day - less than a day, actually, as it ended at 3:30. It was in London so it was a very long day as well. And then I couldn't get to sleep until quite late, so I'm pretty knackered today.
Oddly, it's the Chinese grand prix this weekend. I say oddly because usually they time the grand prix so that they don't land on "other" days.
China is usually a good race and I think the new engines will suit it so I'm hoping it will be as good as Bahrain. Unfortunately the BBC is only showing highlights on the TV again, but I'll listen on the radio.
My other plans for Easter are pretty minimal as I'm trying to save pennies for Canada.
I'll probably do a bit of a swap around with some stuff that's out in the shed - if the nice weather continues I'll need to get my shorts out and put away jumpers and stuff. I'll also probably do a full back-up (I keep all the drives out in the shed too). These aren't quite as firm as my landlord recently told me he is actually going away a few weeks after Easter and it's usually easier to mess about in the shed when he's away. However, the weekend that this covers I'm also booked to go and see a friend.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
irony
I'm going on a training thing tomorrow for work.
It's something to do with some new EU regulations, so I'm sure it will be highly exciting. It's in London, which makes the travelling painful, particularly as they've scheduled a start of 09:30. It does mean it ends early, though (about 3:30), but I'm obviously no going to blog.
And speaking of work, I found this quite amusing a little while ago, and very relevant to why I'm looking for a new job.
One of my bosses got an e-mail the other day asking if we'd be willing to send them a tool they'd seen us using to help make bid/no bid decisions.
The first point of amusement was that my boss clearly didn't know what he was talking about, even though I've shown my boss the tool several times. So the boss asked him for some more details "to help pin down what he was talking about" and then forwarded to me to essentially ask what he was talking about.
I pointed him straight at the tool and suggested it was rather cheeky of them to be asking for us to just hand it over.
The boss took a look at the tool and then we had a very brief chat, where the boss echoed my opinion that it was cheeky for them to ask for it. However, the boss also said the tool looked "like quite a good bit of work" & "clever".
Which all seemed quite ironic - here's a tool I put together that the boss clearly hadn't ever bothered to look at properly before, but then when somebody else asked for it, looked at it and thought it was quite good.
So it's a tool that helps to make bid/no bid decisions, something we're woefully (indeed wilfully) bad at, that the other company could see the value in, but that my own company cannot.
Which kind of sums up why I don't really want to stay - what I do is not in any way valued.
It's something to do with some new EU regulations, so I'm sure it will be highly exciting. It's in London, which makes the travelling painful, particularly as they've scheduled a start of 09:30. It does mean it ends early, though (about 3:30), but I'm obviously no going to blog.
And speaking of work, I found this quite amusing a little while ago, and very relevant to why I'm looking for a new job.
One of my bosses got an e-mail the other day asking if we'd be willing to send them a tool they'd seen us using to help make bid/no bid decisions.
The first point of amusement was that my boss clearly didn't know what he was talking about, even though I've shown my boss the tool several times. So the boss asked him for some more details "to help pin down what he was talking about" and then forwarded to me to essentially ask what he was talking about.
I pointed him straight at the tool and suggested it was rather cheeky of them to be asking for us to just hand it over.
The boss took a look at the tool and then we had a very brief chat, where the boss echoed my opinion that it was cheeky for them to ask for it. However, the boss also said the tool looked "like quite a good bit of work" & "clever".
Which all seemed quite ironic - here's a tool I put together that the boss clearly hadn't ever bothered to look at properly before, but then when somebody else asked for it, looked at it and thought it was quite good.
So it's a tool that helps to make bid/no bid decisions, something we're woefully (indeed wilfully) bad at, that the other company could see the value in, but that my own company cannot.
Which kind of sums up why I don't really want to stay - what I do is not in any way valued.
Monday, 7 April 2014
more on interviews
So, the other two interviews.
The next interview was with another big defence company. Unfortunately, a similar issue occurred to some of the previous interviews - I'd only been told the big company name and only found out the particular division quite a way into the process. Indeed, in this case I'd actually only found out once the interview was set up, and if I'm totally honest it's not a division I would particularly have wanted to pursue if I'd found out earlier.
Still, I figured I'd go along anyway, and I was owed some time off in lieu, so I took this (plus a day) and had half a week off. The interview was really intense - the main guy barraged me with questions and I got into a muddle. In particular, one of the things you're really not supposed to do is bad-mouth your current company. As you can image, this is particularly difficult for me - especially when they ask me why I want to move on. What I'd really want to say is "I can't stand the MD and find the whole experience a horrible combination of annoying and frustrating." Which wouldn't be a good thing to say, but as I say, with him firing questions at me so much I ended up saying some non-complimentary things - though not in that blunt a way.
As I say - not sure I'd want to work for that division anyway, as it sounds a bit dull. I also think they were looking for someone with different experience (more on that in a moment).
I've not heard anything about this one as I write, but then I'm writing this some way in advance so that's not necessarily surprising.
The final interview was a weird one - I'd applied a while back and they'd said if you don't hear within 5 days you've been discarded; however, it was 3 weeks before they contacted me, and it was clear that it was all being done in a panic. I mean I sent the recruitment person an e-mail saying I'd be interested in a chat and mentioned we could talk on one of the days off I'd booked the following week, and then suddenly I'm being asked for an interview on one of those days!
The interview was held with the boss and the guy who I would be replacing, who I got a chance to chat with before the interview and it turned out that this was his last day. To the extent that he was literally grabbing his box of stuff and going home once the interview was over! He hadn't been sacked or anything, but ti was clear they hadn't timed things well.
Now in this job you would essentially be working on your own in the role. So, in other words, I'd found out that the only person who could do a handover of the role was not going to be there after that day!
It was another small division of a big company and it sounded fairly interesting. Unfortunately I don't think the interview went all that well - I find the questions that get asked are either very predictable ones I'm asked a lot or I can think of myself beforehand, or they're total blind-siders.
In particular, the blind-siders often tend to focus on areas that I just don't have any experience of, but also, more importantly, have no mention on my CV. So, for example, my CV says nothing about me having done project management, because I haven't. Yet the person will launch into a whole set of questions that really focus on skills that are ore relevant to PM. I mean, sure, there's overlap with Bid Management, but the important aspects are unique to each job.
This was like that - they asked a bunch of questions that I couldn't really answer because I didn't have relevant experience, but in particular, weren't really mentioned on my CV. I mean, I'd done similar stuff, but not the exact thing they were asking about, so I struggled.
It was also weird - they were all dressed very casually. I'm guessing this was because of a dress-down Friday, but I felt like I'd turned up to a wedding in a clown suit!
However, on the good side, they have let me know quite quickly that I was unsuccessful, though even here it was a bit weird - the feedback didn't make any sense. I mean, I'm grateful they have let me know, but the fact I've been told was because they weren't keen on my answer to a questions they never asked is a bit weird.
In fact I was going to set down some moans about the whole process, but I've prattled on for a while, so I'll save that for another day.
The next interview was with another big defence company. Unfortunately, a similar issue occurred to some of the previous interviews - I'd only been told the big company name and only found out the particular division quite a way into the process. Indeed, in this case I'd actually only found out once the interview was set up, and if I'm totally honest it's not a division I would particularly have wanted to pursue if I'd found out earlier.
Still, I figured I'd go along anyway, and I was owed some time off in lieu, so I took this (plus a day) and had half a week off. The interview was really intense - the main guy barraged me with questions and I got into a muddle. In particular, one of the things you're really not supposed to do is bad-mouth your current company. As you can image, this is particularly difficult for me - especially when they ask me why I want to move on. What I'd really want to say is "I can't stand the MD and find the whole experience a horrible combination of annoying and frustrating." Which wouldn't be a good thing to say, but as I say, with him firing questions at me so much I ended up saying some non-complimentary things - though not in that blunt a way.
As I say - not sure I'd want to work for that division anyway, as it sounds a bit dull. I also think they were looking for someone with different experience (more on that in a moment).
I've not heard anything about this one as I write, but then I'm writing this some way in advance so that's not necessarily surprising.
The final interview was a weird one - I'd applied a while back and they'd said if you don't hear within 5 days you've been discarded; however, it was 3 weeks before they contacted me, and it was clear that it was all being done in a panic. I mean I sent the recruitment person an e-mail saying I'd be interested in a chat and mentioned we could talk on one of the days off I'd booked the following week, and then suddenly I'm being asked for an interview on one of those days!
The interview was held with the boss and the guy who I would be replacing, who I got a chance to chat with before the interview and it turned out that this was his last day. To the extent that he was literally grabbing his box of stuff and going home once the interview was over! He hadn't been sacked or anything, but ti was clear they hadn't timed things well.
Now in this job you would essentially be working on your own in the role. So, in other words, I'd found out that the only person who could do a handover of the role was not going to be there after that day!
It was another small division of a big company and it sounded fairly interesting. Unfortunately I don't think the interview went all that well - I find the questions that get asked are either very predictable ones I'm asked a lot or I can think of myself beforehand, or they're total blind-siders.
In particular, the blind-siders often tend to focus on areas that I just don't have any experience of, but also, more importantly, have no mention on my CV. So, for example, my CV says nothing about me having done project management, because I haven't. Yet the person will launch into a whole set of questions that really focus on skills that are ore relevant to PM. I mean, sure, there's overlap with Bid Management, but the important aspects are unique to each job.
This was like that - they asked a bunch of questions that I couldn't really answer because I didn't have relevant experience, but in particular, weren't really mentioned on my CV. I mean, I'd done similar stuff, but not the exact thing they were asking about, so I struggled.
It was also weird - they were all dressed very casually. I'm guessing this was because of a dress-down Friday, but I felt like I'd turned up to a wedding in a clown suit!
However, on the good side, they have let me know quite quickly that I was unsuccessful, though even here it was a bit weird - the feedback didn't make any sense. I mean, I'm grateful they have let me know, but the fact I've been told was because they weren't keen on my answer to a questions they never asked is a bit weird.
In fact I was going to set down some moans about the whole process, but I've prattled on for a while, so I'll save that for another day.
Thursday, 3 April 2014
job interviews
So I've had 5 job interviews in the last couple of weeks.
The first was with a small training consultancy company based just outside Guildford. This proved to be a gigantic waste of my time. And I don't just mean it wasn't the job for me, but they had me undertake all sorts of exercises and hoop-jumping crap. These used up around two weekend's worth of my time. When I eventually got to the interview they made it very plain that my "personality type" wouldn't fit.
I should perhaps explain they had me to do a Meyers-Briggs test. These are mostly bullshit, but it does give some broad indicators - in particular, for me, they show I'm an introvert, which I am. So at the interview she basically said that they have meetings where, in essence, they lose control and only the loudest people are heard.
Now obviously I wouldn't enjoy that anyway, but why ever would I want to work for a company that can't control meetings? Especially a company that's supposedly doing management consulting for other companies. I phoned the agent that had contacted me and withdrew as I was walking to my car. I'd actually wanted to pull out as soon as the Myers Briggs test had been mentioned, but she encouraged me to stick with it.
The second interview was with a big defence company. And it hadn't really been a good idea from the start, if I'm honest. Unfortunately, the recruitment person did not appear to be entirely competent (you'll notice a bit of theme with this) - the initial job spec she sent me had the job down as being based in Guildford, with occasional days in London.
However, it turns out the job is entirely based in London with no time in Guildford at all! She also booked the interview for me for 4:30PM, but booked it with them for 4PM, so when I turned up they thought I was half an hour late! I'm guessing she booked the extra half hour so that they could prep, but didn't communicate properly with either of us - particularly since one of the interviewers had to go by 5PM, so they left half way through.
To some extent, this was all beside the point - I went to the interview seeking to be convinced that it was a good enough job for me to put aside my desire not to work in London, and I was not convinced. I actually closely monitored the journey time in particular, and if I was to take the job I would be spending 4 hours each day commuting. The problem is this line - it's a very slow service (1 hour 10 mins) and only has two trains an hour - and I could move, but it's always going to be horribly busy commuter trains.
Since the interview I've heard jack shit, despite chasing. As noted, I'm not really interested anyway, but it's just another example of how badly all these recruitment people behave. I had thought maybe it was just the agencies, but this was an actual employee of the company, and she's acted just as poorly.
The third interview was bordering on a farce.
It was with a company that is quite big and well known for one thing, but this was for a different, much smaller, division. It's quite engineering focused; however, I have to confess I'm not sure it is really that interesting to me. Not that I really had the chance to investigate - the agency they were using was shocking: terrible communication and the agent didn't seem to have any common sense.
To give you an example, she fixed up the interview but only told me the location/gave me directions on the day of the interview. Now to be fair, the interviewer messed things about no end - it went from a face-to-face meeting to a telephone interview, back to a face-to-face, then moved from daytime to evening - but the agent did not help matters. I didn't even know it was this particular other division until a good way into the process.
The interview itself was also a bit of a mess - because it was in the evening and I had to go up the motorway I basically rushed there and that put me in a bit of a manic frame of mind, particularly as I'd had a coffee quite late in the day and it had been a busy day at work. I rabbited on like I was on speed :/
On this one I've also heard jack shit - hmm, one of those patterns, perhaps?
I'll continue this later, I think - the other two interviews were after a gap anyway.
The first was with a small training consultancy company based just outside Guildford. This proved to be a gigantic waste of my time. And I don't just mean it wasn't the job for me, but they had me undertake all sorts of exercises and hoop-jumping crap. These used up around two weekend's worth of my time. When I eventually got to the interview they made it very plain that my "personality type" wouldn't fit.
I should perhaps explain they had me to do a Meyers-Briggs test. These are mostly bullshit, but it does give some broad indicators - in particular, for me, they show I'm an introvert, which I am. So at the interview she basically said that they have meetings where, in essence, they lose control and only the loudest people are heard.
Now obviously I wouldn't enjoy that anyway, but why ever would I want to work for a company that can't control meetings? Especially a company that's supposedly doing management consulting for other companies. I phoned the agent that had contacted me and withdrew as I was walking to my car. I'd actually wanted to pull out as soon as the Myers Briggs test had been mentioned, but she encouraged me to stick with it.
The second interview was with a big defence company. And it hadn't really been a good idea from the start, if I'm honest. Unfortunately, the recruitment person did not appear to be entirely competent (you'll notice a bit of theme with this) - the initial job spec she sent me had the job down as being based in Guildford, with occasional days in London.
However, it turns out the job is entirely based in London with no time in Guildford at all! She also booked the interview for me for 4:30PM, but booked it with them for 4PM, so when I turned up they thought I was half an hour late! I'm guessing she booked the extra half hour so that they could prep, but didn't communicate properly with either of us - particularly since one of the interviewers had to go by 5PM, so they left half way through.
To some extent, this was all beside the point - I went to the interview seeking to be convinced that it was a good enough job for me to put aside my desire not to work in London, and I was not convinced. I actually closely monitored the journey time in particular, and if I was to take the job I would be spending 4 hours each day commuting. The problem is this line - it's a very slow service (1 hour 10 mins) and only has two trains an hour - and I could move, but it's always going to be horribly busy commuter trains.
Since the interview I've heard jack shit, despite chasing. As noted, I'm not really interested anyway, but it's just another example of how badly all these recruitment people behave. I had thought maybe it was just the agencies, but this was an actual employee of the company, and she's acted just as poorly.
The third interview was bordering on a farce.
It was with a company that is quite big and well known for one thing, but this was for a different, much smaller, division. It's quite engineering focused; however, I have to confess I'm not sure it is really that interesting to me. Not that I really had the chance to investigate - the agency they were using was shocking: terrible communication and the agent didn't seem to have any common sense.
To give you an example, she fixed up the interview but only told me the location/gave me directions on the day of the interview. Now to be fair, the interviewer messed things about no end - it went from a face-to-face meeting to a telephone interview, back to a face-to-face, then moved from daytime to evening - but the agent did not help matters. I didn't even know it was this particular other division until a good way into the process.
The interview itself was also a bit of a mess - because it was in the evening and I had to go up the motorway I basically rushed there and that put me in a bit of a manic frame of mind, particularly as I'd had a coffee quite late in the day and it had been a busy day at work. I rabbited on like I was on speed :/
On this one I've also heard jack shit - hmm, one of those patterns, perhaps?
I'll continue this later, I think - the other two interviews were after a gap anyway.
Monday, 31 March 2014
unhappy
I've been feeling down for a while.
I'm finding work to be quite an unpleasant experience. I find the lack of any clear direction, the lack of common sense and, in particular, the lack of any ability to make change for the better very frustrating. I have known for a while that I disagree with some of the things they seem to have decided on, but even then I'd be happy if stuff was actually happening - I'd kinda be happy to be proved wrong, but the whole "limbo" aspect of things is just not fun to be involved in.
Of course I've also been more proactively looking for a new job again. This hasn't been going too well. I clearly have a good CV - at the least it is good enough for me to get interviews.
I've now had a total of 5 interviews, though these have not been all they could. I'll hopefully blog about it separately, but I don't really see myself getting/wanting those jobs.
And of course I'm back to the old situation of no apparent prospect of a salary improvement at work (it's now getting on for 2 years), despite my rent and various other costs going up, so I'm struggling financially again. Particularly since I desperately need to save money for the Canada trip. This last month or so I've had to spend a fortune on my car:
£450 for a complete new set of tyres
£200 on a service & MOT (plus some replacement parts)
£250 on insurance
£175 on Car Tax
So that's over £1,000: I only take home about £25K a year, so I've had to spend nearly 4% of my entire year's salary in one month!
I've also been struggling with the weight thing. I decided I was going to lose a few stones in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix and blogged about the "progress" here, but just recently ti stagnated and then, while I wasn't blogging, it actually went into reverse - I gained 1 pound a few weeks ago (although I lost it again the following week), but this week I'd gained 2 pounds.
The problem - and it's been a problem all my life - is that when I feel down I eat. I am the very definition of a comfort eater, and since I feel down quite often, I eat quite a lot. Of course it's a vicious circle - when you get very big and find it difficult to do things like walk up flights of stairs that becomes a source of unhappiness, prompting me to eat more.
The other problem is I've not really gone about it by sticking to a proper diet. I've increased the amount of exercise I do, which has been helping to keep the last few weeks of not eating well in check, but I've also slipped back into some of my weirder habits. In particular I've been "multiple buying" again - this is where I buy several meals worth at one shop, then for some reason buy stuff for the same meals at another.
So, specifically, while I was away I had several meals to buy for and bought cheese on toast, hot cross buns and some mini-sausages plus buns as meals. Only if you do the maths while I needed 4 meals worth I had therefore actually bought 7 meals worth. Since none of it was particularly long lasting, that meant I had to eat more meals than I needed and for those meals to be bigger.
And to be honest, I didn't really need to buy any of them - I have stuff in the freezer and cupboards that I really need to get rid of (and, of course, would, therefore, effectively be free meals instead of spending more money).
I think I need to introduce some will power and/or start actually thinking about stuff more.
I'm finding work to be quite an unpleasant experience. I find the lack of any clear direction, the lack of common sense and, in particular, the lack of any ability to make change for the better very frustrating. I have known for a while that I disagree with some of the things they seem to have decided on, but even then I'd be happy if stuff was actually happening - I'd kinda be happy to be proved wrong, but the whole "limbo" aspect of things is just not fun to be involved in.
Of course I've also been more proactively looking for a new job again. This hasn't been going too well. I clearly have a good CV - at the least it is good enough for me to get interviews.
I've now had a total of 5 interviews, though these have not been all they could. I'll hopefully blog about it separately, but I don't really see myself getting/wanting those jobs.
And of course I'm back to the old situation of no apparent prospect of a salary improvement at work (it's now getting on for 2 years), despite my rent and various other costs going up, so I'm struggling financially again. Particularly since I desperately need to save money for the Canada trip. This last month or so I've had to spend a fortune on my car:
£450 for a complete new set of tyres
£200 on a service & MOT (plus some replacement parts)
£250 on insurance
£175 on Car Tax
So that's over £1,000: I only take home about £25K a year, so I've had to spend nearly 4% of my entire year's salary in one month!
I've also been struggling with the weight thing. I decided I was going to lose a few stones in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix and blogged about the "progress" here, but just recently ti stagnated and then, while I wasn't blogging, it actually went into reverse - I gained 1 pound a few weeks ago (although I lost it again the following week), but this week I'd gained 2 pounds.
The problem - and it's been a problem all my life - is that when I feel down I eat. I am the very definition of a comfort eater, and since I feel down quite often, I eat quite a lot. Of course it's a vicious circle - when you get very big and find it difficult to do things like walk up flights of stairs that becomes a source of unhappiness, prompting me to eat more.
The other problem is I've not really gone about it by sticking to a proper diet. I've increased the amount of exercise I do, which has been helping to keep the last few weeks of not eating well in check, but I've also slipped back into some of my weirder habits. In particular I've been "multiple buying" again - this is where I buy several meals worth at one shop, then for some reason buy stuff for the same meals at another.
So, specifically, while I was away I had several meals to buy for and bought cheese on toast, hot cross buns and some mini-sausages plus buns as meals. Only if you do the maths while I needed 4 meals worth I had therefore actually bought 7 meals worth. Since none of it was particularly long lasting, that meant I had to eat more meals than I needed and for those meals to be bigger.
And to be honest, I didn't really need to buy any of them - I have stuff in the freezer and cupboards that I really need to get rid of (and, of course, would, therefore, effectively be free meals instead of spending more money).
I think I need to introduce some will power and/or start actually thinking about stuff more.
Friday, 28 February 2014
working weekend
Looks like I'm going to be in working this weekend.
I really didn't need this, but people have let me down left, right and centre. If they'd done their fucking jobs properly and on time it wouldn't have been necessary.
But of course they haven't so I need to work the weekend to do what needs to be done in time. Funny how it's always me that has to do this shit. Give other people two fucking weeks to get their jobs done and they fail to make the deadline, and what they do produce is horribly written drivel. But of course it's no problem - obviously I can sacrifice my weekend to rewrite the entire fucking document.
The bizarre thing is that this is the exact same thing as where I had the situation that led to "the problems". People doing their jobs which they've had weeks to do last minute, so then I have to sort out the mess afterwards.
This time, though, I'm not in the situation where it's last minute so I have to make a panicked decision. No, I get to do that next weekend, I'm sure.
I really didn't need this, but people have let me down left, right and centre. If they'd done their fucking jobs properly and on time it wouldn't have been necessary.
But of course they haven't so I need to work the weekend to do what needs to be done in time. Funny how it's always me that has to do this shit. Give other people two fucking weeks to get their jobs done and they fail to make the deadline, and what they do produce is horribly written drivel. But of course it's no problem - obviously I can sacrifice my weekend to rewrite the entire fucking document.
The bizarre thing is that this is the exact same thing as where I had the situation that led to "the problems". People doing their jobs which they've had weeks to do last minute, so then I have to sort out the mess afterwards.
This time, though, I'm not in the situation where it's last minute so I have to make a panicked decision. No, I get to do that next weekend, I'm sure.
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
opportunity beckons
So I've mentioned I've been looking for a new job and I appear to have 3 interviews in the near future.
I say "appear" as one of them has gone oddly quiet after sending me a message saying they wanted to see me for an interview. I've had this sort of thing before, actually - a message saying they want to interview me, I ask what scope there in in terms of dates available, there's silence and then they tell me actually the job no longer exists.
The bit about scope for moving the date is because I've noticed an interesting phenomenon when companies propose dates for interview - they're almost always mid-week: almost never on a Monday or Friday.
However, Friday and Monday are the most convenient days to take as leave - it just looks like you're taking a long weekend for whatever reason. A day off mid-week is much more suspicious / unusual.
I also think Monday is the most sensible day for sick leave if you need to use that as an excuse. To me it sounds more reasonable that you ate or drank something that's disagreed with you while you were out and about over the weekend than during the week.
These three being so close together has actually made it a bit inconvenient. The two that are talking to me I've had to juggle them to try to get them all on the same day. Well, I didn't have to, but this seemed the least disruptive thing to do. Whether it's a good idea in terms of the quality of interview I give, I'm not sure.
However, if I'm totally honest I'm not sure either are real contenders. One I'm not sure the company is going to be a good fit - they don't sound like my cup of tea, if 'm honest. The other does, but the job would be based in London.
I've always tried to avoid working in London, as the travel strikes me as being horrendous. The line I'm on is particularly bad as it takes over an hour to go from my closest stations (I'm about equal distance from two) to London - a journey that would take no more than half an hour by car. I'm also miles from either station - it's a good 45 minute walk - and I hat buses.
I could move, of course, but there's always going to be a transition period, and where to? If you live close enough for a decent journey, prices are horrible, if you go far enough out for prices to be reasonable, the journey is horrible.
Well, hopefully if I have the time I'll give the verdict on how both interviews went, though I may be a bit tired to blog later in the week.
I say "appear" as one of them has gone oddly quiet after sending me a message saying they wanted to see me for an interview. I've had this sort of thing before, actually - a message saying they want to interview me, I ask what scope there in in terms of dates available, there's silence and then they tell me actually the job no longer exists.
The bit about scope for moving the date is because I've noticed an interesting phenomenon when companies propose dates for interview - they're almost always mid-week: almost never on a Monday or Friday.
However, Friday and Monday are the most convenient days to take as leave - it just looks like you're taking a long weekend for whatever reason. A day off mid-week is much more suspicious / unusual.
I also think Monday is the most sensible day for sick leave if you need to use that as an excuse. To me it sounds more reasonable that you ate or drank something that's disagreed with you while you were out and about over the weekend than during the week.
These three being so close together has actually made it a bit inconvenient. The two that are talking to me I've had to juggle them to try to get them all on the same day. Well, I didn't have to, but this seemed the least disruptive thing to do. Whether it's a good idea in terms of the quality of interview I give, I'm not sure.
However, if I'm totally honest I'm not sure either are real contenders. One I'm not sure the company is going to be a good fit - they don't sound like my cup of tea, if 'm honest. The other does, but the job would be based in London.
I've always tried to avoid working in London, as the travel strikes me as being horrendous. The line I'm on is particularly bad as it takes over an hour to go from my closest stations (I'm about equal distance from two) to London - a journey that would take no more than half an hour by car. I'm also miles from either station - it's a good 45 minute walk - and I hat buses.
I could move, of course, but there's always going to be a transition period, and where to? If you live close enough for a decent journey, prices are horrible, if you go far enough out for prices to be reasonable, the journey is horrible.
Well, hopefully if I have the time I'll give the verdict on how both interviews went, though I may be a bit tired to blog later in the week.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
not for the chop
As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not getting the boot at work.
I think if I'd not been here so long and therefore not built up quite the history and track record then I would have been in a lot more trouble. It was seen more as a moment of madness (and this is pretty much the case).
But then the flip-side to that whole point is that I wouldn't have found myself in a position for what happened to happen if I hadn't been here so long and gotten sick of it all.
Which doesn't mean I wasn't in trouble. I will be getting an official written warning, which goes on my file, and I have to write a formal letter of apology. And I am sorry - well, sorry for lying to one of the bosses. That was a ridiculous and stupid thing to do.
I'm not sorry for the original event, even though that was what I then lied about. That may seem odd - if I wasn't ashamed of it, why lie to "cover up"? Well, the reason is that I was trying to cover up the underlying motivation for the decision I made, not the event itself.
This is what I mean about if I'd not been here so long it wouldn't have been an issue anyway. If I hadn't known it would have been a gigantic pain in the arse doing something differently in relation to the original issue then I wouldn't have had any of the subsequent problems.
It's all a bit difficult to explain without giving proper detail, but I guess the point is I'm not suddenly going to be plunged onto the scrapheap.
It was also indicated in the meetings that there's a hope a new senior guy who's meant to be coming to the company will "turn things around".
I'm still continuing to look for a new job, though - I don't really care if this new guy really is the second coming or not, tbh. History here suggests that even if he was, he'd achieve nothing anyway.
I think if I'd not been here so long and therefore not built up quite the history and track record then I would have been in a lot more trouble. It was seen more as a moment of madness (and this is pretty much the case).
But then the flip-side to that whole point is that I wouldn't have found myself in a position for what happened to happen if I hadn't been here so long and gotten sick of it all.
Which doesn't mean I wasn't in trouble. I will be getting an official written warning, which goes on my file, and I have to write a formal letter of apology. And I am sorry - well, sorry for lying to one of the bosses. That was a ridiculous and stupid thing to do.
I'm not sorry for the original event, even though that was what I then lied about. That may seem odd - if I wasn't ashamed of it, why lie to "cover up"? Well, the reason is that I was trying to cover up the underlying motivation for the decision I made, not the event itself.
This is what I mean about if I'd not been here so long it wouldn't have been an issue anyway. If I hadn't known it would have been a gigantic pain in the arse doing something differently in relation to the original issue then I wouldn't have had any of the subsequent problems.
It's all a bit difficult to explain without giving proper detail, but I guess the point is I'm not suddenly going to be plunged onto the scrapheap.
It was also indicated in the meetings that there's a hope a new senior guy who's meant to be coming to the company will "turn things around".
I'm still continuing to look for a new job, though - I don't really care if this new guy really is the second coming or not, tbh. History here suggests that even if he was, he'd achieve nothing anyway.
Friday, 31 January 2014
the big day of horror
So today is the day of the meeting to discuss my disciplinary.
Well, I think that's what today is. It's all a bit unclear: imagine that - a lack of clarity where I work. It's as if the whole organisation is an appalling shambles!
It'll either go horribly or be horrible.
I guess the real question is over whether I'll loose my job or not.
I'll keep you posted. I guess at least with it being Friday I'll have the weekend to come to terms with it all, though it's been quite unpleasant having to wait so long.
Well, I think that's what today is. It's all a bit unclear: imagine that - a lack of clarity where I work. It's as if the whole organisation is an appalling shambles!
It'll either go horribly or be horrible.
I guess the real question is over whether I'll loose my job or not.
I'll keep you posted. I guess at least with it being Friday I'll have the weekend to come to terms with it all, though it's been quite unpleasant having to wait so long.
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
consequences
So they've decided we're going to have some sort of meeting on Friday about the situation of my fuck-up. I think I'll be officially reprimanded/disciplined in some way.
Unfortunately, this can't happen until Friday, as my line manager only does 1 day a week (one of the many classic ridiculous situations my company seems to generate). I've therefore been quite stressed with it all.
My personality type is one of those that focuses on the negative. I do my best to change my thinking patterns and not to dwell, but it's quite difficult. Particularly, I think, given my life is quite a solitary one - my hobbies are generally ones that I do on my own. I understand having more "RL" stuff in your life is quite helpful in helping you get perspective on things.
Anyway, point is I've been quite worried.
Last Thursday, when it happened, I was actually worried that I may get the sack. I am not quite as scared of this as I was then, but I think it is still a possibility.
A big part of the problem really is that the boss managed to make a massive mess out of it. Now I was the root cause of that mess, so I have blame, but a way to think about it is if my boss basically punched one person (normal person level reaction) versus dropping a 50 megatonne "Tsar Bomba" on a city. That therefore escalates the slice of shit I'm required to eat.
See, part of the problem is we should never have been fucking bidding this in the first place. There were numerous points were they'd said "If x does/doesn't happen then we'll no bid". Every single one of those happened, yet we kept going. We also received several other pieces of information that meant we should not have bid, but of course that didn't stop us.
I therefore think my boss seized on this as a way to get the competition pulled, so my boss leapt straight in with heavy boots and of course, it became a giant mess. Now there is a whole strand of argument as to quite what this really achieves - if you want to piss a customer off, getting their competition cancelled is a pretty good way to achieve it, but that's a bit beside the point.
What is the point is that I'm sick of working here.
Unfortunately, this can't happen until Friday, as my line manager only does 1 day a week (one of the many classic ridiculous situations my company seems to generate). I've therefore been quite stressed with it all.
My personality type is one of those that focuses on the negative. I do my best to change my thinking patterns and not to dwell, but it's quite difficult. Particularly, I think, given my life is quite a solitary one - my hobbies are generally ones that I do on my own. I understand having more "RL" stuff in your life is quite helpful in helping you get perspective on things.
Anyway, point is I've been quite worried.
Last Thursday, when it happened, I was actually worried that I may get the sack. I am not quite as scared of this as I was then, but I think it is still a possibility.
A big part of the problem really is that the boss managed to make a massive mess out of it. Now I was the root cause of that mess, so I have blame, but a way to think about it is if my boss basically punched one person (normal person level reaction) versus dropping a 50 megatonne "Tsar Bomba" on a city. That therefore escalates the slice of shit I'm required to eat.
See, part of the problem is we should never have been fucking bidding this in the first place. There were numerous points were they'd said "If x does/doesn't happen then we'll no bid". Every single one of those happened, yet we kept going. We also received several other pieces of information that meant we should not have bid, but of course that didn't stop us.
I therefore think my boss seized on this as a way to get the competition pulled, so my boss leapt straight in with heavy boots and of course, it became a giant mess. Now there is a whole strand of argument as to quite what this really achieves - if you want to piss a customer off, getting their competition cancelled is a pretty good way to achieve it, but that's a bit beside the point.
What is the point is that I'm sick of working here.
Friday, 24 January 2014
i fucked up
So I've fucked up at work.
Basically, that work I did last weekend was for a framework submission. There's a lot of background, but basically it seems I made an error right at the beginning that meant the template document we were working from was wrong.
Specifically a group of questions were missing.
We then worked on this basis, but when I finally came to upload it I discovered this omission. But this was Sunday lunch time. And I didn't know what to do.
I had two basic options:
1. I could call my boss. This would have caused an almighty flap and waving of arms and I would have gotten in trouble.
2. Or I could just generate answers for the missing questions and upload it and cross my fingers that no-one would notice.
So I did the second.
And it backfired mightily.
Yesterday it transpired that the portal was messed up and they sent us an e-mail listing the questions out and saying they would be assessing it manually. Of course, this list included the questions I'd missed... and someone noticed.
Initially (and this was where I compound the error and it becomes a fuck-up) I lied and said I hadn't seen the additional question.
What I hadn't realised though was that my boss would instantly launch into an attack on the people whose tender it was saying we'd never seen the questions and the whole competition should be pulled.
And so I had to come clean.
I mean, I could have gone on lying, but there was too much evidence that I was lying. Truth be told I kinda new it would all come out eventually. I never catch the lucky breaks.
So I fucked up and I await the consequences.
Basically, that work I did last weekend was for a framework submission. There's a lot of background, but basically it seems I made an error right at the beginning that meant the template document we were working from was wrong.
Specifically a group of questions were missing.
We then worked on this basis, but when I finally came to upload it I discovered this omission. But this was Sunday lunch time. And I didn't know what to do.
I had two basic options:
1. I could call my boss. This would have caused an almighty flap and waving of arms and I would have gotten in trouble.
2. Or I could just generate answers for the missing questions and upload it and cross my fingers that no-one would notice.
So I did the second.
And it backfired mightily.
Yesterday it transpired that the portal was messed up and they sent us an e-mail listing the questions out and saying they would be assessing it manually. Of course, this list included the questions I'd missed... and someone noticed.
Initially (and this was where I compound the error and it becomes a fuck-up) I lied and said I hadn't seen the additional question.
What I hadn't realised though was that my boss would instantly launch into an attack on the people whose tender it was saying we'd never seen the questions and the whole competition should be pulled.
And so I had to come clean.
I mean, I could have gone on lying, but there was too much evidence that I was lying. Truth be told I kinda new it would all come out eventually. I never catch the lucky breaks.
So I fucked up and I await the consequences.
Friday, 17 January 2014
why the fuck do i still work here?
See, this is part of why I gave up blogging: it just becomes the same thing over and over again.
I hate working here.
It's so fucking frustrating.
I even stayed very late last night and came in early to get some of the stuff done, yet one of the bosses seems determined to a) fuck it up & b) piss me off.
Deep breaths are the order of the day... and we're supposed to go to the pub this lunchtime to celebrate two people at work's birthdays. I think I'd rather stick a needle in my leg.
What makes it worse is this whole thing is an utter waste of time. We cannot possibly make money on it, yet we're throwing effort at it like it's the answer to all our problems.
Fucking idiocy.
Anyway, the A31 was flooded this morning, which was quite a shocking experience. The time I was driving through it it was quiet in terms of traffic, but it also meant it was proper dark. That meant it came up on me completely unawares as I couldn't see it, but also, because there weren't many other cars, I didn't get clued in that it was bad. On the upside it also meant when I swerved into the middle of the two lanes to avoid it (it's a dual carriageway) there was no-one else in the way.
I hate working here.
It's so fucking frustrating.
I even stayed very late last night and came in early to get some of the stuff done, yet one of the bosses seems determined to a) fuck it up & b) piss me off.
Deep breaths are the order of the day... and we're supposed to go to the pub this lunchtime to celebrate two people at work's birthdays. I think I'd rather stick a needle in my leg.
What makes it worse is this whole thing is an utter waste of time. We cannot possibly make money on it, yet we're throwing effort at it like it's the answer to all our problems.
Fucking idiocy.
Anyway, the A31 was flooded this morning, which was quite a shocking experience. The time I was driving through it it was quiet in terms of traffic, but it also meant it was proper dark. That meant it came up on me completely unawares as I couldn't see it, but also, because there weren't many other cars, I didn't get clued in that it was bad. On the upside it also meant when I swerved into the middle of the two lanes to avoid it (it's a dual carriageway) there was no-one else in the way.
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
canadian gp 2014
So the big reveal of the thing I kept alluding to last week is that I'm going (with my family) to the Canadian Grand Prix this year!
I'm really looking forward to it, though as I was mentioning it's caused me some issues in terms of plans.
I mentioned in the blog before that I'm back looking for a job. I'm also not sure that I mentioned I want to move - the two are linked, obviously in that I would like have to move for the job, but I wanted to move more immediately as I really don't like where I like anymore and want to move on.
This has been particularly brought to a head due to the break-in and the fact my rent has gone up by 5%, making it less economical. This is made worse by the fact the electricity pre-pay meter rate recently went up (I blogged about how they decided to charge me for a non-existent debt - that got sorted, but it doesn't change the fact the cost of it went up) and the laundrette up the road recently put up their prices (again). So I'd be much better off financially living in the town where I work and also from a piece of mind point of view.
However, both of these become particularly difficult with the Canada trip, which is in early June.
For one thing I need a good ten days of leave, so I can't really use random days to go on interviews or to move. Also, Canada will not be cheap - I will need around £1,000 to spend. Canada is quite expensive anyway, but also I obviously want to have a good time.
Add in that clothes is one of the biggest areas of my life where I have "economised" so will need to buy stuff for the holiday and need some new bits if I'm to look smart for interviews and you can see I'm going to have some big drains on my purse over the next few months. This makes it difficult to see how I can afford to pay for petrol to travel to interviews, but also how I could afford 2 months (or whatever) deposit to move - plus I'd need to overlap the rents so I'd have time to transfer all my stuff.
So as you can see I'm left in two minds quite what to do - do I keep going with the job hunting and start looking for somewhere to live? If I do I don't know quite how it would work. If I don't I am adding in a huge delay - more than 6 months before I even re-start.
I'm really looking forward to it, though as I was mentioning it's caused me some issues in terms of plans.
I mentioned in the blog before that I'm back looking for a job. I'm also not sure that I mentioned I want to move - the two are linked, obviously in that I would like have to move for the job, but I wanted to move more immediately as I really don't like where I like anymore and want to move on.
This has been particularly brought to a head due to the break-in and the fact my rent has gone up by 5%, making it less economical. This is made worse by the fact the electricity pre-pay meter rate recently went up (I blogged about how they decided to charge me for a non-existent debt - that got sorted, but it doesn't change the fact the cost of it went up) and the laundrette up the road recently put up their prices (again). So I'd be much better off financially living in the town where I work and also from a piece of mind point of view.
However, both of these become particularly difficult with the Canada trip, which is in early June.
For one thing I need a good ten days of leave, so I can't really use random days to go on interviews or to move. Also, Canada will not be cheap - I will need around £1,000 to spend. Canada is quite expensive anyway, but also I obviously want to have a good time.
Add in that clothes is one of the biggest areas of my life where I have "economised" so will need to buy stuff for the holiday and need some new bits if I'm to look smart for interviews and you can see I'm going to have some big drains on my purse over the next few months. This makes it difficult to see how I can afford to pay for petrol to travel to interviews, but also how I could afford 2 months (or whatever) deposit to move - plus I'd need to overlap the rents so I'd have time to transfer all my stuff.
So as you can see I'm left in two minds quite what to do - do I keep going with the job hunting and start looking for somewhere to live? If I do I don't know quite how it would work. If I don't I am adding in a huge delay - more than 6 months before I even re-start.
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
happy new year... i guess
I'm finally back to work.
Big inhale... huge sigh.
I think I lulled myself into a bit of a false perception over the holiday period, which is to say the crappy bits seemed to dull and become less "urgent". Of course as soon as I got back it all swam back into focus, which is to say that there's basically nothing but crappy bits.
This is partly why I stopped blogging towards the end of last year - I'm a bit stuck for anything to really say apart from how I'm really not enjoying work, and that's such a big part of any given day/week/month, it doesn't leave me with a lot else to talk about. I was also getting a bit fatigued, so the idea of writing anything became a bit of a chore.
Actually, there was one specific thing with the work blog posts that gave me a bit of a scare (shock might be a better word) and was probably the main catalyst for stopping. I posted a blog entry that let a few of the "cat's" out of the "bags" - in other words I gave a few specific details about things that previously I had only really skirted around or touched on.
You could possibly have worked some stuff out and certainly got the general feel from what I said, but this post was quite specific. Now usually my posts get around 5-10 hits. I take this to be one or two people who read the odd post or click on it via a google search and the rest to be bots crawling the blog for indexing.
I've had a couple of posts that got significant numbers of hits (there's one I've actually blogged about to do with BMI that's obviously ranked highly in a particular search as it has hundreds of hits), but this one posts had well over 100 hits in the space of two days. This worried and puzzled me so much that I moved it into drafts - particularly as I can't see what about it might have caused it to get so many hits, but the content is a bit sensitive. If/when I move on from here I'll take it back into normal circulation, but it was also a big part of why I cooled off with blogging.
Note, I'm not sure I'm going to start properly again, but I figured I should at least post a "happy new year" type post.
Big inhale... huge sigh.
I think I lulled myself into a bit of a false perception over the holiday period, which is to say the crappy bits seemed to dull and become less "urgent". Of course as soon as I got back it all swam back into focus, which is to say that there's basically nothing but crappy bits.
This is partly why I stopped blogging towards the end of last year - I'm a bit stuck for anything to really say apart from how I'm really not enjoying work, and that's such a big part of any given day/week/month, it doesn't leave me with a lot else to talk about. I was also getting a bit fatigued, so the idea of writing anything became a bit of a chore.
Actually, there was one specific thing with the work blog posts that gave me a bit of a scare (shock might be a better word) and was probably the main catalyst for stopping. I posted a blog entry that let a few of the "cat's" out of the "bags" - in other words I gave a few specific details about things that previously I had only really skirted around or touched on.
You could possibly have worked some stuff out and certainly got the general feel from what I said, but this post was quite specific. Now usually my posts get around 5-10 hits. I take this to be one or two people who read the odd post or click on it via a google search and the rest to be bots crawling the blog for indexing.
I've had a couple of posts that got significant numbers of hits (there's one I've actually blogged about to do with BMI that's obviously ranked highly in a particular search as it has hundreds of hits), but this one posts had well over 100 hits in the space of two days. This worried and puzzled me so much that I moved it into drafts - particularly as I can't see what about it might have caused it to get so many hits, but the content is a bit sensitive. If/when I move on from here I'll take it back into normal circulation, but it was also a big part of why I cooled off with blogging.
Note, I'm not sure I'm going to start properly again, but I figured I should at least post a "happy new year" type post.
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
job hunting
So my job hunting has continued, obviously without success.
It's been odd, actually. I've had a reasonable number of interviews with a mixture of face-to-face and telephone-based, but I've been struck that most of these haven't felt "fully formed".
When I was looking before and going to interviews, it felt much clearer that the organisations I was talking to had a clear idea what they wanted. Obviously I'm not saying that they pre-decided who they wanted, but I mean they had a clear idea that they wanted a bid manager and were either keen to explore if someone from a different sector could fit or already appreciated that they could.
This is one of the key things that's causing my search to be longer - I am very keen to move into a different sector. The problem this time is that I seem to be encountering lots of people/organisations that don't really have a clear feeling about quite what they want, but then having been through some interviews, they then decided "no, we want someone with experience in our sector."
Now I've no problem with them wanting that experience, it's just that it's quite a big waste of my time, money and holiday (all of which are in short supply) if they're bimbling around not really knowing what they want.
And it's quite clear that they don't have any real clue. Two of the interviews I went to in person (one in Essex, and one in Knutsford, so pretty excessive travel) I've seen the jobs being re-advertised several times since.
Or at least, they seem to have come to the decision that they want someone with experience in their sector. But the problem there is we're talking sometimes talking about such a specific sector that there basically isn't anyone in the country.
It boils down to a combination of a lack of bravery ("as in let's take a chance" - these organisations are all coming across as quite risk averse) but also, mainly, I think, a lack of understanding of the generalist nature of a Bid Manager's skill set. It's like Project Management - it's a fully-transferrable skill-set: if you can manage one thing, you can manage anything. But they don't appreciate that, and I think a big part of that is because they don't really understand bid management themselves, and certainly don't appear to have properly defined and established processes.
Which is the flip-side: in all honesty, I'm kind of glad none of these have gone any further, as I've had red flags being hoisted at each interview. One of the big advantages of where I currently work is we do a lot of things badly, and I find a lot of frustrating, so I know what I'm looking for in terms of things I don't want.
Of course the other aspect of going back to job hunting is that I'm having to deal with employment agencies again. Quite why companies don't just place the job adverts themselves, I don't know, but the thing nowadays seems to be to use job agents. They're basically on a par with estate agents and used car salesmen, in my opinion. I mean, you get the odd one that's okay, but generally you're talking about a bunch of people who are only interested in getting their commission, and they don't really give a shit about things like never telling you you've been unsuccessful following a job interview.
It's been odd, actually. I've had a reasonable number of interviews with a mixture of face-to-face and telephone-based, but I've been struck that most of these haven't felt "fully formed".
When I was looking before and going to interviews, it felt much clearer that the organisations I was talking to had a clear idea what they wanted. Obviously I'm not saying that they pre-decided who they wanted, but I mean they had a clear idea that they wanted a bid manager and were either keen to explore if someone from a different sector could fit or already appreciated that they could.
This is one of the key things that's causing my search to be longer - I am very keen to move into a different sector. The problem this time is that I seem to be encountering lots of people/organisations that don't really have a clear feeling about quite what they want, but then having been through some interviews, they then decided "no, we want someone with experience in our sector."
Now I've no problem with them wanting that experience, it's just that it's quite a big waste of my time, money and holiday (all of which are in short supply) if they're bimbling around not really knowing what they want.
And it's quite clear that they don't have any real clue. Two of the interviews I went to in person (one in Essex, and one in Knutsford, so pretty excessive travel) I've seen the jobs being re-advertised several times since.
Or at least, they seem to have come to the decision that they want someone with experience in their sector. But the problem there is we're talking sometimes talking about such a specific sector that there basically isn't anyone in the country.
It boils down to a combination of a lack of bravery ("as in let's take a chance" - these organisations are all coming across as quite risk averse) but also, mainly, I think, a lack of understanding of the generalist nature of a Bid Manager's skill set. It's like Project Management - it's a fully-transferrable skill-set: if you can manage one thing, you can manage anything. But they don't appreciate that, and I think a big part of that is because they don't really understand bid management themselves, and certainly don't appear to have properly defined and established processes.
Which is the flip-side: in all honesty, I'm kind of glad none of these have gone any further, as I've had red flags being hoisted at each interview. One of the big advantages of where I currently work is we do a lot of things badly, and I find a lot of frustrating, so I know what I'm looking for in terms of things I don't want.
Of course the other aspect of going back to job hunting is that I'm having to deal with employment agencies again. Quite why companies don't just place the job adverts themselves, I don't know, but the thing nowadays seems to be to use job agents. They're basically on a par with estate agents and used car salesmen, in my opinion. I mean, you get the odd one that's okay, but generally you're talking about a bunch of people who are only interested in getting their commission, and they don't really give a shit about things like never telling you you've been unsuccessful following a job interview.
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
and more moaning
I'm guessing it's not been fun to read for anyone that does, but it's felt quite cathartic to get all this stuff out in the air.
Hopefully today will be the last about work (well, for a while), but I'm certainly a long way from finishing with the moaning!
And this one's only a bit about work.
Around a month ago one of the Directors got married. Congratulations to him, but it also acted as a stark statement of my standing.
Basically, I've known him longer than all but two other members of staff, and one of those was a friendship from way before he started working here. However, most of the rest of the staff were invited to the wedding proper, whereas I was just invited to the evening reception.
Well, that's me told where I stand.
Anyway, when I arrived at the reception a bombshell was dropped on me. I would have to attend the redundancy meeting for a member of staff they're making redundant as their witness. Or shit-canning them as I like to call it. The reason I would have to do this was because the member of staff who was going to do it has had a tragedy (which has also really helped to improve the atmosphere in the office!)
They've actually made a complete mess of things with this employee, to be honest.
Now I will hold my hands up - I never really got on with this employee. They're not my sort of person, and I found them a bit annoying. I also found them quite unprofessional and borderline incompetent.
I honestly couldn't see why they'd been given a job, or, failing that, why they'd been kept on following the initial trial period.
But setting that aside, the reason for making them redundant was entirely about getting rid of them, and not about change in the business making that position redundant, which is what redundancy is supposed to be about.
And don't get me wrong, they did something that essentially made them useless to my company. Basically the company is (currently) about selling out people as consultants to work for our Customers. And this person initially was happy to do this, but then suddenly flipped and refused to do it.
Now instead of this being dealt with calmly and rationally, the MD flipped out. The redundancy was how they decided to get rid of them. But it's a poor decision, and I think the employee may take it all the way to a tribunal.
Anyway, the thing I was going to say is that the other element of why I had to attend this meeting was because there were fuck all other staff in the office. The MD who got married took three weeks honeymoon straight after. The other MD also had that week off and, in fact, there were only two members of staff in for the normal office for that first week and then it was hardly any better in the second week.
And to further underline my status: even though I was the only vaguely senior member of staff in the office, both of the MD's out of office messages said to contact other members of staff who were in the office for about 2 days during the whole period, but not me.
Hopefully today will be the last about work (well, for a while), but I'm certainly a long way from finishing with the moaning!
And this one's only a bit about work.
Around a month ago one of the Directors got married. Congratulations to him, but it also acted as a stark statement of my standing.
Basically, I've known him longer than all but two other members of staff, and one of those was a friendship from way before he started working here. However, most of the rest of the staff were invited to the wedding proper, whereas I was just invited to the evening reception.
Well, that's me told where I stand.
Anyway, when I arrived at the reception a bombshell was dropped on me. I would have to attend the redundancy meeting for a member of staff they're making redundant as their witness. Or shit-canning them as I like to call it. The reason I would have to do this was because the member of staff who was going to do it has had a tragedy (which has also really helped to improve the atmosphere in the office!)
They've actually made a complete mess of things with this employee, to be honest.
Now I will hold my hands up - I never really got on with this employee. They're not my sort of person, and I found them a bit annoying. I also found them quite unprofessional and borderline incompetent.
I honestly couldn't see why they'd been given a job, or, failing that, why they'd been kept on following the initial trial period.
But setting that aside, the reason for making them redundant was entirely about getting rid of them, and not about change in the business making that position redundant, which is what redundancy is supposed to be about.
And don't get me wrong, they did something that essentially made them useless to my company. Basically the company is (currently) about selling out people as consultants to work for our Customers. And this person initially was happy to do this, but then suddenly flipped and refused to do it.
Now instead of this being dealt with calmly and rationally, the MD flipped out. The redundancy was how they decided to get rid of them. But it's a poor decision, and I think the employee may take it all the way to a tribunal.
Anyway, the thing I was going to say is that the other element of why I had to attend this meeting was because there were fuck all other staff in the office. The MD who got married took three weeks honeymoon straight after. The other MD also had that week off and, in fact, there were only two members of staff in for the normal office for that first week and then it was hardly any better in the second week.
And to further underline my status: even though I was the only vaguely senior member of staff in the office, both of the MD's out of office messages said to contact other members of staff who were in the office for about 2 days during the whole period, but not me.
Friday, 13 September 2013
for sale
I ended yesterday mentioning the sale of the company I work for.
At the time I talked a lot about "cake". I may have subsequently explained this, but the cake in question was actually an employee share scheme. Basically the Managing Director wants to retire. To do this she needs to sell the company so that she can release a nice pot of money for her to go away with.
However, if you say to all the employees "I'm selling the company so I can retire" they may not view that too kindly as it introduces a lot of uncertainty, particularly around who will take over and what the new conditions will be like. This would therefore generally encourage the employees to look for new jobs, so by having the share scheme you effectively promise to give away a chunk of that sale money so that those people hang around.
My problem is that basically I've ended up with a share option, rather than actual shares. This option means that I have the option to buy the shares at a later date at a reduced price. The idea therefore being I sell the shares immediately as part of the whole sale and the difference between what they pay and what I get is therefore a nice sum of money.
But there are some problems.
The company is currently worth nothing. Now this is deliberate as it's basically a way of minimising tax, but it also means that the shares I've got are next to worthless. If sold the next day I wouldn't even have been able to pay off my smallest credit card debt.
Now in some ways that's a good thing in that it means they have the potential for the maximum gain, but the real problem is that I have no idea how many shares there are total and what my proportion of those shares is, and I only have vague ideas what the company is currently worth, what it might sell for eventually, and there are no mechanisms to know how the company/share value is changing.
So, to use some simple numbers, it's all very well knowing that at the start I have the option to buy 1,000 at 10p each and sell them at 20p each. That means I would get £100. But I have no way of knowing if the value of the shares has doubled across the year or tripled, or halved or what.
The other issue over the proportion of shares makes things even more complicated. Basically, for example, there are actually 1,000 shares, and what they've done is take, say, 100 of those shares, turn that into 1,000 shares, revalue them, and then distribute them to the employees.
This makes things very complicated to calculate the actual value of the shares. With the above numbers, if they sold each original share for £1, that means that the 100 shares would be worth £100, but as I say, they've then made each of the actual shares distributed 1/10 of those shares, so actually we get shares worth 10p each. This means it might seem attractive to us to sell the shares at £1, but then we only get 10% of that. Or, remember, we need to buy these shares at 5p each, so really we get 5% of the value.
But of course I don't know the real numbers. So if I've been given 1,000 shares is that a big proportion of the total pot? Have I got 10% of the shares? Or 0.01%? And this really matters because it affects what I actually stand to make, but I can't know, so it's all a bit meaningless.
It's like if I give you a million spondulics, have I just given you a fortune or nothing at all? Of course you didn't have any spondulics to start with, so in a way you've got a fortune, but only in spondulic terms.
I've been with the company the longest, which from what I was told means I have a bigger proportion of the shares. But then I was told a lot about the share scheme when I agreed to stay on and only a small proportion of it has turned out to be true. Firstly I was told there would be dividends. Well, there are no dividends on share options. I don't own any shares, so I've nothing to receive a dividend on.
It also transpires that the shares have been divided up based on seniority as the most important factor, rather than length of service. I mean, that's a factor, but seniority is a more important factor and of course I'm in the "middle" tier, so I'm pretty sure I have less shares than the directors, even though they've only been here a couple of years and I've been here more than a decade.
And here's the other thing - I'm underpaid. I've also been underpaid for the last five years when I didn't have a single pay rise, despite the rapidly escalating cost of living.
I have debt because I was underpaid (well, that and me being a fucking moron). So what's better, getting a new job that pays the market rate now? Or gambling that the amount I get down the line is sufficient to make up for that underpayment+ a little more?
Well looking at some numbers I can't make the latter make sense. Plus, as mentioned, I don't really enjoy working here any more.
So why stay? Particularly since it will be at least three years before the company is actually sold. I can't stay here three years - I can't stay six months. Did I mention I don't enjoy working here any more?
At the time I talked a lot about "cake". I may have subsequently explained this, but the cake in question was actually an employee share scheme. Basically the Managing Director wants to retire. To do this she needs to sell the company so that she can release a nice pot of money for her to go away with.
However, if you say to all the employees "I'm selling the company so I can retire" they may not view that too kindly as it introduces a lot of uncertainty, particularly around who will take over and what the new conditions will be like. This would therefore generally encourage the employees to look for new jobs, so by having the share scheme you effectively promise to give away a chunk of that sale money so that those people hang around.
My problem is that basically I've ended up with a share option, rather than actual shares. This option means that I have the option to buy the shares at a later date at a reduced price. The idea therefore being I sell the shares immediately as part of the whole sale and the difference between what they pay and what I get is therefore a nice sum of money.
But there are some problems.
The company is currently worth nothing. Now this is deliberate as it's basically a way of minimising tax, but it also means that the shares I've got are next to worthless. If sold the next day I wouldn't even have been able to pay off my smallest credit card debt.
Now in some ways that's a good thing in that it means they have the potential for the maximum gain, but the real problem is that I have no idea how many shares there are total and what my proportion of those shares is, and I only have vague ideas what the company is currently worth, what it might sell for eventually, and there are no mechanisms to know how the company/share value is changing.
So, to use some simple numbers, it's all very well knowing that at the start I have the option to buy 1,000 at 10p each and sell them at 20p each. That means I would get £100. But I have no way of knowing if the value of the shares has doubled across the year or tripled, or halved or what.
The other issue over the proportion of shares makes things even more complicated. Basically, for example, there are actually 1,000 shares, and what they've done is take, say, 100 of those shares, turn that into 1,000 shares, revalue them, and then distribute them to the employees.
This makes things very complicated to calculate the actual value of the shares. With the above numbers, if they sold each original share for £1, that means that the 100 shares would be worth £100, but as I say, they've then made each of the actual shares distributed 1/10 of those shares, so actually we get shares worth 10p each. This means it might seem attractive to us to sell the shares at £1, but then we only get 10% of that. Or, remember, we need to buy these shares at 5p each, so really we get 5% of the value.
But of course I don't know the real numbers. So if I've been given 1,000 shares is that a big proportion of the total pot? Have I got 10% of the shares? Or 0.01%? And this really matters because it affects what I actually stand to make, but I can't know, so it's all a bit meaningless.
It's like if I give you a million spondulics, have I just given you a fortune or nothing at all? Of course you didn't have any spondulics to start with, so in a way you've got a fortune, but only in spondulic terms.
I've been with the company the longest, which from what I was told means I have a bigger proportion of the shares. But then I was told a lot about the share scheme when I agreed to stay on and only a small proportion of it has turned out to be true. Firstly I was told there would be dividends. Well, there are no dividends on share options. I don't own any shares, so I've nothing to receive a dividend on.
It also transpires that the shares have been divided up based on seniority as the most important factor, rather than length of service. I mean, that's a factor, but seniority is a more important factor and of course I'm in the "middle" tier, so I'm pretty sure I have less shares than the directors, even though they've only been here a couple of years and I've been here more than a decade.
And here's the other thing - I'm underpaid. I've also been underpaid for the last five years when I didn't have a single pay rise, despite the rapidly escalating cost of living.
I have debt because I was underpaid (well, that and me being a fucking moron). So what's better, getting a new job that pays the market rate now? Or gambling that the amount I get down the line is sufficient to make up for that underpayment+ a little more?
Well looking at some numbers I can't make the latter make sense. Plus, as mentioned, I don't really enjoy working here any more.
So why stay? Particularly since it will be at least three years before the company is actually sold. I can't stay here three years - I can't stay six months. Did I mention I don't enjoy working here any more?
Thursday, 12 September 2013
work
So I thought I'd do the first blog about why I've not been having much fun just recently.
Unfortunately it's become very apparent to me that my decision to stay on at my current employer last year was a big mistake.
I'm really not enjoying work.
All the same crap still seems to happen. I had thought that some of the reason for me staying on was to help introduce some better ways of doing things, but basically they've all been either ignored or actively disregarded.
I'll give you a very good example - we've recently introduced a new Contact Management System. Now, Contact Management is key to what I do - bid management.
However, at no stage have I been asked my opinion or in any way included in the process.
The old thing we used to use was a bespoke system put together by one of the employees and it was bobbins. It was full of fields that nobody understood, nobody used to fill it out anyway and there was never any training to explain anything. The problem being it wasn't properly designed - it was thrown together and packed full of "wouldn't it be nice if it" stuff.
Guess what's happened with the new system?
It's full of stupid fields that are either pointless or nobody understand the purpose of / what to put in there. And there's not been any training.
Part of the problem is they've bought something that is a product - it is an "out of the box" thing. Now there are a few ways they could have gone that would have worked:
Guess what they've done?
They've kept the out of the box product and added in loads of fields that mimic the crap the old system used to have. So the problem is they're trying to make it bespoke when the product itself is set up such that in other to make it bespoke in any useful sense you have to get a programmer in to change stuff.
A programmer who costs a lot of money. And they're not willing to spend any money.
This bespoking has also been done by someone who is not that way inclined - he's not a programmer, not an analyst and really not at all suited to the job. And it's been "managed" by the MD. Who has started taking loads of holidays and breaks like she has already retired and is focused on trying to sell the company.
Which is the other thing, but I will continue with that tomorrow.
Unfortunately it's become very apparent to me that my decision to stay on at my current employer last year was a big mistake.
I'm really not enjoying work.
All the same crap still seems to happen. I had thought that some of the reason for me staying on was to help introduce some better ways of doing things, but basically they've all been either ignored or actively disregarded.
I'll give you a very good example - we've recently introduced a new Contact Management System. Now, Contact Management is key to what I do - bid management.
However, at no stage have I been asked my opinion or in any way included in the process.
The old thing we used to use was a bespoke system put together by one of the employees and it was bobbins. It was full of fields that nobody understood, nobody used to fill it out anyway and there was never any training to explain anything. The problem being it wasn't properly designed - it was thrown together and packed full of "wouldn't it be nice if it" stuff.
Guess what's happened with the new system?
It's full of stupid fields that are either pointless or nobody understand the purpose of / what to put in there. And there's not been any training.
Part of the problem is they've bought something that is a product - it is an "out of the box" thing. Now there are a few ways they could have gone that would have worked:
- Get a complete bespoke solution, a bit like the old one, but made by professionals.
- Get an existing solution and either:
- Pay to make it bespoke
- Modify the processes and procedures of the company to match the product.
Guess what they've done?
They've kept the out of the box product and added in loads of fields that mimic the crap the old system used to have. So the problem is they're trying to make it bespoke when the product itself is set up such that in other to make it bespoke in any useful sense you have to get a programmer in to change stuff.
A programmer who costs a lot of money. And they're not willing to spend any money.
This bespoking has also been done by someone who is not that way inclined - he's not a programmer, not an analyst and really not at all suited to the job. And it's been "managed" by the MD. Who has started taking loads of holidays and breaks like she has already retired and is focused on trying to sell the company.
Which is the other thing, but I will continue with that tomorrow.
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