Through the lost window

Still looking for the Windows CD to reinstall XP on the SATA drive, which took a time to find, the SATA power lead, which took a longer time to find, and still using my son’s PC with my dodgy hard drive, which seem to be behaving quite well at the moment. Hope that’s not famous last words!

The search for the CD (I can picture it, it’s in a long paper envelope affair and I think I last saw it when I was trying, unsuccessfully, to fix Burton’s PC) has led me to doing some LONG overdue further sorting out of the drifts of pointless paper which blizzard my overstuffed house. I’ve thrown out about a foot of useless pages/letter/leaflets I should never have kept longer than the time required to put it in the paper bin.

I got an unexpected call last Saturday from my son, asking me what I was doing that evening, and mirabile dictu! It was to ask if I would babysit while they went out together for once. The children were asleep, and I declined to wake them up to play with them despite Paul saying I should – what? I did a stocktake to make sure both were in their beds at the start of the shift, just in case they’d already been kidnapped, but they were both there, Lily still looking like a little pink comma in her cot, and Alex asleep in the same position his father maybe still uses - looking as if he is lazing on a beach somewhere.

I am wearing a different gold bracelet now since I broke a link on the filigree Chinese one (don't want to lose it) and Paul noticed it when they got back and asked where I’d got it (KL), was it real? (yes, 25g of 22ct gold ffs) a match to the ring I have swapped to wearing, and he said “is that going to go to my daughter”? Well, yes, I guess so, how many granddaughters do I *have*?

We had a really good time from when they came back till 4:30am when I left, Paul hardly ever drinks, and is quite a happy drunk. However, a bit like his father, it’s actually quite hard to tell until you realise he is being quite cute and sentimental.

Recognition at work!

Back in the office today after sleeping really badly, kept waking up coughing and feeling feverish, didn't go into the office till after 10, deal with my upset leavers and eventually pick up this email ....

Dear Jean

Congratulations on being nominated for an award in the ****** scheme. I am very pleased to let you know that we want to recognise your hard work and achievement and for you to accept a meal for you and your family to the value of £100 as recognition of the effort you have put into our success as a business.

I am very keen to recognise behaviour and contribution that is ‘above and beyond’ what we can normally expect from each other because this is what separates the average from the special. Well done and I hope you enjoy the meal!

Please contact my PA, *** on *** for further details.

Regards

*****
VP - Outsourcing
============================
Like, wow! I didn't even know they had such a scheme, and have absolutely no idea who nominated me or why. The business line I work in is an entirely different empire to his, although the project I am on is within that empire. L'Oreal moments are so wonderful.

New problem : who shall I take to dinner, where? The game is that I pay for the meal, get a receipt and claim it back through expenses on his personal code *blink*

AND...... team meeting this afternoon, B's and C's debrief on the project to date, they said one of the key plus points on the project was - me! Hurrah for me! I said we'd already got that one down as 'Test Team' cos we am one team despite having to say g'bye to three of them tomorrow.

My cunning plot to have a two-week hols is broke since I am not getting the bullet but am to be on the project till the end of the year, and perhaps beyond, depending on the scope of the next phase. Feeling kinda cool about it since there is no pressure for the next phase any more.

Sadness is that I missed out on a Hyatt champagne reception for 'special guests' on Tuesday, but JC told me I was a topic of conversation following the Presidential Suite business. Should add that my sexy red devil was again permitted to park right outside the Hyatt last night *smirk*

So, back to working out where/when to take hols.....

The LLM is looking likely, especially since I have tagged a course in London the day before.

Life is looking up!

Management styles

Here follows a short email exchange with one of my colleagues :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks Jean, I’ll update. Are you feeling better?

Jon
===============
Not much, but I think I had better come in if only to clear my desk and soothe my departing team members ;)

anything else I need to know but probably haven't been told?

Jean
===============
Not that I’m aware of, but then again, until yesterday, I wasn’t aware that you would be going

Jon
===============

Just as well I did stay late in the office on Friday to get *cough* early warning of this. The next phase of the project is on hold so everyone I assured would be there till April next year is on notice to roll off the project. Nothing unusual, we're all permanent employees and projects evaporating suddenly is more the norm than a rarity.

What's not OK is how they've managed it: at the second or at worst the third sign that things might not be moving ahead as planned, they should have given 'fair warning' that we might all be moving on soon.

I'm out sick, so wasn't able to DO anything about my people, and the personal call I got from one of them told me it was handled even worse than I thought it might. My advice to tell the whole team the next phase was delayed and tell individuals, individually, after at least a couple of hours, was ignored. Instead, they had a team meeting where my deputy, who is staying, told the three who are off this Friday in front of everyone else.

From Friday's late evening conversation (following which I slung a few reams of paper into the shredder), I know they have my end-date as next Friday, and am not actually too fussed beyond my holiday plans and their lack of honesty. I've now cancelled next week so that I can have two weeks together next month which suits me better. Apart from looking at the calendar to decide which social events I'll now miss! However, phone calls last night and this morning with direct questions about when *I* leave only got shifty responses that my glorious leaders "hadn't discussed it yet".

Why is it management don't realise that hiding bad news only makes things worse?

At least R told me she didn't believe I'd have done it like that, and I was able to give her a contact for potential work that means she can continue to work in Birmingham and travel from home instead of working away.

So, final fling in the Hyatt this week, and the knowledge that they'll be pissed off that I've applied work/life balance and cancelled next week as holiday. Shame they didn't tell me officially that I'll not be there next month *evil grin*

Weekend? Saturday afternoon went very well, Saturday evening was a bit sparse but with lovely people, and Saturday late evening delivered on it's promise ;0
Lurgy is unlovely but good company makes up for it

poems

I sent Shani an email titled 'waving?' and she replied saying ::drowns:: and I discovered that she had never come across the poem 'Not Waving But Drowning' by Stevie Smith, "much too far out all my life, and not waving but drowning". You can look it up if you want but be warned, it's dark.

Finding the poem for her meant I got caught up in cerfing for the poems I love, maybe I should mention that I do seem to like dark poetry, Plath, and Larkin http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/philip_larkin/poems. Toads, Wants, and the last lines of High Windows especially.

"And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

but my FAVOURITE poem is Siegfreid Sassoon

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Time to get going for my afternoon eventing at the STudio now. Wish I didn't have the lurgy!

Fireworks

Being up this early is a pure nonsense: I woke up at 5am with my head full of work rubbish and an unpleasant feeling of "where's mine?" but that, thankfully, seems to have worn off as I've woken up properly. Still on my son's PC which has a too-loud fan and just KNOW that I have to get my own machine and the wireless thingie sorted out.

Planning to have the short people again today, it was such a lovely day yesterday with both of them pottering about, being angelic and playing nicely, they really are such 'good' children; fair share of tantrums and episodes but even so. Alex came with me to Tesco, in the red devil, which was fun, he kept telling me to go faster. I've checked out the nagging concern and yes, it IS illegal now to have a child in a car without a booster seat: me bad (but I've got the seat to use today if I need to). I gave him a couple of quid to put in the box for poppies, and the old boy with the tray was very sweet to him, and called me back to thank me for telling Alex he was helping to look after lots of brave men who fought in a big war so mummy and daddy could look after HIM. I felt such a fraud, but pleased at the same time.

It was odd to see Paul's father at the house in the morning when I went to fetch them, affable and still ~connected~ somehow: it was all such a long time ago and I know I made the right decision but it still feels odd sometimes. Anyway, he's still capable of charm and I'm glad he's spending time with Paul and the children sometimes.

Alex wasn't at school becasue he has a dodgy tummy, blamed on recent injections, and was certainly quieter than usual, but a whole day with them was pretty blissful, followed by a long, slow walk back in the dark as my mother struggles to walk any distance and I don't have the big car any more to have been able to get us all in there. It only occurs to me now that I should have got a taxi (booster seats etc aren't obligatory in taxis? - how does that work then?)

Paul had arranged to come home from work for an hour with fireworks for the children and you never saw anything as excited as Alex when his Dad came in with a huge box of fireworks and rockets; almost all of the photographs have him with his hands over his ears, looking very worried and he decided it was better to sit indoors with his great-grannie and watch through the window even if his mother and father did declare him a wuss.

Some times are very special. I'll upload the photographs when I find the card-reader gizmo.

Putney tonight, I think I should be able to get my act together after the early dinner we have planned at Dee's. I'll see how trashed I feel; I swear small people get their energy by draining it off the nearest adult. Cancelling everything last weekend due to rotten sore stomach and letting go the work beast was necessary but I stil regret not having done anything plus the dance class on Saturday has gone west (hope your leg gets better soon, P) and mother advised me last night that she's not going home till Monday. Just in time for me to set off back to Brum for another two weeks of mayhem.

then, then, blisssssssss! I get another week off and am looking at using Hyatt points to get free accomodation in Cancun and maybe hook up with Araceli if I can find her. Suddenly life looks brighter, Vikki got back in touch (thank you facebook)bought a pub and developed a grandchild so I am looking forward to visiting and catching up with her and my nearly-nephew: he has managed to grow up alongside all the Harry Potter films I took him to see and they've run out at the right time.

Time to get dressed and DO things

Hols

I'm officially on HOLIDAY for a week - HURRAH!

I moved some furniture around last weekend and discovered the PC monitor doesn't work any more BAH! so I'm on the work laptop with the mobile broadband cos I jus' can't be Rsed to get technical about fixing it. Think I may just go and buy another one, conspicuous consumption rules : problem is I'll probably find it's the hard drive that's gone and that will make me very miserable.

I meant to go to the London munch last night, and AntiChrist cos I have a real yearning to dance, but I knew by mid-afternoon it just wasn't going to happen. My £5,000 worth of photocopying didn’t happen either (expenses) because the website you’re meant to enter and submit it on closed before I got clear of the toad, work, so I decided it can wait till I get back and I’ll do it in their time rather than mine.

Since my boss really DOES look like Andrew Marr (too tall and stands too close; MUCH bushier eyebrows that he lowers from, and an even more mobile mouth) I might refer to him as Andrew from now on : From Wikipedia, - Marr also recounts an incident where he was approached by a man in a shop who said, "Here, you look just like that Andrew Marr... you poor bugger." He’s OK really, just a pain as a manager because of his meddle management and constant undermining of his own direct reports by going to individuals for up-to-the-nanosecond information to feed his insatiable appetite for detail.

Also, there is a Pratchett quote that fits him perfectly, “he wasn’t a man to avoid interrupting the answer to a question with a question about the answer he just interrupted”.

He called a meeting yesterday afternoon to tell people the schedule for new builds over the next two weeks and was obviously distressed that he didn’t get a hot welcome. He asked me later what happened, why the meeting “didn’t work”, and I told him gently that all he had done was provide information to formalise what people already knew had to happen. No-one gets excited about that; he’d have done better to have sent an email. Poor soul, he so wants to be loved and feted, and will never understand why it doesn’t work for him.

I did manage to escape the office before too many silly-o'clocks this week; Thursday was *cough* fun. bossman and I declared war on each other by high level distribution list email, and I was walked into an office (AGAIN!) for a "quiet word" (AGAIN!) which involved a lot of heated exchange (AGAIN!). This time resolved by my making it crystal that if he wants to pull rank, he has the right to do that. He did. Avoiding saying that when it all goes wrong (as it already has) he can rest easy knowing he threw his weight about to force a situation no-one can explain or defend. I don't have to any more, it was his call and his problem for the future. His cheap political power play has cost him the ability to hold me responsible for control of my own process, and let me off the hook for where it isn't easy to manage. Class. Thank you, kind sir. *g*

Work obviously has far too large a footprint on my life, and I need to get a grip on myself and care less about getting it all done.

Tired like a fish! I finished reading Pratchett’s ‘Nation’ last night and it turned out to be pretty good, but a horribly, horribly slow start. If I hadn’t been working away, I would probably have given up on it but I needed something to read and that was all I had with me.

Reading something else now Underworld, by De Lillo. It’s a fine thick book Mark loaned me hopefully just right for a week on hols when I should have some time to catch up on reading and proper escapism.

I bought myself lilies and freesia last night, a true pleasure since I’m not usually at home to enjoy them, and would feel foolish taking flowers into the office, besides which, I’d need others in the hotel room and still wouldn’t be in one place long enough to enjoy them properly. However, I did get a couple of hyacinth bulbs with glass vases to do the childish “look, no earth” thing and might take one of those in when I go back.

Much later ~ not long got up (It’s half seven at night) and pouring rain. Inside seems like a good place to be right now. Drinking a Downey special, the whole get mashed on wine thing seems to have taken a bit of a back seat lately. Still headachey and tired, hope I’m not going to waste my holiday being poorly