Tag: Work

Where’s That Lottery Win?

Yeah, thanks for asking, work is shit. There is far too much, and most with wholly unrealistic timescales. But a special shout out is needed for one project. There are a lot of people (in a lot of countries) who have LAN accounts with the company I work for. But there is no associated HR account. They have decided that there should be a link between the two, and therefore there is a project to migrate all these LAN users onto the HR system. In a normal set up, IT would do this, but this whole migration exercise has ended up with me being the one to set up the HR side for all four thousand plus of these.

They are coming through in batches. I don’t require a lot of information, but a key piece is who the line manager of the person being migrated is. I’ve made it clear since day one, that for anyone we migrate they must have a manager who is already set up on the system, as they can’t be set up without this. Yet in every fucking batch there are at least twenty people who have been given a manager who isn’t set up on the system. And so, it goes back with the message, we can’t load these as the manager does not exist. Then they send the manager details over, which means each batch ends up with me having to do the whole process twice.

We are only supposed to be setting up new people, but yet again in each batch are a number of people who are already set up on the system, and they error as the user ID is already in use. Which means I have to go through all the other upload files to remove these lines. For the love of anything, just check the files before sending them to me.

But I know they don’t do that until after I’ve attempted the load, as when the completion file is sent to them, they always come back with a list of people who have left. If they have left, why the fuck did you send them over in the first place. Have you any fucking idea how difficult to purge records from the system, and that it has to be done that day before the overnight run requests new LAN accounts for them all.

Batch ten came through yesterday morning. I’m not going to hold my breath that all of the above is going to be in this file as well. How fucking difficult is it to get this shit right. If I kept making the same mistakes on a process time after time I’d get the fucking sack, or at least be on poor performance procedures. Yet the external company whose tail is wagging the main company’s dog just carry on with impunity. I really am sick of this shit, and lots of other examples along similar lines. It’s hardly any wonder that all I want to do is win the lottery and fuck off. And no wonder that it’s bleeding across into the rest of my life and affecting that, and the people around me adversely.

I Wonder

Yes, I’m back and in full on misog mode. If you don’t like whining, then this isn’t the place for you. (If you don’t like wining, this isn’t the place for you either; but if you don’t like winning then this is probably the best place for you.)

One of the things about working at Hove is you can’t use your own face masks. You have to take yours off and use one of the provided style of mask. This is because the masks have been specially and scientifically designed to be of an excellent standard. Unfortunately, that excellence is only in terms of they are without a doubt the most uncomfortable, ill-fitting and pretty much useless pieces of sh1te I’ve had the misfortune to wear since lockdown first started over a year ago.

I left the site during the day for the first time since moving here last Thursday. It was a surprise to see the front car park of the office completely rammed full of cars. A surprise because when I get in in the morning, there’s only a couple of cars there, and when I leave in the evening, I’m usually the last car there.

I had a craving for a sausage and bacon roll, which was why I’d left the office during the day. I headed down to the Station Café, only to find it was closed and would be until the first of June. On my way there I’d noticed there was another café / sandwich shop nearby. I headed there only to find it was another of those effing poncey menu places. There was no way to get a simple sausage and bacon roll. They only did bratwurst for sausage, and as any long-time reader will know I’m not one for any type of sausage that isn’t cheap and nasty. Everything on their chalk boards (another bad sign) had lots of random salad and sauces on, and all fixed. I came away foodless and I won’t be going back in there again. I found out this week, if I’d carried on going and gone around the corner onto the main strip of shops there are plenty of places to feed my cheap meat addiction.

On a normal working day, I’m the only male in the building who doesn’t work for facilities (or their contractors). Yet, none of them can follow the signs and instructions up around the site. The ones they must have put up themselves. One way doesn’t seem to apply; inability to use the vacant/in use sliders on doors; no closing of lids; and use of aerosols (I’m assuming the last one, as it’s that or they bathed in some foul sweet smelling cr@p before using the facilities). All they need to complete the set is to throw chewing gum in the urinal.

We’ve only been in Portland East for three weeks, and they are kicking us out to go to West for a month as they are doing cabling works that will be noisy. And so, with the building going to be empty from next week for a month, they send a team of workmen in today to put up new branding decals all around the place. It’s fairly certain I won’t be asking them for help with my next brewery knees-up.

I spent what seemed an eternity decorating at the weekend. With that in mind it probably wasn’t my best idea to read the full version of “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” in the week before I started it. I kept expecting Nimrod (I love calling people that as a term of abuse, I’m not the only one it would appear) to turn up and tell me to call at the office at the end of the day to get my cards. Either for going too slowly or using too much paint. With the number of little bits that need touching up (appropriately of course), it would appear that perhaps I was born to skimp.

We also found time to go to the Crawley Museum on our Friday off, dodging rain showers, and also nipped into the Parkside (which I can’t say without doing it in the style of “Riverside” by Sidney Samson) café, and I got that sausage and bacon roll I’d been craving the day before.

To get through the drive to and from work (have I mentioned I don’t like driving?) I’m amusing myself with the various signs indicating turn offs for wonderfully named towns and villages. I have touched on some of these in previous works, but my journey passes the following places which trigger the same thoughts each time.

Handcross. It makes me think that perhaps somewhere there should be a village called Handhappy, or another one called Footcross perhaps.

Staplefield. So many questions, a lot of which I covered in a previous blog post https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2020/09/09/walkies/

Warninglid. Every time it’s always Warning! Lid! I wrote a drabble about this ages ago.

There I was, happily driving along, not a care in the world, when out of nowhere the hubby exclaims, “ooh, warning lid!”

I looked around expecting to see lots of lids flying towards us, but can’t see a thing.

“What the hell do you mean, warning lid? Is this a warning about a danger zone for lids popping off jars and flying at people, or did you mean warning, there was a manhole cover lid missing that I might drive into?”

“I didn’t say anything about a warning, I said Warninglid, it’s the name of the village we’re driving through.”

Bolney. Not the name itself, but I finally went there after passing signs for so long and it’s a lovely village. Another blog post was written about that as well. https://onetruekev.co.uk/Mutterings/2018/08/13/bolney/

Cowfold. In much the same vein as Staplefield. How do you fold a cow? Why? And many more ridiculous questions.

Ricebridge. Why would anyone make a bridge out of rice? You wouldn’t trust it enough to actually use it. Plus it would expand when it rained and it got wet.

Then there is the place where no one has bare feet as the entire population Has socks!

Albourne sounds like he’s Jason Bourne’s younger, less interesting brother.

Then most of the signs seem to mention the place where all those smug self-satisfied people end up living where they can B-right-on!

Finally, on a sign where you might blink and miss it – Portslade, which just makes me think of hundreds of bottles of different Ports laid out ready to drink.

Having disavowed Tottenham after their actions were caught and captured, I’ve gone for a complete step change, and have bought Crawley Town season tickets for Helen and me for the 2021-22 season. It will be something different for us to do. Always assuming we don’t move into lockdown forty-seven.

In a first for me – even though I’m pretty obsessive about this – I cleared my e-mail inbox. At work. My home one leaves a lot to be desired. So many people I’ve not gotten around to responding to (and certainly a lot of missed deadlines), and that I owe apologies to. Need to tweak that work life balance a bit I think.

End Of An Era 1 – Atlantic House

Last Tuesday was my last ever day in Atlantic House after just over ten years of working there. It is being closed as part of changes to office locations brought about by the fact most people work from home and have been doing since the original lockdown brought about by Covid-19. I’ve pretty much had the office to myself since we were allowed to go back in July, with a handful of people in some days. There has been somewhat of a feeling like it being the Marie Celeste, and it was no surprise that the office would be closed, the first of three announced so far, and there are sure to be others as we move into 2021.

To be fair the usage of the office had been heading downhill before Covid struck. The teams that were in the office had been downsizing over the previous few years and it was probably only ever at a maximum of half capacity most of the times (apart from Wednesdays, when the world and their wives would descend on the building for team meetings). It was at the kind of level it first was when we moved over there at the back end of 2010 to prepare for the sale of the Networks business after the company had bought British Energy.

Employee Services was of a similar size to what it will be in January, and of those original refugees from Energy House, not a lot survive, I’ve had a good think and only eight of us are still in Employee Services now, there are a couple who were and have moved on elsewhere within HR, and there are others in Employee Services who were employed by the company back then, but there are only the eight of us, half of which work in the team I’m in, and four of them had worked for me when we were in Energy House.

Over the years we have seen the team expand, to the point where we were on two floors, and then after meeting rooms and offices were stripped out of the first floor, we were crammed in taking up the whole of that floor. And then as various projects and reorganisations have taken place, we have shrunk again into a space that was less than half of the floor.

I’ve moved around the first floor quite a bit, but have spent the post lockdown months in a spot where my original desk was when we moved over. I’ve spent time on floor two as well when I was seconded to a very long and tiresome project, after which the reduction of the team could be seen more clearly. And along with the reduction in the team, the dilution of team spirit it took with it became more obvious.

It had used to be a fun place to work, and we did some great team events in the office. 2012 was probably the high point, we had just taken on a whole new team as part of an expansion, and the events came thick and fast during the year. Easter, Queen’s 60th Jubilee, Olympics, Halloween, Christmas, and Charity days. These would always involve dressing up, cake baking, eating, top trumps tournaments and engagement from the whole office. (Well, apart from a select handful of professional miseries, which at that point didn’t include me.) It was a good place to be.

Over the last few years all the fun has seemed to have been sucked out of working. People have been literally told not to talk, not to laugh, and if someone just happens to be smiling it is frowned upon (yes, that was intentional). Fun has come to be forced and therefore actually tiresome.

The teams would go out for social events – Friday night at the Snooty, Bowling, meals, helping hands etc – and it was all good. And as for the Christmas parties, they were legendary. Everything is so buttoned up now, and we don’t really mix outside of work at all now, which is somewhat of a shame.

And now that the office is closing the team will be split even more than they were before lockdown if and when we get back to the office.

There have been a lot of characters that have worked in Atlantic House, some I’m glad to have met, that I’m glad to know, and call acquaintances. Others who have been an utter nightmare and in no way am I sorry that they don’t work there anymore. And even more have been barely tolerated with accompanying eye-rolling (and I’m sure they thought equally highly of me). Some of them were only there for a matter of hours, some will still be working for the company into their nineties. A lot of people have left whilst we have been there, some have had grand leaving dos and great speeches, others went out for lunch and never came back (this seems especially prevalent in payroll).

I’ve been working at this office for about twenty percent of my life and there are a lot of good memories from it, and some big life events have taken place whilst I’ve been working there, and there is a part of me who is going to miss the office. The rest of me just wants a lottery win so I don’t have to commute to a new office.

Holiday Time

The last couple of days at work before a holiday are usually a bit hectic, but it is made more so when you are determined not to work at home and the office is only open from eight in the morning to six in the evening due to Covid-19. Add in trying to finish off a war and peace process document and new functionality going to a live pilot on my main job on the Thursday and it’s been worse than ever. But with ten minutes to spare I put the out of office on and escaped for sixteen days of freedom. Lockdown is being relaxed (apart from in Leicester) and we are going to escape the county. Can’t wait.

Sniffles has taken it upon himself to want to get run over by our car. After last week’s effort, he tried again today. I came down the close and went to turn, only for Sniffles to appear out of a front garden and in front of the car, where he laid down in the middle of the road. I edged forward and he retreated enough for me to get past and looked up at me as if to say “what?” There were no parking spaces, so I turned and came back down to the other end of the close, and he ran out of a front garden and in front of the car again. I eventually squeezed past without flattening him and got parked. As I walked back to the house Sniffles ran towards me meowing; being of sound mind I meowed back and we exchanged meows until getting to the front door, at which point he tried tripping me up so he could get in the house ahead of me.

The flies seem to prefer Whiskas more than Sniffles; it would appear to be the perfect spot for them to lay their eggs. And they are prolific MFs. In a couple of hours there were more eggs than Whiskas in Sniffles’ bowl. We probably end up throwing more away than the profligate little cat eats. Charlie always looks disappointed when the fly eggs ruined food goes in the bin, as if to say “I can eat that”. Yes, you probably would you woofy tw@t, and we know it would do you no good whatsoever.

We had started to clean up the borrowed fire pit last Sunday night, but the embers were still hot enough to melt straight through the bin bag. A couple of days of drizzle had cooled tem off enough to be thrown away, and then a downpour came and it wasn’t so much a fire pit as a paddling pool out there. It finally made it back to its owners Thursday night.

I’d put some biltong strips in my bag to take to work. They were double wrapped in a paper bag, put in the bottom of my rucksack, up on a chair behind the kitchen table. Having ignored them all night, between coming back from a walk and being left having breakfast and Helen going back less than five minutes later, Charlie had got the rucksack on the floor, opened it, got the paper back out, got inside both layers and he was finishing the remnants of one biltong strip (chili and garlic laden) and looking to start on the next. Somehow, the biggest idiot dog going had suddenly become a winning contestant on the effing Krypton Factor.

So, on the Saturday morning the pubs were opening from six in the morning, and the desperate alcoholics were queuing because they were opening earlier than the offies or supermarkets. Meanwhile Helen had gone to Primark where the queues might have been there for six days, and were close to six miles long. After that going to the pub would seem like a good idea.

Helen’s sister Julie had come over on the Saturday ready for the Taylor’s day on the beach at West Wittering on the Sunday. Whilst they were there I went into downtown Crawley and did some shopping. I got some new comfortable Asics and some Velcro fastened Lonsdale trainers and socks from Sports Direct, some maps from Waterstones, and doughnuts from the stall outside (how I missed hot sugar ring doughnuts from my top 50 foods I’ll never know). Then I got abuse from a woman because she was too stupid to notice the big signs on the pavement and so was walking against the flow of people on the left hand side. I just hope she doesn’t drive.

On their way out at before eight in the morning Helen had seen people going into the Downsman. It was still really busy twelve hours later when I went to pick up a takeaway curry from there that evening.

Monday morning finally came and with it a haircut. Jeez, how much better does that feel? I no longer look like the Widman of Borneo. Time to pack as off up north now, well, as soon as Helen’s finished working that is.

I may have spoken too soon. The trip up north was nearly over before it began. On the way back from getting the brake light fixed I was away with the fairies and totally missed the fact there was another mini roundabout on Ifield Road and nearly ploughed straight into a car coming from the right. If their car hadn’t had been red then I doubt I’d have slammed on the brakes and steered up on the grass bank. It took a while for my pulse to return to normal after that, I can tell you.

It was mid-afternoon when we set off, we were stopping at Stafford overnight, and that is covered in its own piece.

Stafford

But, as you go on your travels you don’t realise how people have scattered over the years, and so you don’t realise how close to people you know you are going to be when staying somewhere. Last year I wasn’t more than a few miles away from my cousin and uncle; this year in Stafford it’s close to two people I used to work with in Leicester, as they both commented on my Facebook check in for dinner.

We got to my mum’s Tuesday evening, and managed to survive for over an hour without getting force fed. Wednesday is going to be covered more fully in another piece, and consisted of pottering about during the day around Morecambe, Lancaster and Heysham.

Who Are You Calling An Antique?