Currently, the change of plans for next week is being dealt with OK. As always, it involves sending out a spudload of CVs to available contracts, and seeing what floats back.
At the same time, the way I feel this week means I wouldn’t mind having a week at home, where I can get some outstanding stuff done. That wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.
So it’s a matter of seeing what comes up. In an ideal world, another contract will come in to take the place of the now-dead one, but it might be a week or two. We’ll see.
What this entire thing has done though is put me back in the frame of mind where actually I’m really tired of what I do. Again, I’ll see whether that feeling stays, but it could be that it’s time to look at moving on to some new field, something I actually want to do rather than “just” something I’m good at. (and that I usually enjoy doing)
Mind you, changing to something else I want to do will take time – I’ve a couple of ideas for it, it’s more about having the time (and the money to take the time) to get going on them.
I dunno – I know that while things are OK at the moment I’m also a tad depressed about the entire farce. I’m tired of it. So I’m going to take some time, think about where things want to go and/or need to go. We’ll see what happens.
Today I’ve found myself repeatedly annoyed by news coverage.
There appear to be two main stories today :
Yet every media outlet I’ve seen today has those stories in the opposite order, and that annoys me.
Somehow, UK politics appear to have taken precedence over (at least) 90 people being killed.
Today I got a call from one of the agencies I’ve been dealing with, and all of a sudden everything changes.
The contract I was supposed to be starting on Monday has been cancelled. Apparently the directors of the company in question have decided that the project won’t go ahead, so they’ve pulled the budget for it.
And lo, no job for me. All my paperwork had been signed, ID stuff sent and the like and now it’s all for fuck-all.
This is one of the things I hate about contracting over having a “proper” job – and that’s a pretty small list, believe me – that things like this can happen at the drop of a hat. If it were a ‘proper’ job, the project decisions and budget would all have most likely been sorted well before it came round to getting someone to do the work. It’s something that seems to have been happening quite a bit this year, and it’s not something I’ve seen prior to this. Sure, I’ve had one contract come to an end before it was supposed to – and I’ve had plenty more extend well past when they were supposed to finish – but up ’til now I’ve not had to deal with ones that get cancelled before they start.
It leaves me at a bit of a loose end, as I’d already closed off the current contract to end on Friday so everything was ready for Monday’s start at the – now non-existent – new place.
So I’m back to square one. Sending out updated CVs, talking to agencies, going to interviews.
I won’t deny, it’s been a serious hit on me today – I’m not feeling great anyway, so this has just been kind of the last thing I needed. All told, it makes me want to chuck in the entire thing and head off to Pastures New (or at least Pastures Different) with a totally different job/career/work-life.
It won’t happen yet, no matter how much I want it to – but I think it’s something I need to start properly working towards. (And I know, that’s not grammatical – I just can’t think of the grammatical way to put it)
In summary? Today’s bollocks. Next week ain’t looking good, either.
Sometimes I wonder whether the animals at home actually want to get rid of me.
In the last twelve hours, for example, I’ve dealt with Psycho Cat puking at 4am, Hound puking at 7am, and Hound trying to deal me a nip for no good reason at all this morning.
All told, it really makes you wonder whether they actually want to see me back at all.
Today’s the start of my last week working in London. Happy, Happy Day.
I haven’t minded being in London, and I know I could do it again if I had to. It’s not an ideal situation, but if the work’s there, then I can do the travel and stay away.
I also know that after last week, I will never do the “driving into central London on a regular basis” thing again. That was certainly a step too far for me – if the drive had actually been just the mooted two hours, it would’ve been OK, but with the extra time involved and London traffic, it was a killer. By Friday I was in no fit state for anything.
Overall I’m glad that I’ll be returning to a more sane working set-up from next Monday. I’ve got the job done here, and everyone seems happy (which helps too) so all told it’s been a fairly successful contract.
Now, roll on Friday.
I’m seriously thinking (allbeit for next year now) of getting some big stickers printed up that just say
For christ’s sake, it’s still only fucking September!
Where will I use them? In supermarkets, when they’re already selling Christmas cake, pudding, mince pies, and general Festive Tat.
I mean seriously, we haven’t even got the bloody Hallowe’en stuff out in some of the shops – let alone feckin’ fireworks – and yet there we are, all the food and tat for the Festering Season is on the shelves already.
One of the local garden centres even has on display all the chavtastic house-decoration shit.
It’s fucking September. I despair.
On Thursday, we went to see Marcus Brigstocke’s “GodCollar” tour in Norwich.
We’ve seen Brigstocke on TV a few times, but really had no idea what to expect from him live – and I’d made a positive effort to not read any reviews of the show at all. We’ve been disappointed by other shows where we’ve seen most of the material before (Frankie Boyle in particular) so we didn’t want that to happen again.
We needn’t have worried. The show was fantastic – although definitely not for those with a lack of humour about religion. It’s not offensive per se, although I can imagine some people might find it so, but more about Brigstocke’s thoughts around organised religion, and trying to find his own beliefs and thoughts about God.
He’s scathingly rude about most aspects – which in my opinion is always a good thing – and particularly about Richard Dawkins, iPhones (and users of iPhones) and plenty of other things besides.
It made for a fantastic two hours – both very funny and thought-provoking.
I’d happily go and see Brigstocke again – well worth it. But definitely not a show for the faint-hearted or easily offended.
Amazingly, D4D™ now contains no less than 848,392 words.
D4D™ started on 9th August 2002, so it's been going 2781 days or roughly 7.61 years.
In that time, I've not posted on 187 days all told. Not bad.
