New Job, New Commute

Posted: Tue 27 August, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Public Transport, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Today I start my new contract, over in Cambridge.  The commute is kind of weird, I’m going in the opposite direction to last time I travelled that route.

As long-time readers of D4D know, I’m not averse to the odd idiot commute. This one is actually pretty sane in comparison, although I suspect I’ll have to spend some time finding the ideal route. There’s a couple of sections – primarily from St Neots to Caxton – that are vile, although honestly I suspect all the routes are much the same when it comes to heavy traffic.

As it is, I’ve gone from the 20 mile journey to Previous Place (well, Previous Long-Term Place) to a 40 mile journey to the new one, so my commute has doubled. Although, weirdly, it’s pretty much the exact same distance as the drive to the office of the short-term contract – just in the opposite direction.

Apparently for a lot of people a 40-mile journey to work is too much, but for me it’s nothing – it’s still less than half of what I was doing when I was living in Norfolk and Suffolk, and working in London. And it’s nowhere near my record commutes – although they were by train rather than driving – of  Bath->London (115 miles each way, each day) and Manchester->London (200 miles each way, each day)  although I will never do a journey/commute/contract like that again. It pretty much killed me when I did it fifteen years ago, I can’t see it would be any different now.

Still, in that context, a 40-mile journey is absolutely nothing. I’ll spend some time figuring out best routes, best times and the like, and settling into the new schedule. But really that’s all just part of a new contract for me.

I’ll write more about it once I’m more settled into the routine, and know more about what I’m actually doing.

Employed

Posted: Thu 15 August, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 2012/13, Business, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Work-related | Leave a comment »

It’s now been confirmed that I’m gainfully employed in a long-term contract from Tuesday 27th August. It’s a six-monther, based in Cambridge, and stands to pay me more than a year with my previous employer – and that’s before taking into consideration the expenses thing and so on.

Going through this whole process again has been really good for me, as it turns out. I was beginning to wonder whether I was still in the right place/industry, and while those doubts still remain to a degree, at least my own personal confidence has been somewhat restored.

All told, the events for this last month have been :

  • 17th July : Made redundant
  • 19th July : Last day of employment
  • 22-29th July : Week off, no CVs sent out etc.
  • 29th July – 4th August : Send out some CVs, talk to some agencies
  • 5th August – Phone Interview with Company X
  • 7th August – Interview with Company Y, with immediate job offer and immediate start for a short-term contract
  • 12th August – Interview with Company X.
  • 13th August – Phone Interview with Company Z. Job offer from Company X. Interview offer from Company Z

So – two face-to-face interviews, both of which have led to work.  One further phone interview, leading to face-to-face interview.

It took me three weeks (including a week off) from notice of redundancy to getting work. I could’ve done it quicker, most likely, but I took it slow and was wanting something that I wanted to do, rather than just whatever comes next.

All told, I’m really quite chuffed with that.

11

Posted: Fri 9 August, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 2012/13, 2013/14, Change, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Somehow, D4D™ has now made it to its eleventh birthday. I never expected it to do so, but I can’t deny, I’m actually fairly proud that it has.

Events over the last eighteen months have meant that the writing here has slowed down, and lost its frequency (and in some ways I feel it’s also lost its way a bit) but I’m going to see how we do over the next year, and wait ’til this time next year to see what happens.  I might close it down, I might just keep it with irregular updates. Right now, I just don’t know.

The last couple of years have been – interesting, I think it’s fair to say.  D4D’s been through that time with me (well, obviously) and will continue to do so, I think. There’s still a long way on this old journey, and I think/hope the next year (or two) is going to be instrumental in whatever comes next.

Equipment Failure

Posted: Sun 2 June, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, iPhone, Shopping, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness | 1 Comment »

Don’t worry, this isn’t another post about the joys and pitfalls of getting older…

No, instead it’s about technology, and why the bastard stuff all ends up failing at the same time.

First of all, this post is being written on a new laptop – which I really could’ve done without having to get, but needs must when the devil drives (and/or you’re a web techie and wannabe-writer).  The old Dell laptop – which it turns out I bought back in September 2009, so I shouldn’t whine so much, I guess – had been getting flakier over the last six months, but I’ve been eking out the life of it since then, suffering the occasional (and then more regular) hard-drive crash, and the ropy keyboard with some keys that only worked intermittently.

This week though it’s been crashing every time it was in use, and was obviously getting to the point where I needed to a) pull all the relevant data off it like NOW, and b) replace it with something else. And with a trip up to Manchester this week where I’m *really* going to need a reliable laptop, this was the weekend for it.

So I’ve bitten the bullet somewhat, and the new one is a (dirt-cheap) Asus thing, running the already-much-disliked Windows 8. To be fair to Windows 8, the old laptop was on the much-loathed Vista, which I never really found all that annoying. Eight annoys me more so far, but I’ll get used to it.

The other two equipment failures are both iPhone related, allbeit power-related rather than device-related. (Although I did think one of them might’ve been the phone being fucked, which was a real worry)  First the Mophie battery case has failed. Again. (More accurately, the cable/charger for it, which will no longer charge) I love the Mophie cases, but they do seem to be somewhat crap, and only last about a year. And then the normal iPhone charge/sync cable also went kerfut and wouldn’t charge the phone.  So I’ve had to get a new cable for that as well – considerably less expensive than the laptop purchase, but still, why all at the same time?

Oh yeah, and the fridge in the house also played up this week, with one day where it didn’t appear to be working all that well. Fortunately it’s now back up and running.

But why the hell would four things, two fairly major, all decide to kiff out within the same week? Weird things, I tell thee, weird things.

Time for Change

Posted: Thu 30 May, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Insomnia, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Right now, life is (again) feeling like it’s time for some changes to start happening.  (Yeah, as if there hadn’t been enough of them already)

I’m not going to be diving into anything too much, but it’s safe to say that I’m at the point of having Had Enough of some stuff.

Work is the particular source of ire at the moment, with the feeling of being far too pressurised and overloaded, aided and abetted by an HR department that seems to think dealing with people isn’t in their job description.  I’m managing far too many projects – although keeping them just about on time and on-target, with only one glaringly delayed one that went out this week at long last – with too little recognition and acknowledgement. Additionally, for every project I close, two more come up, Hydra-like.

There’s other bits of life that are annoying me currently, but work is the main one – and the easiest one to change, I think. From there, I don’t know what’s next, but even if I increase my travel time, I suspect it’ll make life better just through the change happening.

Really though at the moment I’m just so fucking tired. I’m not depressed (or at least not massively so) just exhausted. I think burnout is just round the corner, and I need to address that soon, or it’ll happen.

Anyway, it’s just me whinging. Things will work out, change will happen.

Ageing

Posted: Sat 25 May, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Getting Old(er), People, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Most of the time, I forget I’m 41. Hell, most of the time I have to work it out when someone asks how old I am.  No-one ever believes I’m the age I am, and most people seem to estimate it as mid-30s (or less than 12, depending on my behaviour at the time) which is fine with me.  Fact is, people have been estimating my age as mid-30s since I was early 20s, so I suppose I’m aging fairly well in general – although I must’ve been fuck-rough at 20.

My hair’s been going grey since mid-20s, and that doesn’t really bother me. My mum went grey early on – less charitable souls could observe that might be related to having me – so it’s always been expected.

Recently though, there’ve been other signs of ageing, and I can’t deny, my own sense of vanity (small though it is) rebels against them.

Firstly it’s been the hair growing on my ears – what the hell is that about? For some reason I now get long hairs growing on the top of my ears, and rounds the edges. I don’t see the point of it, but there we go. It’s annoying- to me – but I’m sure no-one else cares.

And now the grey hairs are appearing elsewhere. Eyebrows first – and man do they show up! And now today, I discovered the latest ignominy – I’m even getting grey chest-hairs. Obviously they’re less publicly visible, but all the same, it’s just a bit depressing, all these combining signs that I truly am getting older…

One Year

Posted: Sun 5 May, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 2011/12, 2012/13, Change, Domestic, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Exactly one year ago today – date-wise, rather than weekday-wise – I moved to the new place.

It’s been one hell of a year, and eventful in many ways.  Looking back, in some ways it’s raced past and feels like only a few weeks. Indeed it’s only when I look back and list the amount of stuff I’ve actually done in that time, check out all the changes and occurences in that time, that I realise how much has been done, and then it seems amazing how I’ve fitted it all into such a short span.

There’s still a lot to do, many changes to be made, many things to be tried and worked on. Some I’ll do, some I won’t. But this last year has been a good building block, and it’s laid the foundations for a lot of the upcoming stuff that should be really quite interesting.

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