Changing Plans – Follow-up
Posted: Wed 30 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »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.
Killer Week
Posted: Mon 21 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Driving, Own Business, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »This week is looking like it might turn out to be Not Fun.
I’ve got some pre-existing bookings during the week (I wasn’t expecting the contract to extend…) which means I’m working in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This means that I’m going to be driving in to the office instead of using public transport. And I suspect that will not be fun. It’s likely to be at least two hours each way – although I’ve done drives like that for work before, and at least I will have a break between each one, rather than doing three or five days on the trot, which would leave me looking like a stunned monkey by Wednesday (as it did when I did that for a week down to Basildon last year)
Needless to say, on those days the blogging content might be a bit thin on the ground.
Still, it’s only three days. And then one more week entirely in London. And then I’m done.
Final Stretch
Posted: Thu 17 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »This morning I’ve done all my necessary bookings and payouts for the last couple of weeks of this contract. (I know, I’m being organised. It’s as much of a shock to me as it is to you)
That means I’ve pre-paid my Congestion Charges for next week (Don’t ask), as well as booking my train and hotel for the week after.
All sorted – and after that, I’m just going to be commuting to Cambridge, so my main expense will be petrol. (diesel, whatever)
Thankfully, this contract’s been OK – it’s had good and bad bits, and there’s a couple of people I know I never want to work with again, but it’s been pretty good over-all. But I can’t deny, I’m going to be happy with not working in London again for a while after this. I can do it, and if it’s where the work is then fine – but I couldn’t do it long-term, I know.
Laptoppage
Posted: Mon 14 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »Following on from the recent post where I wrote about the fact my current laptop is/was dying at a great rate of knots, I ended up ordering a new one and it arrived (without prior warning, which is always a bit of a worry) on Friday.
It’s nothing hugely special, just a Dell Inspiron thing, but it will more than fill my requirements for the forseeable future. There’s a twin-core beast of a processor, 4Gb of memory, and a 500Gb hard-drive, coupled to a monitor with a 1600×900 resolution. I got the extended battery, as it’ll still get used on a regular basis while travelling and so on.
And even better, at the time I ordered it it cost me exactly £500. If it lasts like the last one did, it’ll be 2012 by the time I think about getting another one. God only knows what the basic spec will be by then!
It’s got a couple of idiosyncracies – I think the weirdest thing is that for the first time ever, I’ve got a machine that doesn’t have any indicator lights on it for hard-drive, battery charging, etc. It’s *very* strange to not have them – or maybe this is a new trend that I’ve just not spotted ’til now.
As always, I’ve spent time over the weekend copying files over, archiving/deleting stuff, sorting out software installations and the like, but I think we’re pretty much there now. I’m still missing my CS3 install, but I’ll get the disc back for that sometime (and there’s no real hurry) and then it’ll all be done.
So it’s nothing hugely special – but it’ll do, and it cost me less than half what a commensurate MacBook would do. I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got, thanks.
[Update : Having looked at Apple’s on-line store, an equivalent MacBook Pro would’ve cost me from £1,500 – so I’ve got what I need for one third of the price of the Mac. Can’t think why I don’t want to go Apple, can you?
Strange Days
Posted: Sat 12 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »In some ways the week just coming to a close has been pretty strange.
For one thing, in the space of five days I’ve managed to sort out an extension to the current contract (allbeit ‘only’ for two weeks) and sort out what I’ll be doing straight after that. I can honestly say that’s never happened to me before – there’s usually at least a week of time between contracts, but in this one I’ll be finishing the current one on Oct 2nd and starting the new one on Oct 5th.
Along the way, there’ve also been a few other decisions made, thoughts had, and stuff worked on. But there’ll be more details about that as time goes on.
But all told, it’s been a positive week – just slightly stranger and more organised than I’m used to.
Travelling Again
Posted: Thu 10 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Travel, Work-related | 1 Comment »This morning I’m travelling back up to Cambridge for an interview.
It’s still a contract role, but will be back to decent lengths of time and a decent rate. So fingers crossed for it, really.
Adding Discomfort
Posted: Wed 2 September, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Own Business, People, Work-related | 5 Comments »When I have to work in London, I always remember how much I dislike doing so – but also how much fun I can have at the same time.
Currently one of my favourite pastimes is being nice to people, or just talking to them. It seems to shock so many Londoners when it happens to them – and as such is of course very funny.
Just in the last couple of days, I’ve talked to complete strangers in the lifts at the office, (being up on the 14th floor, I really can’t be arsed to use the stairs!) given directions to confused-looking people at Waterloo, and just saying hello etc. to people in the local shop. (In fairness they’re getting used to me, and are far less phased by the entire thing of being talked to)
It’s just something I find fun to do. And it takes a fair amount of skill to be malicious by being civil or helpful to people. Which is why I do it.