Working
Posted: Mon 24 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | 2 Comments »Another week, another bundle of falling shit.
And so it goes, in this wonderful land of migrating goalposts…
Still, this morning I’ve mainly been bugfixing on [the site whose name is soon to be revealed]
Initial Dip
Posted: Fri 21 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »Well, thanks to Gordon’s suggestion, I’ve started to bite the bullet.
A small (OK, very small) group of people has been emailed with the link to the new site, so they can have a look at it, and spot anything glaringly wrong with what I’ve done. There’s still a couple of known bugs I’ve got to fix – that’s part of my stuff for this weekend – and hopefully all will be well then to go live on Monday.
In the meantime I’ll be in the corner, gibbering slightly… (Oh yes, and if they want to link, or recommend the site to others, then they can – forgot to put that in the email…)
Oh yes, and I’ve got an interview on Wednesday for a new job. Yay me.
Final Decisions
Posted: Thu 20 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thinking About..., Web Development, Work-related | 2 Comments »Well, I’ve decided.
As of Monday, [the site which has currently not been revealed] will no longer be unrevealed.
In other words, this weekend I’m going to be putting some finishing touches to it, fixing a couple of things, and hopefully sorting out a couple of other bits that really should be done, but I was thinking might not be immediately. However, leaving the launch ’til Monday should give me the necessary time to do so.
Obviously it’s still really going to only be Version 1.0 , and there’ll be improvements, additions, fixes and so on along the way from there, but it’ll be good to have it at least out there, and usable. Although I’m kind of edgy too about getting feedback and so on. But I’m sure I’ll figure it all out, one way or another. Should be fun, anyway…
Successful
Posted: Thu 20 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts | Leave a comment »Regular readers may recall that in November 2004 I did a couple of nights work doing sone photography stuff for a local (well, local at the time) charity. At the same time, I created their website, and the photos were used on both the website and their annual report and publicity material.
Since then I’ve stayed in touch, and recently they asked me to update some of the content on the site, and also to do a report on how well used the website has been in the last year or so.
I did the report last night, and I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the results. Since January ’05 when the site went live, they’ve had 14,500 visitors, and the website has served just over 30,000 page views. The charity itself is pretty pleased with those results too – it’s a good figure for the first year, and hopefully will keep on expanding as time goes on.
Grouchy
Posted: Tue 18 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »Overall, it’s been a good weekend. Lots got done domestically, including getting half the garden turfed – it looks stonking, having been a mud-pit over the winter – as well as a shedload of other stuff. It also enabled me to get several steps closer to completing [the site that cannot yet be named] including some very funky stuff indeed.
With luck it’ll be able to go live by the end of the week, or end of month at latest. I’m looking forward to that day in a big way – although also with some trepidation, as it’ll be you lot who test it first and get to see what I’ve been banging on about. So yeah, it’ll be – to me at least – a fairly big day when it goes out into the world. Kind of scary…
Other than that, two visits with Hound to Burnham Beeches, somewhere she’d never been before (and got lost, on the first trip – cue epic stress levels) but now thinks is ace. It also leads to a very knackered Hound for the rest of the day/evening/night, which is never a bad thing.
And then back to work. I woke up this morning (Hmm, that could almost be the title to a song…) and just didn’t want to go in to the office. That’s normally a sign of the beginning of the end for me. Maybe it’s just been the epic levels of shit recently, maybe it’s many other things, but well, to me it’s just that I can see it coming to the end of a phase.
We’ll see, anyway.
Revisiting
Posted: Sun 16 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »As I write this, I’m sat outside a pub I used to run. In fact, of all the places I worked, this was the one I liked the most, the one I wanted as my own, the one where I could see the most potential. That was twelve years ago.
Twelve years. More than a decade has passed, and my life has changed and altered immeasurably over that time. Back then, I’d never created a website- then again, neither had many other people. In that time I’ve worked in countless places- hell, there were another three pubs to run yet before I called it a day, let alone the offices I’ve worked in since ’96. Since I was here I’ve lived in Worcester, Oxford, Weymouth, Aylesbury, Manchester, and Bracknell.
And yet I’m sat here, and the place hasn’t really changed. The plans that were talked about by the owners when I was here have never materialised, the extensions and ezpansions that were on the cards back then. It’s still just a small pub, a community of its own- there’s very little in easy walking distance, it’s an effort to get here, yet it’s still popular. The huge old wisteria (supposedly the oldest, or second oldest, in the UK, tree protection order and all) is still all over the outside, the field at the back still has horses. The inside’s been done up (a bit) but it’s not been “themed” or any such shite.
So I sit here, looking out into the sunset, thinking about conversations I’ve had this week with Herself, and wonder- having seen this old place- whether it’s not possible for me to come full circle too.
What Do I Want To Do?
Posted: Wed 12 April, 2006 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts, Work-related | 1 Comment »Somewhere soon, I think work and I are going to come to a crunch point. Currently we’re back to the exact same point we were in a year ago when I joined the company. Arsehole Boss has returned, and the entire thing’s turning into a vanity project – the man wants his name under every role – CEO, CTO, Senior Developer, Senior Web Developer, and probably Chief Cook and Bottle Washer too, given the chance.
This wouldn’t be so bad if he actually knew what he was banging on about, but he doesn’t. Because he can “create a site” using some shitty-ass piece of crap like Mambo or WordPress (he’s used both, and they’re “proper sites”) he thinks he can write PHP, and know what he’s doing. I’ve seen the stuff he’s *cough* ‘written’, and man, it’s fucking bad.
Anyway, morale company-wide is at rock-bottom. They’re trying to move the office to a place that’s convenient for Arsehole Boss and Arsehole Boss’s Bitch (AB is based in Spain at the moment, but ABB seems happy to just do whatever AB wants) and is inconvenient for everyone else. The current place they’re looking at would increase my travel costs five times, which is a not-insignificant amount.
So I don’t know what’s going to happen at the moment. I’ve got a lot of irons ready to go in the fire, and I think now that the Easter weekend is going to be spent stoking those fires so it can all go ahead without too much hassle. I’m sure I’ll write more about it over the weekend.
The current work position isn’t quite untenable, but it does come down to “If I keep working for AB, the simplest way is to go with the flow, not argue anything, let him get on with it, and say nothing”. But I know that in that case, it’ll stress me out more than is sane (I don’t do “say nothing” very well, when faced with weapons-grade stupidity) and really, when all’s said and done, do I want to be another of AB’s bitches?
Yes, the money’s great here, but do I want to prostitute my sanity and ideas?