Normality Returns
Posted: Mon 4 January, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Work-related | Leave a comment »Back to work, back in the office, no Christmas tat, no New Year gubbins
Normality has resumed for a while.
Happy, happy day.
Ideas for 2010
Posted: Thu 31 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »Well it’s New Year’s Eve, so it’s time for me to have a few thoughts and ideas for 2010.
As always, there’s a number of ideas and plans coming together at the moment, but whether they’ll all come into fruition or not is something only time will tell. But for now this is the list of what’s in my head, and we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to keep it down to four or five categories, just to simplify things a bit.
- Photography : I really want to make some progress on the photography side of things, work towards selling some bits if possible. I’ve got some contracted work to do for the charity I worked with a while back, and from there see what progresses.
- Writing : Again, I want to get to the point of having some stuff actually done and finished. I planned to do this in ’09, but that hasn’t worked out. There’s a few bits that have been started, but I need to finish at least a couple of them and work that way.
- Work : I’ve made the commitment to stay in the current job throughout 2010 – allbeit with the “unless everything turns to shit as a result” proviso – which will keep the bills being paid and me in general work. But I still want to get some of the outstanding projects and ideas into some version of reality.
- Social Life : Over the last couple of years (really since moving to Norfolk) I’ve been utterly shit on the social side of things. So I plan to spend some time getting back in touch with friends around the place, and seeing them etc.
- Money : For me, 2009 wasn’t a good year financially, and want to spend 2010 getting back into a place that I’m happy with. Currently I’m not happy with the situation for debt, and I want to get a significant dollop of all that paid off if at all possible.
And that’s it. There’ll be more detail over time, I’m sure – and there’s also stuff on the domestic side – but that’s the rough plan. It’ll do for now.
In The Office
Posted: Wed 30 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »So yes, I ended up working between Christmas and New Year. Mind you, that’s nothing new – I’m hard-pressed to think of the last time I was off between those days. I’m sure it’s happened, I just can’t remember when exactly.
The thing is, I actually quite like this time of year for getting work done. The roads are quiet (or indeed fucking empty) so it’s easy to do the journey. The office is quiet, as most people have opted for taking time off instead. I can get a bundle of outstanding stuff done, because there are comparatively few people hanging over me waiting for other stuff to get fixed, or urgent “Oh shit!” problems coming up.
I don’t mind this time of year in general, actually. It’s the winding-down time, and the time to start preparing for whatever the hell’s coming up in the next year. Taking stock, making plans, all that shit.
So I don’t mind being in. I’ve got stuff done, stuff fixed, and got some ideas and thoughts for 2010. And that makes me happy.
Back to Work
Posted: Tue 29 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Driving, Work-related | 1 Comment »It appears that I’m one of the few people to have gone back to work today.
The roads this morning were just about empty – although I still ended up in a four-car parade following some cunt driving at 25mph along a 60mph road, because no-one ahead of me was prepared to overtake, and the gutless piece of crap I’m currently in courtesy of Enterprise is a sack of shit that would’ve taken six years of road to get past safely.
I don’t mind, to be honest – it makes for an easy drive, and while there are other people in the office, it’s quiet enough that I can get a bundle of stuff done. Works for me, anyway.
Crunch – Enterprise Day Two
Posted: Tue 22 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Driving, Work-related | 2 Comments »Following on from Friday’s fuck-ups with Enterprise Car Hire, we’d organised for the Norwich office to come and collect me between 10 and 11am, bringing me back to the Norwich office to do the paperwork and collect the car to drive home. Simple, you’d have thought. But no – because Enterprise Car Hire are a bunch of abysmally slack useless bastards.
Just before 10, they called to say that because of the condition of the roads (which were OK for the main roads, but a bit dodgy on back roads) they wouldn’t make it for 10-11, and would instead come over between 2 and 3. Fine with me, at least I knew what was going on.
Except, well, that’s not what they actually did. Instead, they gave the job back to the useless fuckbags at the Diss office. (which I’d explicitly asked to not happen, as Diss office were – um – useless fuckbags) The people at the Diss office decided to bring a car to me – why they did this and used up two of the three staff at Diss, rather than coming over to pick me up, as Norwich had planned to do is a mystery – and supposedly left Diss at 1pm.
After lots of phone calls to the Diss and Norwich branches, the car eventually turned up at 5.15. If the Diss office of Enterprise Car Hire are to be believed (and that’s a bit of a leap) it took them four and a quarter hours to travel 20 miles.
I’ve got the car for two weeks for sure, and we’ll see what happens after that. I can’t wait to see how Diss fuck up the returning of the car. Still, so long as they don’t charge me for whatever they fuck up, that’ll be fine.
As it is, I’m just glad I’ve finally got the car. It means at least I’ll be able to get in to work tomorrow, and sort out the stuff that’s waiting for me there.
Being Trusted
Posted: Thu 17 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Security, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »With the new job I’m actually finding myself in a fairly serious position of trust and responsibility – quite weird, for having only been with the company for two months.
For example, I’m completely responsible for the security of the data, a lot of which is seriously sensitive. That’s fine, I’ve been there before with other sets of information, but the sheer scale of this one is what makes it a bit intimidating. The stuff I’ve inherited from my predecessors is – to be polite – a bit shambolic, with what looks like a lot of “Oh, that’ll do” workarounds. So I’m getting to fix these things, and that can be a bit stressful.
This week has been (and still is, to some degree) a high point on the stress levels, because of two big jobs.
First, I’ve had to change all the encryption methods on the site, to bring it into accordance with some industry guidelines. That means de-crypting the existing data, re-encrypting it with the new method, then de-crypting it all again to make sure it matches the first set of de-crypted data. For 75,000 records. Suffice it to say, there were *lots* of backups in place, so I could roll it all back whenever.
Second – and this is due to be happening either tonight or tomorrow – we’re moving all the database stuff over to the new server. Again, having a seperate server for the database is a requirement of the industry standards but means a lot of work – killing the site, taking backups, copying them to the new server, and restoring the data. We could have used replication to copy one database to t’other, but to be honest I’m happier with the slower method which I’m familiar with in this case, rather than one I haven’t needed to use before.
Along the way, I’m also now a key-holder for the office – something else I don’t actually mind, and have done plenty of times before – but again it’s that responsibility, that trust which I still find surprising. I shouldn’t, but I do.
The final piece of this has started this week, as we’ve now got a new developer on board so I’m now in charge of a team of three developers, having to set up all the infrastructure for development areas, change control, training, documentation, everything. I’m responsible for two other people’s jobs as well as my own. That’s the scary bit – in the case of the new developer, I’ve been the one to interview him, I’m the one who’s said he’ll do the job. If I’m wrong, then he’s going to go, and won’t necessarily have anything to go to.
It’s all a bit of a leap into the – what? It’s not unknown, I’ve run small teams before, and run other businesses before I got back into IT and Web stuff. But it’s a big leap for me all the same, from where I was working last year as sole developer for one of the local councils, and now I’ve got a team, a set of plans, and a whole shitload of work.
Weird the way things work out sometimes, isn’t it?
Two Months Already
Posted: Mon 14 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Work-related | Leave a comment »Hard though it is to believe, it’s already two months since I started the new job.
Time’s flown, it feels like it’s been a lot longer that I’ve been there.
Even better, so far – and I’m aware that this is normally where things start to go tits-up – things are going well. Of course, I’m not counting on anything yet, but well, nothing’s gone wrong yet. And that’s not bad, for me.