What Comes Next
Posted: Fri 2 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, People, Sociable, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »This week I’ve secured and extended my current contract through ’til the end of the year – which is a pretty decent situation to be in.
However, I know that at some point in 2016 I’ll be looking for something new, and it’s making me think a bit about how it’ll work out.
The thing is, I’ve now been working in the current one for a year, and I’ve very much become used to working in my own office, at my own speed, with my own company. One day a week of on-site work, which has been enough on the whole workplace socialising thing for me, and the rest of the time I’ve been able to avoid general inanity and bullshit – which has been lovely.
I’m convinced it’s one of the things that has resulted in my general equanimity and contentment this year (as written about recently) so in some ways I’m really not looking forward to a return to four or five days a week on-site – which is the likelihood for the next contract, unless I can get very lucky and another ‘working from home’ contract – but we’ll just have to see how it all works out.
I’m not going to borrow trouble, though. It’s just something I thought about while looking at the contract extension and so on.
And really, only time will tell how things work out in the new year.
Situationally Unaware
Posted: Thu 1 October, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Laziness, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »As regular readers (what few there are) know by now, this year I’ve been renting a small office in a big building. On each floor there’s ten or so small to medium-sized businesses, so there’s a fair number of things going on at any given time, and deliveries are just par for the course.
What surprises me (still) though is how unaware so many of the people in those companies are. It’s a regular occurrence for delivery people to come up and not find a business, so ask another one where the recipient business is. And it seems like hardly anyone else knows even who’s on this floor, let alone the others in the building.
All of which strikes me as pretty strange. After all, the people at this end of the building walk past all the other businesses/offices on the way here. Yet they obviously haven’t paid attention to the signs outside the other offices, saying who’s in each one.
I know the names of all the companies – not the employees, obviously, that’d be stalkery – and where they are on this floor. Come to that, I’ve a pretty good idea of all the businesses in the building – if not a precise direction then at least to the point of which floor, and which way to go out of the lifts to get to them.
Surely I’m not the only person who does this? It’s only a basic awareness of stuff around me, after all…
Stasis – At Peace
Posted: Fri 25 September, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015 vs 2014, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts, Work-related, Write More, Writing | 2 Comments »While I was wandering around London last weekend, I had the time to do some thinking about the whole ‘not feeling the need to move on’ thing, which was much-needed.
There’s a lot of reasons for not feeling the need to move on at the moment, as I’ve written about already. I won’t bother with all those again, because this one is actually something else, something I hadn’t really looked into massively.
Basically, at the moment I’m really quite content with life and how it’s shaping up.
That has it’s good and bad aspects, for sure. Obviously it’s good that I’m content, that I’m at peace with things, and not yearning for change. It’s not something I’m massively familiar with, it’s all quite new, but I’m not going to complain.
On the downside, it also means I’m not feeling a huge level of urgency about things – certainly not for moving, but also with life in general. It’s kind-of all steady at the moment, which is fine for the time being. I don’t know that I want it to stay like that long-term though.
I am a lot less angry and irritable, though – and that’s primarily a good thing. I’ve noticed, looking back, how much D4D™ has changed over that time, looking back to when I started vs now. Life’s a lot calmer – but it’s also quite a lot duller.
Sure, people still piss me off. Life still pisses me off. But it seems (at the moment) to wash off again pretty quickly. I don’t feel the need to rant, to vent things out when I do get pissed off. (Well, not as much, anyway) But that also makes D4D™ less ranty, less annoyed, and somehow less amusing – both for me, and for anyone else still reading this rubbish.
It also goes some way to explaining (I realised) why I’m having problems getting going on some of the writing ideas. I’m not angry enough, not needing to vent out onto keyboard/paper. I need to find another way to do things, which may take time. We’ll see.
All told it’s a good thing, a sign of positive change – but it’s also going to have some knock-on effects, requiring some though and some further changes. That’ll take some time, and some sounding out of options. But it’s all good, and all entertaining.
All Lit Up
Posted: Tue 18 August, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Cynicism, Green, Laziness, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »In the office building I share with a bundle of other companies, I find I have my irritations. I know, shocking.
One that regularly annoys me is the way people shove on all the lights – even in public spaces where they’re not necessary – and completely fail to then turn them off again.
At the start of the day, people come in and just automatically turn on every sodding light – regardless of the conditions outside, the time of year, or of anyone else in any other offices. In short, the entire place is lit up like fucking fairyland – even in the height of summer, when you don’t need the lights on at all.
The same applies in the toilets – again, an area that at this time of year really doesn’t need any illumination other than daylight. But no, on go the lights, and then no other fucker turns them off again.
Of course, I don’t mind people turning on the lights when they need them. What bugs me is that they then don’t bother to turn them off when they leave the rooms/facilities.
But the thing is, everyone pays a piece of the electricity bill. You’d think that would encourage some responsibility, some desire to only use what’s necessary. But of course that’d require some vague sense of altruism, of being interested in something other than self, of just giving a shit about things. And that’s what’s missing.
Grrrr.
Thirteen
Posted: Sun 9 August, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Change, D4D™, Domestic, Driving, London, Looking Back, Thoughts, Time, Work-related | 2 Comments »Today, D4D™ is celebrating its thirteenth birthday.
Way back in 2002, when I wrote D4D™’s first post in Blogger, things were very different…
And despite having slowed down and slacked off for periods over that time, it has to be said that D4D has outlasted
- No less than eight houses (or at least my tenancies in those houses) – I’m still in the ninth place, so we don’t know which will win on that score
- Four relationships
- Two cars
- Countless jobs and contracts – I’ve come up with a rough figure of 22, but I’m sure I’ve missed at least two
- Oodles of other stuff I’m not going to rehash
There have been pauses, and things have definitely slowed down when it comes to writing here. But it’s still going, and we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds
Fridays
Posted: Fri 31 July, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weirdness, Work-related | Leave a comment »This year, I’ve been renting an office in a building in Milton Keynes – it’s been a good deal, and is suiting me pretty well. There’s lots of other small and medium businesses in the building, and my floor contains quite a diverse range.
However, Fridays are invariably odd here.
I don’t know why/how, but a significant number of the companies and businesses here just don’t seem to come in on Fridays. It means my floor of the building is like a ghost-town, and it’s just a bit weird.
I don’t mind, it’s just something I’ve noticed that seems strange.
Ker-Fut5 – The Return
Posted: Thu 9 July, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, M1, Milton Keynes, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »As of this morning, Saab is back in my possession.
While I was at the garage paying for the work (Car, you owe me big time. Any further breakdowns this year and you’re likely to go to the great scrapyard in the sky) they showed me the old turbo.
Wow. When they said it had exploded, they really weren’t far wrong.
Somehow – and I don’t know at all – some of the blades within the turbo itself had shattered. Bits of metal every-sodding-where.
All now seems well. They’ve warned me there may be some smoke from the exhaust due to the amount of oil that went through the entire system, although it’s been fully cleaned out.
So we’ll see how we go. I hope all will be well for a while from now.
(And now I’ve just got to do one more run with the hire car, then return that tomorrow and get in to work. Fun)