Posted: Mon 26 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Work-related |
Despite my *cough* years of working with large organisations – and particularly with public sector organisations – I still find it amazing how indecisive those companies can be.
For instance, when I was ‘lucky’ enough to work in Oldham, it took them over a year to decide which CMS to use. It then took them another six months to get everything sorted and working, and all migrated to the chosen CMS.
In the current place, it’s already taken a year to choose a CMS. It’s taken even longer for them to decide on which forum they should be using for another project. That one’s nearer to 18 months already.
I just don’t understand how these things can take so long. Well, I do understand how it takes so long – it’s the why that completely befuddles the chuff out of me. The how involves feasibility assessment matrices, vendor presentations, further assessment exercises, discussions about discussions about processes about discussions about the preamble to the migration process, further feasibility assessments, checking with IT, and business streams, that what we might order is compatible with what they might order in another year’s time, so on and so forth.
It’s just amazing that anything actually gets done at all…
Posted: Mon 26 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Work-related |
There’s not likely to be many updates today – I’ve got my head full of work-related utter rubbish that’s about as relevant as bollocks on a kettle, but still “must be done”.
Joy…
Posted: Wed 21 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Geeky, Work-related |
As regular readers of D4D™ will have noticed by now, I absolutely hate working with bloody amateurs.
At the moment, the entire network at work has the stability of overcooked spaghetti, and completely dies with depressing regularity. By which I mean roughly every 20-25 minutes. No connection to network servers, no connection to the outside world, no nothing. Even when it is working, it’s still flakier than the Singing Detective, with particular gems including that (according to our system) the BBC News website doesn’t exist. Not even that it’s taking longer than usual to connect, but it just doesn’t exist.
And yet the IT support department insists there isn’t a problem.
“Oh, we’ve checked, and everything’s fine”
“So why can’t I connect to anything?”
“Um, dunno. But we’ve checked, and everything’s fine”
It’s driving me (and everyone else in the office) fuckin’ mental. And the IT Support (and their superiors that this is already being escalated to) have all the technical skills of yoghurt.
It’s going to be a very long day…
Posted: Mon 19 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Photography, Work-related |
A couple of weeks back I wrote about being asked to provide some original photos so they could be used in a TV ad for the charity involved. I sent off the CD as requested (and yes, kept all relevant copyright, but granted permission for the images to be used in a broadcast format) and that was that.
I got an email today from the people at Channel M in Manchester, with a full copy of the advert – a 5Mb WMV file.
I’ll probably add it in here over the next couple of days as well, but I have to say, it’s something I’m really very chuffed about.
Posted: Thu 15 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Work-related |
I didn’t link to this yesterday, primarily because otherwise I’d have just had a surfeit of cynicism – on Valentines Day?!? Me? Who’d have thunk it – but this piece on FireandKnives.com brought back many memories of managing pubs and hotels on Valentine’s Day.
As one high-end chef, anonymous for obvious reasons, put it “Everything shitty, clichéd, and horribly 80s gets wheeled out. Duo of lamb chops, cut to resemble hearts. Coeur a la fucking créme. There will be at least one nancying, ninnying chicken dish, especially for the ladies, and steak, which will be ordered by 80% of the men. Well-done, of course – medium if you’re lucky”.
Me? I used to run singles nights on February 14, and got in all the people who’d been displaced from their usual eateries. We made a packet out of it.
Posted: Sun 11 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography |
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve missed the chance of taking some photos that would’ve been beautiful. Needless to say, this is invariably bloody annoying.
To me, there are two main problems – first is that I’m sat on the train, and the windows are invariably disgusting, which would probably add some gunk and nastiness to the final image. But the second problem is simply that the SLR isn’t the right tool for the job. As with Problem One, I’m sat on a train, and I don’t want to be sat there advertising the fact I’ve got £1,500 of gear with me – along with the corollary of ‘if he’s got that camera there, what else is in the bag?’.
I love the SLR, it’s a fantastic bit of kit, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. But I’m coming to the conclusion that I do need to have a small extra camera, one that I can carry everywhere, with a decent resolution, excellent zoom, but small and compact enough that it never leaves my bag/pocket – oh, and doesn’t look like I’m some well-off bastard.
It’s a pain in the arse – and I’d like to start earning some money from the photos in order to balance out some of the costs…
Posted: Wed 7 February, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Web Development, Work-related |
Note : This post is sickeningly immodest. Live with it
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