beginning of the end

the start of my final week at work. have done nothing and have been given nothing to do. i doubt i will get anything to do and its just a question of winding the clock down at the end of the game and waiting for the final whistle, to use a sporting metaphor.

it was freezing cold this weekend but managed to get out on my bike and to the gym. cycling there in these conditions is always difficult because you can't get any heat into your legs or your body and its hard to get yourself warmed up. things are much better on the way home after a work out because you are buzzing and warmed up, and it means you cant feel the cold as much, but its still hard work. no chance of setting a quick time in conditions like this. forecast is for snow tonight so tomorrow will be interesting.

called up today about that exchange course i wanted to go on. they are going to call me back if anyone drops out and there is a place available. was a little surprised when the guy said that it looked like all the places were taken up. would have thought people would not want to go on a long training course in december when work is so easy at this time of year and you do hardly anything. anyways, we shall see if they call me back. no bother either way.

was also looking around for somewhere to do my sql exam which i am going to start studying for. on the exam portal it shows what exams you have booked with them and whether you passed or failed. i have failed 10 times on various exams. wow, i had no idea it was that many. i really am quite shit. i have passed 22 times though, so thats not so bad.

football has been cancelled this week because we cant get the numbers. will go training instead, but would have prefered to have played. i suspect we might not play too many more times this year as i think a few of the guys might be going home to ireland to visit folks and stuff.

had a call about a contract and i feigned enthusiasm on the phone. i really dont want to work for a couple of weeks but there is a part of me that is reluctant to turn stuff down. one doesn't want to get too presumptous in thinking that i could get any other contract easily at any time and end up turning down lots of stuff only to find nothing come up in the new year. will see how it goes. i could do with the interview practice.

thats all folks. today i have mostly been listening to adele - rolling in the deep. am not a fan but this is her new single and its good.

freezing

chancer was very quiet and a bit off with both me and the guy who has been there about 4 years and worked with me on my project for the last 5 months. there was a definitely a tension in the air. it might have been because the guy i used work with made it plainly obvious that he was not happy because depsite chancer and him being given some work to do this week, chancer did none of it and left it all up to the other guy to do it all.

he was not happy about it at all and understandably so. i just kept out of it mostly, and although i didn't shit stir i did tell him what i thought about the chancer. also because we had hardly any work to do over the last week, we did discover why the project that the chancer is working on is taking so long. its because they are working at snails pace and they are exiting their datacenter at the rate of around 15 servers a month. to put that in perspective, we exited our datancenter at the rate of around 30-40 servers a week. that will take a while when you are dealing with hundred of servers and it took us around 5 months. at this rate it will take the chancer just under 4 years to finish off his datancenter exit.

anyways we think the chancer might be in a bit of a predicament. it looks like the bank has a policy where if a contractor has been there for 2 years, they tend to be asked to go permanent or leave. this afternoon all the long term contractors were being called into meetings with the bosses and we suspect they were being offered permie positions. the day of reckoning is coming for the chancer. he will have to either go permie and take a very large pay cut (around 40 grand), or if he has balls, he will walk and see if he can get another lucrative contract elsewhere.

the problem is that we are all overpaid for what we do. i know i am and can acknowledge it but unfortunately the chancer actually thinks he is worth it. i can tell you for free he ain't. he has no recent exams, no big projects or experience or exposure, and on top of that, he is lazy. you have to be either clever or hardworking. he is neither.

i think it would be hubris if he tried to get out there on the market and competing with other guys for contracts, because he ain't that good and will never get the money he has become used to. shit, i am miles better than him, and i ain't that good. i have met lots of people far better than me. lots and lots. i have also met a few people on my travels that are shit, and he is one them.

its one of the advantages of being a contractor that moves around a lot. you get a sense of perspective of the level of the talent and people out there and it makes you aware of your own shortcomings or weaknesses. you are putting yourself out there and putting yourself under scrutiny when you get grilled at interviews and if your ego can handle it, its good to be judged by other people even if its negative.

by far one of the most positive things that has happened to me was being rejected by goldman sachs after 3 long rounds of interviews culminating in a 3 hour final interview with 5 department managers and techies. they didn't end up offering me the job but they gave me good feedback and i used it to work on the things i needed to improve. ever since then i have never found myself phased or worried in an interview after having the experience of a grilling by the brains at goldmans.
chancer wouldn't have got through the first round let alone to the final 3 candidates at the 3rd interview.

anyways, its my last week at the bank next week. a few other contractors from my project are leaving as well in the next couple of weeks as well. we shall what the future has in store for us. they were all good people and i enjoyed working with them. they will end up getting something good somewhere hopefully.

gym and cycling this weekend is the plan. its freezing cold in london town and barely above 0C during the day. i played football in it last night. will be out on my bike in it tomorrow. feel cold just thinking about it.

today i have mostly been listening to the smiths - please let me get what i want. 2 minutes of genius.

chancer

so we were sitting around our desks this morning talking about shit, when gym junkie said that students were protesting about having their fees tripled from 3 grand a year to 9 grand a year.

thinking he was sympathetic to the injustice of it, i said yes, it was completely wrong and a shameful thing for the government to do. to my surprise gym junkie said he thought no one should be entitled to a free education and that they should pay more.

when i pointed out that he (and i) had paid no fees for university education and it was paid by other peoples taxes, he said he dossed around at uni and didn't do any work and used this as an example of students not taking studying seriously and that they are lazy and they should pay if all they are going to uni for is to have a good time.

i pointed out that some people went to university to learn something and get qualifications in the hope of landing a good and interesting job, but he dismissed it as nonsense, and said someone had to pay for it and the people that benefit from it should. i said he and i had benefited from university education so we should pay instead of making graduates in entry level jobs pay extra tax to pay down nearly 30 grand in loans.

he turned it round and then said a completely false statement saying that it was my view that i didn't want to pay any tax at all, let alone any more tax than i do already. i pointed out that what he said was the complete opposite of my view and i had never said i didn't want to pay more tax, and in fact if anyone should pay more tax it should be people like us who earn 6 figure salaries and who had other people pay for our education.

he then retorted that the country couldn't afford it and that "people like you", ie me, talk about making cuts in other services but then could never come up with anything to cut. i told him that we should cut defence spending and disband the independent nuclear deterrent, because there is no chance of having an independent nuclear conflict. that saves around 3billion a year which could be put into education. gym junkie then said, yes, i bet you would like to cut the security services as well that prevent bombings on the tube. god knows where that came from, but actually yes, i would i told him. that annoyed him even more.

i turned to one of the other guys that sits with us and said i didn't realise i was sitting with right wing of the conservative party, and 2 of us laughed. gym junkie didn't.

what a little fucker. we knew he was a chancer regards to his profession, but i didn't realise he was a complete chancer in life.

the subject then changed to football and the weather. i told him it was cold outside and i would have to wear tracksuit bottoms and a hat and gloves to play in on thursday night. he said that was for wimps and had no fitness and if i ran around i would get warmed up and he never wore any of that shit when he played because he was always so hot from running for an hour. i asked him if he played football. he said he hadn't played for about a year because he was injured. oh, ok then, thats you talking shit again you fucking chancer.

today i have mostly been listening to rage against the machine - testify.

derezzed

the start of another week at work and instead of having nothing to do i am being given shitty work to do. i think its just a question of people wanting to seem busy and creating pointless tasks that need to be done. i am almost expecting to be asked to count paperclips at some point, as they have asked me to do an audit of the new datacenter tomorrow. i knew all my microsoft, citrix and vmware certifications would handy one day, not!. how dull.

weekend was quiet. didn't go to the gym on saturday and watched arsenal v tottenham at my friends place. needn't have bothered as we got beat by the scum(tottenham) 3-2 after going into a 2-0 lead at halftime.

went to the gym on sunday instead and cycled even though the skies were heavy and grey and it looked like it could rain. a little drizzle for a few minutes but i didn't get soaked. had an extra hard session to make up for not going the day before and it felt really good.well, when i say good, it felt pretty bad at the time. took it as far as i thought i could safely take it, before i felt i could really pass out and i didn't want to embarress myself like that in the gym. my legs were shot to pieces cycling home. that was the most difficult 22 minute ride home i have ever had. it was slower than normal, even though it felt like i was trying twice as hard.

only 9 more days at work after today to get through and then i am free. weather is supposed to be really cold later this week and i look forward to not walking to the station on cold, wet and windy mornings for a few weeks. it was a real struggle getting out of bed this morning when my alarm went off. i could have quite happily had another couple of hours more sleep.

will have to get a few films lined up to watch in case i start to get really bored at home in december, but i will have the gym and will book an exam so its my fault if i do get bored because i have plently to be getting on with. still not booked my course. i have to leave it till a week before its due to start and then ring up about a late booking. will give them a call next week as it starts on december 6th. hope i can get a place. no bother if i don't.

not heard back from a couple of places that called me up last week, and i haven't applied to anyone else either.bring on january.

today i have mostly been listening to daft punmk - derezzed. this sounds and looks very cool.

bigger than us

i did absolutely nothing at work all week. am just biding my time for the next 2 weeks and then its all over and i just need to rest through december before seeing what comes up in january. hopefully something good.

had football last night, which was good. am going to go training this weekend, but have nothing else specific planned. nothing else. really.

today i have mostly been listening to white lies - bigger than us. wicked tune.

numb

another weekend over and this not going to work for 2 days thing feels pretty good. i wonder what a few weeks not going to work might feel like?. pretty good i imagine. i will find out soon. 3 weeks in fact.

weekend has been good. training, cycling, haircut, laundry, tv. that about sums it up. today was the first day where i didn't feel deficient in my training and am in good shape again. i could have trained a bit longer and harder today but i wanted to get home in time for the last F1 grand prix of the season on tv. when i am off work in december and going to do monster sessions.

the start of another week at work tomorrow. it will be dull. the end of the year is always a bit of a slow time in investment banks. change freeze and heightened awareness in december and nothing gets done. there would be a bit of a rush to get stuff done in november but seeing as my project finished on schedule last week, we don't have anything to do in the 2 weeks of contingency that we had. some us work on shit that gets delivered on time.

gym junkie asked me if i was going to go away on holiday somewhere in december. i said it could be a possibility but i would rather spend the money and time on an exchange 2010 course if i can get a late booking somewhere. he looked at me like i had gone mental in the head. some people just don't get it .

today i have mostly been listening to linkin park -numb

long weeks

heard from a couple of project managers i have worked with at the bank and they are leaving in december as well. both of them we good and one was particularly good and i was a little surprised she was not being renewed. i know that our project is finishing this week, but i would have thought they could have utilised her somewhere else and its a shame to see good people leave, that didn't want to, which is unlike me. i am not that good and did want to leave. :-) .

one of the guys in another department decided to get another contract before waiting to find out if he would get renewed. he leaves in a few weeks. his project was also coming towards the end and so he figured there would be a high chance of him not being renewed so he put the word out and got a contract at place where he worked before. today he came over to my desk and he asked gym junkie, who he hates with a passion after being blamed for something by him, that wasn't his fault, whether he had been renewed. gym junkie replied he had at which point he got a look of such sneering contempt that i almost laughed out loud.

that will take gym junkie up to the 2 year mark on his contract here. his project is still plodding on at snails pace. the money is good but in the medium to long term its career suicide for a contractor. there are some contractors that stay in places for years and year and do interesting work and rise up the ladder, but to do what we do for years and years is madness. one day they might let him go and he will be screwed. no exams, no experience, no exposure to anything new. better you than i sir.

i got a couple of calls recently about a couple of jobs that were going. both sound like that might be interesting. have been good and not been flooding out job applications. i really do need to take some time off and relax for a while. am looking forward to it. come the new year i will be rested, examed up, and available to start immediately and we shall see what we can get. missed out on some good roles in january of this year, so hopefully the same interest is there next january.

am also looking forward at not waking up at 5.15am on a saturday. last week was the first saturday in a long time that i hadn't worked, but i still woke up at just after 5 as my body clock has got used to it. hopefully a few more weekends of lie ins and i will get it out of my system. am also looking forward to not spending my sunday evenings ironing shirts. some people come to work dressed a bit shabbily. i just cant roll like that.
am still looking at courses on a late booking and will also do an exam. i dont mind studying a few hours in a day if i haven't spent most of the day at work.

weather is cold and dark and damp. i had football last night and it was good despite the gale force winds and showers. quiet weekend ahead, and then only 3 more weeks of work left. they are going to be long. am in that state of just thinking of the next thing that might come up and not focused on where i am. its not a problem because i have finished my project and have almost nothing to do. we shall see what happens.

today i have mostly been listening to stone temple pilots - vasoline.

on to the next one

just had a meeting with the guy that runs the department and its official that i won't be getting renewed. my project has ended so i was expecting it and it would have actually turned into a problem if they had renewed me, as i would have been locked into 4 weeks notice and i would never have escaped.

time to move on again. i doubt i would have learned much if i had stayed, as i haven't learned that much in my 6 months here. the ESX project was a good refresher of things time for a new office and new people and to see what we can learn. its been ok here though. some nice people but also a couple of pricks, but thats everywhere. it means that i have another investment bank on my cv as i continue my tour of financial institutions in the city of london.

who knows where i will end up at next. most probably another investment bank. ideally i would like a little hedge find in mayfair looking after everything, but those jobs are rare. will settle for a desk in a glass building surrounded by suits talking about their german cars, swiss watches, caribean holidays and golf handicaps. oh well. i will stick to my bicycle, casio watches, driving around LA and five a side football on a thursday night. am still keeping it real.

today i have mostly been listening to to be posted tonight.

crystal castles

a whole weekend without work and it looks like there will be no more weekends for me to do. my project will end this week and my contract ends on december 3rd. very unlikely they will need me to stay and extend my contract and one or two contractors have already left after not being renewed. i heard there are 14 contractors all coming to the end of the contracts on december 17th and by the look of it, i think a lot of them will not be needed and extended. i suspect there will be a huge exodus.

it was dry and cold this weekend and i cycled to the gym on saturday and sunday. hat and gloves were required for the first time this winter but it was good conditions for cycling. clear and bright and no wind. every time i get out i can feel myself getting stronger and i am almost back. in a week or two i will be in good shape.

was thinking i might have the whole of december off and whilst part of me thinks i will get bored out of my skull, i also think it might be good to go training every other day and also i want to do the SQL 2008 exam. i also have a few books that i want to read which i just dont get the time to do during a normal week. have also looked into going on a course for exchange or sql in december and you can get a really good deal if you book late.i think i will have some options if i get some time on my hands

applied for a role at another investment bank today. dont know why. am already wondering what might happen if i get it and would be gutted to miss out on some time off.

anyway, today i have mostly been listening to crystal castles feat robert smith - not in love. lovely stuff.

punching in a dream

jesus, its like i am sabotaging myself. i applied for a couple of contracts, even though i shudder at the thought of actually getting something because i need a break from work to get myself motivated and refreshed again.

in other news, gym junkie sent an email insinuating that a guy in another team who was helping him, had done something wrong with a software update. only thing is was that gym junkie was the one that had given the other guy the software and instructions and he was only following what he had been told to do by gym junkie. the other guy also was only doing it as a favour on saturday because no one else was available and is not even in the same team.

he came over to our desks very angry at being stitched up and was looking for gym junkie and to quote what he said, "its a god thing XXXX isn't here because he would be going out that fucking window right now". luckily gym junkie is not in today and has decided to work from home with the excuse of there being a tube strike today, but i checked and most of his line is running, so he is working from home because he is a lazy fat ass.

gym junkie will learn the hard way that its not a good idea to stitch up people you work with like that, especially if it was actually a fuck up you did and are trying to blame it on someone else. the guy he tried to blame it on is a nice guy and good at what he does and has just resigned anyway as he is moving onto another contract, but its a small world and you never know when you might run into him again. if one day his boss asks him about a cv that has landed on his desk from gym-junkie, you can count on it that he will not be receiving a glowing endorsement.

speaking of gyms i went last night and am finally feeling like i am coming back to what i was. i am not working this weekend for the first time in a month so can have a double session of cycling and training.

today i have mostly been listening to the naked and famous -punching in a dream. speaking of dreams i saw the film inception last night. what a good film.

yamaha

have got one of those splitting headaches that looks like it will last all week. it started on saturday morning when i was going to work and i still have it on monday. feel really really tired as well and thankfully i am not working next weekend.


gym junkie who is actually fat (because he goes to the gym 5 times a week and then eats 10 slices of cheese for lunch), got a little fresh today. i was browsing for some scooters and was looking at a nice little bike by yamaha, which i think looks cool. he piped up though and said it looked lame and awful and was a girls bike and inferred i would look silly on it. i said i disagreed and thought it was cool. maybe i should have said i wouldn't take style tips from an overwight 5 foot bald midget who drives a convertible bmw z4 which are driven either by girls or if they are driven by men, its the type who rest their sunglasses on the head and wear a bluetooth headset in one ear and wear t-shirts and jeans that are size smaller than they should be in the belief that tight clothing makes you look like you have a bulging torso, though they seem to forget about the bulging belly. i believe the technical term for one of these kind of people is cunt.


anyways, i am still looking around for a scooter. my only relucatance is that i worry that it will make me lazy and instead of cycling to the gym when the weather is nice i will end up taking the scooter, which defeats the puropse of exercising. i don't want to turn into a fat gym junkie because we know what the technical term for one of those is.


anyways its shaping up to be a slow week at work. my datacenter exit project that i had been working on till now is complete and i haven't been given any work to do, which is good because this headache is killing me.


there has been a bit of tension in the department of late anyways. there are 4 of us and me and one other guy work on one datacenter move and gym junkie and another guy work on sorting out another datancenter. we have finished whilst there stuff is still dragging on. the guy that works with me said jokingly it would take years to finish at the rate they were going. gym junkie shot back that they did twice as much work as we did. actually they do less than half which is why their project is still ongoing and we have finished exiting a much larger datacenter than their in less time. its simple maths fellas.


they also got annoyed when the guy that works with me said he wasn't going to stay behind on friday evening do them a favour with regards to some new SAN storage on one their servers. the guy wanted to leave on time and was asking one of us to stay behind late and finish something with one of his servers. er...no mate. finish your own work off. cheeky fucker.


that aside its a quiet week, hopefully.