next please

thats me all done then. it all happened pretty fast in less than 2 weeks and i feel relieved and excited to start the new challenge on monday. i could have stayed as they seemed to be satisfied with my work but i just really want to push myself and see what i can learn and achieve. it was a little bit more money at the bank but my mum told me that money can't buy you happiness and mum is always right. she just is. besides i would rather be like kaka than robinho (thats a football metaphor for those in the know). i know if a lot of the guys in that bank had the same choice as me, they would leave as well.

it was strange but in the last couple of weeks at the bank i talked to a lot more people than i had in the months before. in the past i have seen people working in banks come in and be like a bull in a china shop and they tend to either get fired or just become very unpopular. i think i may sometimes over compensate and i almost withdraw too much. i got talking to a girl there who sits near me and she said for my first few weeks she thought i was the quietest person that she had ever seen and that she felt sorry for me. that amused me when she said that. this week i was the opposite and we were gossiping like old women in a knitting circle.

the forecast is for a winter chill to descend upon london town over the next couple of days. i really hope this is winter giving us one final blast of cold before going away till the end of the year.

today i have mostly been listening to nine inch nails - terrible lie. did i mention i saw them on this tour. yes, probably a thousand times.



have a lovely weekend flower.

red light company

almost done. its my second to last day and like the rest of this week its been really busy.....but not doing any technical work, just chasing up various teams to get stuff done whether its cabling or san storage or other crap. basically its shit, but there are only hours left and i have done it for 4 months, so a few hours are going to feel like a walk in the park.

went for drinks with a few of the people that i work with here. i don't know many but i know a small group. ozzy and harry have not come to work today so i think they may have stayed out quite late. they seem to be getting on a lot better recently , thanks to my mediation in their disputes. i think i might go to the middle east and sort that out next.

that asshole i posted about yesterday sent me a grovelling email out of the blue apologising about stuff yesterday. very strange indeed. maybe he suddenly got a twinge of guilt for blaming shit on me that was not my fault. i told him it was no big deal and not to worry about it and that everything was cool, which ofcourse it is, because i am leaving. no need to make anything of it. i learned a while ago that its important to pick your battles and to sometimes let things slide. i let most things slide.

weather has started getting colder again. that glimpse of spring a few day ago was just a brief glimpse and we are not out of the woods yet. forecast is for london to have some of the coldest temperatures in 13 years.

had lunch with a a girl i used to work with and her sister who now also works at the internet company i used to work at and they gave me the full story of what happened this week when about 12 people got bus stop. they also decided to pay for my lunch which was really nice of them. i don't have a zillion friends but the ones i do have are really rather nice. i will take them out soon and treat them once i am settled in my job.

today i have mostly been listening to redlight company - arts and crafts. music so new its not even on youtube yet. look them up, i suspect they might be rather popular soon.
right well i am off now to football. its freezing but i feel enthused to play. i think it might be a good one tonight.

keep smiling V.

there is always one

i think one of the reasons i like contracting and moving around every few months is not only do you get experience and see how other companies organise and run their infrstructures, but also you don't get involved in politics and people playing silly games....at least that is the case for a while, but invariably you sometimes get sucked into shit and it reminds you that while the vast majority of people you work with are really nice, there are a few assholes everywhere.

take this example. one of the guys that has been here 7 years sent an email bitching about me not looking at a server to install software on it that had been requested by the app team. he cc'd about 6 people and was a prick about it, saying i already told you to look at this and how important it was to get it right and how it makes us look bad to the business....blah blah blah.

what he failed to mention was that these were servers he built which he said were complete and ready to go, when in fact they weren't.
he also failed to mention that i don't even have permission to log into those servers, so there is no point assigning me that shit.
he also failed to mention that he himself does not know how to install the applications or know where they are kept, and yet he has been here 7 years and has palmed it off to the guy (me) that has been here 4 months and is a contractor and who has not done any of these installs before.

basically it looked like it was going to be a tricky job and he washed his hands of it, knowing it was high visisiluty and urgent, and then made me take the blame for it, even though it was originally his assigned to him to do.

anyways i went down to see him and said sorry dude, i don't have access to those server, but even still, can you just get me the documentation and packages and i will try and arrange access to install them. he told me he didn't know what the approved packages were and he was unaware that i didn't have access. bullshit. i told him that it could take me sometime to get it done, and he said thats cool, don't worry about it . don't worry about it??!!. so why the fuck did you mail everyone saying it was my fault it wasn't done and insinuating that i was dragging my feet or being lazy. shithead!!.

he is just playing that political game of trying to make himself look good by putting other people down, in the hope that it masks his own ineptitude and it saves his job, because deep inside he knows he is a chump, that can't do any real work in the outside world.

i told harry and he said he would have mailed straight back saying all the stuff about him leaving the builds half done and me not having access, but i just let it slide. i am out of here on friday and i don't need to defend myself. its not like i actually care what people think of me here.

today i have mostly been listenining to marilyn manson - tourniquet.
take you hatred out on me......make your victim my head

hope you are well california girl. xx

last monday

well, we finally made it to the last week here at the bank and it feels good. strangely enough it almost feels like the first day of spring today as well, as i walking to work this morning. the air does not have the harsh bite of cold like it has had over the past few months. it is quite pleasant outside today even though we are still in january. the weekend was cold and wet but today the gods are smiling on me.

i might go for a drink with a few of the people that i work with at the bank, on wednesday night. i don't know many, but i know a few people, and its good to be sociable. have been very unsociable in all my contracts that i have had because i have always started at places knowing i would be gone in a few months and along with the fact that as a contractor you just get thrown into the huge organisations with very little introduction to anyone, you just fade in amongst the masses. hopefully things will be different at the new place and they already seem a lot friendlier from my one meeting with them.

actually as an example of how little we get to interact with people, and how faceless these places are, the girls in the sandwhich shop where i get my lunch from, know me by name, but i would bet 10 pounds that the guy that sits 2 desks from me, has no clue who i am. sad but true.

anyways, its my last monday here so its a good day. this week will be gone before i know it.

today i have mostly been listening to starsailor - tell me its not over. ..........oh yes it is!. wicked tune.



i miss you my friend.

sorry

oh man, i feel like a bit of an asshole now. i complain all the time on this blog about how lame my job is and how the people have no passion and then just before i was going home, one of the managers came over to me and said he heard i was leaving. i said yes, i was and he said it was a shame as i would be missed and they really appreciated the work i had done. i joked that i think they might be relieved that i was going and they would now get more work done as i would no longer interrupt them all day asking questions about who to call for this thing, or who to speak to in networks for that other thing, but he said it was no bother and that they were sad to see me go and wished me luck. it was all really sincere and i kind of felt a little bad about whining about them on my secret blog.

a few other people have said similar things to me today and i feel a little bad now. i shouldn't have said those bad things about the bank, but i just don't like it there. i feel as if i am contributing hardly anything to them and achieving very little. shit!, if they think what i have done uptill now is good work then they should see what i am like when i give everything i got, like i did at the internet company i used to work for. i worked silly hours, pulled all nighters, worked weekends and was on it all the time, and it turned out they didn't care that much. i guess that experience has affected me and i can almost not believe it when people say they value the work i do, especially when i see it as so little and so easy.

speaking of the internet company i used to work at a couple of years ago, they are firing a few people and i heard from one of my closest friends there that she was about to get fired. we were both hired on the same day and sat near each other when we first got there. when you didn't know anyone and so we became friends almost out of necessity and remained good friends even after i left and i am also friends with her boyfriend now as well. she worked really hard as well there and is a really nice person and it looks like she is about to get fired. all that effort and it counts for shit in the end. i am glad i left when i did but i feel really bad for her. will try and meet up with her next week. i haven't spoken to her for a few weeks but she wrote me and wished me well for my new job before telling me of her bad news.

anyways i feel a little bad because i criticised people who were sincere to me and complimented me and i feel bad because my friend might get fired on monday.

can i just repeat that even though i whine about shit on this blog i am not a whiny fucker in real life and i remind myself everyday how lucky i am, even though my posts may not necessarily reflect that.

i think its just like that i almost like to struggle when i am doing something. if it comes easily then it just doesn't feel satisfying. at school i got my highest marks in history or english so when it came to picking my a-levels i decided to physics, chemistry and maths, which were all subjects i found much more difficult. at university i should have done a degree in economics but instead i did electronic engineering which i found really hard going and tough to get through. don't think i enjoyed it because i didn't, but i wonder if i had done something that i had a natural aptitude for, i may have got bored and demotivated.

i think its the same at work. if its easy i just find it dull and then it gets me down and i don't want to do it. i am also not really interested in things i know how to do. if you know something that means its easy and if its easy its dull. hopefully the new job will be a little beyond me and will keep me interested. christ, i hope so otherwise i will be looking for something else in 6 months. :-)

idiotboss 'works' here

i don't know why i didn't mention it before but i have known since i started here that idiotboss works at the same bank as i do. he is an assistant vice president of one of the other divisions here. it speaks volumes that he would have a relatively senior position in an organisation like this. i wouldn't hire him to to install a pc let alone run technology in the investment banking division.

he doesn't know what DNS is and how it works let alone understand IP subnetting or access lists. he doesn't know about firewalls and routing. he doesn't know about messaging. he doesn't know about web servers. he was supposed to be a linux admin but i have worked closely with 6 or 7 linux admins in my time and he was no where near the level of any of them, and they were not all geniuses, though a couple of them were unbelieveably clever, and nearly all of them were cleverer than me.

when i first started here i had visions of him sitting near me and i would have an awkward situation to deal with but i figured he probably would steer clear of me even if he was on my floor because i suspect he didn't tell this colleagues he got fired.....and it was me who instigated it.
anyways he works in another building and i have not seen him, so that suituation never arose.

have been telling the few people that i know here that i am leaving. its all out in the open now. they have all congratulated me and nearly all of them have said "good for you, you have escaped, i am so jealous" or words to that effect.i get the feeling there are a lot of unhappy people here. it affirms it even more that i am doing the right thing, not that i had any doubts before.

i still have the winter blues but jesus, imagine how bad it would be if i knew i had to stay here for a lot longer.

will finish reading the heroin diaries in the next day or two so i will need to get some more books to read, and i really am not in the mood for technical training books and manuals at the moment. i have the winter blues and hyper-v unleashed or the cisco cookbook is not what i need right now. will go on amazon and see what i can find.

today i have mostly been listening to oasis - slideaway.

have a lovely weekend my friend.

xx

its official

called up my agent today to let him know that i would be leaving in a weeks time. they intimated that they would be willing to offer me more money to stay, but i declined and said it was not an issue of money, though i was surprised that they made the offer. am curious how much i could have squeezed out of them. ha ha ha!!. besides, the money would not compensate for the erosure in my skills and the erosure of my sanity. its not good counting every hour every single day at work. thats not good for the soul and anyway, where would i be if i spent a year at this place...completely de-skilled and at the mercy of the bank.

i still want to use my brain and am not ready to go on auto-pilot just yet. they want employees to just do work without thinking and to not ask any questions. no sense let alone common sense is required or encouraged. i can keep my mouth shut and get on with it for a few months but i can't do it for ever and even now that i know i am leaving in a weeks time and i should be contect to go along with their crap, i still am finding it frustrating. if the rest of the bank is run like this, then it is no surprise at all that they lost the equivalent of 100million dollars a day in the last 3 months of 2008.

the agent told me he would get overything organised and would speak to the bank and let them know. am so glad its all official. i am always happy leaving jobs and starting at new places.

had our usual monthly drinks with a bunch of friends that used to work at the internet company i was at, last night. everyone has the same stories of incompetence and silliness at the companies they work for as well. haven't laughed that much in a quite a while and definitely not with the people i have worked with since.

its thursday so its football tonight. its raining but the freezing cold has subsided though its not exactly warm outside. no bother, as my vast footballing talent is permanent and will be on show for all those present this evening. i feel another great performance just like last week.

take care my friend. i hope you are not suffering from the january blues like i was yesterday.

today i have mostly been listening to the manic street preacher - kevin carter.

thanks george

well, first off, obama had his inauguration and that means george bush has finally gone. thank god!, or more accurately, thank the constitution of the united states that doesn't allow more than 2 terms. saying that, he was unlikely to get elected for a 3rd term given the current state of things. he would probably have had to steal another election, even if he had been running against osama, let alone obama, given his current approval ratings.

obama moved into the white house yesterday and upon walking into the oval office for the first time, i wouldn't be surprised if he found that george had done a big shit on his desk. he may as well have, seeing the state of things he has handed over to obama. obama must be thinking to himself, budget deficits, 2 wars, economic meltdown, thanks for that george, you may as well have done a big steaming turd on my desk as well, seeing as i have to clean up all your other shit.

i heard that my boss from my first contract gave me a really good reference. i haven't been in contact with him for around a year since i left that place, but i sent him an email to thank him and wish him and the team well. compared to all the people i have worked with in banks, he was the best boss i have had in any of them. there are some nice people in banks that don't have an inflated opinion of themselves and who are just genuine, hard working, gracious people. don't get me wrong, the job was dull, but he was a good boss.

my impending resignation seems to have got the other 2 guys i work with, thinking. they both seem a little more frustrated at things and i know they are envious, in a nice way, that i am moving on. resumes are being written and sent off by them.

will tell the bank people officially tomorrow or friday that i am going. will be nice to have it all out in the open and then its only more week after this one. have been feeling particularly demotivated this week, but thats not uncommon given my situation.

am going out tonight in shoreditch to meet a bunch of friends i used to work with from the internet company a few years back. will be nice to see them all.

thats it really. feeling a little subdued recently. i always get like this around january/february. the long dark winter just wares you down after a few months and its hard to be chipper all the time. there is also a project manager thats sits just across from me and he talks exactly like sylvester the cat from the cartoon series. first time i heard him talk i nearly laughed. i am telling you, he talks exactly like sylvester. am surprised the people here haven't given him the nickname, sylvester. its so obvious people. come on!!.

for the first few weeks it was funny but now after 4 months of his slobbering, saliva gargling lisp, its beginning to grate a little. thats what a long winter will do to you. even funny things don't seem quite as funny any more. will be hilarious again around april, i reckon, but thankfully i will be long gone by then.

still reading the heroin diaries by nikki sixx. will finish it probably by the weekend. its awesome and almost as good as the other book, the dirt, which was more about the band as opposed to just nikki sixx slowly going insane as he battles with heroin addiction. some really funny stories in there aside from the stories of paranoia, psychotic girlfriends and injecting smack into his dick. one bit did make me laugh when he is trying to get clean and give up heroin as they are about to start a tour. after a couple of weeks he says he is really pround of himself for staying off the smack, though he says he is still drinking heavily, taking handfuls of pills and doing blow. ha ha ha!!. rock'n'roll.

anyways thats all for now.

today i have mostly been listening to does it offend you, yeah? - dawn of the dead. i still think its a shit name for a band but the song is very good.

miss you V.

xx

moving on again

i got the job i was after. we had a little negotiating to do on the money side of things but we got it done. the money is actually a little bit less than i am on currently and over the course of a year it will be a couple of thousand pounds, but thats irrelavent. i will be learning and doing proper work once again. vmware, emc and netapp SANs, AD, cisco, its all stuff i am into and want to learn more about. it will be invaluable to get more skills and knowledge and will be worth more than a couple of grand in the long run and if ever want to move on once again, be it here in england or to try my luck abroad.

besides we are in the midst of a serious economic downturn and a severe recession. i think i have done well to get what i am getting out of them which is a decent chunk of change, even if you discount how good the job could be itself. i must be one of the very few people out there that is leaving an investment bank out of choice as opposed to being fired. these places are dieing and the entire industry is built like a house of cards. lots of people are being fired but i think in a year or two there will be some opportunities and hopefully i will be well placed to take advantage if i ever decided to go back to banking though to be honest it would only be for a large stack of cash. who knows. we shall see.....

anyways, if i stayed in my current job for a year i would be completely de-skilled and then i would only be able to ever work here at the bank, and i just don't want to work here or in a place like this. today we had a department meeting and it was just people talking about process and whining about which team was supposed to do which tiny trivial task. i just stood there, like i do in all the meetings, staring out into space day dreaming of california. i have no interest in trying to formulate and debate the correct process for doing trivial tasks.

i signed an electronic version of the contract that they mailed and i will get a paper copy sent to me as well. they have given me my start date of february 2nd. it means only 2 more weeks left in this place. it means going somewhere and learning how they work and getting to know all new work colleagues but i am looking forward to it, and much more than if i was going to be working at just another bank. this has been my worst experience so far in my contracts but you need to go through the shit sometimes to get somewhere good. it would be boring and simply no fun if everything came easily.

i will give them 1 weeks notice at the end of next week and then that will be it for me. will also look to book my ticket for california next week as well. we are slowly going from the darkness back into the light and we are going to get back to the real world.

played football last night and it was wicked. for some reason i was on fire and was motivated to play really well and one of the goals i scored was an absolute screamer. it was sensational if i say so myself. football has moved to a 9pm start instead of 10pm and i think i prefer it. anyways, hopefully more of the same standard of play next week.

anyways, thats about it. the heroin diaries turned up yesterday and i started reading a bit last night. already a bit fruity and we have barely gotten into it. nikki sixx is the man.

have a lovely weekend flower. take care of yourself.

xx

today i have mostly been listening to grandaddy - he's simple, he's dumb, he's the pilot.
i believe they want you to give in

date

i am waiting outside the restaurant wearing a freshly ironed shirt and clean jeans, because you have to wear a collar on a first date, everyone knows that shit.......but she is late. she is probably getting ready and making sure her makeup looks good and she has the right shoes on to match the rest of her outfit. that must be the reason she isn't here yet.

10 minutes pass by and now she really is going to be quite late indeed. its a first date and you would think that she would want to turn up on time, you think to yourself. maybe she something important has come up and her phone is out of battery. oh no, what if there has been accident?. you send her text and nothing comes back.

you move on from thinking she has had an accident and then wonder do you really want to go out with someone who can't tell time and is always turning up late. more minutes pass and now you almost hope she doesn't turn up because you calculate you can get home and get changed into your football kit and still make it down to the pitches to play that evening.

you give it 1 more minute and then you walk to the train station wondering why you asked her out anyways.

that didn't happen to me. ofcourse i have never been stood up on a date before. i am money. :-). actually thats not entirely true as i did get stood up at nine inch nails in knoxville last summer but that wasn't a date and she did end up having a fender bender that evening, so that doesn't really count as being stood up, as she did get a message to me.....so it means i am still money. :-)

i have however missed out of a ton of jobs in my time. i have had more knock backs than someone with the surname himmler applying to become a rabbi. anyways, i still haven't heard back from that job. the longer it goes on the more my chances recede. i wish they would just give me an answer. what the problem with just telling me i didn't get it. i can take it. its fine. just don't leave me on the dangle.

football tonight. christ i need it today.

today i have mostly been listening to death in vegas - aisha, a song about the worst first date you could possible have.
we've only just met, but i think you should know......i'm a murderer.

take care flower. might bump into you in socal later in the year.

flares

have been awaiting a call from my agent regarding getting an offer, or not, from the games company i saw on thursday. have been doing that thing where you check your phone every half hour to make sure there were no missed calls or to see if my phone had switched itself off, because mobile phones switch themselves off all the time....NOT!!.

anyways, he called me and told me he had gotten positive feedback and that hopefully something official in the form of an offer would come through in the next day or two. i have done the thing i said i wasn't going to do and that is, i have stopped applying for other jobs. i will give it a couple more days and then get back on it, as it will start looking increasingly likely that i will be getting stood up, if i have not heard by then. you can only wait around for so long outside the restaurant before realising she ain't gonna show.

besides, i need to get out of this place. everyday it is becoming increasingly difficult to put up the facade of pretending to be content to do this shit. i couldn't be any less interested in all this process crap. today they sent out a memo on what the process is to apply for visitor parking at the datacentre. i have been to loads of datacentres. not that i drive often, but i have never had to get authorisation for me or vendors to park their cars in the car park. i bet someone spent ages thinking up the new process for applying for car parking. hey, here is a plan. why not just get rid of the process and let people park there and if there are no spaces left and the car park is full, let them find some parking outside from the datacentre car park. its all common sense. easy really.

during university i worked in a supermarket stacking shelves with groceries, which in comparison was less boring and actually i had some good times there and made some really good friends despite the fact i got paid in a day what i earn in an hour now, and i had to wear brown polyester flares. the supermarket was near ladbroke grove/notting hill which is a trendy part of london a bit like tribeca in new york or north hollywood in LA. the kind of place where lots of artists and models and celebrities would live and lots of really nice looking girls coming in to buy groceries.

not that there was a snowballs chance in hell of any of those girls giving me a second look, but it really didn't help dressed the way we all were dressed in our supermarket uniforms. man, those flares looked really bad. at first i used to wear my normal clothes and get changed at work into my brown flares, but after a while that was too much hassle and so i started wearing my flares to and from work and it was a half hour walk each way there and back. i stopped giving a shit about what it looked like. everyone should be made to wear brown polyester flares in public. it completely removes you of an inflated ego and any big headedness you may have and keeps you humble and grounded. wouldn't be seen dead in a pair now though.

thankfully the freezing cold has subsided today, though now we have slate grey skies and drizzling rain. i think i preferred the freezing cold. in the words of tina turner and later, missy elliott, i can't stand the rain.

had a quiet weekend. i met a couple of friends for a drink on friday. my friend from the army was down and it was good to see him as i hadn't seen him in about 4 months. we sat in a bar for around an hour with him holding tissues to his face because he got a random sudden nose bleed. by the end there was a pile of bloodstained tissues on the table. nice.

went to the gym on saturday and sunday and that was it really. ordered the book 'the heroin diaries' which is about nikki sixx and so hopefully that will come through in the next few days. at least i can read about someone who has a rock'n'roll lifestyle with lots of sex and drugs in LA which makes my life look very dull in comparison and especially during times like this. i wish i could be nikki sixx just for a couple of days. might be going LA in september so you never know..... :-)

hopefully will post again tomorrow with some news about the job i went for. it might be good news or it might be not so good. who knows.......

take care V. hope you had a great time in SDCA this weekend.

Xx

today i have mostly been listening to eminem - lose yourself.

gordon gecko

had my interview yesterday. it went pretty well, but what the fuck do i know!?. have been in this situation before with these exact same people and i didn't end up getting an offer. am quite optimistic and hopeful though and had a nice chat with the whole team and then went for a drink with the guy who i would be working for.

had to dress down a little yesterday for the interview. you usually you have to wear a suit but they are not a suit and tie company and i didn't want to go meet them dressed up like some gordon gecko, michael douglas, wall street wannabe, amongst people wearing converse trainers and faded jeans and make them have doubts about me be able to integrate into their environment and work culture.

will find out on monday or tuesday next week if i get it. god i hope so. it will be such a relief to be out of this place and start something new and not be at work checking my watch every 15 minutes calculating how long is left till the end of the day.

ozzy, the contractor who i work with got politely warned yesterday after he responded to a request that someone had mailed the wintel engineers with a problem. wanting to be helpful he responded back even though strictly its not part of our job to deal with those types of problems. our teamleader asked him not to respond back in future as it had upset the other department that usually deals with it. ozzy quite fairly argued that no one responded to the mail for ages and so was just trying to be helpful. with out actually saying the words, the team leader asked him not to be helpful in future and just to get on with his own shit. oh dear. this is what it is like working in a place like this.

i usually meet a friend of mine who i used to work with a few years back, for lunch on fridays. he is not really enjoying his job since he has started working in a financial company either. he said the measure of how much you like your job is measured by how much you look forward to fridays. i can remember a time when it made not much difference to me but now fridays are golden. he said it was the same for him and its just so nice knowing its the last day of the week. you also get the opposite feeling as well and mondays are just horrible. :-)

a new guy started in our team this week and he is waiting for all his accounts and for his pc to get set up. i told him he should bring in his laptop or something to read because it could take weeks. i can see he is already bored after 5 days. he just came over today to say hello and we got to talking and he said that there was a guy that sits next to him who is a linux sys admin and who has been waiting 8 weeks for his accounts to come through. 8 weeks and still nothing!. thats broken my record of 7 weeks. i jokingly told him thanks for pissing on my chips by telling me that my only achievement in this place, waiting 7 weeks for an account, has now been beaten by someone already. :-)

had the first football of the year last night. it was cold and foggy and it was hard work getting into it. because of the bad weather i have not cycled for a few weeks and so my fitness is not what it should be. have been going to the gym regular but weight training is not much help when you need to run around. actually felt really weak last time i went to the gym as well. this long winter is wearing me down and its been extra freezing cold for around a week now. everything feels like hard work this week. even my job where i do very little and have no stress has been hard work this week.

look after yourself flower. have a lovely weekend.

today i have mostly been listening to ian brown - illegal attacks
Does not a day go by Without the Israeli Air Force Fail to drop it’s bombs from the sky?

falling down

there is a canadian guy who works on my floor. he is a nice guy in his 40's who works on process and crap like that. i sat next to him on my first day at work whilst i waited for my permanent desk to be sorted out.

anyways, whenever i see him i say hello and hows it going, and he does the same when he sees me. its just that he gets my name wrong and its been 3 months now and its far too late to tell him that its not my name. it amuses me now everytime i see him and he calls me it.

last couple of days i have started letting my guard down and have let frustration get the better of me and have struggled to keep my trap shut when something particularly annoying or silly has happened. i just need to be careful and remind myself that i am still here for the forseeable future and not to start bitching out loud.... but its very hard.

luckily its only things i have said to the guy sitting opposite me and not too many people heard my exasperation at being asked to raise countless tickets for the most trivial mundane tasks that would take 1 minute to do but take 20 minutes to raise the relevant tickets for. you do sometimes feel like just saying "just do it and cut the crap". anyways will remind myself to keep my trap shut. need to just go to my happy place (pacific beach, san diego) in my head when i feel frustration rising. will definitely go to the gym tonight to work out some of my angst.

interview tomorrow afternoon. will have to duck out of work around an hour early. depending on what the outcome is, i may book a ticket to los angeles or san francisco to fly out in september. thats upped the stakes for the interview. my sanity and a holiday are at stake now.

ha ha, so much for me watching my mouth. one of the project managers i work with just came to my desk and asked for a small change to be made on a server. i get on pretty well with him and enough to be able to joke around a little. i told him it was a 10 second job...and then jokingly said i would need a ticket raised to cover me for the work
"i need an SRM, RFS, GSR, and a BS (bullshit) ticket to be raised and i will do it". he told me he would raise a BS ticket and i told him that was fine and with a BS ticket everything is covered. ofcourse in reality i won't bother with tickets being raised. i just get shit done coz thats how we roll.

today i have mostly been listening to.... toad the wet sprocket - fall down.

back with a bump

had my nice 4 day weekend to start 2009 and now its back to work with a bump on this monday. i did what i had to to do and made it to the new year and a bit like george bush, these should be my lame duck months as i wait to leave office some time soon, although saying that, george bush has been a lame duck for about 3 years and you could even argue he has been lame since he got elected.

anyways enough comparisons with that retarted cowboy, its a new year and i have my interview and drinks at a company that might be looking to hire me, on thursday. in the meantime i will also apply for other jobs i see because if there is one thing i have learned, it is never to take things for granted and only have one plan. my plan B has been used so many times it really should be my plan A, hence i shall have that interview as my backup and keep pushing on with looking.

my training has been all out of whack the last couple of weeks as football has been cancelled and my gym has been closed on some days over the holidays. i did go yesterday and tried to take things up a level. the new year is good motivation to set some new standard and push things on.

i finished reading my book about motley crue - the dirt and it was the best book i have read in a very long time. if you like motley crue you should get it and if you don't like motley crue you should get it as well. its very well written especially the chapters by nikki sixx. the usual mix of lots of sex and drugs but also some really sad stories about people dieing and broken relationships and some really funny anecdotes as well and they don't take themselves too seriously and are self critical.

thats it really for today. its been absolutely freezing today and the forecast is for it to get colder tomorrow and stay cold all week. please tell me we have broken the back of this winter. i shall post again after my interview.

today i have mostly been listening to motley crue - saints of los angeles.