Category Archives: Work

First days back in an office

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Day 2:  Being back in the office after nearly four years of working from home is more draining than I’d expected.  I’m wading my way through reams of  induction paperwork on policies and practices, strategies and work plans and am still reeling from the newly acquired business support co-ordinator who is ever so efficiently managing my calendar.  I’m not used to having my life arranged for me – it’s novel if a little daunting – and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give up my independence.     I also appear to have stepped onto the acronym mothership and am bewildered by the ever growing list: ELMA, BA, TOM, BIS, ERDMS, SDS, ASC, CHAT, CMD, PMT, LOL, BTW, WTF?!

Assimilation into a clique (should one exist, no doubt it does) will probably take time but the office gossip has kept me entertained if a little distracted.  I had forgotten quite how noisy 50 people coming and going can be – there is so much eavesdropping to be done.

Performing monkeys and job interviews

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I’ve done it!  I have found myself a new job and gleefully handed in my resignation! I leaped through rings of fire at my job interview, presenting the biggest, boldest, most articulate and inspiring side of myself – I was a true performing monkey for 2 whole hours!

So now, after three long years of working from home, I will bathe myself in colleagues and office gossip.  I will go to the office parties and invite people for drinks after work. I will speak to an IT person if my computer is broken and talk to people about my workload before making a coffee for the person sitting opposite me.  I will commute with a solemn look on my face and groan when I miss the bus.  I will clock watch on a Monday then kick my heels up with that Friday feeling at the end of the week.  I will clear my bedroom of mountains of paperwork and liberate my shelf space to join the millions of you out there who call yourself an OFFICE WORKER!

Oh to have an office

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I know I have been somewhat tiresome with my recent rants about work, but it is one of my biggest irritations, no, hates at the moment.  I’ve reached my absolute fill, the homeworking quota has been exceeded, my own company is becoming tedious and I have to escape.  I daydream about the good old days (with rose tinted glasses of course) when I worked in an office. Oh how I miss the daily commute, the people watching, the office gossip, the office politics, the impromptu drinks after work and the regular, face to face contact with other human beings.  As the years tick by, I feel I’m slowly losing the ability to communicate, I’m becoming introverted and find it difficult to make idle chit chat with people who ask ‘how has your week been?’.  For the most part, my working weeks are quiet, monotonous, uneventful, uninteresting, uninspiring…you get the drift. 

As my other half comes home each evening, eager to plonk on the sofa and relax in the peace and quiet,  I’m looking to escape the confines of the apartment which seems to be getting smaller by the day.    That’s the problem you see, if you don’t go to work, then you don’t come home from work – it all just blurs into one.  There’s no shaking off the day when you walk out of the office building. I just turn from my work computer to my home computer – I’m in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same box room. I eat dinner, I go to bed, I get up, eat breakfast and sit at my desk ready to do it all over again.  *Sigh*  I think the ideal balance would be to work in an office three days a week and have two very focused days at home.  That way I could have the best of both worlds because no matter how much I whinge, there are definitely some upsides to working at home.

Anyway, before you start playing your mini violins, here is today’s cartoon on the subject:

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Baltic!

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Yes, it is really, really cold.   -4C to be precise!  Ok, so everything is relative, I mean the conditions aren’t on a par with North Pole (yet) but the latest Big Freeze is quite enough to give me an insight, and frankly, unless I had my own supply of seal furs, walrus blubber and an Eskimo, I’m quite happy to continue whinging about -4C.

Last night I had the misfortune to travel for two hours on a train with no heating!  Everyone on board was wrapped up, grown men were shivering and tourists were pulling spare jumpers from their suitcases for extra warmth.   It feels like a real winter – we just need some snow.

10 reasons not to work from home

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  1. Even if you start out with good intentions, at some point down the line, you’ll develop a habit of waking up with just enough time to have a cup of tea and catch the end of the breakfast news before dragging yourself upstairs to start work…in your pyjamas.
  2. Your world gets progressively smaller. Every time you leave the house it’s as though you’ve entered another universe (one with people and talking) – even going to the supermarket becomes a mini adventure.
  3. You find yourself daydreaming, talking to inanimate objects, pets or your own reflection for a bit of company. Sometimes you’ll call people for no reason except to hear a voice. Then, when your other half gets home (most likely in need of peace and quiet), you develop verbal diarrhoea.
  4. Physical activity becomes limited to reaching for the on/off button of your computer and walking up and down the stairs to yet another cup of tea or in my case coffee.
  5. Housework can actually be a distraction.
  6. Retired people (and your other half) think you don’t really have a job – you’re ‘in’ so surely you are available at short notice to drive them to the airport, wait for a package or nip to the shop for a birthday card.
  7. Your home becomes your work and your work becomes your home until you don’t know if you’re having a breakfast meeting or just breakfast. That ‘and-relaaaax’ feeling you get when you leave the office at the end of the day is non-existent.
  8. You start to dream up conspiracy theories – ‘everyone hates you’, ‘you’re going to get fired’ or ‘I’m sure they’re all having a meeting without me’. Then, as the paranoia sets in, you become too scared to leave your desk and your computer in case someone calls or sends you an email to which you must respond immediately, or get the chop.
  9. Day time telly sucks (of course I only watch it over lunch, and naturally Facebook, Twitter and the like are reserved for breaks…).
  10. The line between sanity and insanity becomes very, very thin…which is probably why I feel compelled to write a blog and draw pictures of me fighting zombies with a cat for a sidekick.

Current Sanity Status – questionable!

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Frustrated! Angry! Bemused! and its all down to the NHS which no doubt stands for ‘Not Helpful for Sanity!’ The debacle continues:

Up until 10 days before L was due to start her new job, she still hadn’t heard any details about which hospital she’d be working in, who she should report to, what her contract would be or any of the things one should expect before entering new employment.

Naturally a little perturbed, bordering on concern, L phoned the lady she’d had most recent contact with. After explaining the situation and expressing her worries, the voice on the other end stated, with indifference, that she was no longer dealing with L’s details and didn’t know who was. After a little coaxing, she suggested L contact hospital X (no names just the hospital)!

When L finally managed to track down the HR person in charge of her new post she was greeted with “THANK GOD you’ve called! We’ve been waiting for you to ring us because don’t seem to have any of your contact details. All I have here is your last name and the department you’ll be working for!” Followed by “we still can’t confirm your appointment until we’ve had your references” and “no cause for alarm”!

Can I just remind you that this was 10 days before L was due to start. What happened to all those copies of CV’s, reference letters, online references (through the now non-existent online application service) and details she provided for her interview in MAY? Obviously the Not Helpful for Sanity paperwork Pixies had multiplied and were now wreaking havoc with applications! These being the same Not Helpful for Sanity Pixies that stole L’s paperwork three times last year, preventing the Not Helpful for Sanity financial staff from paying L the correct wage for 10 months! I digress…

Wednesday: on the first day of her new job, L knows which hospital she’ll be working at but hasn’t had any details regarding induction or who to report to. Making an educated guess she arrives at her allocated department only to discovers that the induction is being held at a rugby club several miles from the hospital. Undeterred, she rocks up at the club (late) to be greeted by flustered staff who don’t seem to have her name, staff badge nor, for all accounts and purposes, evidence that she exists!

Those cheeky Pixies!

After an excruciatingly tedious afternoon of health and safety talks and ‘in-case-of-fire’ instruction, she still was no clearer as to her rota, her pay, her contract, holiday allowance etcetera etcetera. She also becomes a little uneasy after a hearing several other examples of the Not Helpful for Sanity’s expertise in disorganisation. A the Trust employed 6 new doctors – Two didn’t have up-to-date working visas therefore, four people will now be covering the work of 6. Worse still, one poor girl turned up for the induction only to find that the clinic she was contracted to work for had closed but no-one had bothered to let her know. Several people were still being interviewed 2weeks before their job started (I feel sorry for those with children). L still hasn’t seen a rota or contract…

Thursday: second half of induction, still no contractual information. A rota is apparently being ‘drawn up’. It’s becoming clear that the Not Helpful for Sanity Pixies have tied up the entire HR department, kept them in a dark room with no access to a calendar, paperwork or a computer for the last two months.

Friday: First tentative steps into the department – L is developing a nervous tick and after encountering several severe traffic jams on her journey to and from the hospital (3hours travel a day), she has a slighty maniacal look about her.

4pm Friday Afternoon: Still hot from the printer, L receives her rota. She must now cancel all arrangements for the weekend as she will be on call from 8am Saturday morning! I feel the anger welling up and another grey hair spring from my scalp so I can only imagine how L must be feeling. More bad news, she needs to start at 7:30am at least one day a week over the next four months meaning a 5am start to ensure a timely arrival.

Monday am: Phone call from L….”they want me to start at 7:30am every day…” pause “WHAAAAAAAAT!” L’s new consultant is apparently unsympathetic to anyone’s travel issues. On the spur of the moment he decided to change the rota.

Unsurprisingly I am feeling disgruntled. I have seen L (awake) a total of 15minutes since Saturday. She will not be home tonight deciding it was easier to stay in a hotel near the hospital instead of attempting a 5am start. With our house on the market and the aim to move to a bigger house before Xmas, I’m glad we’ve made the decision to stay in and around Beeston. For the next year (minimum) I will be on my own quite a bit and the idea of being alone, in a new house somewhere in the countryside, miles from friends and everything familiar is not all together appealing. We wait with baited breath for news that the two non-visa doctors are re-employed and the rota becomes less intense…. We could be waiting sometime.

Student life and daytime television

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So it’s about time I wrote another installment – I always have things floating around in my head but never seem to get the time to sit down and commit it to paper/my virtual diary. There are a couple of things I wanted to cover. Firstly, I guess I should let you know that I’ve had my first feedback session re my university progress.

Things are better than expected. I was worried I wasn’t up to scratch but without trying blow my own trumpet – more appropriately a penny whistle – I’m on for a high 2:1 which could be pushed to a first if I iron out a few tweaks. My essay work has come back with a first which I’m very pleased about and thankfully we still have another two terms before the marks start to count towards the final degree. So with a little more ‘oomph‘ I might be able to make the grade!

It’s strange how the marks massage my little ego and make me feel like a school girl who’s just been given a gold star! I was clipping my heels and skipping down the street after my feedback. So pat on the back for me!

I am however, starting to slip deeper into student mode and although I’m still getting out of bed around 7 or 7:30am (an obscene hour for a student) and going to bed at 10pm, I seem to be getting a good healthy dose of daytime television. Of course, my fellow students know exactly where I’m coming from when I talk about “bargain hunt”, “to buy or not to buy” or “cash in the attic” but I fear it’s lost on my other circle of friends.

There is a vast choice of trashy middle-aged-house-wife type programmes but I’d consider myself a fairly picky viewer, preferring to stick to the programmes that give advice about money, buying new houses or how to cook a sumptuous three course meal. I have set myself standards and will not stoop to watching Ricky Lake (amazingly still going), Divorce Court or Loose Women, however lazy I’m feeling.

Sadly, when I try to engage my hardworking, employed friends in a conversation about my day time television bingeing they usually do one of two things:
a) look at me blankly then change the subject or
b) look at me with a slight narrowing of the eyes and a curl of the lip as if to say “you disgust me you, white, couch-potato trash – how could you stoop so low” and then change subject.

In my defence these programmes are never watched with my full attention as they tend to be background noise while I potter, clean or draw. And hey, if I want slightly more erudite background noise then I listen to Radio 4.

I can’t mention TV without saying that I think the BBC Breakfast News programme is dreadful. In fact, I think they should just drop the word ‘news’ completely unless one considers a 15 minute debate on ‘how to wear your scarf’ or a lenghty discussion on ‘whether fashion sneakers with wheels implanted in the heel cause your child physiological damage’ news.

I can’t believe they can dedicate 15 minutes of a ‘news’ programme to three camp men showing you how to tie your scarf when there is a whole world of important news to broadcast. Trivial little interludes are the sort of drivel you’d expect from ITV but NOT the BBC which I….. sorry…… L pays a television license for! And why is everything dumbed down to the level of Dodo IQ? The programme is swamped with over-simplified graphs, moving charts and animated lists to ensure we understand exactly what’s being said…. “Yes! I HAVE a BRAIN”!

Oh my god…. I sound like one of those crazy people who have nothing better with their time than to write to Points of View and criticise advertising and TV programmes. I’d better lay that one to rest before I start to rant about the ridiculous worldwide attention recently devoted to one particularly dreadful reality TV show. ARRRRGH ok B-R-E-A-T-H-E

A change of subject now to earning a crust! It’s been ages since I’ve had any paid design work and I was beginning to think I was never going to get another enquiry but in the last couple of weeks I’ve had two!! One of the jobs I’ve got in the bag – a lot of hard work which I’m not looking forward to (on top of my Uni projects) but at least it will go towards a flashy new Apple MAC…. This is my DREAM! Well, part of my dream. The other part involves a lovely little farmhouse, chickens, ducks, two dogs, a cat, an allotment and a large studio! But that might be a few years down the line yet.

The other job is a bit iffy, I’m just waiting to hear for a full brief but it’s basically three large illustrations for an interpretation panel on a nature reserve… COOLIO!

Now, I vowed I would never write another word about my rabbits in case you got the impression that I’m a 21st century Dr Doolittle but I couldn’t resist this.
Today, I went into our utility/rabbit pen/junk room and couldn’t find Clive. After much searching I heard a scrabbling noise and was shocked to find this…..(spot the Rabbit)