Posts filed under 'Work'
Well, Christmas party completed. And no, I didn’t really manage to talk to any new people…so now having an away day to do the job seems the only way to fix it. (There are around 20 of them, and I have got to know around 8 of them, so I don’t feel too bad.)
Being rather shy at parties, I was rescued by a more convivial colleague who soon roped me in to assisting her with selling raffle tickets. It does mean you can keep your head down, write names on the back of tickets, and not worry about the appropriate thing to say next…
Despite the party not doing the ‘new colleague’ bit for me, what it did allow for was some catch up time with people I do know. Nice to sit with some who’ve been around for a year or more, and who I have some background with. Because being in the same office as someone, even when there’s only 60 of you, is no guarantee of talking to them, let alone keeping up with the ones you consider as good friends.
I also attempted to master a pashmina…Yes, even more out of date than my mobile phone blog recently. But thankfully there are more glamorous colleagues who are prepared to lend you a pretty scarf for an evening, and even tell you how to wear it. And with wall to wall little black dresses, I even felt appropriately dressed when it became too warm to keep the pashmina on.
Best of all, we raised over £300 for Maggie’s Centre in Edinburgh, and the atmosphere of the raffle kept everyone going, and in a good mood. I even discovered a new second career as a maker of impromptu raffle tickets when both books of proper tickets were used up…
December 14th, 2007
This should properly be tagged as both home and out and about, since I’m at home, and Dan’s out at the cinema with friends from our church small group.
Arrangements to get together tonight got a bit complicated, and in the end, I stayed put. Have been feeling a little guilty at how much I’ve enjoyed having the flat to myself…A few Christmas cards, a first attempt at some Christmassy music this year, followed by taking myself off to the bath to do some useful preening prior to tomorrow’s work Christmas do.
Back when Dan ran his business from home, I used to joke that the flat was more his than mine…but he was there almost all the time. This week, he probably feels like he’s been here all the time, given further visits from the heating Man (or rather Men - different ones at different times). Fingers crossed that it gets finally fixed tomorrow!
Meanwhile, despite some hiccups with it tonight, managed to get heat (and therefore hot water) on for most of the night, which allowed me to have a nice long bath and catch up on Saturday’s magazine from the Times. Interesting mini article on what they call microtrends. You can evidently get patterns off the Internet to knit your own beard - there are Bee Gee style full pokey out beards. However, this is the opposite of bathroom preening really, although the attempted knitting circle at work might be interested…
Even though the business is now away from home, it’s still fairly rare for me to have the flat to myself. So unlike Macauley Culkin, I am too pleased with a nice hot bath to be worrying about fending off inept house burglars. Perhaps the advent calendar will distract them, should it be needed.
With two days to go, and the prospect of a longer chunk of time off work, slowly realising that I can also have the flat to myself for much of next week, while Dan is still at work. Had a similar set up last year, although I was still writing essays for the counselling course as much as I could…This year is probably more of the Grand Tidy Up, but I think we’ll build in some fun stuff too.
Even though I have the prospect of travelling less, now we have more staff at work on the same activities as me, I’m still the one of the two of us who tends to be away with work. Sometimes just day trips, sometimes overnight. Was away last Friday, stayed on an extra day. Often it’s good for us, Dan and I. We enjoy being together more once we’re back together - without it being of the same epic proportions of months apart when we were engaged and I was working in Poland.
As a result, it is still a treat for me to be at home. I’m sure this annoys some of my friends who are at home all day every day with kids, and would like a quick escape without them now and then, let alone a night away on their own. Maybe I’ll get to this point some time. I wouldn’t quite go the full IKEA, but yes, home is a really important place for me.
And a good dose of it should help me muster up the courage to face a party tomorrow…less familiar territory, but hopefully a good end to the working year.
December 12th, 2007
It’s a quote isn’t it? Can’t remember where from. But Dan was kind enough to lend me his iPod when I had a work trip to London at the end of last week. This meant that I had the option of watching the scenery roll by while listening to whatever I fancied.
Now Dan and I quite like soundtracks to films. Like lots of other music too, but have a soft spot for a soundtrack of a film we’ve enjoyed. Probably the top one on the list would be “Sneakers”, one that Dan got me into, with Wynton Marsalis adding to a sense of excitement and espionage.
The thing about listening to a soundtrack while on the move is that you feel like you are becoming part of the film. Or, perhaps even better, starring in a film of your own. One that uses a soundtrack related to Paris (”Amelie”, since you ask) with a backdrop of London. As I was going to a work meeting relating to languages, this was probably a reasonably good match.
Funny how good a bit of good music can be to help one’s mood. Going to a work meeting in another city, you can be a bit concerned about arriving on time, and something peaceful in the earphones helps in this way. And when a meeting has lasted a bit longer, had a few things you weren’t expecting, and so on, same peaceful music on the way home is also no bad thing…
December 9th, 2007
Who’s heard this one: ‘leave something for Mr Manners’?
Despite my mention of useful Men earlier in the week, this is not he. But I was reminded of this saying at work today, seeing the ‘polite’ remainders that people leave behind.
We’re a very foody office. Although our work has a great Cause, people view it in lots of different ways, and food is one thing that actually draws us together. Add to that people going on work trips/holiday to various interesting places, leftovers from events, and you get a sense of a lot of surveying of food that appears in the office.
Fairly consistently, though, no one seems able to take the final piece of something. This means that you can leave even a large piece of packaging with one tiny bit left, and this excuses you from doing any further tidying up. Today, it reached greater proportions than usual - at one point, the piece left over was half a fruit danish pastry. I ignored it, and had my bowl of soup. When I looked round again, someone had taken the pastry, but left the decorative grape…
I’m aware that in other cultures, if you do finish everything, it suggests you want more, or even that you are not satisfied with something. I’m also aware that we have a small kitchen for c. 60 people, and leaving bits of wrappings about doesn’t leave much space to get your lunch out of the fridge, as well as looking a bit grungy after a while.
So, Mr Manners. I ate your grape. I am the one who throws away your empty packets. But I also put on new pots of coffee, clean worksurfaces and do other socially contributional things. I may upset the food status quo. But I do create space for people to put something new down…and start the whole process again.
December 5th, 2007
Okay, so I admit it. I’m a Mac Geek.
I’ve had two weeks where I’ve bought an iPod (Black, Classic, 80Gb), visited the Apple store in Glasgow and resolved to get Leopard as soon as it comes out. For those who don’t know what Leopard is, don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you.
The fact is that Macs have made my life easier. I had a rare moment a couple of weeks ago while writing an important proposal when my MacBook froze (ie crashed) and I thought I had lost an hour of pretty cogent, reasoned argument about why a company should choose Inigo.
I recovered my work, but I was a little shaken. It was like the time when I realised that one of my favourite teachers at school was able to make mistakes. It was a bit unreal and I didn’t want to admit to myself that Macs are really just cool PCs.
Sorry Steve, I don’t like writing that, but it’s true. Beneath the gloss, beneath the usability, a MacBook is still a personal computer, even if it’s not running on DOS/Windows. Machines aren’t invincible. To add insult to injury, my iPod crashed within a week of bringing it home, but that too is because it’s a machine.
We place far too much trust in machines, even cool ones that save us time and make things better. It will be nice to spend a couple of weeks away where the only machines I’m trusting in are ones that run on rails.
October 20th, 2007
I’m sorry. I’ve not been away. I’ve been busy.
Some would think that this is Alison’s blog and Alison’s alone. It is not! Let me squash those rumours right here, right now. She does a good job though, don’t you think?! I enjoy reading her posts much more than my own.
I wrote a little while ago of building blogs for clients and not having much time for this one. Well, that’s come full circle and I’ve been told by a number of people that I need to blog more, if only for work and to show that I can and do write posts.
We’re off on holiday next week, so I intend to say “I’m still here” and post a few before it’s head down and work full tilt up to Christmas. Yes, Christmas, it’s not far now. Birthday first, can’t think about Dec 25th until my birthday is done. Cue next post…
October 20th, 2007
Been a bit quiet on the Blog of late. In truth I’ve been working on blogs a lot - or rather selling them. This is a bit bizarre as in November we set up our own and it was Alison more than me that took it on.
We won a contract to build a blog in part of an intranet for a public service body which has been really successful and we’re working on one for a national tourist authority doing something fun with snow, water and ice (can’t say who yet, but if you can’t work it out from that then I don’t know what).
Blogs are forming more a part of what we recommend - if only to make it easier for us to mix design and build.
I just looked up a reference to a previous post on Google and found that it was the top article, so they do something right.
Anyway, I hope to write a few more entries now that I accept that it’s part of work as well as fun.
June 2nd, 2007
This is the first public post that Inigo’s moving. Subject to a signed copy coming back from the Landlord, Inigo will open for business in our new office on Leith Links on March 1st.
We’ve been happily ensconced in a shop in Newhaven/Trinity for nearly three years, but it’s proved to be inflexible and a little cramped for six people. With three interns at various points [not all together] in 2006, it was hard to fit everyone in. The knowledgeable among you will point out that there are only four of us full time. You would be right, but Roddy is in twice a week and Niels is still running his photography business from the same office.
From the start of March that will be all change and we’ll have a new base of operations. Purely web related, so down come the wedding photos that have been in our meeting room for the last couple of years and up will go, well, who knows. It’s a chance for our designer Storm to have some say over how our environment is designed and for the guys who have joined Inigo since we moved to talk about what they would like to put and where.
I’ve been warned that running a company by consensus can mean that not much gets done, but I value the input from the guys. They are after all the ones that make what we do so good and they deserve to have a good amount of input. They’ve said that if I don’t like what they say I can do it my way, but I think the group way is better. More ‘buy-in’ and shared responsibility.
I’ll post up pictures of where we’ll be going when we move in - perhaps even some moving pictures if it’s not just me and Roddy who are carrying boxes, computers and desks.
January 21st, 2007
Been reading about plans by the UK government to pool data into one big database so that different government departments can have access to the same data. Am I the only one around that thinks this is a great idea?! What a brilliant thing to have all the data in the same place, making sure there’s not duplication of work and data.
Inigo are working with a government body that shares its reports with the bodies that it writes reports about. We’ll be implementing an RSS news feed (to be confirmed) between the body and local authorities to share those reports.
Under the Freedom of Information Act and the ability for citizens to be able to see data held about them, it would be a one stop shop - benefits, tax, medical, legal, etc. Why not put all the data in the hands of those who govern us? They can then make responsible, sensible decisions. After all, the info that they have is currently not much good for joined up government if the information isn’t joined up.
The ideal scenario (if it all works) is that as soon as all of the info is together in one big database, the Inland Revenue will see what I’m earning and recommend ways to invest; for libraries to see that I’ve got a planning application lodged with my local authority and recommend books I might like to read about it and for my doctor to let me know that next time I go to Africa, I might like to have a particular set of jabs.
When I move I only need to tell one organisation and if the passport authority see that I’ve left the country, another government department doesn’t try to call me at home. It’s all very obvious. It’s all very sane. Little brothers are already watching, we might as well just have one really big brother who knows us really well than dozens who hardly know us at all.
Think of it as a citizenship clubcard. No points, just better services and an easier life. Those with nothing to hide need have nothing to fear. Those who have something to hide better get used to some smart government. The politicians aren’t that smart - but that doesn’t mean that the machinery of the state needs to be dumb.
January 19th, 2007
So, we’re getting into writing this blog a bit more, we’ve had some comments back, and Dan is starting to even up the score a little more with writing more posts.
But for those who want less of the new, here’s some of the continuity business:
- Yes, we both still go to work too…Dan continues to be able to walk to work, and I head off on the bus. It’s fair to say that I’m probably out of the office more often than he is, with visits to schools or briefings etc, but he’s also out around the city meeting clients. Sometimes we even get a week where we are both in the office every day, which is actually quite nice.
It’s easy to stay late at work, and we have over the years. We’re now trying to work more regular hours, and for Dan to work less at home during evenings and weekends. Even though Dan’s business has been going for a few years now, it’s still quite a breakthrough to manage more free time outside working hours.
- We continue to be part of a church small group, meeting once a week in each other’s homes. There’s a lot of mutual support, prayer for each other and for additional people who’ve previously been part of the group, often internationals who are back home in e.g. America, Australia etc, plus other church friends working abroad.
This term we’ve been looking at different psalms. Each person has taken it in turns to choose a psalm that we discuss together. We’ve also had some different approaches, including writing our own. It’s been fun to see which ones people have chosen, and why.
- I’m part of the worship team at church, and get the chance to sing as part of the team around once a month. Dan also does some web work for the Africa Fund, and occasionally advises for the church website. So, if it gains a blog, you may have a guess where the idea came from…
- We continue to see my parents regularly, and tend to meet up every two or three weeks. As they’re up the road in Peebles, about an hour away from Edinburgh, we’re able to see each other fairly straight forwardly. You can read about some of our time together in Out and about, or Family.
The discovery of our thirties: how much of what we describe is more of the same, one way or another. But we’re still grateful to be who we are, where we are, and with a few new things thrown in too, hence all the topics in Out and about etc.
December 17th, 2006
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