On Hold?

Ok, so I wrote my life was on hold, and I’ve done something about it. Replied to an inbox full of stuff, started reading the mailing lists I’m on again, and in a moment I’m going to tidy up the Gemmell Mania stuff that needs dealing with.

On Hold

I feel like my life has just gone on hold, waiting for the outcome of the house sale. It’s always kinda been ongoing, but this second time as we’ve got to the contract stage, I just feel like things are hanging, waiting, just not much happening, awaiting the outcome of the sale. Ah well, time will tell.

Office

Another day at the office to look forward to then. Starting to get hard to motivate myself to go in. Oh well. This is what outsourcing does to a place. And near the point of signing the contract the company reassures itself it’s the right thing to do by say, ‘look, look how bad our productivity is, look how little we currently get for our money’.

Deja Law

Sent the legal stuff back to the solicitors yesterday, so the house sale is still (once again) going forwards. If you’re a race which has fingers, please cross them for us.

Ho Ho Ho

House sale not going ahead STOP Buyer missing in action STOP No one bothered to tell us STOP Not Happy STOP Starting entire process again STOP Not sure what fees will be incurred STOP Not sure how to spell incurred STOP Sense of humour not entirely gone STOP More news as it breaks STOP addicted to everquest life also missing in action STOP ENDS

A Mixed Bag

Well, I’m probably going to be outsourced to IBM or Xansa. Again. I think I’ll stick out the process this time. See how it goes. I’m not as apprehensive as some folk are about it, probably because I’ve been through most of it before, but also because the company had already lost my loyalty and respect anyway.

House sale is still ongoing – not heard anything back after signing the last thingy, which we’re still taking as good news 😉 With any luck we’ll make a couple-o-hundred quid when it does sell. Might need a short notice trip to go and empty the place though. It’s a touch bizarre selling a house you don’t live in, because I feel as though I should be moving house.

I’m being a bit of a bastard at work at the moment. Saying things I would normally keep to myself, being even more arrogant and obstreperous than normal. I’m not totally sure about the cause, probably some element of frustration over the slow moving nature of the place, the constant change of structure, and the serious lack of direction. I need to try and calm down, regain some kind of control, and stop putting people’s backs up – it’s not doing me any good what-so-ever either emotionally or professionally. Ho hum.

House! Bingo!

Today I signed something, which hopefully was a contract for the sale of my house. Things look very promising indeed. Had all the right words on it, and it’s been sent off. Having never sold a house I’m still in two minds about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but hopefully it’s a good thing. Fingers still crossed, it’s not over until the Halifax no longer demands mortgage payments from me, and then it’s cigars and cream cakes all around.

Work is still strained. While I’m home I tell myself to just knuckle down, keep my gob shut, get on with the work, bring home the money and just keep a clean sheet. I get to work, shoot my mouth off, stick up for my bloody principles and all hell breaks loose. I come home, repeat ad infinitum. Oh well.

Post-LRP

Omega LRP event was very relaxing, and probably enjoyable. The weather wasn’t terrible either which made the whole thing easier to deal with. And now it’s over, I’m much more relaxed.

Tomorrow we’re off to get some books signed by David Gemmell, which is nice 😉

We’ve sent off more paperwork for the house, which I hope means that it is going ahead. I guess the buyer will want us to empty the place, although I’m not sure.

How Am I?

If you were to ask me today, “How are you?”, I’d probably say, “Oh, I’m fine.”

But I’d be wrong. I’m not fine. I’m angry.

I’m angry, I think, because the team I work in at the moment is being re-organised. It’s the most enjoyable team I’ve yet had the pleasure of working with. We work well, we get on well, I enjoy being with the people in question, I like my line manager, her style suits me. All of these things make it easy to work hard.

However, since there’s a re-organisation roughly every 12 months in the place I work, we’re having another one. All good reasons, integration, single team, no barriers, blah blah blah, but it still makes me angry.

Am I just being petulant because I don’t want to change? Possibly. But there are reasons why I hate changing like this. I’ll have to get used to another style of line management, and it’s hit and miss whether that line manager will be able to cope with my style or whether I’ll be able to cope with theirs. And if either of us can’t, there’ll be compromise, and compromise is always painful, whatever anyone says. The dynamics of my working day will change, the work that I have the ‘opportunity’ of doing will change. I’m tired of it. Sick and tired.

We have a performance management system at the place where I work. In the four years I’ve been there, I’ve only ever had the same line manager for the entire period, once. This last year. I’ve only ever exceeded my contract once. This last year. I consider that interesting anecdotal evidence. Others may just think it means I didn’t work hard enough for the first three years. Your mileage may vary.

“Things won’t change immediately” we are told, “… for the time being everything will be the same as it is now”, but surely if we are re-organising, we’re doing it for a reason, and if that reason is to be realised then things will change, everything will not be the same as it is now, and so short term platitudes do little to amuse me. In the long term, my job will once again change. Some people like that, but I want what I do to be consistent. I want what I deal with to vary. Not what I deal with to be consistent and what I do to vary, that’s exactly the wrong way around, IMO.

I’m not stupid (no really), I understand the need for change. I understand that people go through denial, fear, anger, bargaining, depression, exploration and then acceptance. I did denial in under a second – hell this place changes so often there’s no doubt this is true. Fear? Not sure I did fear. Other than my one standard Wayne’s World quote, “We fear change”, fear didn’t really show up. And so here I am in Anger. What bugs me is the constant change.

Of course, what bugs me more, is what I believe to be the reason for this change. Which I’d better not voice, not even here on my own little private bit of the web. Big Companies have Eyes and Ears. I just think that the reason for the change to be the shape it is, stinks. It’s political rather than social or technical, and it’s a concession on behalf of people who feel they aught to give ground even though they didn’t need to. And we weren’t consulted.

So I should imagine that later on I’ll do bargaining. Although I’m not sure what about. Perhaps that won’t last long either. Not sure how long the anger will last though. Possibly quite some time. Does anyone know if you can go through some of those stages in parallel?

Perhaps I’m going through depression and the rest of them alongside anger? Who knows. I’m already suffering from depression on and off, so I’m not sure I’d notice being depressed about this change as well.

Resigned Acceptance is a state I think I probably entered quite early, just the Anger has hung around. Sorry this is so rambling, it’s a bit of a catharsis.

Only two days left before the LRP event kicks off, and while I was hoping to have a nice not-thinking-about-work time, I’m now going to be wondering about teams and working well together and what it’s going to be like when I get back. Ho hum. I think sometimes management forget that when we change line managers, everything is different instantly. Everything from how you claim overtime, to how you request holidays, to how you report on your work, everything changes.

As someone famous once probably paraphrased, the only two constants in life are the Inland Revenue and the Inevitability of Death. Everything else changes. But I don’t have to like it.