Baseline

When I was a teenager I used to paint, and between the ages of 14 and 23 I painted over 100 miniatures. It wasn’t a prolific number by any stretch of the imagination; people I knew painted several figures a day, whereas I tended to concentrate on just one or two at a time… and then it would still take me ages to finish them.

Doing the math you will realise I took a considerable number of ‘breaks’ from the painting, but one thing was always constant throughout… it was peaceful. I could invest a massive amount of time into it, which would inevitably fly by, and at the end of it have produced something I was proud of…

…it was a hobby…

…I have rediscovered it…

…and in the words of my son, I ‘haven't lost it’.

There are few things in life that give me such simple pleasures…

Being able to produce something, to be creative, is not a feeling I have experienced much of recently; and since I no longer program to any degree I think painting may very well be the outlet that I need.

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OK, here’s a catch up of the last 6 weeks… 6 weeks since I last blogged. That seems like an age.

The departmental restructure went better than expected. Two guys were transferred which means their jobs are safe, and two are under threat for December; but considering the company is doing well and the financial situation might change we’re hoping they’ll keep their jobs as well. Other areas of the department were not so lucky. Small blessings I suppose.

I don't think the nature of the work is changing at all; estimates, project plans, resource schedules… more with less… as soon as possible. Yesterday it seems is not good enough for some people. No wonder the blood pressure is so high… which of itself is something else to worry about!

The kids are growing up quick. It’s Evans 10th birthday this month and I’m a little in shock at that to be honest. So much has happened in those 10 years but the memory of him in my arms for that first time is just as fresh as the memory of them both yesterday.

Me? I’m still soldiering on. A little more battered, slightly more bruised. Stressed, as I’ve said. Anything other than work is a bonus; the kids, friends, family, archery… I’m getting a bit better at this ‘bow n arrow’ malarkey, although one guy who hasn’t shot for six months turned up and whooped my arse yesterday… still lots to learn!

This coming weekend will be spent recharging the batteries with Karen. I know she understands what that means to me, but I never tire of telling her.

I’m also making new and good friends at the archery; and lets not forget a mention for Steve and Leanne, who’s pirate themed engagement party is flagged as one of the many highlights for June.

Deeper insights? Well, regardless of friends, archery or recharged batteries, there’s a loneliness that just will not be put to rest. I feel it every time the kids go home, every time I get home from work, every time I’m alone. I wasn’t made to be by myself. There’s a fundamental need in me to be around others. It just grinds me down when I’m not.

So, there you have it… you’re well and truly caught up now. Was it worth the read?

Good!

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This is going to have to be a short one, but I just wanted to say that the new structure for the department was published today and thankfully mine is not one of the roles being cut back on…

…which means my job is safe.

Unfortunately I now I have the rather unenviable task of ‘scoring’ the ten guys in my team… and then telling the four with the lowest scores that they don’t have jobs anymore…

Yeah, this week is going from bad to worse.

Shit.

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Today was my first day back in the office for over a week. Ten days of contentment… ten days of peace… ten days of not thinking about work.

I was surprised to notice that there had been no announcement about the redundancy situation. I didn’t sleep well at all last night, half expecting that I would find out today the shape of things to come.

…but no, that torture must continue for at least another day…

…the official announcement is tomorrow; and what will the shape be? Will I have a team? If there is a team, will I be it’s leader? How many…? Who…? When…?

This is agony.

It’s difficult to imagine a department without a software development function… we are, after all an Information Services department… software solutions are what we provide. And if there is to be a software development team I have to think my role will be secure… but what if…?

So, as you can tell, the stress factor is massive at the moment. On top of that I had the usual workload of returning to work after an extended absence, with three guys on holiday and a support queue growing by the minute…

…and can you believe we actually lost a server? Nobody can tell me where it is… or when it left… the best answer was sometime over the last two weeks…

‘but we did turn off 14 other servers… maybe it was one of those…’

!!!

Jesus!!!

You gotta laugh… or cry…

…I’ll toss a coin. Let fate decide.

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I discovered the other day that the kids read my blog.

Yikes! That surprised me. I known they’re computer and internet savvy; they are my children after all! I was initially taken aback. I’m not exactly reserved when it comes to my opinions, nor the use of colourful language. Some of the entries on the blog have been difficult to write in that they deal with personal and emotive subjects. The question is will the knowledge that they do read it change the way I write it, or indeed the reason I write it?

The answer, I hope, is no. I may be a little more reserved in the language I use for obvious reasons, but the driving factor of why I blog has never been derived from who reads it. I write for me, nobody else.

In fact, I do hope the kids continue to read the entries. They may over time get a slightly different perspective on their dad; one that they might not necessarily see on a day to day basis.

So, welcome kids. Now Rhianne, about that homework…

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…today marks the last day of one of the worst periods I’ve had while I’ve been at Car-Mow-Mac.

My career there started three years ago, and even though I survived a previous headcount reduction (the Car-Mow merger, which was announced the week after I started!) I find myself, yet again, slap bang in the middle of one.

The last two weeks since the announcement have been dire. Obviously you can imagine what the mood is like, but the continuing pressure to ‘get the job done’ and the constant ‘one-up-man-ship’ is beginning to grate. And in addition to that we’ve been told the office is being put up To Let… even if we do survive the cut, we’ll probably be moving back to the office we vacated two years ago!

Thankfully, today was my last day at work for 10 days…

…I’m free!!!

Picking the kids up tomorrow for an extended stay at mine (and friends). Lots planned of course, including Archery, the seaside, Fountains Abbey (yet again!), a birthday party and copious amounts of FUN!

So, let the good times roll…

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For starters a little disclaimer…

This blog entry is in no way intended to undermine or criticise the company I work for, nor the actions they are taking in order to reduce costs.

We all got called into a conference call yesterday afternoon. One hundred plus people scattered across this green and pleasant land, all dialled in to listen to the dulcet tones of our boss, the IS Director. It was pretty obvious from the outset what it was all about…

…terms like fit for the future… we don’t operate in an economic bubble… we have to be more cost effective when the upturn comes…

The language of redundancy.

We have a headcount of 102, while the number of roles to be reduced by is expected to be between 30 and 40. Parts of the department are ring fenced from the axes, which leaves those 30 to 40 to be chosen from a pool of 80 or so.

Nearly 50%.

That’s bigger than anyone expected. Shockingly so.

I don’t have many things to be thankful for. My kids are the obvious number one, family and friends second. I love my job, honestly I do; which is a rare and precious thing in itself. I consider myself to be bloody good at it (always room for improvement though, right?).

So for someone to threaten that it impacts me deeply, and I’m feeling lower than I thought I would.

2009… what a bloody year!

Roll on 2010 is all I can say!

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…I will not forgive.

Anger, despair and frustration rise to the surface lending fuel to the punches that keep falling.

I feel the stinging pain of my lacerated hands but I’m not sure if the blood is mine or his. The face dissolved into a mass of distorted flesh and bone some time ago… I’m not sure when… there are no memories right now…

I think I’m crying, warm tears evaporating… leaving cool tracks on my cheeks… they’re either tears, or more blood… my blood. Maybe his. Grime, sweat and blood cake my tunic. The heavy webbing digs into my shoulders.

Choking sobs and fighting for breath, saliva dripping in long streams… I stop hitting him then… and summoning the last of it, spit on the ruin of his face.

He was nip once, now he’s an exclamation mark.

The last man I will kill in a war I never thought I’d survive.

Five days ago I came to this place. Five days ago I didn’t know about war; not really. They told us everything we needed to hear. Lots of get up and go. Lots of ‘yellow peril’ shit. Stuck a Browning in our hands and sent us to war.

I lost the browning right there on the beach, but managed to get myself a Thompson. I didn’t think the lieutenant would mind… being dead and all…

Life is falling back into the usual routine of work, rest and play.

Work, which fills so much of my time, is both frustrating and rewarding… although the frustration is winning… slightly. Resources are tight, workload is plentiful, clients are… well… clients(!), and the team copes as well as it can…

I must admit, that in the most part, I have a good team of guys. They sometimes increase the frustration, but get the job done. Mostly…

Rest. That’s what I fill my evenings with, although I sometimes wonder where the time goes… One minute I’m driving home, the next minute I’m driving to work… What happened to the evening?? Sigh…

…and Play. Ahhhh… play…

Wassat then?

The evenings are getting longer so Archery will soon be back on the agenda, I’ve started going to a gym and now that I’m single (again!) I’ll have ooodles of time to do all those fun things single guys get up to…

…???…

Fuck it… I’ve got a bow… I think I need to shoot things…

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It came out of nowhere.

There I was, minding my own business. Then, wham! Right out of left field.

I’d just put the bottle of wine in the basket…

“…dad…? Have you ever had a problem with alcohol…?”

WTF? My 9 year old son asking me right there in the supermarket if I’ve had problems with alcohol…

My answer was not planned… thought out… or indeed one I’m proud of…

“errr… No… “

DENIAL!

Pivotal.

My son loves me. His questions are his way of coming to terms with the world.

What world am I making for my children…?

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Writing, it would seem, is something I’m pretty good at.

This is no mere exaggeration on my part. There have been many instances lately where I have been praised for my eloquence, my succinct manner and narrative structure. Most have been work related, but others have been related to my blog and associated writings.

It’s a skill I do pride myself in but have not exploited to any degree… the question is ‘how’ would I exploit it?

I do it, mostly, for fun; which in my world is the best reason to do ANYTHING!

If I intend to exploit the ability, surely that means it will become more of a chore. A means to an end… a  simple tool…

The only way to find out, I suppose, is to try.

…and with that in mind I need something to write about…

Shall it be a work of fiction? Possibly a biography? A historic allegory perhaps?

…bugger… I never was the most decisive of people…

Something for me to mull over I think…

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I had an awesome weekend.

The kids on Friday and Saturday, which included shopping for birthday pressies. The subsequent birthday get together with my very good friend Liz and the Sunday recovering from the HUGE whisky overdose (sorry Paul – I owe you a bottle!)

…and then the wonderfully chilled evening with another true friend, Karen.

She’s moving away soon, and although it’s not a million miles I’m going to miss her. Deeply.

Is it not ironic that we are all bound equally by the words we don’t say, as by those that we do?

Karen has shepherded me through a turbulent and somewhat traumatic period of my life. Without ask or want. She has given of herself freely and sought naught in return. A rare gift… a true friend…

Karen, I know you’re reading this. I’m going to miss you.

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PS: that doesn’t mean I’m not going to whup your ass the next time we go bowling…

It’s been a difficult weekend so far.

Friday was not only the day of my disciplinary hearing, but it was the day my kids went abroad for the first time. They called me from Italy on Friday evening, and although I was immensely overjoyed to hear from them the distance clawed at me…

…then Saturday came around and after a long lie-in I found myself degenerating into an emotional void.

Everything just seemed to pile up. All the pain and loss… everything about ‘this’ day…

…and now I feel more alone than I can ever remember. Shit.

‘This’ day is nearly over though, and tomorrow, as they say, is a new day. That doesn’t make me feel any better and it certainly doesn't salve the pain. The emptiness.

Someone told me the other day I was brutally honest when I write, and it’s something I don’t think I’ve done enough of. The cathartic experience of writing to allay ones trauma is something I’ve not done a lot of these last few months.

Maybe I should start again…

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It’s taken a while to get to this point but I can finally speak openly about what’s been going on at work recently.

Some of you will already know, others wont have a clue…

The story goes something like this…

The IS Department Christmas ‘do’ was held at the Mount hotel in Wolverhampton. It was the week before Christmas and at the end of the evening (…about 5 am in the morning!) everyone considered that it had indeed been one of the better ‘do’s’ the company had ever held…

…unfortunately some of us had ‘helped’ ourselves to a few refreshing drinks…

…double-unfortunately the Hotel has CCTV…

…can you see where this is going…?

…yeah… me too…

So come January a total of 7 of us found ourselves under investigation for misconduct… yours truly included.

Yes, I was guilty. One shot of JD (albeit it in a pint glass) was my sin.

…and yes, I ‘fessed up.

The hearing was finally held today and I now have a nice shiny written warning to fill out my HR folder. I might go for my ‘time waster’ badge next…

So, it’s finally sorted now, I can get on with my 9 to 5 without a freakin huge shadow hanging over me.

Bring on the Trumpets!

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It’s a scary thought that corporations the world over could dig into their information stores and pull out all sorts of details about their employees, customers and partners.

Think about the number of emails we each receive. They all come from somewhere, most of them from our acquaintances, some from spam servers. All arrive in your inbox. If you work for a company then the chances are that the company email server will hold all records of your email activity; probably going back at least a year… possibly a lot longer…

Your email address identifies you quite specifically. Do you send emails to your home account from work? I bet you do…

Now think of all the emails you sent and received over the last year. It’s a web with you at the centre. Your company has all that juicy data to work through.

Have any of you ‘Googled’ yourself? I’m sure you must have.

Google though is just one search engine, and it’s the most generic kind. There is now something called “Federated Search”. This allows any resource to search any other resource as long as it conforms to Federated Search guidelines, and this can be done automatically… without the need for someone to click ‘Go’ on a web page.

Just try searching for yourself on Facebook or LinkedIn. They use Federated Search. Now try doing that for all the people you sent or received email to and from in the last year.

Companies also use something called Google Alerts to track their brands. The company I work for (which shall remain nameless) uses Google Alerts to identify any and all mention of their company name on the internet. And when I say ‘the internet’ I mean the whole shooting match. Google Alerts is not picky. If someone in Japan posts a message on a public forum dissing them, then the guy in IT gets his email the next morning, with a link to the offending article.

Try it for yourself – go to http://www.google.co.uk/alerts?hl=en and set one up.

If they can do that for their company brands… what's to stop them from doing it for any other search criteria… like, say… an email address…?

Now how about all those email addresses in your web of contacts…? And all those ID’s you’ve used on pubic forums…?

Now I’m not saying companies do this. It would create a ridiculous amount of traffic and sifting the data would be next to impossible… but they could if they wanted to; and they could do it automatically… with little or no human intervention.

The worrying thing is… people still think they have any privacy what so ever. If companies can do this… what the fuck can governments do?

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A lot happens in a week…

Seven whole days…

…and to be honest it’s been a bit up and down. Personally and professionally.

From screwing things up with friends I really shouldn’t be screwing things up with… to frustrating meetings with clients… to meetings that really shouldn’t be happening…

Thankfully ‘that’ meeting was postponed due to the inclement weather we’ve been having recently, and although I’ve been playing it down I’m quite thankful I didn't have to go all the way down to Wolverhampton to sit in a room for the 30 mins before having to drive back. What a waste of everyone's time… but it will be rearranged, so I’ve got to go down at some undetermined point in the future…

Stress.. with a capital STRESS.

Friends are wonderful, as usual… even the ones I dump on so spectacularly. I sometimes struggle to express how much I cherish their… well… friendship! I’m certain I don’t deserve it.

Anyway, it’s the last day of my week tomorrow… bring on the weekend! Cock it!

Kids, friends, a dog washing, pizza… and more than likely a substantial amount of whisky…

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It’s been a while since I last blogged.

There’s no real reason other than I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter to post regular status updates… but you know what? It’s just not the same. Facebook gives you a little space to be creative, narratively, while Twitter gives you just 140 characters.

It’s quite a challenge being effusive in just 140 characters…

So here I am again – making the most of what I was born with. A head, a heart and the unremitting desire to tell the world who I am.

Woke to a bit of a shock this morning. Well, when I say woke, I was rudely disturbed from my valiant slumbering efforts by a telephone call from my parents. First words out of my mouth?

‘Yes, ma! I put the dustbin out!’

I was surprised when she told me that wasn’t the reason she had called me. My old school was on fire. I dove to my bedroom window.

It wasn’t just on fire, it lit up the sky! Tall columns of thick black smoke lit from within by pillars of flame. A true Dante’s Inferno.

…and I live two miles from the school!

It’s gone. The whole thing. Every building. All the corridors I used to prowl. The science labs where I punched Marc Towel in the face. The library where I crushed over Liz Davis. The Hall where we staged the annual concerts, and in doing so twagged double maths.

It’s all a twisted pile of steaming iron now.

I’m going to go up and have a closer look tomorrow; say goodbye to it one last time before the bulldozers do the final clear up.

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