Act Your Age and Not Your Shoe Size

I read this article in the paper on the weekend. It was about how some celebrities dress too old or young for their ages.

I'm not so sure that I'm prepared to go on the record with my high-fashion advice to the beautiful people (I'm a card-carrying dag, after all), but I do think the concept holds in certain other circumstances. Like the workplace, for example.

Obviously I'm getting at a point here (trust me, I'll make it there eventually).

There's this woman who sits kind of nearby. I don't actually work with her, but I sit near enough to overhear a lot of what goes on.

So this woman seems generally pretty good at her job, and sounds as though she knows what she's talking about. The problem is that she doesn't seem to have gotten past her teenage giggling stage.

I'm really not one for going in for stereotypes of ageism, but you should hear this woman. If I was one of her stakeholders, I'd be left seriously questioning how whether this woman was actually listening to my serious concerns. Or listening at all to what I was saying, as she kind of sounds as though she has headphones in tuned to the Qantas comedy channel.

So what do you think, readers? Am I being too judgemental? Or is there a time and a place for the giggle that does not involve a middle-aged woman who is supposed to be a professional?

An update

In case you're interested, today was a far less frustrating day. I only had one visit from the computer guy - and the was earlier in the day than yesterday and therefore somewhat less smelly.

Whilst I am still homeless (office-wise, not actually homeless) apparently I should be back working at my own desk by Friday. Just in time to move floors to a new desk.

Hello again

Hope you're not expecting a big brain-dump like yesterday's plethora of posts. I'm afraid you've just got little old me whingeing about bloody computers again.

On Thursday my work PC died. I couldn't even get it to start up when I came in in the morning.

This, in itself, is not particularly unusual. The stupid things has died and been rebuilt at least once in the last couple of weeks prior.

Currently, one of my colleagues who sits in front of me is off on her honeymoon. Given that it's really close to my desk, and therefore all my stuff, it seemed like a good idea to use her computer until mine was fixed.

Unfortunately that was a naive hope and her computer wouldn't start up either. So 2 computers down at 10am. Not a bad start.

Since then I've been playing musical computers - setting myself up wherever someone is away.

Technical support did try come to see me on Friday. Unfortunately they got the right floor in the wrong building.

Several calls to the help desk to try to get some traction on fixing something were fruitless prior to this morning due to a 3 day service level. Yep. You read correctly. 3 days to even come have a look.

At 9.15 this morning service level had officially been exceeded. I actually had a meeting until 10.30 so I even gave a bit of grace time.

To say I was a little cranky on the phone at 10.30 might be a bit of an understatement.

Finally this afternoon a man came to look at the machine. I'm not going to even start on his body odour issues because they're not really that important to the story. Suffice it to say, people 4 seats away commented after he had left.

Anyway, in the way of tech support people everywhere, he suggested doing the same thing they did last time (remember, that rebuild thing that clearly didn't work?). Then he tried to blame the external hard drive I use. The same type of hard drive that everyone in my area has plugged into their same type of computers.

In the end, he did a few things and managed to get the thing to boot up. He then left me to restart the machine 3-4 times to see if the fix would hold. Given that every time we do this in our organisation, all software updates, patches and things upload and synchronise, a full reboot can take some time. It took me about an hour to do 3 reboots.

After finishing what I was doing, I decided it might be time to move back to my regular desk (for the next 3 days, anyway). I packed up all the gear I've been carting from desk to desk and headed over.

I managed to log in successfully. Good sign so far. Then went to do the first thing I always do when logging in, I went to start my email.

At this point I noticed that there were some shortcuts missing from my start menu. Then I noticed the missing applications. Like email. And anything from the Office suite (except Publisher, oddly enough).

So back on the phone to Mr Smelly. He came to visit again - about half an hour later. He did a few more magic things and then told me to try logging on again in about 10 minutes, muttering something unintelligible about profiles.

I'm a generous person, so I left it 20 minutes. I went over and fired up the PC.

I'm still waiting for it to finish booting up. I feel like I've basically wasted most of my day running between desks to check progress and restart that stupid thing.

Do you think I'm a little frustrated by now?

And then there was today

Sorry if you're reading these posts through. I know I may have jumped around a bit, chronologically speaking, but I kind of got caught up with publishing a few draft posts and threw in some stuff from today as I thought of it. You don't have to get the order, just accept that's the way it is and we'll all be happy.

As for today, it's been a strange one. Firstly, I've been a little disoriented with PC issues at work for 3 days now have meant that I'm playing musical desks. It's been good in a way - I'm making lots of new friends!

Then this morning our wider business group was called into one of those meetings that all corporate workers know and hate - the RESTRUCTURE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!

This was followed by oodles of rumour and speculation. Another teary meeting as my manager advised us she no longer has a role and a shock to me as I discovered that after only 2 months in the role I've been working towards for the last 18 months, my team is being dissolved and I'm being transferred as a permanent analyst to a product team.

The transfer in itself isn't such a bad thing. I know the team that I'm joining and know and like the new manager I'll be reporting into. It is a little bit limiting, however, in terms of development and advancement (the two key reasons I applied for this job).

So the team and I are all in a bit of shock this evening. I'm generally pretty positive about hings working themselves out, and they probably will, but I'm just going to need a bit of time to process.

Listening comprehension

Remember back in school they'd make you take reading comprehension tests? You'd have to read a passage and then answer a few questions about the contents.

The other day I went to Fire Warden training. It was a specialist session on bomb threats (let's hope I don't get too badly tagged for using that combination of words!).

2 days later I was in a meeting where another person who had attended that exact same training session gave a short presentation to communicate the contents of the presentation to people who hadn't attended the training.

I have to wonder about different people's listening comprehension because whilst I believe she was talking about the same stuff I'd heard, it pretty much bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I'd taken away from the session. Please find below a translation table:

her: yeah bombs happen all the time in Sydney
me: There were a number of bomb scares last year in Sydney

her: these bombs went off
me: because the person who took the call kept their head, the building was evacuated and the bomb safely contained and detonated in a safe way by the bomb squad.

her: they don't just evacuate you in an emergency
me: Most bomb threats are from people who don't really want to hurt anyone, and mostly hoaxes. The risk will be assessed and the building will be evacuated if the risk is deemed high.

her: most bomb threat callers will give their name.
me: Many bomb threat callers will give a name. Even if it's not their real name, they often use repeated aliases so even a fake name can be useful in investigations.

I don't want to give away too many other fire warden secrets...but can you see what I mean?

I really don't blame any of the meeting attendees for leaving that meeting with a slightly panicked look on their faces!

Things Happening

A big Happy Birthday to Jo for yesterday. Hope you had a great day!

Sorry for the slight lapse. I managed to kill my work PC. Yep, completely dead. Won't even start up. Not bad for 6 weeks into a new job hey?

Soo.....tomorrow is a very special day. Can anyone guess why??

If not, I suggest you tune in. There should be plenty of action. Well, plenty of posts, if you can call that action.

Anyway, you'll have to be here to find out.

J.

And howdy and welcome to all my new visitors. Come back any time.

Tuesday Blues

I'm having a cranky day. No particular reason. Just am. Well, maybe it's more like a stack of small reasons - the emotional equivalent of the death of a thousand paper cuts.

It must have been one hell of a storm last night. Half my pot-plants were overturned when I looked this morning.

It was still pouring when I left for work.

The entrance to the station was flooded and I had to walk all the way around to the alternative entrance and missed my train.

The train was damp and soggy and stuffy and humid.

The cuffs of my trousers are still wet.

It's still raining and grey, just like it was yesterday and just like it's forecast to be tomorrow.

I'm experiencing a few network problems at work. Everything's technically working, it's just taking twice as long as usual.

On a brighter note this made me smile for a minute.

Plus the thought that tomorrow's a public holiday....

Welcome to my Spam

So I've been in this new team a week and and things are going swimmingly. I'm having fun and doing well so far.

But I have to admit I'm a bit disturbed by the behaviour of one new work acquaintance.

To give you a bit of background, I hardly know this person. We have been in meetings twice and I doubt we have even spoken to each other directly.

Then this person, who shall remain nameless so far, especially as I would have been hard-pressed to remember her name if I'd run into her in the communal office kitchen, sent me an email this morning.

Yep, it was one of those horrendous chain email "funnies" (yes, that's in inverted commas for a reason). 14 meg of inbox-clogging wav file titled "keeping the kids quiet".

Needless to say, that hit my trash just as quick as any other spam email crossing my path.

Does anyone else think this is just ridiculous? Shouldn't you at least know someone properly before you start bombarding them with crap?

Update

Several Hours later, this arrives in my inbox.....


"Hi All,
Just letting you know I will be away tomorrow and Friday on annual leave.
This is especially for the coffee run.
Have a good weekend!!!
See You on Monday.
Another short week, I could get used to this.
Cheers,
Annoying emailer*"

*Not their real name

Day 2...

It's Day 2 of the new job and things are still going very well.

I have definitely started on that stage where you've had enough of reading and being shown stuff and you really start itching to get in and get started.

I know, intellectually, that it's better to do all the groundwork first, and that I should be patient, but I can't help that I'm a bit of a do-er and that's the way I usually learn new stuff.

Or that could just be me making excuses for the fact that I'm impatient.

Well then, back to the induction notes, and the product information and getting the accreditations I need...I'm sure they'll let me do some hard stuff soon enough (and I'll be whingeing about it in not time flat, too)

Catch you soon,

J.

The Flip Side of the Coin

SO, after spending the last couple of weeks working to train other people to do stuff that I know how to do, the shoe is now on the other foot, and I'm spending time getting trained in stuff that i don't know how to do.

Yep, it's the first day of the new job. I've managed to turn up on time, remember almost everybody's name, move my desk in record speed, and not embarrass myself. So far.

I'm feeling a little disoriented and know I'm not exactly taking in everything that's been thrown at me just yet, but as far as first days go, this one hasn't been too bad.

anyway, must get back to work - don't want to be seen blogging for too long on my first day...

J.

Hmmm...is this how it's supposed to work?

Good News: Another 2 items crossed off my list at the end of the day!!

Bad News: Another 4 items added to the list by the end of the day. :-(

Bumped Down the List

I've decided that writing training materials is no longer second on my list of least favourite work tasks to do. It's been bumped to third on the list - right after documenting database structures.

Grrr.

These are a few of my Least Favourite Things...

Yay. Writing training material. Right up there with researching public holidays. Hmmm. Now there's a word you don't want to make a typo with.

quick update

I went to some interesting training today - Organisational Politics.

It certainly changed my mind about a few things and gave me a few ideas....

I'm totally plagiarising the course, but some interesting stuff that I learned today was:

• Refusing to play politics is a type of playing politics
• There's such a thing as constructive politics
• I'm an Owl, but I used to be a fox.
• You don't have to be conscious of playing politics to do it.

Great food for thought.

J.

Whoa!

Where the hell did this week go? I'm sure it only started about 10 minutes ago!

Actually, I know where it went. Everyone finally came back from their holidays with a whole bunch of new ideas for what needed to happen at work. I've been building testing and managing pilots for a new tool at work. It's very complicated and has completely taken up my brainpower this week. There's pretty much nothing left, let me tell you.

On the up-side of this week, I'm doing the post-Christmas detox thing. No alcohol or junk food for two whole weeks and I'm 5 days into it. I've even managed to fit in a little bit of exercise! Must be getting responsible in my old age. Ah well, it'll all be over soon enough(the detox, not my old age!) and I'm sure I'll be back to my old tricks in no time.

Next week is full of more exciting things to write about, so hopefully I'll manage to be a tad more prolific.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Jacki.

These are a few of my Least Favourite Things...

Grr...I'm doing my least favourite part of my job ever. Bloody public holidays for 2007. I did this a while ago, but some of the bloody councils didn't gazette theirs until very late (surely, a smack on the wrist would be appropriate?)

So now I'm doing my least favourite job again!

Does anyone have any idea when the Port Hedland Cup is going to be held in 2007?

Anyone?

Anyone?

anyone?

...sigh...

Limbo (not the kind with the Carribbean drums and the stick)

We're currently in the middle of that limbo period...those couple of days between Christmas and New Year's. It's a funny old time, where the world doesn't quite work the same way it does the rest of the year. As with anything out of my usual routine, there are things about this period that I love and things that drive me bonkers.

Love: Work is quiet. You can tinker away on ideas that you've been wanting to invest some time in for months, but never seem to get free time to do.

Hate: The city is impossibly crowded. People everywhere with nothing to hurry for and plenty of time to wander, stroll and browse. Out of my way, people!

Love: Work is relaxed enough that you can actually get time to go out for lunch instead of grabbing take-away and eating at your desk as usual....

Hate: Public transport. Limited services (ie not even as many as usual), the usual train gong the wrong way around the city circle loop, tourists with suitcases who have no idea how to get on or off a train. Or a platform for that matter. Seriously, this is my everyday thing. You're the ones in the way...MOVE!!!

Love: Knowing that I'm saving my holidays for a big trip next year (almost this year!)

Hate: Knowing half my friends are on holidays now. And half of my team.

Love: Even without taking any holidays, I still get a 4 day weekend followed by a 3 day weekend.

Hate: Skeleton staff for support staff. I'm sitting here writing this because the normal fortnightly report that I produce, instead of taking the usual 10-15 minutes, has now taken 4 hours. I logged a call with tech support yesterday, but nobody seems in any particular hurry to help. ARGH!!!!!

so if you're working like me, I hope you're not working too hard, and if you're on holidays, well, I don't want to hear about it! See you Tuesday!

Jacki.

Shame on you, chocolate thief!!

In our office, we have one of those charity chocolate boxes offering enticing treats sans guilt since you're helping out with fundraising.

Someone in our office has been stealing from the charity chocolate box.

I hope they get the karma they deserve. :-(

Work - vocation or job?

I was at a discussion forum the other day, and we were taling about career development. Kind of a dry topic, you'd think, but things took a bit of a philosophical turn, and we ended up contemplating some questions that I thought were kind of interesting.

I thought that I might share them with you. You can contemplate them on your own, ignore them completely, or if you feel inspired, you could even post up your thoughts.

If you weren't getting paid, would you still come to work?

If you were getting paid to either sit at home all day or work, would you still come to work?

If you could get paid the same to do something else, what would it be?

Where did the week go?

Do you ever have weeks like that? I'm sure it was Monday morning about 5 minutes ago and suddenly I've been in this weird time-warp and it's Friday afternoon.

Seriously, I've had such a great week. I've learnt some amazing stuff and had a ball doing all sorts of nerdy things.

And I've had a great workout in the process. sounds odd, I know, but it's true. All due to the fact that I've been working on level 28 and still doing stuff on level 31 and transferring all sorts of stuff around between desks. I'm on my record today...9 trips up and down those 3 flights of stairs!!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

J.