100TWC - Day 20: My Inspiration

For a long time I thought I got my inspiration from others.

When you work in the kind of high-tech, leading edge company that I did back in the 80s and early 90s (it's still the same company now, but I no longer think of it as leading edge. Even though it is still in the business of high tech), you become so familiar with being surrounded by people of enormous intellect that it's easy to feel almost less than normal. Or at least, below average.

Over the years I've heard anecdotes from ex-colleagues who left. They all shared a theme: no-one within the company really knows how good they are until, voluntarily or otherwise, they step outside it. Only when given the chance to compare oneself with regular people outside can one begin to appreciate the amazing talent that exists inside.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet overmuch, it's true that in all the 34 years I've been there I have never been asked to do something that I couldn't, eventually, succeed at. And before the cynics among you start, I have been asked to do some pretty off-the-wall, technically challenging stuff. But even allowing for the fact that the staff in general were above average for "the marketplace" there were still some particular outstanding individuals that I looked up to, wanted to emulate, and who I thought of as a source of inspiration.

Outside the workplace, in common with a lot of people (at least those who don't allow their work life to grow so that it consumes their entire life) I got busy with private endeavours. More artistic endeavours. Here too I was lucky to meet people who I looked to for inspiration.

But in thinking of how I would approach this theme, it came to me that these people, almost to a man person, did not inspire me. I was confusing inspiration with aspiration. I aspired to emulate them in some way, either to be as clever, as resourceful, as knowledgeable, as inventive, as dedicated, whatever. But my inspiration - my source of ideas, or commitment - was not them.

It was me.

When I seek an idea for a story, or a poem, or a song, I don't go to people I respect or admire. I sit quietly, possibly listening to music (yes, also possibly, just possibly, playing Spider Solitaire) and I run ideas through my head. Or, more often, I wait for them to come to me. I open myself up to what ancient scholars would have called my Muse. And I've learned, more so in the last few years than at any time in my life, to trust it. If I let my mind free wheel, ideas come. It might only be a line of dialogue or it might be an entire conversation. My memory is so poor, and the ideas often so fleeting, that I have to write them down as quickly as I can. The trick there is not to start writing too soon. To let the idea ripen and develop until it feels "done." You could liken it to letting dough "prove" before baking. Only then can I write it down without losing it, and so that I don't lose it. Getting the timing of that right is quite a delicate balance, and I still miss regularly (mostly on the side of waiting too long and forgetting the important bits, unfortunately).

Of course when it's a song I'm writing I have the source of inspiration right there on my computer. The music. I can just let it play over and over on repeat until the words begin to suggest themselves. I've often referred to this as "letting the music tell me its story," and that's exactly how it feels.

The example I most commonly use to explain how this inspiration works when at its best, is the time I wrote Tumbleweed (one of the poems in my first collection - Well of Love - which is linked in the sidebar). It was a quiet weekend afternoon and I simply sat at my keyboard, opened up my mind and started writing. To my astonishment the words poured onto the screen, my thoughts flying so fast I could hardly type quickly enough to keep up with them. So fast, indeed, that I was hardly conscious of what they were saying. It was an exhilarating experience. At the end of that brief period of frantic typing I had well over 90% of a completed poem. The only missing parts were where I had felt my mind groping for a word or a phrase that was missing from the stream of consciousness I was recording. When that happened - only three or four places in what is quite a long poem - I simply skipped over the word or line, leaving a dash to mark the place.

Going back over the piece and replacing the dashes with real content was a matter of only half an hour or so. The words were there, it just felt as though they had somehow "got stuck" in the frenzied flow.

I can't explain it and it's probably silly to try. It has only happened once since, although on that occasion it was a deliberate experiment to see if I could repeat the experience - this time with a song rather than a poem. Contrarily perhaps, the fact that it worked a second time has made me reluctant to try again until and unless I reach a point in my writing where I absolutely need it. It's like a pure wellspring that I don't want to drink from too often for fear of tainting it. That probably sounds crazy, but

Last day

It's my last working day of the year today. Hurrah! Even better than that, it will be foreshortened by having a Christmas "do" to attend at lunchtime, which will stretch comfortably into the afternoon. The only "work" that will be done after noon will be setting my Out of Office reply saying I won't be back until January 3rd next year.

Marvellous.

I love the feeling at this time of year. Even leaving aside Christmas (my favourite time of year in any case), the feeling of *completeness* - that work is over for the holidays - is somehow even more liberating than with a regular holiday. Because it's not just over for the time being, it's over for THE WHOLE YEAR.

Mind you, it would suit me if it was over for the rest of my life. Have I mentioned that I'm sick of it? It's at least controversial and this year has occasionally been suicidal (career-wise, for some high-profile bloggers) to diss one's employers in a public forum, so I won't go into detail, but yes, I've had more than enough. It's mainly that which was behind the Great Absence of blogging earlier this year, when I took a couple of months out to get my head straight. What I was really working on was a medium-term plan to get me out of the place for good.

I never expected to be in this place. Metaphorically. My Dad toiled for most of his working life at a job he loathed, just to do what we all have to do - put a roof over us, feed, clothe, etc. I admired that in a kind of disconnected, unempathic way, because at least in the early days I loved my job. I couldn't really comprehend why anyone would carry on doing something they hated just because of the money. That kind of comprehension only comes with experience. Well, now I have both. Experience and comprehension. And a job I hate. Full house. But at least, after 12pm today, I won't have to think about it until... next year.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!

A long day yesterday, as I rose at 4.15am and left the house a little more than half-an-hour later to make the drive to Slough. When I think back to the time - not that long gone - when I used to regularly do this twice (and on rare occasions, three times) a week it gives me shivers.

I've been fortunate this year. The last time I made the trek South, back in April and with a different destination (Bracknell), was the only other time I've had to drive anywhere. A welcome change from the financial year 2003/4 when I did 22,000 business miles. If I had to do that now I don't think I'd ever be awake outside of the working day!

Anyway, enough waffle. The point of this post is the number of surprises that pop up when you haven't taken a once-familiar journey for more than six months. For a start, Cherwell Valley services - where I habitually take my breakfast - has disappeared. Well, not disappeared exactly, but when you enter the car park in the darkness of a late autumn morning before 7am, and the building is not where it once was, the first impression is definitely one of it having been spirited away.

Its replacement, on the other side of the car park, has a prefabricated temporary feel to it, which was explained when I returned to the car. Dawn having broken a bit, I could see the beginnings of a new steel skeleton where the old building used to be, along with a couple of cranes, so the owners clearly intend eventually to put it back where it was. Bit of a drastic and expensive solution to a leaking roof (the only problem  I recall being visible with the old place), but it shows there's still lots of money in the motorway services game.

Slough too held some surprises. The company is vacating the building but it's a slow process, made even slower when they realised how hard it was going to be to move the test rigs. Finding space for them in the new building, levering them out of their current position (where they've been for at least ten years to my knowledge), moving them without "dropping" any, discovering there's a percentage of them that won't turn on again when they arrive at their new home (always a risk when moving equipment of any age) and all this at a time when we're in the middle of a critical test phase. It didn't take long for the buttock clenching to kick in and delay the move.

But the building is half decommissioned. So the first thing to greet me was a sign on the door saying reception was no longer manned and I should telephone whoever I was visiting to gain access. Only he was late. Thankfully a passing pedestrian happened to know the door code so I made it inside and headed up to the floor I used to hot desk on. Stepping out of the lift I noticed the door of the gents had been adorned with a sign saying "this facility is no longer in use" and on entering the office I discovered serried ranks of empty desks devoid of phones, power, or LAN.

I headed down the stairs (which weren't lit) towards a friendly, but dim light below. It was coming from the 4th floor. The top half of the building is effectively moth balled, and that includes the restaurant. So no hot food, no decent coffee, no snack bar, half as many toilets as there should be, and desk spaces at an all time low. Betjeman was right all along!

Another month, another picket

The concentrated striking (three working days out of the last five) may be having the desired effect, as we heard over the weekend that ACAS will be getting involved this week. That's definite progress, and not before time - the financial implications of more strike days this month were beginning to give me worry lines.

With the extreme cold weather nothing but a bad memory, it was actually quite pleasant to be stood out on the picket this morning, especially since we enjoyed another glorious sunrise and a brief honking of support from a flock of passing geese. As always though, the highlight of the morning was the breakfast at the Art College. This has become such a popular event it wouldn't surprise me if several people continue to patronise their restaurant in preference to the breakfasts offered in our own canteen.

If the loss of pay is the downside to all this, the upside is very definitely getting home before 11am and having the whole of the rest of the day to please myself. I admit to being sorely tempted to carry on doodling, but I resisted and settled down to a bit of web work instead.

It'll never get better if you picket

Another Wednesday, another few hours on the picket line. Actually that's overstating my active involvement quite significantly, as I haven't attended the picket since that very first time, what with it being minus eleven and knee-deep in snow and whatnot.

But the dispute drags on and is beginning to bite financially, as I realised when I opened my pay slip this month, and to qualify for the union's additional hardship payments members have to be "actively involved," so here I am back on the picket line, freezing my toes off and wondering how long it can possibly take for the hours to tick away until it's 10am and we can pack up and pop over to the Art College for one of their wonderful breakfasts.

As it happened today's picket felt shorter than the last one, even though I arrived at the same time. A few people I knew were taking part, so conversation flowed, and one or two of the pickets were marginally more active in their behaviour - tooting on kazoos and asking drivers to stop etc - which provided some entertainment and helped the time pass more quickly.

Not sure if it's a result of experience, but the "very British" attitudes I noticed on that first picket are gradually being replaced by a willingness to mix it with those arriving for work. Especially the ones who seem to think the best way of making it across the picket line is to put their foot down and drive at full speed on to site. A site, mind you, with a mandatory 15mph speed limit. That they are wilfully ignoring. Calm down ladies and gentlemen! The most you'll suffer is the acute embarrassment of ignoring a small group of people who, on any other day, would be your colleagues but who for these few days you seem to think it's OK to treat as targets.

Thoughts from the picket line

As I mentioned yesterday, I arrived on the picket at 7.15. Things were already in full swing. They'd started picketing at 6.30. 'Full swing' is, perhaps, the wrong term to use for such a low-key event. What I mean is, there were people there. Half-a-dozen or so. I'd walked past three of them on my way to the main group. They'd been sent to cover the exit road from the campus, as a few people had been seen using this as a route to avoid the picket. We exchanged quips as we passed each other. One of them had been in my team in the old VME support days but as with so many others, we'd lost touch. Meeting up with him again in such circumstances was slightly surreal.

The first thing to strike me (pun acknowledged) as I arrived at the main entrance was the lack of a brazier. Since my experience of pickets up to this point was limited to what I'd seen on news bulletins over the years - and with the early morning temperature at the aforementioned -2° - I'd expected to arrive to find the group huddled with hands outstretched around a glowing brazier. I'd reckoned without the mighty reach of the Health & Safety regulations. Our picket captain assured me braziers were no longer allowed. It was OK for us to freeze, apparently, but we couldn't be trusted not to cause ourselves or our surroundings some lasting damage with an errant lump of burning charcoal. The air temperature never climbed above zero the whole day, and within 30 minutes of my arrival I couldn't feel my fingers. An hour later, my toes had gone as well.

My next revelation: how very British the picket was. Already aware that the law mandates "peaceful" picketing, I was still disconcerted by how laid back was the approach. Virtually horizontal. A stern look appeared to be the only intervention allowed. I'd expected at least an upraised hand to slow down any approaching car, a wound-down window and a few words of gentle persuasion. Instead we all gazed on disapprovingly as a steady stream of cars - slow at first but gradually increasing as we approached "regular" office hours - drove through our small throng. Even the cold stares were lost on most of the drivers as they studiously avoided eye contact with any of the pickets.

Pedestrian arrivals didn't get off quite so lightly - being treated to a polite "can I persuade you not to go in?" or "would you like a leaflet?" - but in the Age of the Motor Vehicle these were few and far between. Mostly they ignored us too. Only one of them was moved to mutter an edgy "no you can't" in response to the first question. We were there a total of four hours and didn't succeed in stopping a single person entering the building. I bet we made a few of them feel uncomfortable though. As I said, very British.

On a more positive note, we enjoyed a lot of support from passing motorists in the form of horn tooting. I've done this myself, from the other side, but had no idea how uplifting it can be for those on the picket. One driver memorably sounded his hooter from the moment he noticed the picket to the point he disappeared around the last bend at the other end of the site - several hundred metres - to loud cheers from everyone. The hoots weren't restricted to delivery drivers, or other overt tradespeople. Ordinary drivers in their hundreds pipped and waved their messages of solidarity during the morning, each one greeted by a return wave of hand or placard and a cheer.

Around eight o'clock someone from inside the building took pity on us and carried out a cardboard box loaded with cups of hot coffee and soup. I made a grab for a soup. Too hot to sip when I picked it up, the December air sucked the heat from it faster than I could drink it. The dregs were cold by the time I reached the bottom.

It's been a long while since I had chance to stand and watch dawn break, and even though the scene was perhaps not as idyllic as the last time I did this, still it had the same profound effect on me. Thoughts of it "always being darkest just before the dawn" and "the dawning of a new era" and suchlike skipped randomly through my mind but mostly I just stood and absorbed the quiet miracle of another new day, silhouetting the construction across the road and lighting a fire under the tail feathers of a flock of starlings who took off squawking to find their breakfast.

Breakfast! I'd heard rumours that the local college had a restaurant open to the public. This was confirmed later, around the time I'd started to wonder if I could last the final hour without "facilities," as another member of the group returned with a glowing report of their breakfast. Shortly before ten I took myself off to sample the delights of a full English. The ten-minute respite from the cold was enough to restore feeling in everything except my toes and the breakfast proved more than enough to sustain me through the final half-hour of picket duty. We packed up all the flags, placards and banners around half past ten, and bid each other farewell and Merry Christmas.

Whether it will be a Happy New Year remains to be seen!

Strike!

I was on strike today.

Go on, call me a dinosaur.
"People don't still go on strike do they?"
"Didn't even know they had unions in the computer industry."
Well believe me if you'd told me a few years ago I'd be standing on a picket line holding a placard in the dark at quarter-past-seven on a freezing (OK, you Canadians, it was "ONLY" -2°C) December morning I'd have laughed in your face. I'll have been in this industry, and working for this firm, 32 years this coming January and I too used to laugh at the idea of unions, and strikes, and the traditional "us and them" attitude.

That was before the company cancelled our bonus on a pretext, before going on to declare record profits for that year. It was before they decided, with a pay deal negotiated, agreed and signed up to by all parties, not to pay it. It was before they threatened to close our pension scheme, thereby reneging on a 32-year-old promise to look after me in my retirement (and imposing an equivalent 25% pay cut). It was before they decided they needed to declare a thousand of my colleagues redundant, not to save the company, but to protect their profit targets. Targets that were set by managers who in some cases no longer work for the company, at a time before the global economic meltdown.

Yes, that's right. My company think it's a good idea to keep aiming for boom-level profits during a bust-riddled economic period, and to shed jobs in order to achieve them.

As one of my fellow pickets said to me this morning: "If the company was in trouble and our backs were to the wall, we'd sweat blood and break our backs to dig it out of the hole [he knows how to mix a metaphor, this guy], but it's not like that. They're still on track for record profits, and taking the piss out of us at the same time."

No wonder the slogan we've adopted for this campaign is "Enough Is Enough."

That sums up exactly how I feel. They've burned through all the good will, all the long, unpaid overtime hours, the thousands of road and rail miles clocked up, the holidays missed, the stress endured, the snatched meals and missed breaks and the lonely nights in cheap hotels. Their litany used to be "our people are our greatest assets." Well, we all know what happens to assets in this modern world, don't we? They're sweated. They're leveraged for every ounce of effort and profit you can squeeze out of them. We always went the extra mile for the company, but when boot's on t'other foot, do they reciprocate? Don't make me laugh.

Yes, 32 years I've been in this company, and for 30 of those I was not a union man. It's taken me a long time to shed the blinkers but they're off now. I've seen the light. It's not pretty. But as the union are fond of saying, if they won't listen to the strength of our argument, then the only recourse is to use the argument of our strength.

Canteen Christmas

My third traditional Christmas lunch took place, after the extraordinary success of last year's visit, in the staff restaurant, where the catering ladies and gents had laid the tables with Christmassy cloths, crackers, holly-bedecked napkins, and set some traditional Christmas music playing over the restaurant PA.

Compared with last Friday's effort, this was top value for money. Six quid buys you a starter (I opted for the prawn marie rose), a main course (turkey - four slices of succulent breast meat - sprouts, carrots, roast parsnips, roast and mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce) and a dessert (in my case traditional Christmas pud with brandy sauce), followed by a mince pie, coffee and a mint. Fantastic. Great company too, even though we missed Steve, who had eaten with us last year.

The jokes out of the crackers left a lot to be desired, as usual. In fact someone told me the set of jokes has suffered a complete overhaul this year. If anything they're worse than before. And I'm not entirely sure what the small blue plastic house in my cracker was supposed to be for.

Crackers apart though, it was a cracking meal, and left me with cracks developing in my belly, it was so stretched. Only trouble is, being in the office, I couldn't sneak an afternoon nap.

The axe missed

One thing that prevented me from really enjoying our holiday in the Lakes this year was the knowledge that I was coming back to the week in which the company would decide which of us was for the chop.

Two months ago, a large chunk of the workforce - 6,000 - were put on 90 days' notice of potential redundancy, with the expectation that 20% - 1,200 - would go. Since then we've all been living under the cloud. Not knowing whether we'd be one of the 1 in 5. Not really knowing whether we could do anything to make ourselves a less attractive proposition for attrition. Wondering what life would hold in the Big Outside if the axe fell our way.

I'll admit to having approached this with an uneasy admixture of resignation, pragmatism and hope. Not in equal parts, nor in unequal parts that retained their share of the mixture. No, the balance between the three shifted on an hourly basis. My thoughts circling endlessly around those three pillars: I can't do anything to influence the decision; we can probably survive on one wage and my pension; at least it'll give me the time to write full-time.

Today was D-Day. The day when those selected were to receive both email and couriered postal mail telling them their fate. In a move that smacks of no little incompetence, not to mention an almost total lack of understanding of what their staff have been going through, those NOT selected were to receive no confirmation that they had not been selected, and so were instead left to watch their inboxes and front doors anxiously, all day long, wondering whether they had indeed got away with it this time, or was it just that the message had been delayed?

Well, I've left my mailbox open two hours past what could be considered a "normal" end to the working day, and nothing's arrived. So I guess a tentative sigh of relief is in order.

The invisible man

I just got to the end of a really long and involved technical problem.

Project Manager to the tester: "Thanks Bob - great job."

Umm... hello? The tester did a great job? Well, yes, he did. He did exactly what I told him to do. And when it failed, he sent me the results of the failure, and I analysed them, worked out where it went wrong, specified the changes and whether the tests also needed changing, in long and annoying detail. He reran the test. When it failed, he sent me the logs, and so we carried on.

I'm dealing with something whose syntax is arcane, whose documentation is non-existent, in an area of the system I'm unfamiliar with, and against the background of a "red status" project whose lateness is exasperating the customer. I'm learning as I go along. I'm sticking with it, day after long bloody, tiresome day, peeling back the layers of this particular onion until I get it just right.

And now... after weeks of wrangling, head-banging, reading technical forums trying to glean the least HINT of how it should work... now... it works. Finally.

And who gets the praise? The fucking TESTER, that's who.

Sometimes. Just sometimes. I'd like some small crumb of evidence that I'm not the invisible man around here.

Team work and The Wire

BBC Two recently (beginning of last week) began showing HBO's The Wire in its entirety, starting at season one, in a graveyard slot on weekday nights. 11.20pm to be precise.

Having heard a lot about this show in one way or another (from colleagues on TV Scoop, various Internet forums and reviews, and fanboy family members *vbg*) I was keen to see what all the fuss was about, but 11.20?? Old farts like me have usually been in bed an hour by then. So we did the only thing possible: set a weekday schedule on the PVR and sat back while the episodes were sucked in.

I tried to approach the show with no preconceptions, despite my natural inclination to dislike anything that "everyone else" likes. This is not to disrespect anyone's opinion, it's just that in my experience entertainment surrounded by steaming piles of hype usually resembles steaming piles of something else when you eventually get to see it. I should have detected a subtle difference in the hype associated with The Wire: it's generated by the people who actually watched the show, rather than the people who made it and WANT you to watch it so they can make more money.

Anyway, we caught the first five episodes back-to-back last weekend, and the first two of this week's last night. Seven hours in and we're enjoying it immensely. So far I wouldn't be as fulsome as many have been with my praise - I wouldn't say I'm 'hooked' or that it's 'the best TV show ever, bar none' etc - but hey, it's still only the first season, and still only the first seven eps. It's certainly different, credible, realistic, interesting, involving and dramatic.

But this isn't strictly a post about The Wire (although so far it's doing a good impersonation of one, lol). It's about something that occurred to me while I was watching the show last night. There's a character in the cops' team called Prez. Roland Pryzbylewski, actually, which explains why they call him Prez. He's well known in the police department for being totally incompetent and inept. Despite being bounced around several units he never fits in anywhere, and he only ends up on the "wire" team because the Deputy Commissioner tells all his people to dump their useless jerks there.

But slowly, working in the team's basement office, something happens. Prez finds his niche and turns into the team's code-breaker, first with the gang's pager codes and later with other complex number and letter combinations. He makes a major contribution to the case.

This is classic team work. A team - a good team that is - comprises a group of people whose skills are complementary. A leader. An ideas man. Someone who pays attention to the details and doesn't miss the finer points. Someone who energises the whole team with enthusiasm. A problem solver. And so on. Occasionally, people perform more than one role, but all roles are essential and the team flies best when they're all done well.

But here's the thing. Each one, on their own, can't cut it. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And that's why Prez is such a good example. Outside of the team he's a jerk. A square wheel. But he's like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle left out of the box. Once you slot him into place, the whole thing looks right.

And it came to me, finally, that this is why I used to love my job, and why I hate it now. I used to be part of - and ENJOY being part of - a team. We could fly. We could do anything. And we did. But now there are no teams; there are only individuals. Everyone is expected to do their own thing. To be able to pick up any piece of work and do it just as effectively as any other piece of work. I mean, it's all technical stuff, right? That's how the managers look at it. We're technical people, doing technical work, so we're all just as good at any of it as anyone else. Which, as I hope you can appreciate, is a crock of shit.

There is no teamwork any more, and it sucks.

VISIT 2008

After a light breakfast (previous experience of shows like this led me to suspect I'd be able to graze all day) we set off for the short coach trip to the Augsburg Messe where the conference was being held.

Arriving at the hall I battled through the throng of smokers - a crowd never numbering less than a hundred who restricted access throughout the day forcing everyone to run the gamut of secondary smoke and half-stubbed dog ends to get into the building - and registered at the main desk, collecting my conference map, schedule and badge.

The event had been divided into two main areas: Hall 7 where the presentations and expert talks were held, and the main arena housing the partners' and suppliers' stands, the 360 presentation theatre and the restaurant. I spent most of the morning listening to presentations, including one from the CTO, and broke these up with a brief stop at the restaurant for some lunch and to sit in on the 1pm showing of the 360 presentation - a multi-media show incorporating actors and sfx to showcase the history of Fujitsu-Siemens and their latest infrastructure offerings.

Finally at around half past three it was time for my factory tour. Very similar to the one I'd enjoyed on my aforementioned visit to EMC, with a similar set of production lines, automated fabrication machinery, automatic and manual testing, and palettes full of equipment awaiting shipping. Then it was back to the hotel for another free bar (definitely a theme of the event) and the "gala dinner" complete with speech. Short speech, thankfully. I declined the offer of a trip into town, and headed back to my room while the majority of my fellow diners headed for "Peaches" many of them, apparently, not returning until around 4am.

People are our greatest assets

I can't hear that phrase without a feeling of creeping cynicism. It's a mantra that HR departments and directors always trot out when they want to impress the workforce with how well we're being treated. Like the BBC hype surrounding their execrable new drama Bonekickers however, the message does not reflect the medium.

I arrived at work this morning - the first time I've been into the office for some weeks - to find a corporate email in my box. It was about business travel. Some poor graduate trainee has been given the task of analysing the business mileage data for the last year, and the message is that the top 10 drivers are responsible for 41% of total mileage claims and spend 62.5 days per year in their cars.

These incredible statistics, along with averages for the rest of us, are used to promote the message that we should all be more careful at deciding whether we drive or not, and consider alternatives such as telephones (no! really?), voice conferences, video conferences or instant messaging. So what drives the corporate need to achieve a reduction in miles driven? Is it concern for those poor employees, trapped in their cars for nearly 9 weeks of the year? Is it perhaps a recognition that we need a better work-life balance? Are they trying to reduce stress levels among the employee population? Or maybe it's a simple case of wanting to save money?

No. None of these things. They've pledged to reduce the corporate carbon footprint, and this is one of the most significant contributors.

Give me strength.

A day of quiet satisfaction

One of those days when things just feel right. It has its own slow, measured beat and whatever you do, things turn out well.

I started the day helping Natalie move out of halls. It only seems like last week since I was carrying stuff in for her and here I was carrying it out. Only - as is always the way - there was much more to bring out than there had been to take in. I can't believe she's already completed her first year at Uni. Time slips away from you when you're not watching. Another era begins in a few weeks when she gets the keys to her new digs. Somewhere - hopefully - that will be "home" for a couple of years. Alongside the two other homes she already has. Three homes is more than enough for anyone, I reckon.

By early afternoon I'd finished the design document I'd been working on. Ahead of schedule, so I could revel in one of those lazy Friday afternoons when you can savour the approach of the weekend and pretend you don't have a care in the world.

And then, as I listened to the measure tones of Carolyn Quinn on the PM show, came the best news of all. That Ireland had voted NO to the EU Lisbon Treaty (aka a Constitution By The Back Door). Well done to the Micks and Paddys. One of the few countries to actually give its populace a chance to express an opinion and they got it bang on. Brown and Blair should forever hang their heads in shame for not allowing us the referendum they promised in their manifesto pledge (going back on manifesto commitments should be a criminal offence) but in the end Ireland has done our work for us. Hopefully that'll be an end to it, although I suspect there'll be a lot of wriggling and weasel words from Brussels to get through yet. Apparently some of the institutions and procedures that the Treaty calls for have already been implemented ahead of ratification. Typical European disdain for due process - steaming ahead with it anyway because a handful of Eurocrats think they know what's best for us. These should all be dismantled now, but do you really think they will be? The French are not exactly well known for sticking to the letter of the law.

The culmination of 2 years' work

What seems like an age ago, I reported on here that we'd won a big piece of work. Slightly earlier than that, I'd been pondering whether or not I wanted to win it, given that the delivery was bound to be long, hard and fraught with problems. Well, the last 10 months have been...umm...long, hard and fraught with problems (and, if you count the time spent on the procurement, and the months before that spent on the prototype, I've been working on this for nearly two years in total), but finally - and on time - the UK immigration "Points Based System" went live today.

At one point I felt as though I would have preferred to be in Bracknell or Slough for a change, rather than sitting alone in my home study. The reflected buzz of excitement from darn sarf was palpable. The surreal start to the day - waking up to the clock radio set to Radio 4, where a Today programme reporter was discussing...Points Based System! - was matched many times over with bulletins, TV reports, and messages of congratulations from various senior managers which dropped into my mail box at various times during the day.

This is only the first release. There are at least three more releases to plan, design, implement and test and the remaining work will occupy at least the rest of the year and possibly stretch into next, but for now and for a few precious hours, we can at least afford to pat ourselves on the back and raise our glasses to a job well done.

Christmas Do. (part 4)

Lunch in the staff restaurant has never appealed to me. I always bring my own. Christmas though - that's a different kettle of peaswax. They make a special effort, and I can never have enough turkey dinners, so it's kind of a match made in heaven. Today was even more special, since it's my last day in the office for 2007. Three of us went down from my bit of the office (aside: you can't say "from my office" any more. Not since they went open plan. Time was when we all had offices big enough for small groups. Back then you did things by the office. I went down the pub with my office. I went bowling with my office. Not now. Now they've knocked all the walls down and the desks are arranged in little floats. Two desks back-to-back, arranged in groups of three. So six desks to a float. You can hardly say "I went to lunch with my float" can you? Makes you sound like a milkman.) and the place was really buzzing I can tell you.

We opted for roast tomato soup and crispy croutons for starters. Could have had liver paté or parmahamwithmelonballs. I thought paté might be a bit heavy for lunch time and when I eat melon I like to bury my face in a wedge, not delicately place individual balls in my mouth. Besides it was a cold and frosty morning (yes, Steve and Dave, I'm still playing the "get Christmas carol lines into the conversation" game) so I thought a bit of soup would go down lovely. It did.

Mains was the traditional roast turkey dinner and they had done us proud. Three thick slices of breast meat with a slab of stuffing on top, carrot batons, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, sprouts and as much cranberry sauce as you like. Fabulous. Feeling already somewhat stuffed (we've been dieting for three weeks after that fateful visit to the local club, and my stomach's shrunk) I joined the line-up again for dessert. What else - Christmas pudding. "Watch out for that brandy sauce," one of the dinner ladies advised. "It's a bit potent." She wasn't wrong. I think I had an entire bottle of brandy in my portion alone.

We sat at the table for half an hour after finishing the pudding, debating this and that. It wasn't that the conversation was especially stimulating, more that none of us could move. And all for a fiver, too. When you consider how much I paid to (almost) go without Tiramisu at Don Giovanni's, deciding which was the better meal is a bit of a no-brainer.

Testing, testing

Have you ever worked with a tester?

I've done some unit (aka alpha) testing before, and I've defined the occasional test script, but I've never done the job in a mainstream way.

I attended our project kick-off meeting a few weeks back and following on from my presentation was a 15-minute slot for our test manager to describe the test strategy, environments, etc. He's an enthusiastic guy with a great deal of experience in testing. He's made a career of it. In fact one of the points he made during his presentation was that the people he'd be recruiting on to the test team would all be ISEB (I think he said) certified, and he was very proud that there was a testing career path defined now in his part of the organisation.

Listening to him speak about testing with a glint in his eye made me realise (yet again) how different people are. I could no more get excited about testing than fly to the moon by flapping my arms (even if the physics didn't prevent me, before you get all scientific and start going on about vacuums and such). But it's a good job someone can, because if we didn't have testers we wouldn't be able to deliver. It's back to the old arsehole scenario again. Some people are made for the job. Years ago I worked with a guy who looked on testing as a challenge. It was him against the developer and may the best man win. His goal? To break the system, any way he could. Fair means or foul. If there was a way in, he'd find it. Garbled inputs, unexpected fields in data, pulling out network cables mid-transaction, corrupt files on disk, malformed packets. You name it, he'd try it. And every time that system crashed, he'd chalk up another point on his side of the scoreboard.

But you know what? Even though he was just about the most hated person on the payroll as far as the developers were concerned, they had to admit a grudging respect for him. He was damned good at his job, and they had to raise their game to get their code drops past him and out to integration, which had a positive effect on the project overall.

Blades of rain

An unexpected day working at home today, owing to the fact that much of Sheffield, where I was supposed to be going, is underwater. Train services are suspended, the station was evacuated yesterday afternoon and several roads into the city are blocked with either water or abandoned cars, so I made the executive decision not to even attempt the trip.

When I arrived home from Bracknell last night at 10.30, Nikki had been watching News 24 most of the evening. Within 10 seconds of seeing the footage of the streaming rivers where the roads should be I said "I'm not going there!" Even though the floods aren't that close to where I would be going, they're not that far away either!

One of the buildings affected is quite close to the river and coincidentally the place I'd had to visit the week before last to have my photo taken for a new photo-ID pass.

"Just go along there," my contact in the security section told me, "and they'll sort you out."

So I did. Walked in on a group of building security guards doing what building security guards do best (sit around on their arses all day talking about the football, the woman in accounts, last night's telly and where they're going drinking tonight. Pretty much like all the other office workers then. Except most of the women don't talk about that woman in accounts. At least, not in the same way).

"Hello," I said breezily. "I've come to have my picture taken."
There was a sharp intake of breath and looks of consternation passed from man to man. There were shrugs.
"No-one told us you were coming."
"No, they told me I didn't need an appointment. Just turn up, and you'll look after me."
"Well, see, the thing is, I haven't got the camera with me here today."
I look forlorn.
"The only reason I've travelled to Sheffield today is so that you can take my photo."
The breath, taken in so sharply only moments before, is now blown out in resigned fashion.
"You'd better follow me then."

We leave the building. We walk to the next building, which is in fact less than 100 yards away. We enter that building, walk behind the security desk to a small room that contains a desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet. The filing cabinet is locked. Security man unlocks it, opens it, reaches in and retrieves...a digital camera! Aha! So the only reason you tried to put me off from having my photo taken today was so you could avoid taking a little exercise. "I haven't got the camera with me today." Right!

I was still chewing this over in my mind as I walked back through Sheffield centre to the other office, when I was spoken to by a traffic light. It took me by surprise at first.

"Take care! You in the red jacket! Look both ways!"

I was crossing the tram lines and approaching the roadway. I was indeed wearing my red anorak, so I knew the traffic light was addressing me. As if to confirm this, the light repeated its warning.

"Take care! You in the red jacket! Look both ways!"

Then I remembered reading that some cities were installing "talking" CCTV cameras to help with petty crime. So they could yell at scallies for dropping litter, that kind of thing. How cool, I thought, that they use it to make people aware of their road safety obligations too. I stood on the kerb, waiting for the traffic to clear so I could cross. Now that my mind wasn't full of how lazy the security guard had been, and I was right on top of the talking traffic light, I could hear its message properly the next time it issued forth.

"Take care! Two-way traffic! Look both ways!"

Door-to-door begging now?

I worked at home today for the first time since returning from leave. I needed some quiet time to make progress on critical technical documents the rest of the project is waiting for.

Quiet time did I say?

I started late on account of having to stop by the local sorting office to pick up a recorded delivery package that they failed to deliver yesterday. Remind me to blog sometime on how archaic postal practices assume there'll be a "housewife" or equivalent at home every day just on the off-chance postie will require a signature. Anyway, after a twenty-minute search of the entire sorting office the jobsworth there declared it lost, and informed me I'd have to call back after my postman returned from his round and told them where he'd hidden it.

I wasn't best pleased about this, since I assumed the letter was in fact my tickets for the forthcoming Genesis concert (*squeeeeeeeee!!!!!!*), but I didn't create a scene having learned from bitter experience that this is more likely to *reduce* my chances of getting hold of my letter than *enhance* them.

An hour after I arrived home, my concentration was interrupted by the doorbell. Another parcel. Delivered by courier, rather than postie, so I never had chance to ask him where he'd hidden my Genesis tickets.

After another hour the phone rang. It was the sorting office to tell me postie had revealed his hiding place and would I like to come back and collect my letter. Had it been anything else I would have left it until the end of the day when I'd be going out anyway to pick Nikki up from work. But Genesis fans will recognise my reluctance to leave those tickets anywhere but in my own sweaty hands. I drove round there immediately (and it was, indeed, the tickets).

On my return home I settled down once again in front of my embryonic technical document. What seemed like only minutes later, but was in fact only minutes later, the doorbell rang again. "What now?!?!" I expostulated to myself (and if you've never tried self-expostulation, believe me it can be a cathartic experience) and set of once again to the front door.

There, on the step, stood a dark skinned and colourfully beswathed woman, one hand resting on the handle of a buggy in which slept a very small child. "Spare small change for baby?" she enquired in broken English, "spare change?"

So it's door-to-door begging now, is it? Time was when the only doorstepper you had to hide from was the Betterwear man. Now it's immigrants with babies in tow, hoping to melt your heart with their immediate and personal need. Not in the street, where you can walk around them. Not on the tube, where you can bury your head in your novel or your Metro. No. Right here, on your doorstep. Like Jehovah's Witnesses on crack. I felt violated. Belatedly, I remembered to close my mouth, only to have to open it again to mumble "no, thank you," rather feebly before closing the door.

So much for quiet time.

Snaking over the Snake

I've been working in Sheffield a lot since returning from leave. After a week, I got bored with using the train. I was never a train person to begin with, but I've been converted to the benefits over long distances. Sheffield's pretty local though, so this week I thought I'd give driving another chance.

What brought me to this conclusion was the time it was taking on the train. Ten minutes to drive to the station and park, a half-hour wait for a train, something like a 55 minute journey and another 5 minute walk at the other end. About 1 hour 40 all told. I was convinced driving would be quicker *and* more convenient.

So Monday morning I set off, dropped Nikki at work around 8.20 and headed round the M60 to the M67. I expected the main queues to be coming the other way - into Manchester - so I wasn't prepared for the slow traffic heading into Glossop, or the long line of cars stuck behind the articulated lorry which was negotiating the Woodhead Road on its way to the M1. I didn't have an opportunity to pass it until after the Flouch roundabout and by then it was only 5 minutes or so before I hit the tail-end of the rush-hour traffic heading into Sheffield.

Not only was the journey painfully slow, I found the closest car park to the office was a 15 minute walk away. I was not best pleased when I finally arrived at my desk at 10.40. Total journey time 2 hours 20: a full half an hour longer than the train and about a hundred times more stressful.

I couldn't even claim to be saving the company any money doing the journey that way. The car park in Sheffield is almost as expensive as the station car park in Manchester, and the train ticket only a pound more than the mileage allowance. I decided Monday would be my last journey by car, but going home I took the more scenic route via the Snake Pass and Ladybower reservoir. The road was much quieter going back and the journey only a few minutes longer than the train. My morning determination was swayed by the easier return journey and I made up my mind to try again one more time, using the Snake Pass both ways.

I needn't have bothered. Once again the Glossop-bound traffic snarled up the M67 interchange and once I'd cleared Glossop I found I was stuck again behind a slow-moving lorry, this time with NO passing places. The journey over to Sheffield this morning was marginally better than Monday at 1 hour 55, but still no contest with the train. Added to that, with the research into the timetable that Nikki has done, I can now arrive at the station either end minutes before the train departs, so the door-to-door journey by train has been shortened to about 1 hour 20 minutes.