Thursday, 30 October 2008
Redundancy I embrace you
What a strange day today has been. This morning a breakfast talk that I had organised, for my University Alumni, in collaboration with a lovely lady called Margaret went very well. We had a nice meal and an entertaining speaker and some interesting attendees. That was the morning bookend. The afternoon bookend was a total contrast. My boss told me that I was redundant. To be perfectly honest I had been expecting this, I just wasn't sure of the timing. And to be quite honest with the lack of direction, vision, management, communication and respect within my current employer at the moment, it is a great relief. My aims now. 1. To save some of my staff from the same fate. 2. To get a new job. I have already been applying for jobs. I am an IT Manager. The way I view my career is to evaluate business environments, determine their current problems and find a good solution to improving their profitability and IT systems. Those same skills I applied to my situation. The result was that I expected redundancy. I got the date wrong. The next series of posts will detail my job search. At the moment I have about 6 applications out with various organisations. One has reached the stage of interview. Two are under consideration by the recruitment agencies, several have been so quiet that I guess that they don't consider me a serious option. Look for the next instalment.
Monday, 27 October 2008
Chicken Supreme and Rice
As a child, and later teenager, and even later adult, I have done a lot of camping in my life. I enjoy it. A cheap holiday, often in lovely locations that the hotel a few metres away is either non existent or charging a motza to stay in.
I grew up in the era of (almost) minimalist camping. As a child with my parents the car had to take 2 adults and 4 children, there was not much room for equipment and food. However later in life dad did buy a trailer for the tent, food and other gear.
As a teenager I joined a Senior Scout Group (Venturers) where camping often included hiking which meant that we often would want to carry only the bare minimum to keep you dry, warm and fed. The core period of this camping era was the 70's, during which my age ranged from 9 to 19, in hindsight a rather primitive time. So with weight and volume needing to be kept to a minimum meals did not generally involve a lot of fresh food or vegetables and relied on dry biscuits, dried fruit and freeze dried meals.
One of those freeze dried meals that I remember was called Chicken Supreme and Rice. From memory I think that it was made by "Vesta", I could be wrong here. I also think that in the freeze dried range there were other meals, but Chicken Supreme and Rice is the one I remember as being most popular. With the benefit of hindsight I suspect that it was the most palatable of the offerings. Maybe that should be least unpalatable. Once again I could be wrong but I remember that the rice was probably boiled as normal and the Chicken Supreme was an off white powder with various chunks in it. Some chunks looked Orange, some Green, some "white" for want of a better description. The Chicken Supreme was boiled for a period of time in water, until it re hydrated and formed a thick sauce with lumps of Chicken, Peas and Carrot in it. This sauce was poured over the rice.
As a meal it was fairly bland, but for a camper/hiker it was hot and filling, not to mention easy to prepare on a Billy, camp fire or small stove. Being light it was easy to carry, you just needed water at the other end. You either had to carry the water or since it was boiled could use creek water. Basically a carbohydrate loading that as a camper kept you warm, filled your belly and was not going to kill you that night.
I grew up in the era of (almost) minimalist camping. As a child with my parents the car had to take 2 adults and 4 children, there was not much room for equipment and food. However later in life dad did buy a trailer for the tent, food and other gear.
As a teenager I joined a Senior Scout Group (Venturers) where camping often included hiking which meant that we often would want to carry only the bare minimum to keep you dry, warm and fed. The core period of this camping era was the 70's, during which my age ranged from 9 to 19, in hindsight a rather primitive time. So with weight and volume needing to be kept to a minimum meals did not generally involve a lot of fresh food or vegetables and relied on dry biscuits, dried fruit and freeze dried meals.
One of those freeze dried meals that I remember was called Chicken Supreme and Rice. From memory I think that it was made by "Vesta", I could be wrong here. I also think that in the freeze dried range there were other meals, but Chicken Supreme and Rice is the one I remember as being most popular. With the benefit of hindsight I suspect that it was the most palatable of the offerings. Maybe that should be least unpalatable. Once again I could be wrong but I remember that the rice was probably boiled as normal and the Chicken Supreme was an off white powder with various chunks in it. Some chunks looked Orange, some Green, some "white" for want of a better description. The Chicken Supreme was boiled for a period of time in water, until it re hydrated and formed a thick sauce with lumps of Chicken, Peas and Carrot in it. This sauce was poured over the rice.
As a meal it was fairly bland, but for a camper/hiker it was hot and filling, not to mention easy to prepare on a Billy, camp fire or small stove. Being light it was easy to carry, you just needed water at the other end. You either had to carry the water or since it was boiled could use creek water. Basically a carbohydrate loading that as a camper kept you warm, filled your belly and was not going to kill you that night.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
What is the value of anything?
I have noticed, near my workplace, several newsagents selling 2008 Diaries. They are advertising these as 20% off the marked price. It makes me wonder what is the value of a Diary at this time of the year? Consider. A diary is valid for 12 months. It may have some extra information, such as holiday dates, multiple year calendars etcetera, but primarily a diary is based on functionality over a calendar year. It is now June. Effectively the year is half over. Shouldn't the diaries be selling at 50% off? Is not half their usefulness now been lost? If I was buying a diary now, would it not be more cost effective and more sensible to buy a financial year diary and get a full 12 months use out of it, for only 25% more than the discounted Calendar year diary? What do these shop keepers think we are? Stupid?
Saturday, 14 June 2008
Some Background
Keeping a Diary has never been a priority for me other than travel diaries when I have been travelling. That is to say longer term travel while backpacking around parts of the world rather than shorter holidays. Therefore the idea of blogging has never held much attraction to me.
I also have the feeling that some people are attracted to blogging and others not. Before the advent of blogs the people who now blog regularly would have been writing letters or articles for newspapers or magazines etcetera.
Despite that I have also felt a need to keep in touch with people and let them know what I have been doing. I have chosen a lifestyle that means I move sufficiently often that I have gained a number of friends in various parts of the world and am pathetic at keeping in touch. So the idea of a blog where you broadcast to the world, or whoever is interested, does have appeal to me.
Since the late 90's I have prepared newsletters and sent them via e-mail or snail mail to family and friends. Those letters were also laboriously converted to HTML documents and placed on a web site. So to a certain extent I feel that I was blogging before we knew what blogging was as a concept. Mind you my early efforts were not bidirectional nor interactive communications by any means in the current accepted style of blogs.
I have used a number of free blog sites to attempt to keep up with the times. However I have always struggled with those sites for a number of reasons including that they weren't owned by me and they weren't branded as me. Neither were they entirely flexible in how they were presented. Until recently I have struggled with a very low speed internet access and this has also seemed to be a barrier to regularly updating my blog. Mind you even I aren't convinced by that argument as I never put much effort into composing anything to put up.
The modern crop of sites such as MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn etcetera do not appeal to me either. I am too old no doubt to understand the fun of poking someone on MySpace (or was that Facebook?) and have no interest in uploading a video of myself being stupid. Never the less I do maintain a presence on those sites as one day I may "get" them.
In my work I also need to understand them, their role in society and whether they have a work related function that I and my employer should be using. I have also been inspired by my friend Phil who has for many years maintained a blog which is an important method for him to maintain contact with his friends and family. I should note that Phil is a creative writer and fits my pattern of those who would naturally be attracted to blogging. Phil's blog is highly personalised and, to me at least, seems to be the model of how a blog of that nature should be. That is to say it is an extension of his personality and reflects the personality,thoughts and aspirations of the owner. It is also a great way of following where he is and what he is doing. I am not trying to emulate Phil, we have different personalities, but I certainly draw inspiration from his approach to blogging.
Which gets us to today. The problem of poor internet connectivity has been solved. The problem of where to host a blog has also been solved. The problem of developing my own blog and style is ahead of me as is the problem of motivation and creating content. I have all of the technology that I need to create content and publish. All that I need is motivation and mastering the technology.
I also have the feeling that some people are attracted to blogging and others not. Before the advent of blogs the people who now blog regularly would have been writing letters or articles for newspapers or magazines etcetera.
Despite that I have also felt a need to keep in touch with people and let them know what I have been doing. I have chosen a lifestyle that means I move sufficiently often that I have gained a number of friends in various parts of the world and am pathetic at keeping in touch. So the idea of a blog where you broadcast to the world, or whoever is interested, does have appeal to me.
Since the late 90's I have prepared newsletters and sent them via e-mail or snail mail to family and friends. Those letters were also laboriously converted to HTML documents and placed on a web site. So to a certain extent I feel that I was blogging before we knew what blogging was as a concept. Mind you my early efforts were not bidirectional nor interactive communications by any means in the current accepted style of blogs.
I have used a number of free blog sites to attempt to keep up with the times. However I have always struggled with those sites for a number of reasons including that they weren't owned by me and they weren't branded as me. Neither were they entirely flexible in how they were presented. Until recently I have struggled with a very low speed internet access and this has also seemed to be a barrier to regularly updating my blog. Mind you even I aren't convinced by that argument as I never put much effort into composing anything to put up.
The modern crop of sites such as MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn etcetera do not appeal to me either. I am too old no doubt to understand the fun of poking someone on MySpace (or was that Facebook?) and have no interest in uploading a video of myself being stupid. Never the less I do maintain a presence on those sites as one day I may "get" them.
In my work I also need to understand them, their role in society and whether they have a work related function that I and my employer should be using. I have also been inspired by my friend Phil who has for many years maintained a blog which is an important method for him to maintain contact with his friends and family. I should note that Phil is a creative writer and fits my pattern of those who would naturally be attracted to blogging. Phil's blog is highly personalised and, to me at least, seems to be the model of how a blog of that nature should be. That is to say it is an extension of his personality and reflects the personality,thoughts and aspirations of the owner. It is also a great way of following where he is and what he is doing. I am not trying to emulate Phil, we have different personalities, but I certainly draw inspiration from his approach to blogging.
Which gets us to today. The problem of poor internet connectivity has been solved. The problem of where to host a blog has also been solved. The problem of developing my own blog and style is ahead of me as is the problem of motivation and creating content. I have all of the technology that I need to create content and publish. All that I need is motivation and mastering the technology.
Friday, 11 April 2008
Departure gets closer
Today my IT Manager was taken into a Board member for a discussion. This was on short notice and the poor guy had barely come up to speed with what was going on. He had to think fast on his feet. He obviously did well as based on later discussions I think that he and I between us have saved the remaining team. Tomorrow morning the full Board meets to pass judgement. I am gone as are many others. On the positive side I have a job interview tomorrow. Another LAW firm. Will have to see how it goes.
Well even though I am a shot duck, it seemed appropriate to save my team. I had been informed that my team was also under threat and had worked out that the head slashers also had their sights on my team. There was only 6 of us, so any further cuts was going to be disastrous. So I put a case forward to try to save my team. In this memo I described their roles and responsibilities and their current workload. I also brought in figures from other organisations. This information was submitted to the Board and HR Manager.
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