It's a Blog ! Not a Log !

Today I’ve had to say goodbye to quite a few people I’ve spent that last 7-14yrs working with, the company I work for has due to the present economic crisis had to let a number of workers leave the company, voluntary and forced redundancies.

It’s a very strange day knowing that tomorrow people you’ve seen more than your own family are’nt going to to be there anymore . . no more chats about them and their’s, no more random banter in the office/warehouse, quite sad to see alot of them go, worst thing about it all is, t’s not yet over, the office staff are next up for consultation on who next needs to go to help the company survive . . .

It’s a sad day

Well Christmas is over & done with & it’s back to work tomorrow, just 8hrs left of my hol’s

till my holidays in april . .  thanks to Will’s and Kate I’m having an extended break away from work and only using about 6 days holidays to have 2 weeks away from work, which is pretty neat them getting married around a normal Bank Holiday, thus giving us an extra day off, thank to both of you

So where are we heading your asking . .  Well our first week shall be spent in St Leonards on Sea nr Hastings Sussex and the following week will be spent in the lovely Wales nr Snowdonia, somewhere I’ve wanted to go to for quite a while, lots of nice green countryside and local pubs for me, Mel and Blue to enjoy

Will make sure I take lots of lovely pictures to share with you all.

In other news we had a Manager leave work a couple of weeks ago headed for better and brighter things, gonna miss Andy, he was a pretty decent guy, someone you could chat to not just as a Manager, but also as a friend, he’s helped me god knows how many times when I’ve had dilema’s at work that I needed to talk through, such a shame he was put in a situation where he had to leave or be unhappy, also had someone from Purchasing leave after only being there for less than 6 months, but he to seems to have had enough of the workplace also, maybe one day I might have the balls myself to go looking for somewhere else to work, but it’s hard getting the nerve and will power to look for other jobs when your morals at such a low ebb.
So for now I’ll just have to bite the bullet and press on and see what the year brings . . .

today and what a ball ache this is, we’ve had 4 new PC’s for about 6months waiting to be swapped out with older ones in the main office area and so far I’ve started and stopped this job about 3-4 times, due to Management changing there minds about how important a job it is, anyway they finally decide that I can start the job for real on Monday and tell me they want it finishing for Friday. . . .  , now that might seem possible, however by having the job finished by Firday what they mean is they want me to install the OS & all the associated software relevant to that PC position and then set up all the use/network settings and once done securly wipe the old PC, reinstall the OS, then relocate the old PC’s into new Positions in the Distribution/Shop areas and again install all the relevant software needed in the those areas to operate the PC’s correctly, not forgettingthat as we don’t use exchange here I’ll first need to copy all the PST files off the 4 old PC’s onto a Network share, then copy them back onto the new PC’s and import into Outlook (on average the size of PST files so far has been anything between 2-3 gig, so long time exporting and importing of.

This job would be a lot easier if we actually had some cloning software available as then I ccould just set up one PC with the main settings that all users have and than just import the PST nad the odd personnel stuff and software they might use, but alas they have’nt, so somehow I don’t think I’ll be completed for Friday.

As of this evening I’d managed to install 3 New PC’s, wipe 1 and reinstall that in its new location, so just 1 new one and 3 old ones to do, reckon Tuesday/wednesday will be finished.

Oh the joy of working in IT, everyone expects you to work miracles and when you don’t wonder why . . . well maybe its because you give stupid deadlines and don’t think about discussing with the IT Dept beforehand.

Well I’ve been back from my holidays for less than a week and already I’m hating being back at work.
First day back was Monday and within an hour of being at work I was called into the MD’s office and informed that my desk drawers were untidy and that as they were company drawers the MD expected them to be tidy, so Monday morning was spent tidying my drawers and ensuring that there was nothing in them that might make them untidy.
I was also informed that I could’nt have the framed picture of my dog on my desk because the 6 x 4 frame was to big, as apprently while I was away the MD brought in a clear desk policy, we are not allowed calendars on our desk’s(well we are but they have to be cleared away into our drawers at 5:00pm).

God its so great to be working where I am, such a clean friendly workplace, everyone getting along and all suffering under this one person. At least we have something in common to talk about at lunch now, you’d think we could’nt be surprised by the guy anymore, but you just never know what he’s going to do or say next.

In other news I was also informed in this meeting that as my Line Manager was soon to be leaving the company and that she was going on a 3 day week, the MD would now become my MD of sorts, so any issues I have I’m to bring up with him, how I cried with joy afterwards, I was also informed that there would be no need for me to speak to her or the other member of systems as we would now have nothing to discuss as the other person would be concetrating on one system in particular that I have no experience of and I would be dealing with all the other systems and that my Line Manager would now be concetrating on training up her replacment in one of the other depts, ” A sort of Berlin Wall would be erected between me and them and no one would be getting over or under it so to speak” not my words my MD’s, “You’ll be in your own little bubble your own zone, a little dept of its own” his words again as best I can remember.

Alone at last, all by myself, just me, no one else . . . . maybe this is what being sent to Coventry is like . . .

Well at work today we were informed that one of our colleagues has been diagnosed with Swine Flu and he won’t be in work for at least a week or so, we were also told that if anyone was caught coughing or sneezing without covering there h/noses it would be a disciplinary matter.

The MD as far as we can tell was told around 9:00am by our colleagues partner, then all the managers were taken upstairs to a meeting where he obviously told them all about it, about 45 minutes later each Dept was informed by there Managers and told that the colleagues partner was being sent home, however before she was her Manager took all 8 members of the Dept into an enclosed small office to tell them, while the person was in the room with them, so which bright spark thought it would be a good idea to take a person who’s been in contact with a Swine Flu victim and stick them in a small enclosed office with 8 people without Swine Flu . . . . .

Anyway we’ve all been handed tissues for our desks and we’ve all wiped down the surfaces of our desk’s and we’re now awaiting some anti-bacteria wipes for our hands . .

Later on discussed how long the person would be off with and was told by my Manager that it would be 7 days and the same for his partner, so I said well what if she gets it won’t he be off for another 7 days

“Oh no says the manager you can’t catch it twice”

“yes but if his partner then gets swine flu, won’t there be the possibility that he could carry the germs into work from them . . .!”

We’ve also heard that someone asked about sick pay while we’re off and have been told it’s at the companies discretion . .

So let me get this straight  . .  you get Swine Flu through no fault of your own, you do the safe thing to prevent it spreading and stay off work for 1-2 weeks and you don’t get paid , the alternative is you catch swine flu, through no fault of your own come into work to avoid losing 2 weeks pay and end up giving it to everyone you work with, thus rendering the companies workforce ill.

God and people wonder why I complain about my workplace so much

Seems our company had some people in at work over the weekend carry out some sort of IT Audit, think it was to do with the network being a bit slow etc, from what I can gather they carried out tests on all the company PC’s to see what speeds they we’re getting, what there configuration/settings were and also to see what software they had installed on them.

So no doubt a report will be coming out detailing the rights and wrongs with the system and I’ll be collared for a little chat at some point, I’ll obviously be in the wrong cause I always am . .  apparently, though to be honest I ain’t a network genius, all my IT skills are self-taught and I think I’ve done pretty damn good considering I’ve been there 10yrs now and in that time I’ve recovered the system 2 times due to accidents/errors that where caused by outside influences that were not related to the IT Dept, a Power Surge and teh broadband going down and to think in 10yrs we’ve only ever had one 1 virus outbreak in the company that I got on top of straight away.

How many other IT Depts can boast that

Anyway just have to wait and see what comes of the reading of the report.

Who might be coming back I hear you scream . . .

Well the MD might be coming back early from his holidays, seems a member of his family has unluckily broken thier leg in 2 places, which is pretty bad really, but it means he may be calling his holiday short and returning to work, so its also unlucky for us, we were looking forward to a week without him, its a sort of holiday for us as well.

Thinking about it though he’ll probably rebook and take the holiday again in the near future so we still might be lucky enough to have some time without him.

In other news I seem to be increasing my Twitter following, I’ve now got 12 followers who have subscribed to my Twitterings, this is an increase of 9 since last week, been chatting to a few of them online, seems this is another way to meet new friends from around the world, you should give it a go, other thing thats good about it is the amount of links that people twitter, I’ve come across news and websites I don’t think I’d have heard or found of myself.

I had my MD make a very personnel comment about me in front of 2 senior staff today, which embarrassed me, belittled me and as far as I’m concerned was unprofessional and unacceptable of someone in his position to make to a subordanant.

I’ve emailed my Manager expressing concerns and am now waiting till Monday to hear what she says about it, this is the 2nd time in as many months that I’ve raised concerns about my treatment from the MD and I’m still waiting to hear the outcome from the previous email I sent her.  I’m guessing she’ll just give the usual garbage about how not to worry you know what he’s like, etcetera eccetra, but if this continues I think I may hand in my  resignation, because to be honest life’s to short . . .

Yep its a Sunday morning, a day of rest, but here I am about to head into work to finish off the repatching, just got my wake up call from Martin the engineer, so best get my act into gear, make some breakfast and get my arse down there pronto.

Will probably give Tony a bell about 9:30am, I’m letting him have a bit of a lie-in as he did’nt leave here till about 9:00pm last night, he was unlucky enough to be collared by the MD, who got him to help him finish some spreadsheets he was working on, so poor Tony ended up doing a 13hr day yesterday, so he deserves a lie-in I think.