Grumpy, stress, but some good news

Ooooh something of a day of contradictions today. On one hand, the Irish project I'm on is becoming somewhat tiresome, with fiddly bits of detail bothering me slightly and those who know me will know that I'm so not in the detail. So this is bothering me. I'm also seeing things going on in the business that I'm sure could benefit from my input but instead I'm here counting servers and adding up license costs.

Bah.

Anyway, if I'm seeming a little bit ungrateful and unwilling to do the necessary grunt work to get ahead career-wise, that's because I am. I reckon I just need to get my head down and plough on through it for a month or so before pulling the 'been there, done that, now show me something interesting' card and we'll see what happens.

That said, I am learning a ton of stuff at the moment, not only in terms of the techie stuff I'm being forced to read up on (who knew how useful an MVC Model could be?), but also in the whole project management, business analyst sense. Much though it galls me to say. It's a bit like muesli - you know what I mean, good for you but no fun.

On the other hand then, I've passed my six month probation period, which means I'm now officially an employee with rights and everything. The feedback I've had has been really quite good too, and constructive, so I'm feeling an odd mixture of massive smugness and huge inadequacy as I make my shoddy attempts to write technical specifications.

So woo for that. And for my Kiwi, who despite her monthly headache, presented me with a pretty good-looking bottle of wine as a well done present. No drinking in the week right now mind... GOD I'm so dull right now. I'm going to have to have a moment of irresponsibility soon, I can feel it coming on...

More Dublin, training, lost clothes

Re my last post, I've over it now, and am quietly getting on with the serious business of sucking all 2.whatever million tracks out of the service whilst I still can, as I believe a number of other 'subscribers' are. Hooray for small mercies, I say. Oh, and whilst the mochaccino from the machine on the first floor wasn't that bad, the espresso was lethal. Although there were some mornings when Bruno (bless 'im) got in before me and was thoughtful enough to place a MUG full of it on my desk, which I think had no fewer than four rocket-fuel espressos in it. 30 minutes later and elephant tranquilisers couldn't slow me down. My most productive mornings, I think.

Anyway, back to Dublin this week, fortunately only for a day trip (although these tend to be the most tiring of all, out on Wednesday at 0430 and back around 2000, straight to the pub for the old place's semi-official leaving do, which I'm really looking forward to. This week I'm mostly writing a business case which is turning out to be more detailed than it has any right to be, and hoping fervently that all my adding up's correct. I noticed a small error the other day where I'd forgotten to divide by 1,000. Aaaanyway....

Then, on Thursday and Friday I'm in some hotel out near Reading somewhere (ooh the glamour; Kathryn gets to go to all sorts of shiny places; I'm somewhere off the M4...) on a Consultancy Skills course. I've no idea what'll be involved, but with any luck I'll be all skilled up after that and won't have to pretend at being a Consultant as I've been doing with varying degrees of success for some months now. It's been a bit like a real-life 'Faking It'; I wonder if anyone's cottoned on yet....

... and then, on Friday night, the Kiwi and I are off to Prague with some other kiwis for the weekend, hooray. I'm told it's back to its former loveliness after the recent influx of stag dos (who've all gone to Tallinn now) so I'm rather looking forward to it.

And on a final note, I've just heard a production designer on the Vodaphone Live Music awards describe Motley Crue as 'heavy metal herberts', which has made my evening, pretty much. More when I get back from Prague, unless there's wireless at the hotel on Thursday night. Looks set to be an interesting week.

Oh, and one more thing - lost clothes. I thought that, in the interest of maintaining the underlying theme of this blog (The Adventures of the Kiwi) I thought I should mention the absolutely wonderful episode yesterday where she had to knock on the door of one of the flats in the building next door to retrieve her shorts and a towel which had blown off our balcony whilst drying. We're still one towel, a dressing gown and a pair of knickers short; the people who own the properties they blew onto are away, so the knickers will have to stare forlornly at us through our kitchen window til they get back. What must the neighbours think....