I started a new job a few weeks ago. This was the result of a promotion gained through a generic sift of applicants from both inside and outside the organisation. There are no real promotions at my place; in the interests of fairness positions have to be open for both internal and external candidates. So you could have put in 30 years of work, but because it’s the civil service you’re likely to find yourself unpromoted and working to someone who’s only just joined and doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing. And I see the results of this around me every day. People who have pretty much given over their lives to ensuring that the office and organisation runs smoothly, but because they’re no good at competency-based interviews and don’t have the skill set required for generic campaigns (having focused so narrowly on their department for so long), they simply don’t stand a chance. This leads to a completely unmotivated workforce, stress and an infectious ennui that’s difficult to escape from.
I guess I’ve been lucky in that respect. After starting at the bottom three and a half years ago, I’ve been promoted twice and now find myself in a position of greater responsibilty and, having gained the experience of three separate departments, I’m in a much better place than many to be able to capitalise on that for next time.
It’s a brand new position, consolidating the roles of several other people and hopefully allowing me to develop it into something interesting for whoever takes over the next time I get promoted. I also hope to take on further work from other members of my team, as time allows. In fact, I’m hoping that as we begin to reduce the amount of consultants in the higher roles, I can build myself up into becoming the only sensible choice when it comes to filling those posts.
As I finish writing this, I realise I’m still sitting in a coffee shop when I should be on my way to the office. Thankfully I work flexitime, so I think ill grab another ten minutes before moving.
I’m writing this on an apparently overcrowded train (or so the announcer would have us believe). I think she should have a walk down the train and take a look for herself. It was packed until we got to Leicester, but now everything’s ok. We keep getting messages apologising for the overcrowding, which are getting slightly irritating!
Anyway, that’s not what I’m writing about. I’m actually taking the opportunity whilst out train is diverted due to works to write about my weekend.
@Y2Neildotcom invited me a while ago to join him in seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show in Birmingham. So my weekend began as many have done before with a trip back up to Derby to visit my parents, but this time as a convenient stopping point on my way to Brum. The trains (up until the one I happen to be in at at the minute) were all fine, though it does appear that a large number of people simply don’t understand the concept of a reserved seat. But that’s by-the-by.
After a general wander around Birmingham to look for something that I could dress myself up in, we retired unsuccessfully to our hotel room at the Ibis. Wow, what a hole that place is! The reception looks alright, and I can contest to the comfortableness of the seats in the bar. However, the room was abysmal. The towels were the size of flannels, the beds were as hard as rocks and the pillows had the consistency of a sponge cake; they looked comfortable, but try resting your head on them! I also almost had to break the door off the shower to get in, due to the plastic sealer around the edges having practically glued itself to the frame. Not at all happy with the facilities.
I look worryingly good in my outfit!
Whilst there, I was persuaded that I just had to wear something or risk feeling completely out of place. So I jazzed my jeans and t-shirt up with a feather bower, pearls and fishnet sleeves. Didn’t really compare to @Y2Neildotcom’s costume though. He decided on a black shirt with white tie, fishnet stockings, white skirt and a pair of size 13 high heels that he’d found online. That was set off with pigtails, flowers in his hair and a full beard! He was extremely apprehensive about leaving the hotel in his outfit, although as soon as we got outside his outgoing side shone through.
The show was on at the Hippodrome, which was conveniently 20 seconds walk from the hotel. As soon as we approached the doors we knew it was going to be a good night. 98% of the crowd were dressed up, and whilst some costumes were more convincing than others, the effort everyone went to was commendable. There wasn’t enough time to queue for drinks by the time we got anywhere near the bar, so we headed over to our seats and got ready for the show. We were in the stalls, dead centre to the stage and with a superb view of proceedings.
And what a show it turned out to be! Ainsley Harriot was guest-starring as the Narrator and the regular script was mix in with a few Ready Steady Cook references, though most of these were in response to shouts from the crowd. Some were absolutely stunning and in many cases not only stole the show from the actors on stage, but also knocked the wind completely out of them. Both Frank ‘N’ Furter and the Narrator had to stop on a couple of occasions to congratulate a heckler or two.
After the show we headed over to a pub with a large number of other guests for a little drink and some Rocky-related fun. Then it was off to a club to drink and dance the night away (minus the dancing in my case though!). I made the sensible choice of removing what little costume I had on, whilst @Y2Neildotcom didn’t; under the belief that it was the destination of all the other Rocky-folk. It wasn’t. But that didn’t stop the fun and I stayed on until the 3:30 closing. So after only three and a half hours sleep, I’m currently extremely tired. Hopefully I’ll remain awake long enough once I get in to actually post this online, but I can’t make any promises!
So all-in-all it was a great night and I’m definitely going to sign myself up for the next Rocky event. I think I may make more of an effort with my costume the next time around, though I’m as yet undecided who to go as. Inspiration will come, I’m sure.
For those of you out there who don’t think that sort of evening is for you, I recommend you just give it a go; you may surprise yourself. I certainly did.
P.S. I didn’t manage to get this published yesterday because it was straight to bed when I got in!
Goodness, it’s been a good long while since I left a post! Every day it just slips my mind, again and again, until it reaches the point where I start to consider why I bother anyway. And then it gets to a day like today when I realise I actually enjoy writing these posts, even if they’re not read by the largest numbers of people. So I shall being again and will hopefully maintain at least a regular posting.
But what to talk about first? There’ve not been a huge number of changes since my last posting, though there was one fairly major incident to tell you about. I got promoted!
I’ve yet to take up my post – that’ll happen on 2 November. But it’s such a great feeling knowing that I’m leaving my current team. I’m not going to go into detail just in case this happens to reach one of them (!), but it shouldn’t really be news to anyone in the office that I’ve not been happy in my job for a while. Especially when the boss decided to really mess with me. But again, I’m not going to go into any detail.
After finding out what my new role will entail, I must say I’m quite excited. Whilst it doesn’t sound like the greatest job in the world when I first tell people, it’s a brand new position which I can make my own. I’ll be entering and analysing data for a new national database as well as taking charge of the department’s nationwide finances. I’m not yet sure whether I’ll be getting a small team to lend a hand, but I guess I’ll decide that once I know how much work I’ll have to do. And hopefully there’ll also be opportunities to expand the role into other areas dealt with within the wider team, such as risk management.
I know the next five weeks will go extremely slowly, but I seriously can’t wait to get stuck in to my new role.
For most who know me, I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise when I say I’ve not been happy for a while. It’s been quite difficult to pin the down causes of this unhappiness and for the past year or so I’ve been trying to do just that. I’m not sure I’ve discovered where it came from, but I have obviously been fully aware of the effects for a while. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go into detail.
But I’ve learned something over the last week. I’ve learned that it’s all down to me. That happiness isn’t something that can be achieved by looking outwards, but rather by looking at yourself and realising the things that you’re worried about, or scared of, or just unsure about can be resolved in your own mind. And that’s the new attitude I’ve been trying to adopt. To be more open, out-going and out-spoken. To make sure that I start to live my life the way I want to and not allowing my mind to keep me locked in any longer.
So that’s person I’m going to be from now on. If you want to spot me in a crowd, I’ll be the one with the smile on my face. 
I received a text message from an unknown UK mobile the other day, with the number +44 7797 806021. This person knew who I was, because it just so happened to be a response to a text message I’d sent to a friend in the USA. I thought it strange that a reply would be coming from a UK number I’d never seen before, so I did a little investigating.
It turns out to be the result of issues with US carriers having to redirect through a European server due to technical issues at their end. Which is quite a poor set-up in this day and age if you ask me, but it does go to show how bad the US mobile user has it. In the UK we take for granted unlimited this and free access to that. But for once it seems the US are well behind the times when it comes to their cellular network.
My recently emigrated friend has to pay to receive calls as well as make them. She also has to pay to collect her voicemail and had to wait before she could use her pay-as-you-go phone so that it could be activated. In such a vast country it is perhaps seen as necessary to pay for the huge network’s upkeep. But surely in such a vast country, it’s also important that those out in the sticks are able to maintain their connection with the outside world? Maybe I’m looking at this too simplistically, but it does seem our American cousins are being ripped off; that certainly makes a change!
There was an extra bonus to me from the error which led to this UK number being used, however. Although it’s a generic number used by the UK server, the system was smart enough to direct my reply to the correct person. Which meant that as I was replying to a UK number, the message came out of my standard allowance and I wasn’t charged an international rate. Woooo!
