Tag: Work

PowerPoint skills

In which I imagine the audience naked.

After writing the tale of The Nobber and the saga of the Best-Man demotion I did realise the one thing I was most disappointed at regarding the whole saga. Not being able to do a Best Man speech. I was looking forward to delivering a kick ass speech even if I was nervous at letting them down

I seem like I’m confident when I stand up in front of a group of people to speak but it is all a facade, I am, good at acting just not good at acting in front of others.

Being denied this opportunity was the one part that hurt the most, in fact during the demotion process I was once asked by the Future Mrs N to submit my proposed speech for approval like it was some kind of financial promotion for an insurance company. There was no way this was going to happen as it breaks the sacred bond between groom and best-man, and probably added to the reasons for my sudden dismissal.

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Don’t tell me no

In which I accept your challenge.

Other than riding my bike up the street the wrong way I’m a very good boy. I try to stay out of trouble for a number of reasons, like it is a cramp on my lifestyle to be in prison and I’d have to explain why I’m entangled with the Po-Po to my family. Neither of these are particularly attractive options.

As a result I try not to break the rules, I’m scared of being caught and of the consequences. Instead I prefer to push against the boundaries of bureaucracy and see how far I can bend them to my will. I am much happier to teeter along the edge of genius and failure.

The other option is to find the loophole in the rules and exploit them. I subscribe to Alexander the Great’s Gordian knot solution, if the laws of the game are ill-defined then use that to your ability.

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Well done for doing your job

In which I refuse to compete for a plaque.

Every month the company I work for run a company wide recognition scheme, it is open to all individuals and is a similar programme to those I have experienced in other places of work. The greatest part about this recognition scheme is how every wins every month. No matter how good or poor you are you win a prize, and that prize is handily deposited into your bank account and you receive a certificate with details of how much you won.

This is the recognition I need for my job, this little donation to helping me keep my way of life is the reward I get for dedicating 35 hours a week to the needs of a company. I do this for you and what you do allows me to spend weekends with Mrs G or buy pretty things for the Feliciraptor. It is a perfect arrangement. What disturbs the waters is when “Recognition Schemes” come into play.

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Rejecting rejection

In which I refuse to let people refuse me things.

It’s not as though rejection is ever an experience you want, yet it will almost be certainly one that every one will have gone through in their life. I think Rudyard Kipling put it very well, it’s the Bear Necessity of life that If you treat triumph and disaster the same then yours is the Earth my son.

Nobody likes to be told that they are not good enough, we don’t go out intentionally to do a bad job or interview so when you get told that you best wasn’t good enough then you start to doubt yourself. You don’t consider that you may have been in the 100 metre sprint with Usain Bolt it’s the natural reaction to try to analyse what you did wrong.

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I can see clearer now

In which the worst thing to happen to me becomes the best.

I’m currently sorting through my old paperwork and in amongst the details of my mortgage and tax statements I have invoices for old cars and instructions for TVs that I no longer have. Yet I also rediscovered one of the most important letters I have ever received, my termination of employment from a certain opticians*.

It would seem odd to be happy to find a letter that says you are no longer wanted, and at the time there was some bitterness about it, but like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park life found a way and I now realise it was one of the best things ever to happen to me. This isn’t one of those thoughts I have while crying into a glass of scotch trying to convince myself it was good, but a genuine belief that being discarded by them gave me a helping hand to have  a better life. I owe them a certain amount of thanks for how my life has turned out since then.

They have also given me a benchmark for how bad life can be, and it allows me to see the same in others. No job is worth your mental health and as the opposite of the saying goes, what goes down must come up. Even when I start to feel a low in life coming on I remember that the important thing is to bounce.
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Just doing my job

In which I thank myself with some flowers.

I have a thankless job and I’m happy with that, I feel awkward when I’m congratulated and just want to reply with “just doing my job, maam”. Ignoring the problem with referring to my manager as “maam” it also causes me problems in getting ahead in business.

The main issue is I belive my job (kind of like a
executive specializing in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration or a transponster) is a service job. It my my role to help others do their roles better. I’m a caddy or a buttress, I should only be noticed if I’m not doing my job properly.

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When I grow up

In which I dream of creating dinosaurs and winning The Ashes.

When I was little(r) I played the “when I grow up” game. I knew what I wanted to be, it was going to be fun and exciting and ever so adventurous. I would change the world! I did not sit and think “You know what, I want to be a data analyst”. It just happened that what I have is an aptitude for crunching numbers and making spreadsheets. I was never going to be a NBA basketballer so I choose the world of Excel and datasets.

I was going to be doing any number of different occupations, I had the whole world in front of me and nothing to stop me. So what happened? Continue reading “When I grow up”

Having an office cold – Part II

In which I manfuly spread my disease.

I love this song by The Cranberries.

What I don’t love is the office cold, which is just lingering like some feral youth on the street. Being all up to no good and just generally causing nuisance.

Even when I think it’s gone it makes more comebacks than Michael Jordan. Not the highly successful Bulls kind of comeback, this is the Wizards multiplied by his attempt at baseball style comeback. Continue reading “Having an office cold – Part II”

The path to London doesn’t glitter

In which I refuse to turn around at the sound of the bells.

I come from a town of small proportions so I am used to urban areas of a certain size. I like how compact everything is, and particularly the low volume of human beings that never seem to get in my way or are just ‘there’.

So when I have to travel to any city I’m full of dread, there are very few I can tolerate (San Francisco and New York) but one sprawling mass is at the bottom of my list,I keep getting made to go by work, and for anyone who has read the title of this post it will not come as a surprise…

London.

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Summer dress code

In which offices insist on cooking men’s legs for ‘decency’.

The office thermostat has currently been set to Fuerteventura, or the winter air-con settings have been turned on at work. I think this is an acclimatization exercise so it doesn’t feel so warm when I get outside in the sub-30c heat. The other option we seem to have is artic, so I have to pack warmer clothes and a pair of mittens to be able to use my computer.

At the moment though it is too hot, it is either due to the multitude of screens I now have (and would like to keep), the wall that is painted the same colour as the sun or the fact I have to dress in long trousers whilst the fairer sex flounce around in flimsy materials. The worst part about this is that, just like all office scenarios, they complain it is too cold and want the heating turned up. Do they not know that us men are warm blooded? We are too hot when skinny dipping in the methane pools on Titan?

I once got in trouble with my manager from the unnamed opticians for wearing the same type of clothes on a dress down day as most of the females did on a normal business day, apparently men do not get a summer dress code. Why did my uncovered toes suddenly become a health and safety issue when others stumble around on a daily basis in heels? I do wash them.

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