I don’t really post personal stuff on here as I’m very private, but I’m feeling unusually low today and need to unload a little. This post may even get deleted later if I change my mind. Several things are weighing on me just lately:
- Problems developing between my fiancee and myself. Nothing insurmountable because we love each other, but there is tension which we need to overcome.
- A year of trying to prevent a shop/off-license opening next door to my home. Loads of stress over parking, noise, litter etc as well as the £40k+ and 3.5 years hard work we spent improving the place being wiped out by potentially having an off-license next door. Lots of opposition locally and having done all the research and organised letters/petitions, I have a belief it can be beaten but I feel it’s all resting on my shoulders.
- Almost two years now of dragging two companies through this recession with poor cashflow and only small signs of improvement. The markets this week would have you thinking the world was about to end! Our Chinese supplier is again trying to steal customers direct.
- This morning (it started yesterday but has escalated today), we have petty squabbles between a couple of shop-floor workers over a fan of all things. It’s not even a company-supplied fan but one of the people wants to make an issue of it and is demanding a mediation meeting. I’m sick of these childish antics. It’s like a playground and we’re supposed to play teacher. I’m not in the ****ing mood! She’s even trying to make it a race issue FFS!
Am I feeling sorry for myself? Probably. Am I justified in feeling sorry for myself? Probably not. After all, I have a great life compared to most. I live in a nice home with a woman I adore and have a decent, if frustrating job to pay for it all so I feel very fortunate. I just feel I want some of this stuff to be over so life can be a little lighter.
That’s my bleating over with.
I see we are in typical American indignation mode at the moment. How dare BP cause this environmental disaster on our doorstep. Lets call their CEO in and give him a dressing down. Like any disaster, a long period of investigation is required. It was BP’s operation but the rig was managed by Transocean, which is an American company which moved it’s HQ to Switzerland to avoid paying tax and there is also some involvement in the mix of Halliburton, another large American company no stranger to controversy around the world.
American politicians always act like this when something they’ve been doing for years finally bites them in ass on their home turf. Environmentally, they are the largest polluter in the world and constantly refuse to sign up to any international environmental agreements. American companies have been at the centre of disasters for decades. How about Exxon Valdez (Exxon Shipping Company) or Bhopal (Union Carbide) just for starters? Now it’s off their own coast and drilling for oil they themselves hunger for, it’s somehow much worse than anything that’s gone before. No-one is arguing that this is a huge environmental incident which will live on for years and that BP and its partners, including the American authorities who license the operation and take tax revenue from it will have to answer questions and do what is necessary to correct the results of their actions. It is the grand-standing my senators and Obama which is irritating me.
It was the same with 9/11. For years Irish Americans willingly and knowingly funded IRA terrorism on British and Irish soil. Only when terrorism knocked hard on their door did it matter. According to them no-one had experienced terrorism until Americans had. Their response was to go stomping round the world starting wars with everyone that didn’t ‘get’ the American way of life dragging Britain along to sacrifice its soldiers in the name of a ‘war on terror’.
America – the most self-important, arrogant nation on earth.
OK, that’s an OTT headline and it comes a day after me spending a stupid amount of time getting a friends iPod Touch to accept some video files which it wouldn’t because the piece of crap can only play a miniscule amount of file formats which most computers take in their stride, and not helped by iTunes trashing my secondary Atom-based PC in the living room which happily manages to do everything else I need but now, thanks to iTunes won’t even open Windows Explorer to browse files!
However, on top of my growing feeling that nothing really works the way it’s supposed to, from Phones to iPods to software to Sky+, the latest edition of PC Pro landed on my desk this morning, which I’ve subscribed to for years and for the first time I skimmed through it in two minutes and it went in the bin. There’s just nothing really new any more, new laptops and desktops and monitors and digital cameras are ten a penny and Office 2010 looks again like Office 2007 with a couple of bells and whistles bolted on. I’m supposed to get excited about this stuff?
It seems these days that the media only get excited about new Apple products which are produced for and bought by those for who eye candy is the most important thing. These people would rather have a 5 carat cubic Zirconia than a 1/2 carat diamond. Just give me stuff that works please and works the way I want it to instead of making me a slave to the manufacturer, and don’t tell me you’ll fix it in in the next model because you told me that three models ago and it still doesn’t work!
That’s my Monday morning moan finished with, better get some work done I suppose!
I know it’s seen as a popular British pastime to complain about the weather, but it is the middle of our summer and I’m sitting here in the office watching it absolutely p****ing it down outside. In the spring the Met Office were forecasting a “barbecue summer” but apparently they’ve now had a rethink and it’s going to be cool and wet well into august.
If you work for the met office, here’s some advice. Quit! It is an organisation which is simply not fit for purpose. This is the third year in a row where their seasonal forecast has been substantially wide of the mark. With all the equipment and manpower they throw at their forecasting, you’d think they’d have some accuracy. Even the five day forecast changes drastically from day to day and rarely matches what they forecast five days ago. Even blind luck would probably be more accurate!
They attempt to point out that we have forgotten the “heatwave” we had in June. Some areas of the country did indeed have almost ten days of nice weather. What did we get in the Midlands? Rain. Lashings of it. Blocked drains, flooded roads and houses and plenty of thunderstorms.
My idea of a weather forecast now is to look out of the damn window!
The UK votes today in European and local elections and just like every other election since 1992, I won’t be voting. More than ever now, I believe that our political system is broken. We basically have two parties (ok there’s a third but they are so far behind they are almost irrelevant) who will do absolutely anything to score points against each other and gain power for themselves and that’s all it’s about, gaining power. We have a 4-5 year cycle in general elections and the purpose of each party is to make sure that they win the next election. The public good comes a very distant second.
The recent response to the economic downturn has been a prime example. It is a case where the best solutions have to be debated and put into practice for the good of the nation and it’s people. Instead we’ve had our two main parties bickering and sniping at each other trying to knock each others ideas and score power points. As I’ve said so many times in the past, recession is more about confidence and public psychology than anything else. The Conservatives in opposition have publicy talked down the economy because “it’s all Labour’s fault” and the more damage they can do to Labour the closer the Conservatives are to power at the next election, an election which they might even be able to force the country into early even though that might not be the best thing for the economy or the country. For their part Labour have shouted down any decent ideas or policies the Conservatives have had to improve our economic situation.
What I want, and it’s for more qualified people than me to speculate as to how it could be brought to be, is for a system of consensual politics whereby the best solution is the target, not power. People need to have confidence that their elected officials are working for them, making their lives better and safer, and not simply giving platitudes while chasing power and wealth (do i need to mention MP expenses!?) for themselves and their colleagues.
What it ultimately boils down to is that I don’t belive my vote means anything, it is a means to the politicians end, not mine.
I’m considering upgrading my point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Ixus 50, to a Digital SLR since being on holiday in North Cornwall recently really showed the limits of the point and shoot. I’d like to get more into photography and a DSLR is a must. I’m now trying to justify to myself whether I should lay out the cash on something like a Canon 450D or a 40D with a couple of lenses or whether it will end up gathering dust because I can’t find the time to get out and use it and then do the post-production with Photoshop.
I borrowed the Canon 350D from the office to do some comparison shots and on image quality the Ixus stands up to the 350D extremely well, but the 350D just feels better to use and the control it gives can’t be matched by a point and shoot.
If I upgrade I think it’s going to be to a 450D. The 40D is not that much more expensive but it’s main benefits are the semi-pro handling and build quality which I think is a bit of overkill for a newbie amateur like me! I’ve looked at the Nikons as well but the Canon seems a more rounded package.
Now, back to that question of whether I REALLY need it ……..
I’ve been away for a while, simply because I’ve been too busy at work to find the time to post. In December I carried out a data and systems migration for another company in the group and at the same time the companies subsidiaries were hived up into the parent. This meant a new invoice discounting facility for the combined company. All in all December and January have been quite a trial. The upside is that I am now Financial Director for the company which means that I am now responsible for a combined turnover of £20m in two completely different markets.
Hopefully, once our financial year end is out of the way in the next few days (I hate stock-takes!), I’ll be able to resume a more normal service with the blog. In the meantime, I’ll be posting a few short tasters about what projects and ideas I’m playing with at the moment.
It’s just occurred to me that in all the years I’ve been using the web, I’ve yet to come across an online purchasing system as quick and effective as play.com. Once your a registered customer, the whole checkout experience is a couple of clicks away yet it has the flexibility to store several cards and several delivery addresses. If you want your default settings, you just buy, click and click and you’re done. Companies like Amazon get all the praise with their so-called ‘one-click’ checkout but it lacks all of the elegance of play’s system.
I’ve just had to arrange a replacement for a DVD which didn’t arrive thanks to the good old Royal Mail and even that was a simple process. Login, order history, view order, click ‘haven’t received it’, select refund or replacement and that’s it. Five minutes later I got an email saying that the replacement had been ordered and would be shipped ASAP.
That’s how easy it should always be.
I haven’t updated the blog in a while. I simply haven’t been able to get in the mood to post anything. My father passed away on 29th April in a manner which left me stunned.
The short version is that it started with him being diagnosed as diabetic and started medication to treat it. After a week of pain he was admitted to hospital with a suspected reaction to the tablets. His medication was changed and he was discharged the next day. Four days later we took him to A&E in the early hours of a Monday morning. A consultant examined him and his suspicions were aroused resulting in my father being readmitted. After three days of tests they found primary cancer of the pancreas with secondaries on his lung, liver and spleen. They also found an abnormality in his throat and a blood clot in his lungs. His diagnosis by the specialist was for six months at the most, even with chemotherapy. A week later my mother found him on the bedroom floor, having collapsed and passed away in the night.
From being diagnosed with diabetes to his passing away was less than four weeks. I didn’t even get the chance to come to terms with the fact that I had only six months with him before even that was snatched away a week later.
My mother and father would have celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in October and he would have been 60 years old in December. Two landmarks in life that I’m devastated he won’t enjoy.
My father was proud of my achievements and he was responsible for practical side of my abilities. As a child I was always encouraged to help him with DIY projects and he was always supportive and helpful. This helped me to learn a flexible, practical approach to life and the obstacles it puts in your path. As soon as I became interested in IT he also became involved since he loved gadgets.
I’m glad he saw me become a Financial Director and I know that he was proud of me. I miss him daily and everyone that knew him does too. I didn’t really get the chance to tell him how much he meant to me. If you can avoid it, don’t make the same mistake.
It’s been too long since I last posted and this is solely due to work commitments. We recently had some major developments which started with us beginning negotiations to buy one of our competitors. They were struggling after losing some staff and falling out with their key supplier so they were ripe for picking and we would be able to take most of their customer base and take them out of the market, significantly reducing our market competition. However, you could call the owner of the competitor shrewd, arrogant or misguided since when talks stalled he decided to try to poach our Sales Manager and one of our purchasing and sales guys to join his company, possibly in an effort to force the deal his way!
After a few days of political and financial games in which I tried to keep both our guys on board, the outcome was a large restructuring of our company which saw our Managing Director retire, our sales manager promoted to Sales Director and myself promoted to Commercial and Financial Director! The other guy who was approached by the competitor over-played his hand and in the process burned his bridges with our owners and has now left. The deal has fallen through and he is now languishing in a company with little or no future and will probably be moving on again within months.
This is a huge step forward for our company and one which was planned in the near future anyway. We now have a younger, more motivated board which is looking to double our turnover within two years. We have a small, dedicated management and admin team who will be encouraged to develop their roles and skills and can look forward to sharing in the rewards.
It’s been a long and hectic couple of weeks. But I’ve come out of it in a better position, both personally and financially. Hopefully, now that the dust is settling, I’ll be able to get back to posting here again!
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