Eureka!

I didn't get much sleep last night. About 3am I suddenly realised the key to a problem I'd been grappling with for a couple of weeks, which in hindsight is now obvious. Now I just need to find a way to explain that to the relevant people, in the hope that they might actually do something about it.

Which on the one hand is really good, since it means I've actually got a solution to something that had been eluding me; on the other hand, it meant I didn't get enough sleep. And it's going to be a long day.

Not Helping

Some stuff is happening at work that is intended to improve things. At least, that's the stated intent, and I choose to believe it. Sadly, that stuff is raking up everything that has happened over the last two years, some of which it turns out was better left buried.

Right now is not a good time.

Useless Days

I find myself in an odd position at work: I finished a big piece of work late last week, I then spent a couple of days on book-keeping of various sorts, and now I have about two days to go... with no clear idea of what to do. It's not that there isn't plenty needing my attention, but it falls into three categories: things that are very much not a priority, big pieces of work (that I don't want to start just before taking two weeks off), and things I can't work on effectively for one reason or another.

Which is a fairly rotten place to end up. But there it is - I guess I'll aim to find something to do, and just hope for the best.

The Actual Return to the Office

Funnily enough, my original post on the topic of returning to the office was oddly prophetic - rather than returning on the 30th of May I ended up coming back on the 7th of June, due precisely to a Covid outbreak. Fortunately LC has made a full recovery and, perhaps oddly, none of the rest of us seem to have been affected.

Thus far it really sucks - there have been IT problems, the commute has not been fun, my car has chosen this week to develop a new and annoying fault, and we're still in the position where every meeting needs to be via Teams anyway.

But it's only four days thus far, so with luck things will improve. They really need to.

Return to the Office

After more than two years, our experiment with home working is now coming to an end - I will be returning to the office on the 30th of May, barring some new surge of Covid cases or similar event. As of the 1st of June we will all be expected to return.

I must admit, I'm not regarding this event with any real anticipation. Working from home has not been an unalloyed joy, but it has had some very significant benefits, not least the ability to be present throughout Surprise!'s first year. Returning to the office also means adding five hours to my working week, and with the price of petrol as it now is it will also add something like £150 in fuel bills - time and money that we can ill afford.

On the other hand, it is certainly true that there's a different dynamic when in the office than there is while working remotely. There are also times when we really need everyone to be together, and further times when it would be really useful to be together. (Need is probably a bit too strong a word, but not by as much as might be thought.) That said, those times are relatively few and far between, and so most of the time it does seem rather unnecessary.

Oh well. The mountains have spoken, and it is too late for the pebbles to have their say.

Anniversary (not that one)

Today marks the two-year anniversary of my switching to working from home. Which probably deserves at least some recognition.

Funnily enough, this anniversary comes at a time when the country is engaging in a fascinating experiment: is it possible for the people of a country to gaslight themselves? The thing is, the pandemic is very clearly not over. And yet we're engaged in a crazy process of getting rid of all the remaining measures that were put in place to protect us. And so, in order to justify the madness, we're collectively pretending to ourselves that it's all over, even as cases, hospital admissions, and fatalities all rise.

Work have been talking about us returning to the office for some time. I'm not sure when that will eventually happen, though I suspect it will be sooner rather than later. (It would be really convenient if it happened some time after July 1st, but I doubt I'll be that lucky.)

The truth is that I have very mixed feelings about a return to the office. It's adding five hours to my work week, and maybe £150 to my monthly fuel bills, which sucks. On the other hand, there is a community aspect to work that has been missing, to an extent. My answer, I suppose, is the same as it has always been: I'll go back when they ask me to, but not until then.

Fiat Lux

I have run into an unexpected issue with working from home. When we began, we were just leaving th winter months behind, which meant that I was starting my day just after dawn and finishing up while it was still light. Over the last month or so, however, that has shifted - I now start before daylight, and then finish just as it's getting really dark - and it's never really getting all that light anyway.

The upshot of that is that I'm a lot more reliant on artificial lighting than was previously the case and, sad to say, the lights in the study just don't cut it. Worse, the nature of the light fitting in that room does not lend itself readily to swapping in brighter bulbs, and so the light I've got is, unfortunaely, about the limit.

For the moment, my workaround will be to pull in a standing lamp. This isn't ideal, especially since we kinda need that lamp in another room as well, but it's probably better than nothing. However, it does mean that as we head towards the shortest days I'm more and more going to be on the lookout for a better solution.

#52: "I Know This Much Is True", by Wally Lamb (a book from The List)

Not Going Back

One of the surprising findings of the last several months of working from home is that productivity is actually up. One not-at-all-surprising finding is that morale has fallen, and continues to fall (though that may be less to do with working from home, and more to do with everything else also being closed). As a consequence of the latter, the powers-that-be are quite keen to reopen the office, at least to some capacity. To that end, today was supposed to be the day some people started back.

Personally, I was always rather torn about this. I have no concerns at all from a safety point of view - given the prevalence of the bug in Scotland it is highly unlikely that any of my colleagues have it, and the counter-measures put in place were pretty extensive. However, I was never sure what was to be gained - given that the meeting rooms would remain shut and so many people would still be working from home, the benefits of actually being present were already going to be diluted.

Anyway, it all became a moot point on Thursday, when tucked away in Nicola Sturgeon's update to parliament was a sentence stating that non-essential offices should remain closed until mid-September, or perhaps later. So that's that.

Longer-term, I think my intentions are to go back to the office as soon as the company specifically requests that I do so, but not to volunteer to go back any sooner than that. I'm also strongly considering requesting a shift to home-working three days a week on a permanent basis - on the days Funsize isn't at nursery my being here makes things that bit harder for LC, so there's clearly an advantage to being in the office, but on the three days FS is at nursery, it seems I could usefully skip the half-hour drive each way.

But that's still very much in the "thinking about it" stage - it remains to be seen how things will turn out when they do get back to normal... or, rather, move on to a new normal.

Lockdown

After a few weeks of speculation, we finally received the instruction that the office was closing. We're to work from home for the foreseeable future. (They've said until the end of April, but the reality is that that's likely to change.)

Funnily enough, I'm not sure that that will affect me all that much. Work have put a great deal of money into providing us with powerful tools for remote working, so this should just be a case of actually using them. In which case, the major impact will be that I won't have to commute each morning.

(In practice, it won't be just so easy: on the days when LC and FS are at home, being able to isolate myself in order to work will be a challenge. And I'm far from convinced that the schools and/or nursery are going to remain open. But given how fast everything is changing, there's not much benefit in speculating.)

Anyway, it's something of a relief to have the decision finally made - it's been a case of knowing that this was coming, but not knowing exactly when. Now that it's done, we can start to adapt.

Breathing Space

Things have been rather quiet on the blog front lately, largely because they've been absolutely mental at work. That's the nature of the job - sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's busy, and sometimes it's just crazy (though hopefully not for too long).

The upshot has been that I haven't really had time to post about anything. Nor have I had much that has inspired me to post. The good news is that I seem to have a little time free, so I can maybe fill in some of the gaps...

A Missed Opportunity

An opportunity has popped up at work that would have been ideal if:

• It had come up a year from now, and
  
• I hadn't moved project a year ago.

As it is, it's just not a good fit, so I'll need to let it go. Which is a damn shame, because I'd finally hit on an answer to "where do you see yourself in five years?"

#50: "The Last Battle", by C.S. Lewis (a book for Funsize; and this completes "The Chronicles of Narnia", which is a book from The List)
#51: "Nightflyers", by George R.R. Martin

Breakthrough!

For the most part, work as a Data Transponster is a fairly cushy number. Sure, there's a fair amount of thinking involved in carving out designs, and then there's some work in turning those designs into actual code, but it's not hard, at least in comparison with many other jobs.

But every so often...

For the past week and a bit, I've been wrestling with a bear of a problem - one of those tiny glitches that are both monsters to find and nigh-impossible to fix. And, worst of all, every time I did an analysis of the system I concluded "it should work like this..." only to find that, of course, it didn't.

And so, every night for the past week and a bit I've gone home stressed and frustrated, and no closer to actually fixing the problem.

(And although physically it's still true to say that my job has been easy, that would be to massively downplay the mental effort involved in all of this. It has been really, really hard going.)

Anyway, I fixed the problem today. And there was much rejoicing!

Another Cause for Celebration

Today I received confirmation that I'm getting a promotion at work. Which is good - it's something that has been on the cards for quite some time, and that I've been working very hard to secure.

Later, there may be cake. Or ice cream. Or both.

Back To Work

I've now finished up my Paternity Leave (and vacation) and so returned to work this morning. It's been pretty heard going so far! The morning was more or less okay, since I'm traditionally a morning person but, as anticipated, once we got into the afternoon I started the flag. And it didn't help that the various catch-up jobs I had to do, which were time-consuming but low-thought, have now almost run out. At some point, I'm going to have to actually think, which isn't so good...

Sleepy...

Back to Work

Bleurgh. Not the best day, on any front. Did summer ever really get started in this country?

This Week's Mug: Okay, this really is the last mug anecdote. LC actually found another two mugs during the redecoration, but I'm not counting these as there's a reason they were hidden away - they're 'display' mugs rather than 'use' mugs.

So, the final mug is a red Starbucks mug that I was given as a Christmas present a couple of years ago by the A team. It was originally half of a set, but the white mug in the set developed a leak and so was thrown away. As a mug, this one is absolutely fine, if not my favourite. However, it does lose some points for being a representative of a company I now avoid where a reasonable alternative exists - something to do with taxes.

And that's the end of that series. Huzzah!

#30: "The Silkworm", by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
#31: "Pathfinder: Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen", by Jim Groves
#32: "Through Every Human Heart", by Janice Brown
#33: "Lord of Runes", by Dave Gross
#34: "Love in the Time of Cholera", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (a book from The List)
#35: "Firefly: Smuggler's Guide to the Rim", by Margaret Weis Productions

So... Cold...

The heating in the office isn't working, and as it is usually switched off over the weekend to conserve energy this means that the office is freezing. Thus far, nobody has suggested we huddle together to conserve body heat. The moment someone does, I'm heading home.

This Week's Mug: This week's mug is the Superman mug I've mentioned before. It is a deep blue all over, with the Superman crest on front and back. And it bears a marking indicating that it is neither microwave nor dishwasher safe on the bottom. I received this mug as a Christmas gift in 2013.

The End of Work

Today is my last day of work this year. Huzzah!

Also, for the second year in a row, our Christmas lunch has fallen on the last day I've been working. This has meant that the last thing I do for 'work' for the year has actually been to go and have a slap-up feed. Huzzah two!

And, even better, this year has seen me doing some key and useful tasks on my last day, finding a solution to a problem, and then coming to a natural stop just before we have to go off to the meal. Thus, I get to end the year with that warm and contented glow of a job well done, with no niggly little things left over that it would have been really nice to finish up. And again: Huzzah!

I'll probably not be blogging much for the next week or so, though there will be the usual end-of-year reports. So, have a good Christmas and New Year. See you on the flip side.

#59: "King of Chaos", by Dave Gross

The Adventures of Steph/ven: #2: Minneapolis

The day before I departed on my holiday to Sardinia, there was raised the question of a team going out to see our customer, to help them with the next phase of our project. (I can say no more than that - see my "no work talk" rule.) I was adjudged to be the most likely candidate, probably to go out with one other person. So, I left my details behind, and went off on holiday.

I was therefore back in the country for less than four and a half days before I was jetting off once more, this time to Iceland and then to Minneapolis.

The journey out was not terribly pleasant. The flights both ways were absolutely packed, so there really wasn't enough room. Plus, there was only a single drinks service, and absolutely nothing complimentary. I guess that's the price of travelling economy class. Still, that's also worse than I've enjoyed on any previous trans-Atlantic flights.

Incidentally, I saw neither my Mum nor LC's while in Iceland. Nor Kerry Katona for that matter.

While over there, I was staying in the Hilton. But I should probably clarify that - this wasn't one of their top-end signature hotels, but rather one of their more modest budget locations. Really, it was more like a Premier Inn. Still I had a comparitively huge room (they were packed when I arrived, so I ended up with a handicap-access room, hence the larger proportions; I didn't complain), and it was everything it really needed to be.

Most of the rest of the trip consisted of work. I was there for fifteen days, and I worked fourteen of those. I did take the second Saturday off, mostly because there's a limit to how much you can do. But that was fine - as I see it, I was there for a particular purpose, and if I can better achieve that purpose by working very long hours for a short period, then so be it. It wasn't like I was over-endowed with options - if the choice is 'work' or 'sit round the hotel room', it's not a difficult choice.

(I actually did quite a lot of my work while sitting around my hotel room, and actually that was often more convenient than working from the office, but that was purely incidental.)

On my day off, I raced around various place. In the morning, I went to see the cathedral in St Paul (named for a different St Paul). Here's a couple of pictures:

I also went to see Fort Snelling, which was constructed at the joining of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers in 1820, and which was at that time the furthest outpost of 'civilisation' in the US. While there, I saw demonstrations of musket- and cannon-fire, which were extremely interesting. I actually had never seen a 'real' gun fired before.

Actually, that was probably the high point of my day. I'm just a little annoyed at myself that I never took any pictures. Oh well.

After that, my host and I had lunch, and then I made sure to go and purchase LC a nice present, to make up for being absent for so long.

Speaking of LC, we were quite fortunate that we were able to communicate using Skype while I was out there. I made sure to set this up before I left, and it made a huge difference - especially on those days when I was working out of the hotel, when we could use the video function.

And that's mostly that. One evening I went to see "The Wolverine", which was okay, though I missed the first five minutes due to going to the wrong cinema. And it was hot and humid out there, though I'm told it was unseasonably cool, and that things are about to head into winter quite fast.

Oh yes, and there's the ice cream. On my day off, my host took me to an ice cream parlour, where I had a huge chocolate-dipped cone filled with two nice flavours (one of which was banana and chocolate; I think the other was strawberry, but I forget). Anyway, that was nice, right up until I tried to bite into the cone itself. At this point, the non-chocolate-y bit twisted and collapsed in my hand. Thereafter, the whole adventure was something of a scramble - could I finish the ice cream before it melted all over my hand? (The answer, unsurprisingly, was "no".)

Actually, my diet there was pretty terrible. Meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, lots of soda, coffee, and huge amounts of beer. Very little fruit or veg... and yet, somehow, it seemed to do me a huge amount of good. I really don't understand these things sometimes. Oh well. (Plus, no Irn Bru! The sacrifices I make sometimes...)

The flight back was much better than going out. Because I'd needed a flexible return date, I'd been booked into Economy Comfort class, which had the same seats as Saga (First) Class, albeit without the fancy meal and the champagne before takeoff (seriously). So, I had loads of room, loads of comfort... and was too tired to really appreciate it. I spent my time watching crap sitcoms, while lamenting that the light wasn't good enough to read by. Of course, I was too tired to read anyway, but it's the principle of the thing.

(I still didn't see any relevant Mums in Iceland on the way back, but I was only there for about 45 minutes - just long enough to buy a wonderful mug with Vikings on, and to visit the toilet. Still, I fear the adverts may have been lying.)

And that was my second adventure.

Three Facts

1) We have a 'moat' at work. Actually, it's a little stream, over which there are two small bridges.

2) Due to extremely heavy rains, the moat flooded today. My shoes are utterly soaked, and I've had to wash both my socks and shoes.

3) I can't post the picture that proves this, for important legal reasons.

On the other hand...

Turns out that almost immediately after I published my last post, the road opened up again and I was able to go. I promptly left the office and had a really quick ride home. I'm now 36 minutes short of where I 'should' be for the week, but that's okay. I'll make up the time tomorrow.

With the extra time I have been given, I was able to finish up the most recent novel, which was the twelve volume of the Wheel of Time. And, having said that, I can almost hear Chris bracing himself for the big rant...

Well, it turned out that the book did indeed live up to expectations, being a big turgid mess of words with nothing actually happening. For the first twenty-seven chapters, anyway. After that, suddenly, the plot sprang to life, and it was actually quite exciting. Almost reminded me of why I got so far into the series in the first place.

Apparently, Robert Jordan had the book partially written before he died. It's probably unkind, but I think I can pinpoint just where he got to.

#35: "The Gathering Storm", by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson