He’s back! Got back tonight, although I am surprised, I expected him to want to run away and stay in the sun. And of course, it’s done nothing but piss down all day, so he doesn’t believe me when I tell him the weather has been really nice for most of the time he has been off.
Love is . . . waking up in the night to find a cat stretched next to you, with her head perched on the edge of the pillow, purring at you.
Confusion is . . . waking up in the morning, and not being able to find said cat in the house.
Not really sure what made me think of it, but yesterday (I was off work) and I decided to look up this series.
It used to be on Sky One, many years ago (about 9 years - well, that’s many in my book). Me and X weren’t avid fans,.but we watched a fair few of the episodes. I also remember last time me and him were in Portugal it was on the telly over there (with Portuguese sub-titles, but spoken in English/American). I don’t remember seeing any extra episodes over there.
Anyway, the plot of it is basically some guy takes his wife to dinner, goes to the loo, comes out and she’s gone. Other people are sat at the table, and appear to have been there all night. The waiter has no idea who he is, and eventually he gets thrown out. He goes home, finds his wife doesn’t know who he is, and her ‘husband’ chases him off with a shotgun.
The series is about him trying to find out the who-what-why of it all.
In most of the episodes he jumps out of burning buildings, with never a scratch on him. He usually kills some bad guys.
I never saw the end, so I have no idea what happened.
Yesterday, after reading about it, I saw that it is now out on dvd, so, impulsive as ever, I ordered it. And, super-duper ebayer sent it straight away, registered post, and it arrived this morning!
Only I forgot. I don’t have a multi-region dvd player. Whoops. Oh well, the one I have is pretty crap anyway, some of my dvd’s won’t play on it, and I have to bring them up here to play on the pc. Now I have a brand spanking new dvd player, and have watched the first two episodes.
I am not reading the episode synopses (is that the right plural?), so the ending will be a surprise!
Interview went okay on Tuesday. At least I think I did. Parts of it went really, really well, and they openly admitted that there is no doubt about my technical skills at all.
However, they asked a lot of project management-y type questions - and this is something I have not had a great deal of experience. It’s not that I couldn’t do it (and hell, there are enough courses and books out there), just that I’ve not done it, and in a competency based interview, they want specific examples.
Anyway, I have been trying hard not to get my hopes up too much.
Until today.
Went to a meeting this afternoon of all the geeky people - and it’s run by a guy who currently works in the team where I went for the job - I would be his boss. On top of that, he has applied for a job in the team I am currently in, which if he got (and I didn’t leave) he would be working alongside me.
Anyway, he comes up to me, smiling. “I hear it went well on Tuesday.” “Did it? I am not too sure, some of it did, but other bits I am not so sure about.” Turns out - bless him - they told him they were interviewing a candidate, but didn’t tell him who. He knew it was me, because I had told him. Yesterday, he asked the big boss how the interview with the “candidate” went, and was told it was good.
I am not sure I wanted to hear that. It has got my hopes up, and after the fiasco of the last interview I had (where I did, in fact, get the job, they just demoted the position) I am trying to keep things in perspective.
On a plus note, this guy told me that he has in 6 month review yesterday, and it went really well, and he is having second thoughts about moving to my team should he be offered a job. And I am flattered, because he said he would be happy to work for me, and would prefer it over someone external (the other person they are interviewing next week) because he knows I will do a good job. Flattery will get him everywhere!!
BTW - still missing LELI. Not sure when he is back, think it might be Saturday.
Going out with Krazy K on Saturday, for her birthday. Should be…. interesting.
The pussies have been spending most nights out recently1 - can’t say I blame them, I am thinking of taking a sleeping bag out there myself.
This morning, I went down to let them in and feed them, and they both came running. I could see there was something on the grass, but not having my contact lenses in, I couldn’t see clearly what it was, and assumed it was possibly (a) a leaf (b) a fur ball (c) a pile of cat sick (d) something else I couldn’t think of.
Once dressed, and eyes in shape, I went back downstairs. I sorted out my lunch, put some bread in the toaster, and only then thought, “Ooh, I wonder what that is.”
It was a mouse.
Dead.
Looked peaceful as anything, not a mark on it.
I went and got the dustpan and brush (add another one to the ‘Why I Need A Man’ list) and scooped the poor thing up. It turned over as I did this. And exposed a big gaping hole in it’s side. A big gaping, squirming hole, with lots of little black flies inside it.
I didn’t eat my toast.
1 one exception the other night, when Madam decided she wanted to stay in. She spent most of the night with her head hanging outside the window, and obviously decided at 5.30 in the morning she had cooled off enough, and now wanted a cuddle. Being the polite cat she is, she decided to lay next to me - at full stretch, pressed as close to me as she possibly could. And I wondered why I woke up hot…..
Got very, very drunk on Friday night. E, who works with LELI left, and we all went to a local pub for a few drinks. Only for a few of us it turned into a lot of drinks, culminating in a trip to the local rock club. With 2 for 1 cocktails. And free toast at 1 am!
I am getting far too old for this - for the first time I actually woke up on Saturday and thought, “What a waste of my weekend, if I’d drunk sensibly I could be up and out and doing stuff now.” Instead I took some aspirins, let the cats in, and went back to bed. Only just getting up in time to go and get my hair done.
Of course, as I have an interview I went *fairly* sensible, a la platinum blonde. No wild and wacky pink bits, or patterns shaved into it. Shame really. It’s so hot, it’s just begging for something a bit radical.
Saturday night I contemplated going to see the Lost Prophets - performing locally, not sold out. But hanging around town after the hair-do, the place was full of kids all with their Lost Prophet t-shirts on. Been there before when I went to see Finch last year, and I felt like grandma. So I came home.
Sunday was spent doing loads of washing, and ironing all the washing I did last weekend. That just leaves next weekend to do this weeks ironing. Oh, and more washing……
Interview is tomorrow afternoon. Boss was back in today after a week in the Canary Islands, had to tell her about the interview since she knew nothing about it. I so need to get out of this job, it’s destroying me. The only saving grace of Z’s promotion is he doesn’t have quite so much time to get in my face.
Although he did come over to talk to me and S about a paper he is presenting tomorrow. I did tell im quite clearly last week that if he had any doubts about it at all, I needed to know Thursday, because after that time the changes would be put in, and be difficult to back out. Yet today he comes over to talk about the possibility of it not getting through. When I told him (again) the changes had already been completed, he looked at me like I was an idiot.
I need a brick wall to be placed next to my desk. Saves me having to get up and go outside when I need to bang my head against it.
I applied for a job on Monday. I didn’t actually get the job description until Monday morning, because the manager was on holiday last week, and for some reason it wasn’t on the intranet (it was, however, on Monster……). It turns out the job is in the finance department, but is very similar to the job I applied for (and was offered as a sideways move), only for more departments, not just the one.
It also turns out it is manager of my friend C, who is in the process of applying for a job on my current team. I joked with him that he should stay in his current job, and if I got the job he could do all the work for me! He wasn’t impressed.
Anyway, today the hiring manager invited me for an informal chat about the job.
Now I want the job even more - it sounds absolutely ideal for. It is basically quite a nerdy job - taking the current, slow and cumbersome processes in place, and whizzing them up a bit, documenting it all, making it run like clockwork. Making the data we have more easily accessible to the people who use it, finding out exactly what they want and making it all better.
I have an interview Tuesday afternoon.
There is one other external applicant, who needs to be pre-screened by the agency, and judging by the look on the manager’s face, she’s not too keen on them anyway.
I stand a good chance of getting it. But I am trying not to get my hopes up too much - I got the last job, only they offered it to me at a lower grade than I wanted.
It will also get me away from Z, which would be a wonderful thing.
What do companies do with annoying managers, who piss off their staff, who have no clue, who make unreasonable demands to be completed in unreasonable timescales?
Yes. He recently got promoted.
LELI has gone on holiday. He will be gone for 10 days.
Friday night, before LELI came along, I went to the fair with my friend L. We bumped into this guy D, who is actually some very big bod in Marketing, but before he got that job he used to sit opposite me. He is a really nice guy.
Anyway, his wife had wandered off with his credit card, so he was wandering about with his camera, and decided to take a picture of the two of us.
Et voila!
Well, here are the video clips of the clown/performer/entertainer I saw on holiday.
1. Juggling fire.
