Deev’s blog
Slow week
God this week’s going slowly again.
I’ve been knackered at work for the past couple of days. I’m not sleeping particularly well, although to be honest I’m not really doing myself any favours by not going to bed early. I’ve not been feeling tired on a night though, and then when I have been going to bed it’s been taking me ages to go to sleep. I’m not normally one to have a problem sleeping (and indeed I don’t have a problem at all first thing in the morning when my alarm goes off!) but for the past few months my sleeping has become erratic. I don’t function well on any less than 8 hours of sleep, and yet I’ve been making do with 6 or less lately. Not good.
I’ve still not quite got my head around the whole work thing - I keep remembering halfway through the day that I’m not going to be here any more in 3 weeks time. Everyone at work is still telling me I shouldn’t leave. I hope I’m doing the right thing. I’m sure I am though...
Charlie’s at Graham’s again so I’ve spent the past couple of nights on my own. The starter motor on his Ka(ck) died on Monday so, ever one to make a mountain out of a molehill, he’s gone to buy a new car! Again! Now most people, when something breaks on a car, would swear a bit, get it fixed, and carry on as normal. Not Charlie of course. He’s convinced he’s got a complete lemon. His theory is “what’s going to go wrong next?”. I tried to explain that it’s quite possible a new car could go wrong really - his counter-argument being that at least it would be warranted and he wouldn’t be forking out for repairs in the event of a problem. I suppose there’s logic in there.
Which makes it all the more boggling that he’s bought a Corsa the same age as the Ka, from the same dealer as the Ka, with the same 3 month warranty as the Ka!
Go figure...
My car’s running a bit better following the oil change, but it seems the valve is still sticking a bit when the engine’s cold. Googling for solutions suggests that the only really permanent fix involves quite major invasive engine surgery - something that I’m not really willing to do for such an old car - and certainly not in January! I can’t afford for it to be off the road for the length of time dismantling the engine would take anyway. So the next best solution is a selection of off-the-shelf additives from Halfords that provide a short term fix. Well if it sorts it out for a few more thousand miles I guess it’s got to be worth it. I filled her with BP Ultimate on the way home as well as a special treat. I was a bit sceptical about the stuff to be honest, but I could feel the performance boost immediately! It’s good stuff - well it wants to be for 80.9p/litre!
Popped up to Suzanne’s for a couple of hours after my tea for a beer and a chinwag in front of the TV.
Ack it’s ten to one... There goes that early night again. 
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Whirlwind week
What a week... I realised as I awoke on Monday morning that I’d never actually had to give my notice in before, so wasn’t really sure how to approach it. I also realised that I hadn’t written my letter of resignation (it slipped my mind in the craziness of it all) so I scrawled something onto a sheet of A4 plagiarised from www.i-resign.com and stuffed it in an envelope. Alice’s suggestion via SMS made me laugh: “Walk in. Slap her. Then clear your desk and go!”. Possibly not the most practical of solutions. I’ll not burn my bridges... When it came to it, the resignation wasn’t as hard as I had expected. I just ushered my manager into a private room and broke it to her gently. She was shocked, but on the other hand could completely understand why I was doing it. She knows as well as I do that I didn’t spend 4 years at university to earn a crust being shouted at by arsey ntl customers. So off she todded to tell her manager, to find out if I’d be working my notice or clearing out my desk that very afternoon and enjoying a month of gardening leave. I’m working my notice. The sheer hypocrisy... the last person who quit was shown the door the next day, but just because they didn’t bother to replace him and are therefore short-staffed, I’m working the full month as panic-stations klaxons sound at HR and the recruitment drive is stepped up. Still - I’m not bitter - whilst I’m not going to miss the job for a minute, I’m really going to miss everyone I worked with, so I’m glad that I’m going to be able to see them for an extra month. I was quite touched at how upset everyone on the team was when I told them I was going, and apparently I’ve now hijacked the team night out at the end of the month as my official leaving do! Rah! So work this week has been weird. Weird because, in a way, it doesn’t feel any different, and yet I know I’m counting down the days until I’ll never be here again. In a fucked-up kind of way I think I’m going to miss it. And I know I keep going on about it, but I’m really going to miss the people. Ironically, I’ve also performed better this month than I can ever remember, and so I’m looking to make a massive commission in my final wage as well. Maybe my morals have gone out of the window? Maybe it’s just because the pressure’s finally off and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Three times this week my manager has told me that I can always retract my resignation if I want, and it’s not too late to change my mind. She’s even told me that if my new job goes horribly wrong, I’d always be welcome back. I don’t think I’ve ever known anything like it. I thought callcentre mentality was that as soon as you showed any form of disloyalty, you were treated with scorn and contempt. I’d like to think that I’ve proven my worth to them. Of course the cynic in me thinks it’s because I’m the only person on my team who knows how to give broadband technical support, and the only person who writes letters that include both punctuation and words with more than two syllables. It’s certainly been the longest week I can remember at work - I thought it would never end - and I wasn’t likely to get much of a break on Saturday either with a Gaz to move in. I needn’t have worried of course. I could quite easily have had an extra couple of hours in bed and done normal Saturday things, as, predictably enough, it all went completely tits-up. As everyone prepared to pack (a very hungover) Gaz’s life into boxes and send him up the M1 to the frozen wastelands of the North, it turned out that his brother, who was organising the van, thought that he was moving next weekend. Genius. So as plans were made to postpone everything to next weekend (you know - the weekend I swapped my Saturday shift to, so that I would have this Saturday off... Pffft...), I rolled up to Suzanne’s and spent a lazy evening getting stoned, eating pizza and watching DVDs on her, frankly splendid, surround sound setup that I had<
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Fruitful!
Well considering I tend to just waste most weekends, I’ve made up for it today. I got absolutely loads done today and it proved to be very fruitful with it. Started off well when I was awoken by the postman delivering me my offer letter from Raven. So it’s official! I’ve got to admit I was a little disappointed by the salary offered, which was even less than I was expecting (and I wasn’t expecting much!) but I feel that if I don’t get out of ntl and back into the IT industry now I never will. Tighten the belt now, and it will pay off in the future! More bizarrely, I also received a lime, in a Jiffy bag, from Claire. She sent it for my fruit powered clock that she and Jay gave me for Christmas. The bag was covered in Geordie-scrawls like “Divvent squeeze too hard man”, “Watch it - it might gan pop, like” and “Howay man - gan canny - it’s frooty like”. The postman must think we’re completely round the twist. Fifteen minutes into starting my chores (I’d washed about four plates and looked at the hoover), Al offered me much-needed distraction by texting me to ask if I wanted to come with him and Charlie to Freeport - one of those discount outlet store village thingys just off the motorway a few miles away. I hadn’t been to that one before so I agreed, although to be honest, an afternoon staring at mud would have sounded more exciting than blitzing the house. I had just enough time to haul a load of crap out of the cellar and into the car to take to the tip before they arrived. When we returned (myself and Al empty-handed, although Charlie managed to find some stuff for her upcoming holiday), Al and I set about lugging the arcade cabinet into the cellar - no easy task as it’s bloody heavy and bloody big. One of these days I might get round to working out what’s wrong with it and make it work again. Less likely now it’s in the cellar, mind. We also switched sofas between the two main rooms, so that the completely shagged out sofa that’s been in the living room since we moved in can finally be taken to the tip when I get access to a van! Then it was on to Suzanne’s to move stuff from the flat back to her mum’s. In particular, lots of home electronics, and Pickle - her snake! When we finally moved it all, I popped in for a coffee, where Suzanne offered me a Nokia 8310 for my efforts! ("It’s locked to O2, and I’m on Vodaphone so you might as well have it"). Result - that’ll come in handy now my 6210 has finally bitten the dust. As well as that, I’m also “looking after” their Sky Digital system. They both have Sky where they’ve moved into already, and Danny’s still in contract so still having to pay - so I’ve plugged it into my old dish at home and bingo - free full package Sky. Can’t be bad... Considered putting my feet up after that lot, but decided against it when I realised just how much I’ve got to do before next weekend - so after some tea, I set upon the spare room - dismantling an old knackered wardrobe, and moving stuff into the attic. I’m knackered. I don’t think I’ve ever done as much on a Saturday before!
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It’s the weekend!
Back to work today, despite having something of a sore throat and a hacking cough- well at least they knew I wasn’t making it up. Had my quarterly one-to-one interview with my manager too, which was dull. She had nothing but good things to say about me though, which is always a morale booster. I did have to bite my tongue a bit when she was talking about how to take things forward in the future. What made it worse was that she sidetracked onto a story about a time in her last job when she knew a load of people were being made redundant. She hated having to talk to everyone about the future with a straight face, knowing that they in fact had no future. Oh if only she knew... Discreetly broke the news to Alice, one of my workmates who, whilst being quite upset to see me go, agreed that it was the right move. We’ve made a pact not to lose touch which I intend to keep as she’s one of only a couple of people there that I really like. Charlie’s away all weekend at Graham’s. He’s taking his car back to the garage again after something else has broken on it. I can’t help feeling slightly smug at the amount of times his £2k+ car has been returned to the garage in the 3 months he’s owned it, after he ranted that he wanted to spend more on a car so that he could “rely on it”. I’ve had my £350 motor 10 months and 12000 miles now and not a thing has gone wrong with it. *beam* So this weekend I have the unenviable job of clearing out all the crap from the cellar and elsewhere in the house so that there is room to move my new tenant and associated furniture (and cats) in next weekend. I’ll have to kick my own arse to do it as well. Normally I get sick of housework after the hoovering... I should probably go to bed, really.
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Drying out
Blimey what a hectic Thursday. Didn’t go to work today - to be honest I probably would have done if I’d felt up to it but I still felt pretty lousy when the alarm went off at 8.30 so I called in sick, rolled over and went back to sleep. I ignored the phone ringing a couple of hours later. If my boss wanted to speak to me, I’d call her when I got up. Finally crawled out of bed at midday and listened to my answerphone message. It was Vince from the agency. “The job is yours. End of story.” - Of course it wasn’t end of story - you don’t expect anything to run smoothly do you? As well as wanting to know when I can start, they can’t get me any written offer until Monday when the MD is back in the office. So there’s no way I’m risking handing in my notice until then! That’s fair enough though - they knew at the interview I’d have to give 30 days notice. I’ve a strong feeling that ntl won’t want me to work my 30 days, but if they do, then so be it. What was more alarming was that apparently neither of my referees were contactable. Dan, my first referee, has apparently just sodded off on a skiing holiday for two weeks. Great. On the bright side, the agency did get to speak to him earlier in the week, so he is going to tell Raven that he would have given me a good reference! Vince also told me that the contact information for my second referee, Dave, was out of date, and his telephone number was invalid. Great! So an afternoon of scrabbling about trying to contact Dave ensued. I had the mobile number of one of his friends who I hadn’t spoken to in years, and an old, probably dead, email address. To cut a long story short, I did manage to get in touch with him, so I passed his new details on to Vince. Of course Vince can’t get hold of Steve (the guy who interviewed me at Raven) now. This could just run and run... The landlord didn’t drop the tenancy agreement in as promised so I gave him a call. He told me that he’s been busy over the other side of Leeds so won’t get chance to drop it off until Friday (fortunately not a problem as it turns out). He decided to take the opportunity to tell me we were “due for a rent increase” as well. Marvellous. I knew we’d end up paying for that new boiler sooner or later. As it happens he’s only putting it up an extra £10 per week so I don’t know why he bothered! I was more upset that he suddenly had a go at me about the state of the garden. Now while I admit it’s not going to win any awards, it’s relatively tidy considering. I took particular umbrage when he said I’d “done nothing to the garden in two years”. Now I’m sorry - but for the past two summers I’ve hauled a lawn mower round, weeded and dug the borders, and trimmed the hedge! I managed to wear out one lawnmower on the huge back garden in fact. There’s a bit of crap at the back from when I last trimmed the hedge which I’ve not taken to the tip yet, but it’s January for God’s sake! Hardly optimum gardening weather! And I don’t get that much opportunity to do the gardening when I’m not working. I mean, really! Kevina called round for tea tonight. I was feeling a little more human by late-afternoon so I cooked. We did the belated Christmas present exchange, and she announced that it was less than a month to her birthday so she’d soon be opening presents all over again! Sake... We’ve arranged to go out again for some valentine’s day club night next month, which should be good. I used to regularly go out on a Thursday night with Kevina so I’m looking forward to starting again. Looks like I’m back at work tomorrow. I was guilt-tripped into it slightly when my boss called me to ask the likelihood of my return, as she’d have to cancel someone’s day off if I wasn’t back, we’re so short staffed. Oh dear... they’re gonna be stuffed when I quit! So a day of discreetly clearing out my desk and getting my things in order tomorrow then...!
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Achey death
Ugh.
I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday. (It is Wednesday, right?)
5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, while sitting at work, I suddenly felt the opening snivvles of what was to quickly turn into the evil achey snivvly death. I’d suspected this was coming on for the past couple of days as my nose had been itching (a sure sign), plus everyone else in that disease-ridden office has been coughing and barking and snivvling. January office aircon syndrome, clearly. Everyone goes away to the four corners of the country to visit family and friends over Christmas, drink to excess, pick up every germ going with their weakened immune systems, and then return to work to breathe it into the air conditioning.
So I called in sick this morning. I don’t actually like calling in sick, because everyone thinks you’re just skiving, but I would have been no use to anyone. I don’t understand these draconian sickness policies that some employers have that make you feel obliged to go to work, invariably spreading your disease to everyone else and making them ill too. Yeah - that’s productive... This now means that I have had three periods of sickness in a twelve month rolling period, which means that I’ve got a disiplinary interview (yeah - seriously!) to look forward to when I get back. I’m sure that can’t be legal - but it’s only serving to work against them because I’m not going to go in tomorrow either. What the hell - if I’m going to get a bollocking for it, I might as well make it worth my while and get to see two editions of Countdown!
I don’t really care anyway - with any luck I’ll be telling them where to stick their job next week. I might even draw them a map...
Speaking of which, I’m sure they’re trying to torture me. After hearing nothing from the agency on Friday I decided to call them myself on Monday morning before work. Vince at the agency told me that he hadn’t heard anything yet, and was going to give them a call later that morning and he’d let me know. Later that afternoon I had an answerphone message from Vince telling me that, whilst I am apparently “the chosen one” (do I look like Luke bloody Skywalker?), they still can’t give me a definite answer as the MD of the company is still on holiday until next Monday, although he is apparently picking up his emails. They did ask my permission to approach my referees though, which is promising. And they said they’re not bothered about approaching my current employer which is an added bonus. The waiting is just killing me though...
Finally spoke to Riche this evening and had a good long chat. We keep going through these little periods of not talking to each other, not because we don’t want to, but because we’re both as crap as each other at doing these things. He’s had the achey death these last few days as well, so mine must be a sympathy thing. We talked about when we’re next going to see each other, but didn’t come to any particular conclusions, mainly due to the hectic January I have ahead of me, so I’ve promised I’ll let him know as soon as I work out what the hell’s going on and he can book some time off work.
Ugh - I feel like someone’s shoved a quilt up my nose.
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Sunday bloody Sunday
So much for an early start and getting things done... I rolled out of bed at almost midday. Oops.
Charlie’s away at Graham (his better half’s) til tomorrow so today’s plans involved tidying the house (which has been somewhat neglected since Christmas) and seeing my mate Al (which would either involve me going to Huddersfield or him coming here). I got as far as the washing up before Al knocked at the door to whisk me off to the hell that is the White Rose Shopping Centre.
Now for those who aren’t familiar, the White Rose Centre is a relatively recent indoor shopping complex in Leeds, not too far away from me at all. What’s strange about it is that, considering it’s the only one of it’s type in Leeds (I’m not counting the handful of little malls dotted around the city centre), it’s TINY. I mean - come on - Leeds is hardly a small city - and White Rose was only opened in 1997 or something. Compared to Sheffield’s Meadowhall, Manchester’s Trafford Centre, or Gateshead’s (excellent) MetroCentre, the White Rose Centre is barely a blip. Not that it stops everyone swooping on it come sale time. And that just makes it UNBEARABLY crowded.
Al and Charlie (his girlfriend - not to be confused with Charlie my housemate - do try to keep up 
) really only had the one mission which was to find a decent universal remote control in the sales. We failed. Something of a familiar trend at White Rose. The three of us tried an evening of late night Christmas shopping there a few weeks ago and left equally empty-handed. I tried to salvage the situation by looking for a language course (New Year resolution 3) in the WHSmith sale. Of course what were the only things not reduced at all...?
Was good to see Al again though. We were best mates when I lived in Huddersfield, and I’m afraid we drifted apart slightly when I moved to Leeds, which was probably my fault. I’ve made far more of an effort to see him a lot more in recent months though. I hardly have an excuse. It’s 20 minutes door-to-door if I put my foot down.
Still not spoken to Riche, although to be fair to him this was more my fault than his. I didn’t call him in the end last night as I had a few things to do and before I knew it it was nearly 10pm and I was done in, requiring nothing more stressful than The Poseidon Adventure on DVD and a mug of Horlicks. I texted him and asked if he would be around today instead. He said he would be.
Of course he wasn’t. He was at a friend’s all night. He’ll be in tomorrow though... Oh well.
So I spent a lazy evening watching the new series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet on TV and generally slobbing about. Well after all that’s what Sundays were meant for!
Right - bedtime. It’s D-Day tomorrow. I should find out about that job. I’ll be ringing the agency first thing - sod waiting for them to ring me... 
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Dull
Euch. What a rotten day. I slept in outrageously (causing me to have to hurtle to work without a shower and a shave and only a slurp of coffee and a mouthful of Ricicles to fuel me up) and then proceeded to have the most annoying day at work imaginable. Annoying not only because it was a Saturday, but also because it started off really quietly (meaning it went really slowly) then suddenly ballooned out of control so I was run off my feet. All that combined with the knowledge I’ve only got one day off before I’m back again. Gah. Finally some communication from Riche (my better half) after not hearing a peep since Xmas day. Apparently he misses me. Bless. Clearly doesn’t miss me enough to text me more than once a week or answer my calls. Maybe I’m being paranoid but I remember when we spoke on a daily basis. Once again I fear the strain of a long distance relationship is beginning to show. I’ve seen it all before. It’s like Groundhog day. *sigh* I’m cold, and I ache. So I’ve just run myself a nice hot bath with some of the funky essential oil bath milk thingies that Charlie (housemate) got me for Christmas in them. Time to unwind and let it all just float away. Then I’ll probably give Riche a call and see if he answers this time. Would be nice if he phoned me now and again mind...
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Crappy New Year
First “real” day of the new year today. I’m not counting yesterday as it was far too hungover to be taken seriously. And I spent the majority of it either sleeping or travelling back to Leeds.
So - new year - and with it many resolutions which I intend to last more than the first week. This is the first one - what better time to start blogging just as it stops becoming cool? It’s a cunning plan, see. People won’t think I’m jumping on the bandwagon!
I hate this part of the year. It’s such a downer after the festivities. Everything seems to build up to a celebratory crescendo at New Year and then *bang* it’s all over. Back to work, nothing to look forward to but cold, crappy weather and the realisation that you polished off the last of your January pay on Christmas Eve... Still - had a great (if busy!) week travelling all over the place and visiting lots of people. The New Year party piss up at Owen’s was a blast. Drank myself into absolute oblivion (Veuve out of paper cups at midnight was a comedy-highlight) and saw a load of people I haven’t seen in an age. I was (relatively) good too... 
I so didn’t want to go to work today. My stomach’s still felt queasy all day, and I could tell it was going to be a long one. On the plus side, we were all told we could go home two hours early because it was so quiet. On the (very) down side, I discovered I was working tomorrow as well. Dammit.
I was expecting a call from the agency today about a job I had a couple of interviews for before Christmas. I had an answerphone message on Christmas Eve from the agency saying that, while the company were unable to confirm for definite until 2nd Jan when the director was back, it looked very much like I was going to be offered the job. So a complete lack of any phone call today was slightly worrying. So worrying in fact that by 2pm I was on the phone to them. No answer. So I’m assuming they’re not back until Monday - joy - ANOTHER weekend to worry about it!
I so hope I get it. This is resolution two you see. If I have to stay at nt-hell much longer I’m quite sure I’ll go quite, quite mad.
Finally got round to ringing the landlord to check it was okay for me to move a new tenant in to replace the outgoing one. Since it’s only just over two weeks away, it’s probably a good job he said yes!
I’m so organised, me.