Saturday, November 26, 2005

music!

OK I'm being officially rubbish at blogging aren't I? Sorry.

Tell you what, go listen to some really fantastic music while you wait for me to stop being so busy.

:)

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

update

I've been shockingly remiss at blogging of late haven't I? my appologies folks I'll endeavour to do better in future.

As it happens for the past week and a half I've been doing a pretty bad job of most everything... except my job, which is still all new and shiny and which I'm still loving! Even though (or possibly because?) it can be quite demanding, and is making me really quite tired most evenings (and thus bad at almost everything else, like keeping in touch with people - sorry about that.) It's a good kind of tired though. A sort I haven't felt in a long time.

So what am I doing that's making me all tired and happy? I'm working as a Desktop Publisher for an investment company, "Scotland's leading independent investment manager" according to their website and I can well believe it. Inevitably there's a certain rose tint to my view of the place just now, but I really like working there on all sorts of levels. Not least being the corporate culture of the place which is pleasantly relaxed and grown-up, lacking a lot of the company characteristics and management mannerisms that frustrated me in certain past employers. For one thing it doesn't feel like an institution. Only one regular bell sounds during my working week (the fire alarm test), there are no mass migrations of teenagers (or anyone else) every 45 minutes, I can (and do) chat with my colleagues while I work, and I don't have to tell anyone to do anything (least of all to be quiet!) which is blissfully liberating and keeps me from feeling like a grouchy git.

I love working in the city centre, and being properly in Edinburgh every day (as opposed to being shut in a silent room in a stuffy building in Morningside) is amplifying my already growing need to move back there. Soon. That said the commute is really no less arduous than before (1hr 10min each way usually) and is generally shared with my fantastic housemates - we've even kitted the cars out with a shared bike papoose so that each of them can piggyback Justin's beloved Caliban at the same time as a full compliment of passengers. Brilliant!

At present my contract is for maternity cover until mid April, so life has direction but also a sense of freedom in future possibilities. Career-wise I get to spend the next 6 months icing the cake of DTP experience which I slow baked between June '01 and June '05, and which (un-iced) appeared less enticing to potential employers than it seems it deserved to. That little bit of insight right there is probably my favourite thing about my new job: I got it on merit, and I'm good at it! I beat four other candidates at interview, and while it's still early days all the feedback I've had so far says I'm doing a damned good job. Better even than that, I get to do work that I love and am good at, and which I can already see myself improving at. There's space in this role for me to stretch my skills and learn new things, and (with hindsight) running out of that space, more than all the bells and bureaucracy is what frustrated me so painfully in my work life over the past couple of years.

-

On a semi-related note, obsevant visitors will have noticed that the 'work' section of splateagle.com is under virtual dust-sheets. I'm not yet 100% sure what's coming there, or exactly when... but the little glimmers of ideas I've had for the revised section are interesting so if you're so inclined feel free to watch that space.