Stuck on a train…

With no connectivity, so it's not like I can actually do work… I didn't bring my book because I thought this would just be a 30 minute train ride, and, I only get so much amusement from listening to my music. So, instead, I will just start typing this, and upload when I get in. Yeah, as usual, I've been really bad about writing blogs.

I decided that I would take a later train today. (After 9:30, fares are lower. Since they increased rates YET AGAIN today, I thought I would save a couple of quid getting the cheap rate.) Besides, the 9:56 goes directly to Waterloo East, so I don't have to switch. I even checked the stupid Live Departure Boards as I was leaving the house, so that I would know if there were any problems… It turns out that we have "poor rail conditions", whatever the hell that means, and that there was "an earlier fouled train at Norwood Junction". Great. So, I get on the first train that is heading towards the general direction of London. (This was at 10:04.) I don't care where, I can get in from wherever I end up. Bad idea. We waited for about 20 minutes to get into and through East Croydon. Now, we are waiting, outside East Dulwich, to get into London Bridge, which is still 3 stops away. I have very little hope of actually making it into work with time to have lunch before my 13:00 conference call. And I have a ton of stuff to get done, too.

I've gotta feel bad for the train driver, though… He keeps making announcements that get more anxious each time, "We are in a queue, all the way back to here, waiting to get into London Bridge. I apologize for the delay. Hopefully we will be on the move soon…" The poor guy sounds afraid that all the passengers will leap up and beat down his door to kick his ass, as if it is personally entirely his fault. Then again, this is Britain, I guess that is a possibility. All the repression and suppression and passive-aggressiveness can only lead to an eventual rash of outright violence.

That's odd- I've just seen a fox slink past into a mass of briars. You don't usually see them in the day. I wonder if it's hunting the really fat gray squirrel I am staring at in the tree?

So, things have been going ok. I've been trying to get training in where I can. So, I go swimming with Ray twice a week, then one of the times during the week I've been getting on the cross trainer thingy at the gym, plus the rowing machine. At home, I've been riding my bike and running on the treadmill and trying to do yoga in the morning to get stretchy. All in all, it's a bit tough, but I feel good. We are going to go to the tri show in a couple of weeks and look for a wetsuit for me there. There are several open water practice swims in the area that Ray found. We will probably do some of those so that I can get an idea of how it will be to swim in a wetsuit and swim in open water.

Hehehe – The driver has just come back on to say, "No one is moving into London Bridge, and I can't find out why. There is NO movement, I don't know why!" Poor guy.

I think I should see about getting wireless broadband. I would assume that they have that here. As much time as I spend sitting on trains, waiting in airports, just doing nothing because I have no connectivity…

Woo-hoo!! We are moving! I don't think we are actually going anywhere… But after 32 minutes of being in the exact same spot, we've finally approached East Dulwich.

I wonder if I can get a cab…

Learning to say "no"

As anyone who knows me is aware, I work very hard. I put a lot of time and effort into my job, I try to perform beyond expectations and I am proud of what I do. I may have had issues in the past with really crappy management, but not now. At this point, I have a manager who recognizes the hard work I put in and actually thinks I am doing a good job busting my butt for my company.

However, I am in the midst of a really bad customer situation, and actually have been since November or so. So, I am working a lot of hours and even most weekends, trying to get things done for all of my customers, and especially one particular customer. Well, I took this past Thursday and Friday off, as the 17th was my birthday. I repeatedly told people that I would be off Thursday and Friday. Again, and again, and again I told teammates, and crit sit managers, and my manager, and pretty much any one that would listen: "Hey, I am off Thursday and Friday, so I want all business wrapped up by Wednesday."

Wednesday evening I actually did go out with my team and have drinks for my birthday. Kind of proud of that, because, I really don't drink (though I had my 1 rum and coke) and I really don't like being social. But it was actually kinda cool. We went to one place, but it was very loud and had a resident insane old bag lady. So, we went to a pub across the street that was relatively empty. And we sat around and talked and ate crisps and birthday cake and drank assorted beverages, and watched the guys play billiards. I was really happy to see an old co-worker, JT. Though, right now, I must say that JT was absolutely, 100% right - she lambasted me on Wednesday night for agreeing to sit in on a call the next morning. She reminded me that if I caved like that, I was setting a precedent, and people would start to expect it... AND MY MANAGER WAS SITTING THERE AGREEING WITH HER. (It's important later.)

So there was a meeting is that was supposed to take place on Wednesday that was rescheduled for Thursday morning. And it was a call that was to be laden with valuable information that I absolutely need. After debating about this, right before I leave Wednesday, I finally tell the guy who scheduled it, that yes, I will dial in, and I will listen, but I am not taking any actions until Monday.

Thursday morning, I am listening to the results found, I give my feedback, so on. Crit sit manager asks me: "Can you please send a note to the customer about this..." I told him flat out that I would not because I am on vacation... He asks who is covering for me, but there isn't any one to cover for me. It's two days, and I didn't think anything is going to explode over 2 days, so I didn't ask my manager to give my cases to anyone. My manager pops up at this point and says we should assign it to the guy back in RTP. I agree and tell him to forward the info to him. Hang up, all is done. Right?

Well... No. Not long after, my manager (who was agreeing with JT 12 hours earlier) asks if I can cover the 13:00 call for him because he has to go to the doctor. (And, thus, JT is right.) At first I said I could, but the truth is, I AM ON VACATION. Ray and I had planned to go to Sutton to do some shopping and stuff. No, it wasn't anything big or urgent that we had planned, but it is 1) my vacation day and 2) my birthday. So, I told him to have someone else do it. Done. Right?

Friday, I log on to my box to check train schedules, and pidgin automatically starts and connects to gtalk (NOT TO WORK, NOT TO SAMETIME, ONLY MY PERSONAL CHAT) and I get hit with "Hey, L3 guy is being a jerk - he said this..." and she pastes in sametime chat. Ok. Granted, this person is my friend. And I do honestly care about her well-being, both mental and physical. And I don't typically mind her relieving stress and talking about work people, 'cause we both do that back and forth, it's a normal thing with us. But Friday I wanted to relax - Ray and I were going to the Boat Show at the ExCel center. We were trying to get out of the house. If she hadn't said anything at all, I could have just not cared what happened until Monday AM. But, if I know about it, then I MUST take action on it because, in the end, it's my responsibility. So, I have to log onto the laptop, connect the VPN, and look at notes and figure out what is going on. Among the things the person who was "being a jerk" said was, "Did you send the note to this customer regarding the discussion yesterday?" (This was the note I refused to send because I was on vacation.) Well, here I am thinking: 1) She wasn't the one who was supposed to do it - the guy in RTP was and 2) What do you mean no one sent the customer the note? So, I spend a good 3 hours trying to sort this crap out and it turns out that there was stuff that got dropped, the guy in RTP NEVER HEARD ABOUT THIS!, she WAS given the action to do this, but hadn't. I then spent more time giving instructions on what needed to happen than it would have taken for me to do it myself.

And for the record: The guy being a jerk was correct. Maybe his tone was bad, but really, I have that problem myself. But he was absolutely correct. And by her bringing it to my attention, now I am obligated to bring it to management attention that she did something wrong. Which I don't want to do because she is my friend. But it is all blown way out of proportion because of the dislike... No, seething hatred is more like it.... It has all been blown beyond what is necessary because these two people hate one another so much. His first email was not unprofessional, despite what she said, even if his tone was harsh - it was professional. However, her response was unprofessional. Then they kept going, sniping back and forth at one another and copying management. I really do consider both of them friends - I like both people. But one of them understood that it was my day off and one did not. And I am really, really grumpy.

And the moral of this rant is:
When it's your vacation time, just tell people "no".

ANYWAY...
So, at the boat show, Ray and I started looking at real boats. We'd gone mainly for something to do, because I like being on the water, though I know nothing beyond kayaks. So, we are now considering the concept of getting something that is like a trailer/camper, but a boat, and actually sea worthy instead of just suitable for lakes. It would be wonderful to just get away and not be able to be bothered for any reason.

And I have now managed to lose so much weight that, not only are my jeans way too baggy, and I have cinched my belt all the way down, my engagement and wedding rings are loose. Woo-hoo! Ray is right - by the time I do my little sprint distance tri... Yay!

Also, I felt a deep need to mention: We saw Alien Vs Predator Requiem today. Omigod, it was awful. Could it ever have been more stereotypical? Well, I mean, it was cool that EVERYONE died. But that was really it. All the characters were shallow stereotypes. They did exactly what the formula dictated, unlike the first one. Plus, if you are going to chose a location, why Crested Butte? And if you are going to chose Crested Butte, then why not at least try to use some realistic aspect of it... If you can't do that, just make up a place.

Anyway... That's it for now. I am going to go curl up and read something.

Sorry I haven't updated in a VERY long time. Things have been…

Ray got really, really sick over Christmas. He started feeling bad Christmas Eve. Then, by Christmas Day he was flu-like. The next day (Boxing Day) he started vomiting and was running a very high fever. He couldn't keep food down at all. By the 30^th, he wasn't able to even keep down water and he was still running a fever off and on. So, by that evening, he was so dehydrated that I had to take him into the A&E. They gave him a couple of bags of saline, pumped him full of antibiotics and did some blood work. (It turns out the antibiotics were probably useless because it was probably some combination of the norovirus and the flu.) They were concerned about the results of the blood work, so they ended up admitting him for observation, but, of course, that meant moving him to another hospital. I went to visit on New Year's Eve, and he was finally a) hydrated and b) eating c) keeping that food and water down. I managed to convince them that, as it was New Year's Eve, in a country that drinks as much as it does, that they would need the beds in the hospital for other folks, and so, Ray came home. He's been recovering slowly, and is now able to get around a bit, though he gets tired really quickly. He was hit a lot worse than most folks, it seems.

Then, on top of all of that, I've got work stuff that I've been struggling with… One particular customer is eating up large chunks of my time and this is the first day, other than Ray being sick on 31 Dec and 1 Jan, that haven't worked for better than a month now. Then there is the ever-present pressure of trying to give some semblance direction to a global team, and attempting to mediate various disputes between folks who just plain don't like each other and trying to implement changes that would be beneficial for everyone… It is a lot tougher than it seems like it should be. People take offense at things that were never meant as offensive and take it as a joke when it was meant to be an offensive jab to wake them up. It's unprofessional to have to yell at the top of my lungs to stop someone from talking, but I am not going to take shit from someone just because he doesn't want to listen. It was fine in the end – we all talked through it and got somewhere, but at the same time, it should never have gotten to that point.

All this time, on top of all of this, is the normal seasonal kind of depression, so I really feel like that Reel Big Fish song... And trying to deal with people on a personal level at work is a bit difficult. There is only one person there who I talk to on any kind of frequent basis that 1) is my intellectual equal and 2) I actually get along with. (That isn't to say everyone where I work is stupid, just that I don't talk to a lot of people on a personal level. I certainly don't mind talking about unimportant things with folks, and I enjoy brainless chatter sometimes, but I HATE people with uninformed opinions, who can't be bothered to think for themselves…) I find that I am attacking folks I shouldn't be. (I mean, if he's a selfish little child with no sense of responsibility, I shouldn't bother telling him until it actually affects me, right?) And I am having a lot of trouble controlling my temper at work. Oh well, it should get better soon…

Also, one last note: I am going to do the Super Sprint distance of the London Triathlon this year. No, it's not a long distance at all, but it would be the first race I've ever done of any kind. We will see how it goes! Today I need to get new running shoes because my Brooks Addictions just don't last at all…