T'eyla Minh

This entry sat on my work PC for a bit because I kept forgetting to email it home, but as it’s mostly still relevant I have amended it somewhat and will post it anyway…

As of last Monday, I have a line manager! On phased return for two weeks and only sorting out emails and PDR's, but nevertheless she is back, which should mean those few loose ends will finally get sorted (like a key for my pedestal so I can bring my two carrier bags of crap back to work).

I'm actually really enjoying this new job, despite the initial month or so of glitches and frustration and IT failure. I'd forgotten how much I actually enjoyed CP work when I was doing it before - Sandra-gate and all that aside - possibly because the final few months at Legal kicked any and all job satisfaction out of me. But yeah. I'm not waking up in the mornings with that sense of cold dread, having to drag myself out of bed and over to Woodcock Street for another seven-point-three hours of awful soul-destroying job-hating horribleness.

Don't get me wrong: I still hate mornings (all the more so as I'm actually getting up early, imagine that!) and would still much rather be in bed than on the bus (in the NEVERENDING FRIGGING RAIN) but it's definitely refreshing to not hate every single second of what I'm doing.

There is one vaguely work-related thing that I wish I could moan about, but despite my not even being involved in it I'm still sworn to secrecy until some point later in the year. Which sucks in itself because I really need to rant about it, and I can't. It has nothing to do with this job or even the Council, per se, but yeah. Cryptic sidenote is cryptic.

Also: the people here are awesome. As part of the Professional Support Services restructure we all had to state our preferences on which "hub" we wanted to work out of, so obviously we all put Lifford as first choice. Last week the confirmation came through of where we'd be based, using the phrasing, "You have been assimilated to Lifford House hub," and within five minutes people were making Borg jokes. In the Legal support pool that reference would have gone completely over their heads and my pointing out that "Resistance is Futile" would have dropped like a lead balloon.

On Friday I also received two (verbal) compliments on my minutes from two separate Chairs, one of whom subsequently emailed my line manager. They were both saying how nice it was that they barely had to make any amendments and one of them said my Legal background was obvious because of my language use. So that was nice. (I should also point out at this point that all of the Chairs so far seem like genuinely lovely people and are all that particular breed of insane that emerges from child protection-related work.)

So, right at the point where I'm settled and getting on with the people and thinking I could really do well in this job? That's the point where Legal Services decide to advertise the frelling Legal Assistant post on Internal Recruitment.

( Cut for moaning. )

In other news: I've been writing JC fic again after a brief dry patch (resulting mostly out of the new job making me exhausted and/or ambivalent for the first few weeks) - another episode tag done ("€œTime Waits for Norman"€) and its corresponding "€œX Times"€ version, plus another two stories currently on the go which are refusing to cooperate -€“ a post-Easter Special angstfic and another post-ALTAF story (fluff/angst/all the good stuff). My JC/POTO crossover is also brewing away and I'€™m hoping when we get to series 3 the opening for it will become clearer; I know vaguely what I want to do but am waiting for inspiration to strike!

The Doomfic also has a title now, thanks to Snow Patrol€'s "€œMake This Go on Forever"€-€“ namely "€œThe Final Word"€, which sums it up quite scarily well. As ever, I need to stop avoiding that story and start giving it more attention; at some point I am actually going to run out of episodes to tag and then I can no longer put it off. :P

Anyway, over and out for now. Hopefully I will not revert to form and change my mind about the Legal Assistant stuff at the very last second (heh) but I will update whatever happens!

I'm only doing a three-day week, y'see. My goal for my three-day week is to finally drag my flex into a sensible negative, and seeing as I got in at 8.25 this morning (because Paul had a meeting at 8.30 so we both left early) I should be able to gain an hour if I leave at 5.15 - assuming I have anything to do, that is. (David is out at a meeting all morning and there's barely anything in typing either.) I'll get my standard 7.18 hours for Thursday and Friday so anything over and above that for the next couple of days is a bonus, basically. :)

Yesterday was deathly boring, but thankfully I've got just enough writing energy left to see me through. ( Fandom Stuff, as ever. )

In other news, I've been thinking how to tackle Lisa's rainbow birthday cake and I have a pretty good idea how to achieve it. Probably the easiest thing is to make a double-batch of cake mix (so four eggs / 8oz ingredients), weigh it, divide it into seven and colour each bowlful separately, then essentially bake seven different cakes and stick them together. Works in theory, whether it works in practice remains to be seen...

The whole thing is going to get covered in chocolate fudge anyway, so as long as the layers look neat on the inside I'm not too worried about the outside - assuming it doesn't collapse under its own weight, obviously. That being said, not sure on filling - chocolate spread? Nutella? Marmelade for a chocolatey-orangey flavour? Answers on a postcard...

Right, this has killed the morning, at least. Hopefully I'll have something to do after lunch.

Yesterday was mildly ridiculous.

As a reminder, on Wednesdays I wear my Legal Assistant hat. Thankfully the network was up and running again (after being dead as a dodo on Tuesday), but we are still missing a laptop and Sukhwinder was due in, so I couldn't use her desktop. Naz said I could use Natasha's, as she wasn't coming in, and I'd no sooner got set up when Natasha arrived (heavily pregnant, in the snow), so I had to log out and give it back.

We then searched fruitlessly for the keys to someone else's pedestal so I could use theirs, to no avail. David happened to be sitting at that particular desk yesterday and suggested we should set up a base unit on one of the agile desks for me and Gaynor to use, and just label the desk accordingly as a non-agile agile desk. So I went to find Marvin to ask him - he agreed to find a base unit, but then there was no spare desk to use. He found me an old HP laptop (all of ours are Lenovo) and set me up on Lotus Notes, which subsequently took ages to load. Then the IKEN upgrade kicked in, threw a wobbly because Notes was still trying to load, so I restarted.

And then had to sit there for another half-hour whilst Windows updated. I finally got logged in around 11.15am, two hours after I got to work.

Aside from that it was a good day - Naz gave me plenty to do (though Jas was quite put out that she didn't get to "have a go" - her words!), including a police disclosure request, statement requests, creating a case plan and updating a bundle. Quite varied yesterday. Still don't think I could do it all the time, though. Notwithstanding the stressful morning (not being able to do anything is one thing, but when it's completely beyond your control it's horribly frustrating), I now finish work on Wednesdays absolutely shattered, presumably because my brain is working harder than usual.

I suspect this will be the case for a couple of months when I've started the new job, too, having said that. CRB stuff is sorted, now just waiting on both that and the medical checks to clear, then I can hand in my notice. THEN, I can let people know and start organising a leaving lunch / drinks.

Oh yeah, and for some reason my fingers have started peeling, so now I'm trying to work out when I was stressed enough to have caused it. There was that photocopying-related stress last week, but I can't imagine that being why. Most odd.

( Fandom / Writing Stuff. )

Of course, work is conspiring against me by being uncharacteristically busy. :P The day definitely passes quicker doing Legal Assistant work, that's for sure...

So, I've been shortlisted for the CPR Admin job, and have a minute-taking test on 30th November. If that's successful then I get an interview.

Paul's mate Jenny will be the umbrella manager for the entire of Children's Business Support when she returns from maternity leave and she reckons I'll wing it, but obviously I'm not going to go into it expecting miracles. I need to start applying for Gr3 posts outside of Legal Services, and I might as well start with one I know I'm more than capable of doing; if I don't get it or choose not to go for it, I'll at least have the relevant application/interview experience under my belt.

( Meanwhile, other things are occurring. )

So, things are getting interesting, if nothing else!!

I sent off the job thingy this morning, after going through pros and cons this weekend of both my current job and the Legal Assistant one. I have nothing to lose by trying. Having an interview and then thinking about whether or not to accept it is not really an option because of the tight timescales (interviews will be tomorrow, with the person starting on Wednesday), but we'll see what happens.

If it hadn't been for having to email the expression of interest this morning, I wouldn't even be in today, as my back is in pieces. I have no idea why, seeing as I didn't do anything this weekend which might have aggravated it. Friday was spent on the sofa, as was Saturday, and all we did yesterday was hang some pictures to clear a shelf in the bedroom - and even then, Paul did most of the hammering and climbing on chairs. All I can think is that the decision to actually go for the job was a de-stress reaction, as my back does tend to flare up as a result of things like that. But yeah, it suddenly started hurting yesterday about 2.00pm, co-codamol is doing nothing, and I might well go home at lunchtime and lie on the sofa with my wheat-bag again. I was tempted to take Valerian last night... might try that tonight and see what happens. I can't afford to be off sick tomorrow either given there may be an interview happening - hopefully it won't clash with Caroline's maternity leaving lunch as that would be irritating... especially since, you know, if I get this job Tuesday will be my last day sitting with South Team.

Er, yeah, anyway, I will stop projecting possible outcomes. In other news, I had yet another POTO story idea this morning. I blame listening to the Crawford/Streisand "Music of the Night" duet on my MP3 player mostly for this, although frankly it could be the painkillers. :P

( Cut because you're not interested in any more of these insane concepts, I'm sure. )

It would have been nice if all these story ideas could have come in a slow trickle rather than hurling themselves into my brain like bloody lemmings. :P

In other other news, now that I've reached the end of my PDR year, GodSquad has taken back the job of tidying up the IKEN contacts. She's just sent an email saying she's going to try and get rid of the duplicated addresses. HAHAHAHA good luck with that. If I didn't have time to do that then I'd love to know why she does, considering the reason I took the job off her in the first place was because she didn't have time!!

In any case, her email is a stark reminder of why I was job-hunting in the first place. So, thanks for reassuring my decision, GodSquad. :P

This is not work moaning, more, erm... mockery? I dunno. :P My colleagues have caught Stupid Plague this week. It must be the heat.

( In no particular order... )

We have to laugh or we would cry go on a screaming rampage with bazookas.

I haven't been able to update much this week because Paul and I are renewedly attending the gym, which is obviously eating a lot of time. We went on Monday and Thursday night, plus swimming on Sunday morning, which is our new regime.

The plan this time is to book a holiday for September in advance with the hope that it'll be an adequate incentive to lose the weight. Let's see how successful that is, eh?

( Bit of a work moan - well, it's been a while. :P )

( Boring Gym Bunny Stuff )

Embroidery-wise, I have two more pictures to post later on. They would have come sooner but I had to re-order the thread (again) because it ran out. I think this is a direct result of having lost the original thread list and the online pattern being very slightly different, but in any case, the ordered thread ended up being a different shade to that I'd already used, so I had to unpick what I'd already done and start again. Anyway, I got through two shades yesterday so will post those later.

I'm also going to do a Facebook album at some point of my various completed stuff, as I've been working through some of the half-finished bits in the footstool that my mum gave me and some are now done, in addition to what I already have framed, etc., and it would be nice to have a record somewhere. :)

Oh yeah, that was the other irritating thing. I ordered some apparently "wide calf" biker-style boots from eBay as in the picture they looked promisingly roomy. I couldn't pick them up from the depot until Saturday, and it transpires my definition of "wide calf" and that of the seller differs by about four inches. Also the boots weren't as good quality as they appeared in the picture (they were faux-leather anyway, but still) as they had no proper 'tongue' to speak of because it was all sewn together. Annoying because the foot part of the boot actually fit perfectly, for a change. So I'll be sending those back for a refund. I will keep searching, and actually measure my calves so I know what to go for. Some sellers are actually nice enough to specify the width measurement. (Although I am irrationally annoyed by them still being photographed on skinny models; clearly we can't be having fatties modelling them, can we? /bitter)

After the post depot we decided to get the shopping from Dudley rather than Bearwood for a change, and ended up spending £25 in Wilkinson. :P Some of it was stuff we actually needed, though (a hook for the bedroom door, a self-adhesive one for the bathroom, a new kitchen drainer, some tall glasses and a funky new bathroom set). We had a sharer in the Wetherspoon's which was actually really nice (either they're still using up the "Christmas chips" or they've changed them forever; I hope the latter. :D) I am tempted to try their other food now to see if it's as good.

Okay, I think this is quite long enough. Nearly lunchtime (chicken sandwiches om nom) so I'll post this and wait for the man to finish fixing the printer so I can collect my transcript. :P

There is literally nothing to do today. There's barely anyone in from South Team and no typing coming from anywhere else either.

I am semi-seriously job hunting lately, though unable to do so at work because our internet is failing to load 90% of pages these days (we're still stuck with IE6, for God's sake). ( Rambly ramble )

Oh, I'll do a health update whilst I'm here. It turns out I wasn't off with gastro-enteritis, but yer actual food poisoning - campyllobactyl or something like that. I had a letter off Sandwell Environmental Health over the weekend. I didn't actually ascertain how I would get my test results as the surgery didn't advise me, and I meant to go in to find out - so now I don't have to. Seeing as the chippy around the corner - where I had the somewhat dodgy chicken kebab that caused the said food poisoning - is normally really good, I'll let it slide as a one-off. I think the fact that I was already exhausted and run down probably made things worse than they should have been.

Now I just have to contend with the fact that my arse still hurts from when I fell. I'll give it a few more days and then probably go to the GP in case my tailbone is broken. I don't think there's anything they can do about it except give me a special cushion but sitting down all day at work is becoming quite painful. :( Especially when there's nothing to do and no chance to get out of my bloody chair...

Anyway, it's now lunchtime. Over and out.

I meant to do this last night but had lots of photographs to post on Facebook so didn't have time. :P (If you're interested, there are pictures up now of our trip to Dudley Zoo and the four days in Paris.)

I have two other things to update about in the meantime; tonight I will attempt to get some of the Fandom for February backlog under my belt just to get it out of the way. :P

( Recipe: Turkey Roulade Tapenade )

Now a minor, petty work annoyance, briefly mentioned on Twitter, in the form of ( Cake Rivalry )

After the Farmers / Arts Market, Paul and I headed into Birmingham for translucent's leaving drinks. We went to Las Iguanas first because I wanted Mexican food, where we made a headstart on cocktails before heading to Island Bar for the drinks in question.

Despite drinking about six or seven cocktails, I was actually surprisingly not drunk, just absolutely shattered. We left about ten-ish and managed to convince a taxi driver to cap the fare at £12.00 (bonus!). I think perhaps the highlight of the night was catching up with Clare as I haven't seen her since... wow, I was still at uni. Maybe about eight years? So that was lovely because she hasn't changed in the slightest. I tried to convince her to join CBC, also. ;)

On Sunday we mostly did nothing. I had a migraine kick in right as EastEnders started, which was a pain, but thankfully the Migraleve didn't mong me out so I was able to set the Wii up on our new wireless broadband (WOO!) without any fuss, then spent the evening after dinner catching up on overdue internet-related admin. :P I do still owe Eni some Thoughts, so I'll try and tackle those tonight. :)

I think that's about it. Hopefully updates will now be more forthcoming and regular, rather than every two weeks.

Well, it's been a while...

( Once again that quote from Scar is oddly appropriate... )

I know it's petty. Thankfully Forgetful has been off this week so I've not had to contend with her moody-arsed attitude. The IKEN thing is seriously pissing me off, though. If anyone had actually said anything then perhaps it might be okay, but the sense of being forgotten about is disconcerting and worrying.

I wasn't really in the mood for the gym yesterday and was quite stroppy about silly things like not being able to find a pair of 2kg dumb-bells and the step for the step-ups being too high, but the good thing about weights machines is you can imagine, for example, that you're crushing someone's head between your legs. :P Subsequently I wanted comfort food for dinner so we went to the chippy and ruined all the effort. And this morning I felt a bit sick so that just made it an even worse decision.

To make matters worse, there was a spider on my desk earlier. Only a little one. I squashed it under a Pret napkin and scraped it into my bin, and then spent the next hour or so feeling paranoid, with over-sensitive and tingly skin. Stupid phobia. I'm getting better at dealing with the actual bugs, in retrospect (I didn't shriek or ask for help), but the after-effects are the same as ever. I'm guessing they're a delayed reaction...

I might get some lunch from the food festival today... Just wish BCC had put it on for longer than ten days, the skinflints...