Courses and work.
Just been told I’m having to take a few days (couple of weeks by the sound of things) out to do some training courses. The upside of which is naturally I get a few more bits of paper to talk abut on my CV, the down side is that a couple of weeks away can be a royal pain in the arse.
Firstly you have time a way from home - a week in the Midlands sounds superb, really it does, sat in some squalid chain hotel room with hot and cold running pillocks next door. Rather than loitering at a flat in which I know where everything I want is, I have an attentive (at least when The Apprentice isn’t on) wife who occasionally tolerates my rather eccentric behaviour and of course a large furrball who makes sure I get out of bed on time.
Secondly I can guarantee that the time I’m off although there are people around to cover stuff by the time I get back there’ll be junk to deal with. Normally a 48 hour limiter on through put on this sort of stuff however anything that is vaguely controversial I am certain will get left in a careful stack on my desk for my return. So two weeks off feathering my CV results almost certainly in three or four fourteen to sixteen hour days.
Oh well, the other curious aspect to all of this is that at the moment the entire client “company” is currently undergoing a fundamental, not to say radical purge. Sorry did I say purge what I of course meant to say was a restructuring in line with a Governmental inquiry. So that there has been and continues to be a freeze on budgets and more importantly any leavers don’t get recycled with new staff being employed. So I’m doubly surprised that they are paying for all of it. Normally they divide the costs between themselves and my company.
I know that my company (got bought out last year by and FM asset stripper) has just now agreed to be acquired by an even bigger FM asset stripper. The difference between the two companies is size and well the vast hulking hole in the new buyers pension scheme, approximately £250 million at last estimates, by comparison to the company being bought, a tiddling £250,000. Other than that I get that cold feeling of being possibly one of the contracts that gets quietly dropped. We certainly don’t employ enough guys to make it worthwhile for a rationalisation and have hung on simply because we are no trouble to the parent company and of course it looks good on their list of clients.
This gives me that backdrop of what the hell is my client doing?
Finally have DVDs of Serenity and House as requested by messrs Malakite and Lapinenoire. If you wish to collect them this evening I may well be in a hostelry near you…