It's unofficially officially...
or is it officially unofficially?
I'm being (un)officially (un)officially moved from my current team into another team managed by my second level manager (who use to be my direct manager before the IT restructure a few years ago) in February. It's been mentioned for the last few months since my return from my holidays in October that this would be occurring, leading to my somewhat attitude or lack thereof at work in recent times.

The move came about due to a headcount freeze in the new financial year, with an aim to reducte operational costs. Since there is lack of work in my team the manager decided to "choose" me as the ideal candidate to move into the other team.

The whole business of it being unofficial is that, well, I still have to apply for the role that's meant to be advertised internally. meh. If they really want me (which appears to be the case) then they'll just have to take it as it is. I never got around to fixing up my resume to send to them so that I could get the role. Looks like I won't need to.

Now I have next to no knowledge of what's invovled or the work they exactly do (Mikey?) there but I'm supposedly already been assigned to work on a project!

I'm still in the same quandary that I was in when I first joined. I have absolutely no idea where I can go from here if I were to look externally as I do not have the required experience to do what I want to do. The last 3 years I have used technologies that aren't widely used in the corporate world and it will soon become obsolete in my company once the system I'm working on now is migrated in the next 2 - 3 years! Unless I start from the ground up again then I have no hope of moving forward.

Take two steps back to take one step forward? Time will tell.

Labels: work

*clonk*
So much for leaving early from work. Ended up leaving around 4pm after 11.5 hours at work! Just as I was thinking of leaving at 2:30, few errors appeared in the support queue which I had to go and figure out what was going wrong. If only I left a few minutes earlier......

In other news, the ipod nano I ordered for my sis arrived today! Don't realise how small it really is until you hold it. Felt like I could just snap it just like *that*. Get to play around with it and load some songs on it before it gets delivered to her in the UK heehee.

Labels: holiday, work

*yawn*
Been at work since 0530 this morning to release code for a project I've been working on for the past 12 months. I'm glad that it's now all in and working! I'm sure the rest of the business is too, after spending over $100,000 on it. Noticed a few little problems with bits of it but it shouldn't affect it much now. Can't believe I've been at work for 6 hours and it isn't even noon. Can't wait to get outta here in a couple of hours!

Labels: holiday, work

beeping fun.
I didn't think what I wrote in my previous post would come to fruition so soon. In a space of 24 hours I was paged 6 (!!) times. Once yesterday morning at 4:45am, twice last night at 7pm and 8pm, and 3 times this morning at 2am, 3am and 4am. Talk about initiation.

As you can imagine my body clock is now all outta wack. This morning after the first page at 2am, I was still up when the next one went off. I went to bed around 3:30, struggling to fall asleep, shifting around and trying to get comfortable. After what felt like an eternity when I did manage to fall asleep, the pager starts to beep again. I thought I was stuck in a dream or just having deja-vu. I left it alone for a lil while til I realised it was one of those damn pagers that constantly get louder and louder til you go deaf, so I had to crawl outta bed again. Finally went to bed after 4:30, dont know how long til my damn dog started to bark at some bucket or branch in the wee hours as well. Although it did manage to catch the rat that my dad smacked on the head but ran away on the weekend.

Luckily tomorrow is Friday and I get to handover the support to my work mate. Don't think I'll be missing the pager for a long time. Hope its 3rd time lucky and I won't be paged in the morning. *fingers crossed*

Labels: work

Donkey Kong.
After being in my role for the past 16 months and 2 weeks, albeit having 3 different job titles due to restructure, I am now officially part of the proverbial Support Donkey roster.

Required to carry around a pager and mobile 24x7, getting woken up by a (non-critical) page 3am in the morning, dealing with multiple support queues via inefficient, slowass web pages, producing far too many ad-hoc reports and killing user sessions, all come with the territory.

I just hope that this isn't the beginning of the end of everything else. Watching one of my workmates, who’s been in the team for over 7 years, go through a marriage breakdown, losing custody of his child and kicked out of home, with this support role one of the major contributing factors to the relationship, I just hope that it isn’t going to happen to me (well, something to that affect since I’m not married with a kid or own my own home..). My workmates all comment I'm lucky that I'm young and not tied down in a relationship, but I still have to figure out if that’s a good or bad thing.

One of the positive things out of this role is that I get to learn more of the system than I could during my regular day-to-day tasks. Although since my knowledge of most of the system is next to nothing anyway, I’m gonna have to bug my workmates constantly to figure out any problem that arises. Gotta love being the newest member of the team.

Labels: work

Time flies
It's been 12 months already. This day 12 months ago was the beginning of the end of my freedom. Not knowing what to expect or what I'd end up doing, but here I am.

It doesn't seem that long since I started work. Looking back, I think how I ended up where I am today. Never would I expect to land a job in a company like this, and to now see all the change that's taking place from within. Corporate restructure is a part of life but I'd never imagined it would turn out the way it has. 3 direct managers all gone by the end of the year, re-titled roles (pay rise???), no longer considered a graduate although that had meant jack in the first place.

Funnily enough, its only 12 months later that I'm just halfway through a training course to learn the programming language that our system is built with, and that also means I will end up being rostered as part of the support team next year. FUN!

Who knows what is in store for the next 12 months. I don't know what I want to be doing, just get a feel for what's out there and not get dug into a hole I can't get out of later, which seems a few people there have done.


On another note, it appears we may get another dog. I don't see how we can't cos its just damn quiet without her around. I always have the urge to yell out JACKIEEE when I come home, and stare blankly out the rear door expecting her to be running about and looking in. *sigh*

Labels: life, work

Meeting Room with a view
How many people believe in "signs"? I don't really. No signs to look out for.
Except if today was anything to go by, I think there were some mighty big signs...

Originally, there was a lunch schedule with a few friends (yes you know who you's are... :) and due to the fact some were late *cough*Aja*cough* I had to stick around in the office a lil while longer. Suppose that isn't too bad, but when some people are starving and can't wait.. it's really not good for you. Anyhow, around the time that they were all suppose to arrive for lunch, my manager receives a call from another manager in another department, saying they had a few tickets spare to Bridge Climb that was to start in 45minutes. So he goes around the office asking who would want to go climb... and everyone seem to turn him down. I had to think long and hard on that one (really, I did! :) and of course, who is stupid enough to turn down a free offer to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge? I think my workmates were filled with glee inside that they could get rid of our manager for the rest of the day, and were all pushing for him to go. And yes, me and him were the only ones that went, even though there were 2 tickets to spare. This meant that I was to miss out on lunch, which ended up being no lunch and dinner til 14 hours after I had breakfast. This was very noticable in the lack of energy whilst walking up those arches on an empty stomach. Not that I'm complaining.

The weather today was perfect for the Bridge Climb. Compared to the last few days of chilly winds, today was only a good 9 degrees wind chill at the top, and perfectly sunny, with a few clouds. Damn good photo opps too. The view was magnificent, better than a postcard you could buy in a shop. I'd highly recommend to anyone who is interested in walking it, although its around $160-180pp. I, however, probably wouldn't have done it for the sake of doing it... :)

Now to go back to work on Monday and wonder what I should fill in my timesheet for the 4 hours I was gone. "Meeting" perhaps. Afterall, the photo we ended up with had our company logo plastered along the bottom with another global phone manufacturer's logo... No blatant corporate branding there.

Now if some people hadn't been late or if I had left the office by then, I guess I would have missed this once in a lifetime opportunity. Or not. Show me the way.

Labels: life, work

blogscapades
This is probably why I don't blog at work. Although it never gets as exciting as that.

I'm only getting paid slightly higher than what she gets and if the people I know on that kinda salary did that, boy would that be good to blog about (if I even knew about it...).

See the archived blog posts here. The new blog here. And people wonder why the original blog site disappeared...

Yes, I am bored at work. Just another day at the office, having my lunch and reading the news.

Labels: blogging, work

Let's get the party started..
It's been 3 months already. Doesn't seem like all too long ago that I first started. Finally, my probation period is over - not that it really meant anything, its just as it was before.

Been starting work on one of the major projects at work for a few weeks. We were suppose to start our testing this week, or even earlier, however due to shit planning unforeseen circumstances with our new service provider (which shall remain anonymous, but they are more known as a company with 2 consonants, shortened for the 2 founding members surnames, which acquired another technology firm not too long ago...) it has kept on getting delayed. So now we start Monday. But of course, we would need to stick to our original deadline meaning that we have a week less to do our work in, which as most of the experienced team members said, was a near-to-impossible deadline, even with everything going to plan. So we get told that we're going to have to work for the next 2 weekends and even the Easter long weekend if needed. 14 to 21 days straight. No compensation. Wont even know if we get time in lieu due to more projects lined up after this, so cant afford anyone to take leave - yet. I'm just a low level code monkey (if even), so they shouldn't miss me if I'm not there. Hopefully.

--
And the trains suck.

Labels: work

One Third
of the way through my probation period. Only seemed like yesterday that I first walked through the doors, wondering what lay ahead of me. First job, meeting new people, new faces, new life. I still wonder what I really should be doing in my role - I never really was certain what I was suppose to do, and I guess, I never will be. There will definately be more chances and opportunities to explore further down the track, after the next two thirds are over, and probably in another 12 months time, I will have figured it out. Hopefully.


I started to read Empire of the Sun, like I said I might. Maybe I'll get into my bookworming days again. Been longing to get Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Trilogyto read for some time now, but it never appears to be on sale during the sales. Even though it is cheaper than the 3 separate books combined...I'd been hoping it would get discounted. Guess not. Some day I'll get it. Soon.

Labels: life, work

it's almost time..
9 hours to go and that's it. The end of my freedom. Time to endure the RealWorld for the rest of my life.
And I'm dead beat and sunburnt. Gonna be a great first day I bet.

Only time remaining is the 6 odd hours of sleep I'll get. Fun!

adieu free world.

RealWorld here I come!

Labels: life, work

feelin old n blue
at work the other night, there was a bunch of 30 odd teenagers who happened to be this years Year 12 from my old high school. it doesn't seem all too long ago that i was in year 12, sitting for my hsc but here they were, a few weeks away from their HSC enjoyin emselves and partying hard. looking back... those teens would have been just starting at school in year 7 when i was in year 12... probably being knocked around by us seniors whilst walking up and down between school sites. so much fun back then. aah the good ol days.

this morning went for my first movie marathon in a couple of years. only to watch Tombradier 2: Cradle of Life mainly as agreed to watch with a friend.. so we decided to watch it at a marathon since we havnt been for so long heh. along with Extreme Ops and The Core... which was .. not so enthralling to watch. Extreme Ops skiing + snowboarding was good though .. just thinking what I could do if i ever could do it heehe Being at the movie marathon, around these lil teenies .. making us feel so old.. only a few years ago there would have been masses of teens.. and we would just be amongst em all. . but no more...

so now my updated to watch list...
Bad Boys II, Tombraider 2: Cradle of Life, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (er maybe watch), Underworld (I scored a preview screening next week w000t!!), Kill Bill - Part 1 (and Part 2 probably in 12 months time), The Matrix Revolutions, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Labels: life, movies, work

nothing.
nothing much happening lately. nothing much to post about.
bought 512mb RDRAM PC800. 2x256MB sticks. USD$172. Thats my budget for the month no thanks to my Dell pc with specific upgrades. gah. Duno why I bought more memory, just that my friend went over to the US and I felt like getting something and couldnt think of anything else.
got a cold for the past few days. sore throat. blocked nose. runny. blocked. almost blown off.
marked assignments. iffish about being too harsh and too lenient. almost everyone got 14/20. no complaints.
been 'hired' to do some programming for an online project by friends from uni who set up their own company. sounds interesting. deadline in 2 months. 2 programmers. i'm the 2nd. eek.
aussie idol. what a shocker its been. Guy's been one of the only ones I've favoured each week to get through that actually does (not that I voted or anything...). good on ya australia.
damn google. been watching amazing race and i was just bored and did a search for amazing+race. top of the hits revealed the winner. argh!. spoiled it for the rest of the series. i have a habit of doing that. i 'stumbled' upon the ending of season 1 of 24 few episodes before the final. grr.
was bored nuff to add some links to the right. Liven up ya life ya'll! nothing really interesting. some sites i go visit when i'm bored.
peace.
out.

Labels: life, shopping, tv, work