2 weeks to go to my judgement day!

Well, I've had time to let things sink in, and in the meantime just been getting on with usual day to day things. Work has been.... different, since the redundancy's have been announced but I think that was expected. What have I been doing? Well to say that I haven't been looking for another job would be lieing. I think 90% of the department have been looking with 2 people already handing in their resignation I guarantee you that number will rise in the next week or so. So, my mind is at rest with everything, not because I am not worried about being made redundant, I think that my options are not limited in the least if I am made redundant and it's far from the end. Very far... which kind of defeats the dramatic effect of me calling this post "....my judgement day" when... well, frankly, it's just another day. Just so happens I might not have a job at the end of it!

Those of you not in to gadgets may want to skip the next paragraph

On to happier things, I managed to get an upgrade from them nice people at Orange on my contract. I am now a proud owner of the Orange SPV M2000. The main reason I got a pocket PC/PDA is because of the added bonus of... well everything. This thing is like carrying my laptop around. Only cooler. To check out the full spec click here. For the lazy people, my favourite features are (in no particular order): full pull-down qwerty keyboard, windows mobile, and Wi-Fi enabled. The best part about it however is the applications available for it. It comes with all the usual windows apps such as word, excel, pdf viewer, outlook and even MSN messenger. But you can download freeware software such as DivX viewers, system applications that add to the use of the phone. I got hold of TomTom Navigator(Sat Nav program) and bought a GPS receiver from E-bay and a 1GB SD card. So now I have 1GB of storage for music, files, and whatever, and a sat nav system for next to nothing. Now before some of you say, but why didn't you just get a Nokia, you can get TomTom for smartphones as well, my answer is.... because I didn't want to. I can open a pdf doc, make changes to my CV on pocket word, draw up an excel spreadsheet, then surf the net (Wi-Fi hotspots I love 'em!!!)... and when I've done that, I can find my way home using the sat nav and watch a full divx movie if I get bored, all from one phone (and remember it is a phone, so I can also, make and receive calls on it!!!). I've just uploaded episodes of The Simpsons and Lost on to it and they run fantastic. I love this piece of kit. If I had to say a bad thing about it, they would be, the camera on it sucks compared to some new phones out at the moment, like the K750i, but then again, thats what the k750i is designed for. And also, the software (being Windows) is shakey at times. I still think it's awesome.

Those of you who skipped the above can start reading again from here... you see how good I am to you? You don't even have to think!!! :)

What else have I been up to apart from getting excited over a phone? You have been warned before, I can be a geek at times. Well, the company went paintballing yesterday. It's the second time I've been paintballing, but the first time I've been to where we went yesterday. It's called Campaign Paintballing, and if anyone down south is thinking of organising a paintballing outing, you have to check this place out. For those of you who don't know what paintballing is, it's fun, it can hurt, but it's worth it. You shoot paintballs at your opponent with very high powered guns. Paintballs travel at about 150-200mph, so there's no dodging them. Anyway, we won against another 6 teams I think it was. We started off slow, but then we got in to the swing of working as a team and getting the job done, with immaculate conviction even if I do say so myself. 2 games in a row, we won the flag, completed objective, and wiped out ALL of the enemy team. We played 8 games in total, with the last two hurting the bloody most. But like I said, you haven't been paintballing till you have a few bruises to show for it. There should be some photo's floating around and as soon as I get my hands on them I will definately be posting them.

So, other than the odd Pro-Evo night at a friends, going to London and general larking around, there is not much else to catch up on. I do want to say a huge thank you to all those people who read this site regularly. I get to see who visits (in terms of from where) and all I can say is it's awesome knowing people from every single corner of the globe read this. I dont know if I know you, or if you just happened to stumble across this site, but either way, its awesome knowing that in 9 months I've had 1211 views. That's about 134 views a month! Excellent stuff.. and please, leave a comment if you want, just so I know who you are!

Okay, so, next time I will be writing, you will know whether or not I get to keep my current job. Exciting stuff this isn't it? ;)

Talk about a flip side.... bad news I'm afraid!

Okay, so here's the crap ending to what seemed like the start of a good week after the Bank Holiday weekend... read on.

Well, I don't really know where to start. Everything, as you all very well know, was going so well. And life in general was moving along very swiftly.... well, until Thursday afternoon at about 3pm. We had a company meeting, where the CEO told us how we the company was doing and what the plans for the future were. This is where the room fell in to a state of shock.... after a rollercoaster of a speech, of where he said something bad followed by something good... the dreaded word... redundancy!!! Now, some people were expecting it, and for some it just came as a huge shock, but for everyone in that room, especially in my department, I think the biggest shock was when the numbers were put up on the screen. I'll cut to the chase, and explain how I'm feeling right now.... I have a one in three chance of keeping my job, if everyone was equally likely to lose their jobs. However, it's not that simple, I have only been working there one month, I know very little compared to others and although I am a programmer, there are better programmers than me. So, saying that, my chances drop from 1 in 3 to... slim/none.

I completely understand what businesses have to do to survive and to expand. Not for one second did I think "how the hell can they do this?". I'm confused as to why they hired people so close to them announcing this, but maybe they (management) know something we don't. It might sound funny but until you've been exposed to business at this scale, it never makes sense as to why redundancy's are just one of them things. It's just a bitch when it happens to you. Most of my department is fairly young and have never had to experience this, the sadder thing is, being young, they have little savings and lots of debts. Mortgages, wedding debts, car payments etc. I am fairly fortunate in that sense, I have no responsibilities to a certain extent, and I certainly don't have any kids or a wife to worry about. Remember when I was looking to buy a house? Well, good job I didn't!

So in a nutshell, I'm upset, I can't help but feel upset, if it's not me who loses my job then it will be someone that I know, someone who I am friends with. If I need to look for another job, then that's what I have to do, I just really like working where I am working... but I think from when I started writing this blog you could have worked that out. Some people are looking at this from a point of view where they see it as an opportunity to try something new, see what's out there. I mean, everything happens for a reason , right? If I hadn't have dropped out of Reading Uni to take a year out, I would never have gone to DMU where I did a placement year and ended up where I am now. So, who knows, if I go, maybe I will get a better job (I don't know how it could be better but...) or maybe, I'll get the opportunity to do something like work abroad. Something I've always really just dreamed off doing and never really thought about it seriously, but maybe this is a good chance to look in to something like that. Oh yeah, and guess when we find out... Monday 10th October... 3 days after my 26th birthday! Looks like I won't be celebrating until after that weekend then!

Well, I guess one thing is good... it makes for interesting reading...

What's going to happen next???

Bank Holiday Weekend

Well, if you're reading this I guess you've probably read the other post that I uploaded today? Well if you haven't you can find it above this one! I thought I would split what I am going to write here and what I wrote there, otherwise it was just a bit too much for one post...

So, Bank Holiday Weekend. Before you get excited and think that I have a lot of stories or anything like that, you're wrong. It's all about the driving that me and a friend did. The weather was awesome, hitting about 27 degrees, we drove from one area to another, chilling out, eating, and enjoying the sunshine. First stop was Windsor. A beautiful little place, with Windsor Castle, some awesome little shops and hundreds of visitors just chilling out in the surrounding parks and areas. From there we went on to Kingston. Again, just loads of people chilling out along the river bank enjoying the sunshine. We visited a funky little milkshake place... but not just a normal milkshake place. Here, you can order a milkshake of just about any flavour. You can make a milkshake out of peanut butter and carrot cake (if you wanted to, although I wouldn't recommend that combo) or just a "normal" shake made from fruit+nut choc topped up with a flake! If you are EVER in Kingston-upon-Thames, then you HAVE to visit ShakeAway Milkshakes.

From here, I can't really remember where we visited, but we passed Hampton Court which is another one of The Queens "houses", and we definately stopped at Richmond Park. And what a place that is. IF any of you have kids or want to organise a picnic or anything like that and live near the M3, then this place is awesome. It's HUGE. "Largest open space in London"... as it says on its website... and trust me, they don't mean by a little bit. At one point, it felt like I was on safari with the views in front of me. Well worth visiting.

After all of that, it was a nice drive back to Fleet ready for a week of work... if only I knew how that was going to turn out! So, I am back in Leicester for this weekend, update my C.V and see what is out there. Meeting a friend from Uni tonight and then tommorow I'm playing in a football tournament. For the first time, I think I'm playing not to win. My cousin has pulled together a makeshift team for the hell of it (which includes his dad and uncle!), I'm quite looking forward to it, it's gonna be funny!

On to part 2... scroll up! Or if you're lazy click here.