Snow!

Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow! Did I mention that it'd snowed overnight? I think it's a little earlier than last year; we did have a proper snowstorm on Saturday morning, when I ended up doing a very creditable impression of a snowman, but that had mainly all melted by lunchtime. So last night's snowfall was very unexpected, and very welcome. I don't think I'll still be thinking that in a couple of weeks, thoguh.

Oh, and....

As I might have mentioned on Facebook, I am now engaged to Beloved. It's all terribly exciting. We've booked a venue (Comlongon Castle) for the 12th June, and we're planning a very small wedding. But there's going to be a reception to which you're invited. Well, I say a reception; we're actually going to be having three, I think. One before the wedding for her family and friends - I've been hinting about a hog roast; one in Manchester shortly after the wedding; and then finally one in Ottawa for my friends here. Feel free to come along to the one closest to you. Hey, come to more than one if you can manage it. And I use the phrase 'close' advisedly. Bear in mind that from here, you can drive for twenty four hours and still be in the same province, so close is probably slightly different to the way you'd take it. I'll add more details here as we progress. I think we've got a fair grasp of what's required - I think the next important steps are to apply for the actual marriage license, which we can do through the post; and to get a fiancee visa for Beloved. I'm a little bemused that because she's marrying a UK citizen, she needs a fiancee visa to come into the country for the wedding, even though we don't intend to leave in the country afterwards. But we've got a good eight months to go to get all the paperwork in order.

Working weekends

It's Sunday evening; today and yesterday, I spent five hours in the office, working on the new administrative interface that I was taken on to do in March. Well, mainly that; I also did a brief, informal telephone interview with someone who managed to convince me in fifteen minutes of conversation that not only was he eminently unsuitable for the job for which he'd applied, but also that he shouldn't be allowed to develop software on the web at all The main reason for this is that I want to get it finished before the end of the month. Why then, I hear you ask.... Well, that would be because I start a new job on the 3rd. From what I've seen, it looks like an excellent place to work. It's doing web development work for small companies who don't want to do it in-house, so it's varied and interesting work. It's also a quite significant pay increase - I think it works out to be about 60%. The only real downside is that it's on the other side of town, so I'm going to have to start getting up quite early - the bus there only runs every half hour, so I really don't want to miss it. But hey; that's a small problem. I'm very much looking forward to the new job.

I think Tesco has ruined me....

Last Thursday, I was shopping at the local supermarket, picking up some tortillas for my dinner on Friday night. When I came to open them, I noticed that they were actually moldy. Specifically, I noticed that the second one was moldy - I'd already eaten the first one. You can probably imagine how happy I was at this - I threw out the second one, and saw that the next one had a large patch of mold on it. I did check the best before date, and it's still a week or so in the future. So I took them back the next day. And this is where I think Tesco has ruined me. Not only did I not get an apology - you know, for selling me moldy food - but I wasn't even offered a refund. The manager did, kindly, offer to replace them with another pack of the same. Because the first one that I'd bought had worked out so well for me.

Quick work update

Much to everyone's surprise, the chap who was allegedly ill turned up today. Well, he arrived at about 10am, and left before 4pm, and most of the time he was there, he didn't look at all well, but he was in. So I'm not sure what's happening there. (He did spend quite a lot of time explaining that he was worried that the painkillers he's on are too strong, and that he's not used to that because he's never taken drugs. It wasn't exactly a subject I'd brought up, so I don't know why he thought I'd be interested.) I think that one of the admin chaps went off on leave today too - his wife is expecting, so I can't blame him. He's off on paternity leave in January. The one downside to that is he's the one who organises my paychecks, so the already irregular schedule on which I'm paid is likely to get even more irregular. I assume he's the one who'd also be responsible for my actual contract, assuming I'm ever going to get one. The boss is currently with a client until next week (thought I'll note that that hasn't stopped him from calling the landline, thought it was before I got in) so he's not got much time left to get me a proper contract; if I've not had it by the end of next week, I can't see I'll be staying there.

Today's work gossip

My office is just over the corridor from the sales people; there's technically two at the moment, but one has been on sick leave for a week - he was, apparently, in hospital last week. The position of the office means that I can overhear quite well when the doors are open, but it's easy enough to tune out. But for some reason, I found myself listening in on a conversation that the saleswoman was having. It was one of those where you overhear the odd word, I think, and your subconscious prods you to let you know that actually, you might want to pay some attention here. As it transpires, it wasn't a client she was speaking to. She'd ended up with the call because the chap who initially took the call thought it was a customer calling up to complain about the service. It turns out that no, it was someone phoning up to complain about the currently-absent salesman. It was someone who knows him socially, who was calling us because he didn't have another contact number for him. He made a number of allegations that I'm not going to repeat here, because they're slanderous (well, I guess since I'm typing them, they'd be libellous, but you know what I mean.) Suffice it to say that she called her manager to let him know about this; and he promptly called back to inform her that she shouldn't say anything to anyone. Of course, by then it was rather too late; and of course no one's asked me not to say anything. But I was very interested in a couple of the other comments the saleswoman had to say. For one thing, when she's phoning to try and sell our services to prospective clients, she's not allowed to mention other clients by name. We don't give out details of satisfied customers (the official reason is that they don't want them to be poached by other service providers; but there's a part of me wondering if perhaps it's because we don't have any.) Considering that there are a dozen people in the organisation, communications are frankly appalling, and it looks like this is an actual policy, rather than sheer incompetence as I'd assumed. I also got the chance to chat with our former system administrator this evening, too. He's very much enjoying his new job, and he mentioned that he'd been asked, specifically, not to mention that he was going to anyone. He did anyway, mind you, on the grounds of, well, what could they do to him? I should also say that when I got back from my most recent trip to Tennessee, I was taken out to a site visit by the boss, who asked me how I thought everything was going; and mentioned that he was going to be taking me on as an actual employee (yay!) with more money (double yay!); and that the paperwork would be sorted by the end of the week. That was now two weeks ago, so it's currently over a week late (and if you're wondering, no, I've not heard a peep about it since.) I'm going to give him a couple more weeks to see if he comes through; and if he doesn't, I shall be leaving - it's just not worth the amount of stress that I'm getting. The amusing part is that since he never bothered to give me a contract, I don't believe that I'm actually obliged to give him any notice at all....