Voting, working

My voting today was a bit damper than last year when I wrote this sunny little essay. I'm willing to share that I voted for AV. But then I am a statistician, and most people are not. Something tells me that we will not be adopting this system any time soon.

Today the company I work for was taken over. We are assured that it's only a takeover on paper and is actually a great opportunity, and that may be right. It can be so hard to tell with these things. I've been through quite a few of these big changes in a previous job and was largely the same at the end of most of them. I've consequently become quite stoic about the whole thing.

More nature notes

This week has been a complex pattern of snow, office closures and trying to do work on a crappy laptop at home.

On Wednesday, I was the only one in the office, and sat in glorious splendour having a conference call, and looking out at the snowy landscape. This time I saw two jays. They were more obvious against the snow, and I am getting more confident in my identifications.

Bird watching again

I saw what I'm pretty sure was a waxwing today from the office window. It was foraging in an oak tree just opposite me. Assuming I'm right, the RSPB site says it's a fairly rare sighting. The name totally foxed me until I found out that it refers to the red patches on the wing that look like sealing wax.

Browsers

I heard today at work that our IT department is continuing their relentless drive into the future by rolling out ....... IE 7! A quick surf reveals that this is exactly 4 years on from its release. Amazingly enough, we have been on IE 6 up to now. A lot of Web sites no longer support this, either putting up a message to this effect, or just giving you a crap version in Latin.

I wonder if they will ever replace our back-to-the-80s email system?

More misery

What awful dreich weather. I had been meaning to blog about how the last trace of snow had just about disappeared from the Lammermuirs, making my view totally snow-free for the first time since about December. Then comes today's weather, taking us back to shivery midwinter. All day at work we looked out on to slanting lines of sleet. The bits of the Pentlands that were visible were blanketed with snow again. I actually find it worse than proper winter weather. I like it crisp and cold, but temperatures around freezing feel colder than those below.

We've had strong winds all evening and lots of sleet. A small drip has appeared in the corner of my living room. Argh! that's all I need. But now it has started snowing properly and the drip has stopped. So that's something.

Woolgathering

The slow churn of people at work joining and leaving (mainly the later recently) has continually moved me, like a pebble on a beach, to lie next to different pebbles. To put it another way: I keep having to change the group I have lunch with. Our quintessentially millenial office in the woods allows me to stare out of the window (an office in the woods! - what would my dad think?) and not really attend to conversations about X Factor, or knitting, or football. The woods seem active today, or maybe I am just observant. See a squirrel, various tits, a bullfinch, and (probably) a treecreeper. Around me, beans on toast, low fat yoghurts and soup are consumed.

Not sure what this post is about. Thank you for your time.

Mair snow

First thing this morning, I had one of those half-awake thoughts. "Wouldn't it be funny if there had been a huge snowfall overnight, and the world is turned white?" Then I looked out and it had.

There had been remnants of snow the night before, but there was now a perfect, even covering. There was snow banked up at the base of my windows, and skeins of spindrift reached out between the rooftops.

As you can perhaps guess, I retain enough of a kid inside me to still enjoy some extreme weather, especially when I have nothing in particular to do at work. I'm certainly not alone in this. As I made my bus journey, the shared sense of adversity produced a kind of camaraderie with my fellow travelers. We offered personal experiences of our journeys so far, swapped stories about the stupid things we'd seen people doing, and shared plans for the rest of our day. I wonder if anybody has studied the positive effect of extreme weather?

I got to go home early too, and saw these tower blocks catching the afternoon sun.

Yum

I seem to have discovered another talent: baking. We had a sale of baking at work today, and my carrot cake was consumed by ravening coworkers by 10.20. I didn't get a bit myself either, though I did of course get to lick the bowl last night.

I wonder what it is about women and gooey cakes?

I must use my gift wisely.

Old job, new job

My current job is the sort where you can be very busy for a bit, then have nothing to do. For the last couple of weeks, things have been very thin, and I've been writing some training documents. As an ex-tech writer, this should be right up my street of course. To be honest though, the experience has made me glad that I (mostly) do something else now. Although I got some vague satisfaction from tracking down that comma splice, or systematically eliminating all passive verbs, my main feeling was of boredom. I mean, who's going to read this stuff anyway?

And today, I got to do some programming, which felt like a delight.

Signs and portents

This morning a heron flew past our office with a frog in its beak. The frog didn't seem happy with how things were going, and the heron couldn't seem to find anywhere to settle down and eat the frog.

You gotta rush. It'll pass.

Well, a rush of boredom. You, know, you've nothing in particular on, your boss turns out to be off sick, and you tit about pretending to finish some document that nobody really needs, and that you could have finished on Friday if you had a reason to. Things are so slow, you start writing a training document. Still, with age comes experience and the almost certain knowledge that tomorrow will be better. No, really, it will.

Health and Safety bollox

The pond that I sometimes walk to at lunchtime has acquired a couple of signs saying "Danger, water". Just in case you hadn't spotted that. I wonder how much this pointlessness costs?

Rescue

Somebody today found a young bat inside the office, huddled next to an internal door. A phone call to the RSPCA produced advice: let it hang on a tea towel, take it outside and let it take off. They can't take off from the ground, apparently. Not sure if it has to be a tea towel.

I wonder if this means that bats have moved in to the building (which is only a couple of years old)? Do they like modern offices?

Poor thing

The office this afternoon is greatly concerned by a dog left in a camper van in our car park. The van has been left by somebody though--I certainly can't remember seeing it before.

Very British. Would they be so concerned if somebody left their children in there?

Still here

I've been quiet for a bit.

New Job continues well. The office atmosphere is good, with helpful and competent colleagues. This may not seem much, but it's more than I've experienced since about 2003. It's interesting how workplaces acquire a certain mood and a set of unspoken rules. This is mainly through managers recruiting in their own image. Lunchtime walks and deer sightings help make it fun too.

In other news, I now have a Mac, and find it great. I have pondered this move before, but Vista was the final straw. And I'm not alone there.

Nature notes

Leaving work last night, I got my first sight of the deer that are said to live in the woods outside. Young roe deer, by the looks of them.

Lying in bed this morning, I watched a squirrel tearing bits of twig off the beech tree outside my window. I guess it's building a nest - or is it too late for that?

Today

New Job seems very good so far. It's only the second day, but coworkers seem pleasant and the setting is lovely. We went for a walk through the sunny parkland at lunchtime and watched a foal with improbably long legs. Aw!

I also get to experiment with some new bus routes, which should keep me amused for a while.

And so back to the flat, and the chance to hear Ed Reardon's Week, which proves that all Radio 4 comedy is not atrocious.

Work again

I have acquired a job. No, really this time. It is with the people who didn't quite offer me the last job, but is a different job. Doing proper stats, I hope. My four months or so of semi-idleness is at an end.

In other news, I had a pleasant shopping expedition yesterday to Tiso's. Not only did I get an unexpected discount, but I clocked Iain Banks talking to an assistant.

Jinxed

There! I shouldn't have mentioned it. The almost-a-job-offer has melted away like snow in the spring sun. There was a long silence, then a downward revisal of the salary to a level that I suspect they knew I would not accept.

Bah!

You mean I have to do this myself?

I keep changing my mind about whether recruiters are the best thing since sliced bread, or just completely hopeless. As a person who is really rubbish at finding jobs on my own, the obvious solution is to get a professional to do it for me. A few years ago, when starting on a previous bout of joblessness, I was warned to ration my use of recruiters, because they would pester me all the time. Fat chance.