The're dropping like flies!

The number of people opting for voluntary redundancy seems to be accelerating. Even the younger members of my team are either determined to take it or are very seriously considering it. Hazel and I seem to be in a dwindling minority who genuinely want to continue working at the university. The axe seems to be falling all around us as well as on our own jobs currently. The latest casualty would appear to be the postal service. They recently won a national award for efficiency and accuracy and now they are to be cut in half.

Russ has had yet another week from hell with a third trip to A & E last weekend. The problem seems to be not so much that he has to go in but the complete lack of organisation he finds whilst there. Sending someone home and not informing them until after their bed has been assigned to someone else seems to be a bit of a liberty to say the least. The small, one man oven cleaning service arrived on time, cleaned the oven and departed with the quoted cost in his pocket. He was happy, I was happy and the oven sparkles. Why is it that he can get it so right but much bigger businesses seem to get it so wrong? Talking about you British Gas.

Where did it all go?

I have been working hard and attending various training-type sessions related to the imminent changes within the university and, suddenly, eleven days have gone by. The whole uni is throbbing with concern about it and many - most - are worried. A large number of close colleagues are actively investigating  taking voluntary redundancy and some have already applied.  Whilst I don't feel this is appropriate to me, I can, in most cases, understand why they are taking that stance. In my case my position will, almost certainly, change for the better unless I am actually made redundant. Even then I will only be 10% down on my lump sum which is not that high anyway so I feel I have nothing to lose and plenty to gain. The whole scheme seems to be favouring my strengths and could well put me into a stronger position than I am now so I will be moving to the new system with a broad grin on my face. My only sadness will be losing some very good colleagues.

What a difference ten days make.........

We have just had a very nice break away from it all and feel much better now. I managed a few days with Russ and we did sophisticated stuff like visiting the Roman palace at Fishbourne and eating a Chinese meal each evening for three days. Yum! Other than that, we just sat and talked, it was a brilliant break.

Hazel visited Sally and, finally, saw "The Mousetrap" and also went to a 50s diner.

The beginning of the end?

Went to a meeting this morning to tell us about the restructuring of our jobs. 13 of us will be leaving, one way or another. Whilst there is no certainty who will stay or who will leave, my job is in what they are calling 'The Pool'. We will be allocated new roles within the new structure by a committee and we are free to apply for any three jobs. We are all a little bit thunder  struck right now but I may get something out of it - or I might be too old and get redundancy.

The little liar.........

I have spent a goodly part of today chasing a Sharepoint job only to find that, somehow, it was reporting two different facts for one group. The group, I was told, did exist but the same checksum reported that the students who should have been in it were not and it also claimed, on the same screen, that the group was not available to be added. Totally confused, I spoke to the web team and got the boss who kindly checked it out for me, got the same results and said he would ring me back. A full hour later, he got back to me to say he had managed to delete the whole mess and had re-built it from scratch. So, problem solved from my point of view but now it passes to the web team to try and find out what the heck happened to cause it in the first place. Good luck guys!

Whoops!

And I slid into a new office, just like that.

It's only for a couple of weeks but it still came as a bit of a shock this morning. It's all down to a shift in staff and some leave being taken before the end of August. It seems that I was the only ACO who was able to move, yeah, right! To be fair, I am the logical choice but it would have been nice to have been forewarned a bit.

Another Monday.............

and back to work. Pathetic title, I know, but all that comes to mind at present.

It was an interesting weekend with visits from Lulu,Ian and Corey on Sunday, Trying out my new(ish) camera in the sun for the first time and having a quiet day on Saturday apart from shopping. Russ has the lurgi so he couldn't chat on Saturday evening, indeed he was finding it difficult on the phone when he told me in the afternoon. Corey is now walking, just, and takes great delight in tottering around and grunting his appreciation that he is now mobile. After dropping everyone back home on Sunday, Hazel and I went on to the Hoe and that's when I tried the camera. On full zoom, I have some very sharp images. I admit to using the tripod and remote release but that was simply common sense. These aren't meant to be anything special, just some tests that have worked really well.

The two boats where taken at full 30x zoom but the view of the lighthouse was pulled back somewhat. The sail boat is passing in front of Drakes Island, the motor boat is returning to the Barbican and Smeatons tower is currently undergoing some TLC in readiness for the visitors this summer. My camera is a Fuji HS20 and I had it mounted on a Manfroto tripod and used a remote release in order to have no vibration transferred to the camera.

In order to see the full resolution of these images, left click on one and it will open in a new window at full size.