I am really looking forward to being able to go into pubs etc. and not having to breathe smoky air and not having to take of all of my clothes and put them directly into the laundry bin when I get home afterwards. 
) Roll on Summer 2007!
I wish they’d stop moving. I realise that I sound like a broken record, and I feel like one too (both repeating and constantly feeling the same senses of impotence regarding my work). People say try not to get wound up about it, but the main point of my (work-related) existence is to be a Project Manager. This means I Manage projects. Usually I contact customers, work with them to achieve their deadlines and make things happen internally to meet their deadlines, including doing a lot of the Engineering work myself. In this case, I have no control over a lot of the situation. There are effectively three customers, the Japanese arm of our direct customer, the polish arm of our direct customer, and the french customer of theirs (the final destination of our product). I only have contact with the polish ones. The other contacts are controlled by our Japanese HQ people. Who I don’t agree with a lot of the time. I am not quite sure how I am supposed to manage what we do here when what I say we can/can’t achieve is largely ignored and the customer is told something different. But then, we’re expected to do whatever they said we’d do. It’s just not possible. On paper it’s not possible, so how can it be possible in real life? I just don’t know where they’re coming from.
Gah!
[As an aside, in Japan it's very impolite to ever directly say no. A friend once told me about a trip he'd made to a post office in Japan to get some A4 white envelopes. He asked in Japanese whether they had an A4 white envelopes. He was told that they had A5 white envelopes. He said no, actually he wanted A4 white envelopes, did they have any? They said that they had A4 brown envelopes. My friend at this point figured out that they were trying to say that they didn't have any, so he said So you don't have any A4 white envelopes? To which they replied, Yes! You're correct, we don't have any A4 white envelopes.]
So you can imagine what it’s like in a business meeting…………
I have had a lovely couple of days off. Wednesday was a bit mad because I had to leave work at 2pm to get to a Speech Therapy appointment over in Birmingham. I did make it (on time). I went to my Japanese class on Wednesday evening (without having done my homework – yet again). Next week is half-term, though so hopefully I’ll actually catch up on some of the work between now and the next class.
On Thursday my parents came over during the morning. Grandad joined us just for lunch, which was lovely. It’s always nice to catch up. In the evening the four of us went out for a meal followed by a CBSO concert at symphony hall. It was really nice, all the more so because three out of the four items were not things I knew, but enjoyed all the same. Yesterday we had a lovely relaxing morning just chatting and sitting around doing the crossword. Mum and Dad left before lunch so that they would miss the rush hour traffic.
I did an IEE thing that I should have done more than a fortnight ago – it’s such a relief to have it off my ‘to do’ list! Mr Moog and I went into town (something we rarely do) and had a juicy cheeseburger for lunch from a van at the Markets. Mmmm sometimes that’s just what you want!! We went and got fresh fish and a few other bits (I love the Indoor Markets). The evening was lovely and relaxed.
Today we’re catching up on things this morning and this afternoon we’re going over to Wolverhampton and then to the Races. A colleague of mine left our company a few weeks ago and we’d become pretty good friends in the 18 months she was there. Her idea was to get a group of us from work together and go to the races as her ‘leaving do’ so that’s what it’s all about. I have only ever been to the races once – my sister-in-law’s hen party. I can’t say that I was particularly impressed. I enjoyed the day, and the racing was quite good but more because there were a group of us having a laugh rather than the racing itself. Also, I allowed myself £25 to bet with, and didn’t manage a single winner! So it’s something I’m happy to go along to and it’ll be good fun because we’ll be with friends, but it’s not something I would choose normally.
Has anyone else noticed that on the TV and Radio the adverts are transmitted at a higher volume than the programmes? It’s so annoying.. It’s more pronounced on the TV than radio. You have the it at the perfect volume, and when the ad’s come on they blast you out. You turn down the volume, because you’d rather not be deafened, but then it’s too soft when the programme comes back on. Grrr.
Well, two days later my desk is still clear and tidy. My folders aren’t, and my head certainly isn’t!
Hopefully today I’ll get some way to fixing the visit to Japan.. although I won’t be able to get a meeting together to tell everyone what the plans are until at least Monday because of being off for the rest of the week.
I have a headache this morning and am not relishing the thought of a 2 hour teleconference with our Japanese team. Maybe breakfast will help – I am off to the canteen to demolish my bagel (mmmmmmm).
Hooray for holidays! This week I have holiday on Thursday and Friday. Mum and Dad are coming to stay (just for those two days) and we’re going to a concert at Symphony Hall on Thursday night. I have also just had an e-mail from Grandad saying that he is able to join us for lunch on Thursday too, which is fab. Mr Moog is “working from home” on Thursday and Friday. If I remember I will book a haircut for Thursday morning (I have been meaning to get one for at least 3 months now!!) which will get me out of the house and allow Mr Moog to do some work before the family descend on us at lunchtime. It’ll be just wonderful to catch up with my parents, go to a concert (One of the reasons I love being in Brum is that we have Symphony Hall and the CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), and hopefully veg with a book for a bit too. Yay!
Today I didn’t really do anything useful on any of my projects. My boss was in a bad mood, which didn’t make for a particularly happy departmental meeting at 8am.
As a result, I carried out a pretty comprehensive 5S activity on my desk – which took me most of the morning. I can’t remember what the 5 S’s are off the top of my head, but the concept is Japanese and is to do with cleanliness, everything has it’s place and everything in it’s place. You’re supposed to take 5 minutes at the end of each day to return your workspace to that state.
One of our main gripes in Engineering is that we have lots of paperwork, folders, specifications and Engineering drawings, as well as actual electronics bits and pieces, samples of the products we’re working on and the like. It’s all very well to say we should be tidy, but we’re not given anywhere to store all of the above ’stuff’. Anyway, this afternoon the 5 of us completely cleared out a double cupboard which was full of old component catalogues. Some of them dated back to 1981!!! Afterwards, I felt a considerable sense of achievement. I now have a tidy desk, and the department has a bit of space to store some of the things we need.
Shame I didn’t manage to do any real work….
I am tearing my hair out… It’s so difficult working with moving targets. Everything changes every other day (or every day sometimes). It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t fiddling with people’s lives – 4 or 8 weeks in Japan is something people need to know about, to prepare for. People have families and commitments. They can’t be expected to go in May & June, then actually that’s changed – now it’s March & April. Actually, you don’t need to spend 2 months at all, it’s just 4 weeks in April. Or it could be end of May and all of June.
Aaarrgh.