Kittenage as promised
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Monday, December 27, 2004
Over for another year
Christmas has now been & gone and what have I got to show for it? Well, some quite nice loot as it happens.
I managed to get enough cash to purchase the pair of flatscreen monitors that I want, along with some DVDs, CDs, a few shirts, a 2005 calendar, couple of gadgets, some fudge - very nice fudge at that - and, of course, a tie rack. However, undoubtedly the coolest present that I received this year was from April - A Logitech MX 1000 Laser Optical Mouse.
The rest of the Christmas weekend went off more or less without a hitch, aside from the horrible hangover that I had on Christmas Day morning from my Christmas Eve excesses :p
On Boxing Day, we went and collected my Mum's new kittens - they are bordering on illegally cute and spend most of the time being scared of things and chasing eachother around the kitchen. I'll be posting photos once I get home and can get them off my camera :)
Finally, I'm working this week, which means I have to go back up to Brum and consequently spend New Years sitting at home on my own. Having said that, I did it last year and had considerably more fun that everyone who went out, so there's still hope.
Until Next Year (unless something worthwhile happens in the next 5 days)
Spad.
I managed to get enough cash to purchase the pair of flatscreen monitors that I want, along with some DVDs, CDs, a few shirts, a 2005 calendar, couple of gadgets, some fudge - very nice fudge at that - and, of course, a tie rack. However, undoubtedly the coolest present that I received this year was from April - A Logitech MX 1000 Laser Optical Mouse.
The rest of the Christmas weekend went off more or less without a hitch, aside from the horrible hangover that I had on Christmas Day morning from my Christmas Eve excesses :p
On Boxing Day, we went and collected my Mum's new kittens - they are bordering on illegally cute and spend most of the time being scared of things and chasing eachother around the kitchen. I'll be posting photos once I get home and can get them off my camera :)
Finally, I'm working this week, which means I have to go back up to Brum and consequently spend New Years sitting at home on my own. Having said that, I did it last year and had considerably more fun that everyone who went out, so there's still hope.
Until Next Year (unless something worthwhile happens in the next 5 days)
Spad.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Holidays are coming
Or not, as the case may be.
Firstly a quick update on my stalker, Toby. After calling UCS directly and telling them that I wasn't interested in the job any more and could they please ask Toby to stop calling me, I think I got through to him. We shall have to wait until Monday to find out for sure, I guess.
Back to the subject at hand, Christmas. It seems that I'll be working for all but 3 days over the Christmas period (excluding weekends, obviously) as I have to work both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, which doesn't give me a lot of time off. On the plus side, I got my first paycheck yesterday - £509 for 9 days work, which isn't bad - it averages £1,700/month or £20k/year. I know that any salary I'm offered will probably be slightly less than that, but I'm still hopeful it will be around the £18k mark.
On another, slightly less merry note, why is it that there is no easy way to order gifts for other people online? I understand the security perspective, but I'm having to jump through ludicrous hoops just to get a few presents for April in time for the 25th. Bloody people.
Finally, our tumble dryer is broken and as such, using it results in great clouds of fluff filling the bathroom and the upstairs temperature increasing to tropical proportions, not particularly pleasant.
Until the next time boredom strikes.
Firstly a quick update on my stalker, Toby. After calling UCS directly and telling them that I wasn't interested in the job any more and could they please ask Toby to stop calling me, I think I got through to him. We shall have to wait until Monday to find out for sure, I guess.
Back to the subject at hand, Christmas. It seems that I'll be working for all but 3 days over the Christmas period (excluding weekends, obviously) as I have to work both Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, which doesn't give me a lot of time off. On the plus side, I got my first paycheck yesterday - £509 for 9 days work, which isn't bad - it averages £1,700/month or £20k/year. I know that any salary I'm offered will probably be slightly less than that, but I'm still hopeful it will be around the £18k mark.
On another, slightly less merry note, why is it that there is no easy way to order gifts for other people online? I understand the security perspective, but I'm having to jump through ludicrous hoops just to get a few presents for April in time for the 25th. Bloody people.
Finally, our tumble dryer is broken and as such, using it results in great clouds of fluff filling the bathroom and the upstairs temperature increasing to tropical proportions, not particularly pleasant.
Until the next time boredom strikes.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Why...won't...you...die?!
On Tuesday, I recieved a call from Toby at Senator, the agency who was dealing with my UCS application. After a long a tedious discussion, I told him very clearly, 12 or so times (He wouldn't stop asking the same question over and over) that I wasn't interested in the job unless UCS were going to offer me £18k+ (which they won't as they wanted to offer me £13k).
Anyway, since then, I have been getting calls on an almost hourly basis from him, both to my mobile and home phone - despite the fact that he knows I'm at work all day. This morning, the calls started at 7:30, much to the annoyance of my housemates who were woken up by them.
I just don't understand what more I can say other than "No" (repeated 12 times) to make him stop calling.
Anyway, since then, I have been getting calls on an almost hourly basis from him, both to my mobile and home phone - despite the fact that he knows I'm at work all day. This morning, the calls started at 7:30, much to the annoyance of my housemates who were woken up by them.
I just don't understand what more I can say other than "No" (repeated 12 times) to make him stop calling.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
At last, a coherent update
The last week or so has been...different, I think that's probably the best word to describe it. As I've mentioned before, I've been doing contract support work for SCC supporting Interflora stores around the country.
The contract was orginally supposed to expire last Friday, but at the last minute they extended it to this Friday and all was well. At the same time, I had an interview for another contract job starting this coming Monday at ITNet, which would run up until Christmas - I got the position.
However, I was subsequently informed by the guys at SCC that I was somewhat in demand (A suprise to me, I can tell you) and that they wanted me to stay at SCC as a contractor until Christmas with a view to taking me on in a permanent role come the New Year. This being too good to turn down, I have had to make my excuses to ITNet and pretend that there's a good reason I can't start there on Monday, rather than just "I changed my mind and now I don't want to".
So, this is finally some good news regarding my current and future employment. Given that a couple of weeks ago, having spent 4 months unsuccessfully looking for work, I was pretty negative about it and fairly sure that nobody would ever want to employ me, it's certainly something of a turnaround.
Oh, and as a bit of comic relief, I got a phonecall from UCS yesterday - apparently they're still thinking about whether or not to offer me that job. I'll take great pleasure in telling them where to stick it.
Onto personal matters; In just over an hour, I'll be meeting my Dad for lunch - he's back in the country for a week to sort out all of his stuff at home. I'm not really sure whether he wants anything or not, but I'm going to try my best to be civil (and wangle a flatscreen monitor out of him for Christmas :P).
Finally, for this update at least, Monday is April's 22nd birthday, so I'll be spending any bits of the day that I'm not working, with her - I hope she likes my card and present :)
Until the next longwinded catchup or eventful day...
The contract was orginally supposed to expire last Friday, but at the last minute they extended it to this Friday and all was well. At the same time, I had an interview for another contract job starting this coming Monday at ITNet, which would run up until Christmas - I got the position.
However, I was subsequently informed by the guys at SCC that I was somewhat in demand (A suprise to me, I can tell you) and that they wanted me to stay at SCC as a contractor until Christmas with a view to taking me on in a permanent role come the New Year. This being too good to turn down, I have had to make my excuses to ITNet and pretend that there's a good reason I can't start there on Monday, rather than just "I changed my mind and now I don't want to".
So, this is finally some good news regarding my current and future employment. Given that a couple of weeks ago, having spent 4 months unsuccessfully looking for work, I was pretty negative about it and fairly sure that nobody would ever want to employ me, it's certainly something of a turnaround.
Oh, and as a bit of comic relief, I got a phonecall from UCS yesterday - apparently they're still thinking about whether or not to offer me that job. I'll take great pleasure in telling them where to stick it.
Onto personal matters; In just over an hour, I'll be meeting my Dad for lunch - he's back in the country for a week to sort out all of his stuff at home. I'm not really sure whether he wants anything or not, but I'm going to try my best to be civil (and wangle a flatscreen monitor out of him for Christmas :P).
Finally, for this update at least, Monday is April's 22nd birthday, so I'll be spending any bits of the day that I'm not working, with her - I hope she likes my card and present :)
Until the next longwinded catchup or eventful day...
