All 8 entries tagged Work

Leap Day

Writing about web page http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2008/02/why-millions-of-us-will-be-wor-1.html

Happy leap day everyone.

Or maybe that should just be “everyone who isn’t on an annual salary”, ‘cos if you are you will get paid no more this year than any other year but will work an extra day.

That never occurred to me, but then I’ve never been on an annual salary before.

Nevermind, I’m only working for a year so it makes no real difference to me.

: 29 Feb 2008 11:25 |  Tags: Day Free Leap Leap Day Leap Year Salary Work Year |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

08 Update

I didn’t exactly make any new-years resolutions his year. The only things I had to do were learn to drive and loose some weight.

I’ve finally got back to the gym, having gone last Wednesday and Friday and I hope to go every Mon, Weds & Fri from now on. The worst bit of going to the gym is getting there. Once I’m there it’s actually not that bad. I go after work so I get to watch the Simpsons while working out which is cool.

It’s about the same distance from home to work as it is from work to the gym but unfortunately it’s in the opposite direction then making the walk home even worse, especially ‘cos most of me aches if it’s been a good workout.
It just seems a bit odd walking from work to the gym, walking and cycling at the gym and then walking back from the gym, past work to home.

To fulfil the 2nd part of the resolutions I’m going to choose a driving school on Monday and get some lessons going.

In work news the team I’m in has been split in 2 and 3 of us are being moved from the “Corporate Solutions Group” to the “Web Solutions Group”. The work isn’t going to change much bit we’ll be nearer the users of our solutions so it does make more sense. We’re not likely to move soon ‘cos there isn’t enough space on the WSG floor but that will make 2 office moves in 7 months which is fun.

It’ll be interesting to have a change in scenery but I just go where I’m told to go and do what I’m told to do so it’s all good.

: 10 Feb 2008 01:01 |  Tags: Gym Resolutions Work |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Red Wine

To my great annoyance I just spilt red wine on the carpet of my room after saying to myself, “must be carefull not to spill any”. Well that’s not the most annoying bit. The most annoying bit is that I now don’t have a red wine stain, now I have a clean spot that means I’m going to have to clean the rest of the carpet. Hmph.

Well, it’s not been too long since the last post and not much has changed. I’ve been to the gym a couple more times and quite enjoyed it. I should have gone tonight but I think I pushed something a bit to hard last time ‘cos my left calf hurts, so I didn’t go.

Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to get into work an hour early so that I can leave early to be able to get to BBC Television Centre for 5:30. I’m going to the filming of another new comedy show (first one was Crawford Park). This one is in a similar vein to Crawford Park and is called Lab Rats.

A sitcom set in a university science laboratory written by Chris Addison and Carl Cooper. Somewhere in the tangle of rooms and corridors that is the St. Dunstan’s College science building work, and for the most part live, the occupants of the Arnolfini Research Laboratory. The Arnolfini is used by the University for flashy-looking projects, random research ideas and as a revenue-raising lab for hire.
The show stars Chris Addison, Selina Cadell, Geoff McGivern, Jo Enright, Helen Moon and Dan Tetsell.

I’m doing well with TV & radio tickets recetly. I went to a filming of “Bea & Sam’s Big Spread”

Bea and Sam invite you to their raucous show, as they hold celebrity culture by its ankles and shake it… hard. Through their charming, honest, self-deprecating stand up, savage sketches and ridiculous pastiche of songs from eighties cheese to West End hits, this is a toxic concoction

at Teddington Studios a couple of weeks ago and I also have tickets for a recording of “Out To Lunch”

Radio 2’s leading comedy showcase returns for a fourth series. Join brand new host Russell Kane (Big Brothers Big Mouth guest host, “His rise to meteoric heights is about to begin” Metro) for the best stand-up and sketches to hit the BBC this Autumn.

for BBC Radio 2 at a theatre tomorrow (with free drinks), a recording of another new comedy called ”...And Then You Die”

’...and then you Die’ is a brand new comedy panel show all about why life is one big disappointment! Alongside a panel of both up and coming comedians and some well known faces is our host. Who just happens to be a puppet.It’s funny, outrageous and just slightly miserable.

in mid October and then a recording of “Not Going Out”

Now that his flatmate Kate has moved back to America, Lee (Lee Mack) is faced with homelessness when his best mate and landlord Tim (fellow stand-up Tim Vine) puts the apartment up for sale. Unable to buy the flat himself, Lee is forced to rent the spare room from the flat’s new owner, Tim’s sister Lucy (Sally Bretton). Unsurprisingly, the arrangement turns out to be far from perfect

at the end of the month. Should all be a lot of fun.

Anyways. If I’m going to be getting in to work for 8am tomorrow I need to be getting to sleep soon so that’s all from me for now.

: 04 Oct 2007 22:16 |  Tags: Carpet Gym Red Wine Spill Stain Sutton Work |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Anoher … And So Soon?

Yes, it’s a blog entry within 2 months of the previous one :P Anyway …

I am finally a fully paid up member of a gym with a Direct Debit to take £47 out of my hard earned pay every month :(. I’m going for my first time as a member tomorrow to have an intorductory session with a trainer. I’m not sure exactly what happens but I think I get shown how to use more of the features of the machines than I did on the trial day and then we decide on an excersise plan for me.
To be honest, ever since my trial half hour when I spent about 3 mins on each machine I’ve wanted to get back and spend some more time there. I got a good feeling after the first time so I guess that is a good sign and hopefully will encourage me to go quite often. I’m planning to go about 3 times a week at the moment but that might change depending on how I get on with it once I start for real. Wish me luck.

At work I am now working on my first project that has anything to do with anyone outside of our department. As such I have to work to someone else’s time-frame on this one as they are relying on what I write in this system to be able to write the system that they’re working on. It’s also quite an important project to get right as it is is an online card payment system which will be used for all our magazines and conferences across the world *gulp*

Well, I have to be at the gym for 11 tomorrow so I suppose I ought to go to bed now then :)

Night

: 21 Sep 2007 22:20 |  Tags: Gym Sutton Work |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I've got a bit rubbish at this …

.. havn’t I?

The rest of my 1st day in 2 mins was that I went with all the other students working in the web departments. We sat around in the kitchen area of the WSG floor (4th floor) and the heads of departments came and collected the people who were working with them. I was still sat there at lunch so I went with them to the Italian down the street where the company paid for our lunch. That was OK. It turned out when I came back that I was supposed to be on a completely different floor in a different department to all the other students. We eventually found out where I was supposed to be. I was meant to be on floor 14 in CSG. So eventually I got to where I was meant to be just in time to go to a presentation and then go home.

The next 3 weeks was speant doing training in central London. THat was a lot of fun. We didn’t have to be in ‘til 9:30 and we got a morning tea break, lunch and an afternoon tea break. Almost every lunch we went to this great Italian sandwich shop just across the road where they serve the best toasted sandwiches.

During the last week of training I found a room I liked and in order to secure it I had to pay the deposit on the morning of one of the weekdays. To do that I had to phone up Martin (my brother) and get him to go onto my Online Banking and tranfer the money from my savings into my current account. I then had to go from Pecham Rye (where I was at the time on my way into London Bridge) to Sutton which is 2 slow trains. I eventually get to Sutton then had to find a Natwest becase the cash machine limit is less than the deposit amount. Eventually I paid the deposit, got my key and went to the training, only about 3 hours late.

Since then it’s not been that eventfull. We moved offices from the 14th to the 2nd floor of the office block, so now I walk rather then taking the lift :). I’ve completed about 3 projects now and it’s all going well.

On Sunday afternoon I went and had a free trial day at my local gym. It’s part of a Holiday Inn, but only a tiny part. I was looking for a gym with a pool and was expecting something like at University (I wasn’t a member, just saw it on the open day). I should know that nothing is ever quite as large as at Uni but this only had about 8 machines and a tiny square pool. I was expecting a whole floor of machines and a lenghts pool. The other downside of this one is that it is also open to all the hotel residents so there are probably quite often kids in the pool.
I’m going to see another gym this Wednesday which is a little further away and doesn’t have a pool but sounds a little bigger. I’m going to have to weigh up all the factors to decide which one I want to join. I don’t know whether I want a large or small gym or whether a pool is important or not. I guess it depends how comfortable I am there more than anything else.
I’ll have to see, if this one is’t great there is one other within walking distance in Sutton.

I shall have to start blogging more again, and to steal a signoff from J …

I’m Still Here

: 17 Sep 2007 22:51 |  Tags: Gym House London Rent Sutton Work |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Work etc…

Ok. Long long time and no blog entry, but that’s the way it’s been since the last one.

Exams were horrid, at one point I thought I was going to get forced to withdraw or at least have to retake some but I managed to get an average of 73% which is a 1st again so all’s good.

The week after exams was WSAF (Warwick Student Arts Festival) which was all good fun despite the rain and living a bus journey away. I can’t remember many details at the moment but it was all good.

The week after that I started my placement year job at RBI (Reed Business Information) in Sutton, London (Surrey/Greater London really but London sounds cooler). Being straight after Uni I didn’t have a chance to find accommodation there so I got a 7-day train ticket for ~£70 and commuted down.

I left home at 7am monday morning to get the train(s) to be at Sutton by 9am only to find that reception didn’t have any record of me atall. Great! After some phone calls he verified that I was actually starting work and I got a day entry pass and a voucher for a free cup of tea or coffee (with my name spelt “Payne”). That was fine.

We then went into the AV Theatre (small room) for induction. That all seemed fine until it got to the end and HR came round to get everyones Passports, NI nos and signed forms. What signed forms? When was I told to bring my passport? It appeared that I was supposed to have had a pack with all this info in and my contract, to sign and return, through the post weeks ago. Since I hadn’t received anything I had assumed that it was all sorted on the first day.

As you can see, my first day went really, really well. That’s only half of it. The rest of my 1st day will come tomorrow as I want to go home now.
I’m still at work writing this as I don’t have internet at home at the moment, will do tomorrow though. Woo.

See ya

: 24 Jul 2007 17:28 |  Tags: Commute London Rent Room Sutton Tired Work |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sleep

Please feel free to diagnose me as insane after reading this.

The reason that I managed to get such nice photos of the snow yesterday was because I didn't go to sleep Thursday night. I was in the learning grid working on an essay and by the time I had done that it was too late to go to sleep. If I did then I would never be up in time for my 10am lab.

That in itself is not too bad, but then I go and follow it up with the Student Cinema "The All 90's AllNighter". I went into lecture theatre L3 at just gone 7:30pm yesterday and then left again at just gone 7:30am today (ignoring 1 trip to costcutters and a couple to the loo). That is 12 hours in L3 which is not very comfortable even for a 1hr lecture, but you can find a confortable position if you try.

The fims were quite good. The 1^st one "The Shawshank Redemption" I dozed through as it was a little boring but the 2^nd one was a lot more interesting. "The Wedding Singer" is one of those standard comedy love stories but is make a bit more funny by having this new thing called a CD player and stuff like that. The 3^rd film was "The Usual Suspects" which is not really my type of film bus wa quite good. The 4^th film was a mystery film that they didn't tell us what it was atall. It turned out to be "American Pie" which is a very funny, if very rude, film. The final film was a classic and the 1st time I have seen this on a large screen, it was "The Matrix" although about half the people left before it started.

One problem is having been up for 48 hrs straight I am a little tired and also having spent ~ 12 hrs in L3 it now feels like 8pm, not 8am, as it is dull and cold, so my body is just confused completely. I think a little bit of sleep might be in order, then I have to try and get back into normal sleep paterns again.

[Edit]
I slept form 8am to 6pm today. Feeling better. More show photos added. link

: 25 Feb 2006 08:03 |  Tags: All Nighter Allnighter Sleep Student Cinema Work |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mat

For those of you who didn't know what was going on with Mat he explains it all elucidates here

: 09 Nov 2005 00:50 |  Tags: Angst Degree Depression Mat Personal Sal Work |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem