It’s probably a sign of how much better my current job is compared to that one I had in that place, that I hardly ever get ranty. I don’t think I’ve been blog ranty in almost ever. Today was a very ranty day.

I’m not going to go in to the details of the rantiness, but there was lots of people taking sticks from the wrong end, it blowing up to stupid proportions and people who work for me getting treated unacceptable. oh and broken servers - I stepped away from that last one, and decided to rant about it tomorrow. because there was no real way I could have improve the situation and in the mood i was in by then it would have only gotten worse.

I’ve employed one of my old JMU tricks and I have written an incredibly ranty? set the world to rights word document now. I doubt it will ever see the light of day, but it should help me sleep.

At the end of the day I got a text message to put me to shame, a friend at work is having his first baby, well he’s not “having it” his wife is, today they went for the scan. and the text I got was.

“Babys are cool! puts youtube and boxing into perspective”

and I thought, yes it does. and I’ve gotten two of those - I’ll go play with them instead.

Look :

The Gaston Leisure center pool now open at 8:15 on a Sunday - who said I sat around all day doing nothing?

[Swimming Debacle]

The beeb have gotten a number of ‘doting’ dads to give them accounts of what it’s like to take a side step on the working treadmill and spend some time with your children. It’s quite an interesting read, and made me reflect back to the time i nearly did that, and how my life is now compared to what it could have been.

As I’m sure we’ve mentioned before, the original plan when Daisy was born, was for both of us to go part time, and share the time with Daisy this made loads of sense both personally (I wanted to spend time too) and financially (better tax breaks), but for reasons of Ruth being indispensable and me being a side show, It never happened. what actually happend was in their efforts to keep Ruth she never came back, and by forcing me to work full time, they lost me to a better job.

Now at the time we we’re sad, but if you think about where we would be now; Ruth would still have that annoying political mud-bath of a job, and I would be wasting away doing the same old projects that came around every 12 months. Instead - Ruth stays at home and loves not working with pooters (and some of the people). and I have a much much better job, talking to people and getting stuff done*.

Where are we now ? Well both through the need for money, and the joy of work moved up the career ladder and Ruth has been freed from the shackles.

This does mean I don’t get the extra time I wanted with Daisy which does make me a little sad. I’m glad she’s getting full time parenting, I think that’s real important, and even though I’ve moved on and up, I have consciously stayed in an environment where leaving work at 4:30 is acceptable (i get in at at least 8:30 so don’t complain!) and taking work home is an exception not the rule. So I still get plenty of time each day. I’m not a arrive home at 6:40 and keep the child up sort of dad - I’m much more a get in and have Daisy climb all over me for a few hours type.

Reading about the dads who spend more time off does make me jealous, and maybe one day I will get to a point where I can work maybe a four day week - but at the moment I also way-up how Ruth and I feel - and we are much happier and that must be a good thing for our kid(s).

*this is of course relative, i see that public sector getting stuff done is not quite the same as private sector getting stuff done, but it is miles beyond university getting stuff done.

Daisy fell out of bed for the first time ever today. which is good going since she’s been sleeping without sides for ages now, and she’s been in her big bed for well over a month.

Anyway, that happened at around 2:30, which woke both me and Ruth up, at around 3:15 we had hot milk, my head is full of work and Ruth’s songs (I didn’t ask. I don’t want it in my head). Ruth has gone back to sleep, but it’s now 4:30 and I am wide awake and my head is full of work - I have all sorts to do what with having at least two jobs at the moment.

Daisy will (based on current form) stroll into our bedroom at around 5:45 at which point we put her back in her bed (anything before 6am is nighttime no matter how light it is). then she gets up again at about 6:15 - and my day starts. except my day started about 2 hours ago

bit of a nerdy post, but i am quite proud of myself so i thought i would share it.

Today I realised the joy that is an empty in-box, and a system to keep it that way.

Yesterday I had over 200 emails in my In-box; never good I know, and usually I am so on the case about email. but you see i started a new job at the beginning of the year, and after a few months of email wobbles i was starting to get a grip of it all. but then my boss left, and I am now acting up and sort of doing two management jobs at once. My email has exploded last week i got 73 emails in 1 1/2 days. Not that i had to do things for each email, but i did have to think about each one. and that coupled with around 7 meetings set me back quite a bit.

So I decided I needed to take it in hand, Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in an amazingly long time, I took some work home. and i had an hour (that’s all it takes) of uninterrupted email sorting - and system making.

My System

Now it borrows a lot from Getting Things Done (doesn’t everything?). but seams as the all the plug-ins and what not are confusing when you haven’t read the book - I made my own system up. First I have Action which means i need to do something, then I have Chase-Up which means i need to see if someone else is doing something, then i have Review which means i need to read something, I have reference which is information i need to hand, and finally (for now) i have someday; which means i would be nice to have a chance to look at these things when everything else is done.

Now if you need to know the nerdy way i’ve done this, read on.

I use to use flags in outlook, but the problem is - you need to be consistent with your colours (or have a post it note or something on your monitor) and I’m not - So I used categories - Categories lets you have as many things called whatever you like. so i have @Action, @ChaseUp, @Review, @Reference and @Someday (the @ sign pushes them to the top of the list). Then i have search folders, that find these categories all over my mail box - that is good because then i can still file things away under projects and other such things, but they remain in my lists. Then I have outlook set to put replies i send in the same folder as the email, this keeps everything neat.

My New In-box Regime

My In-box is now empty ! and from over 200 emails, I now have

• 8 Actions
• 8 things to chase up
• 2 reference emails
• 3 things to review
• 7 things to look at someday

I can’t tell you how much lighter my head feels looking at that list, all i have to do now is keep-it light. the key to this is quick action, when emails arrive you need to do something:

Option one is reply and file, where possible reply as the email comes in, this works if you are being asked for information, or know where the email should go.

Then it’s label and file: if you can’t reply, pick a category and file away.

There is a third option which is simply file, I do actually get a lot of ‘for information’ emails, and they bypass all this and get filed. I know I should delete, but I’m a hoarder - baby steps first.

I’ve just changed the design of the page, nothing to do with my job. Just while I was testing I searched for ‘bike‘ (I rode in again today first time since January). and found a post where i was complaining about meetings driving me mad - but that was my old job. today?

I had five meetings and it was cool. yes the meeting with finance was a bit draining but I enjoyed the day. Five meetings in a day at JMU would have seen me standing on the window ledge.

It’s almost a year since I left JMU to come work for the council, so I’ve been in some what of a reflective mood for the last week, thinking about how it’s all changed and thinking back to what I’ve done over the last 12 months.

It’s been a roller-coaster of a year really, especially when you consider that I had my last job for 7 years and in the space of 12 months, I’ve had two gone from developer, to manager and next month will be acting up to head of service during a transition.

The first thing I think when I look back is how I so much needed to leave that job (JMU). All the years of fighting the system to do anything, being constantly restricted by both the academic and political environment in the institution meant that I really had a lot of self doubt about both my technical abilities and my ability to actually do an honest days work.

At the time I said and I didn’t realise how true it was to become, but I considered the Developer job in the council a side step, a way off the JMU treadmill, something to open up both my horizons and my opportunities for progression. Of-course even i didn’t envisage going for the management job within 6 months, but actually it turns out 6 months out of JMU was all it took to show me how stifling it had been.

I am loving my current job. I consider myself much more of a people person than a sitting in a dark room coding one (although I do enjoy getting my head down a knocking out code), and yes even I think that some-days I have more meetings than is healthy, but talking to people, solving problems and giving advice is a cool job to have*.

The other really bit change is in my confidence levels, as I’ve said JMU was somewhat stifling, but it knocked so much confidence out of me it’s untrue. 12 months ago I would have said that i was outspoken, alaways belived in what i said and would tell anyone who would listen, but really looking at my day to day routine now, and the types of things I do everyday. I was a doddering fool, who was unsure of most things, knew that change was never going to come of it, so sat on most things because it was the easy way to live.

I don’t want you to get the impression that JMU was all bad, or indeed that the council is all good. The people in JMU are great people, and I do miss some of the office banter and camaraderie. There are technical areas where JMU is/was streets ahead, and while I knew this at the time, moving to another organisation just proves it. The council like any 19,000 employee organisation has it’s politics and I would imagine after a few more years it will get to me in similar ways to the politics of JMU, and my desk is somewhat small and my PC slow 0 but at the moment I change jobs so often these things arn’t getting me down.

So in summary: goshIi love my new job and my old one was worse that I realised 12 months ago.

*there may be a little more to it than this, but these are the peopley bits I really enjoy