I had noticed it before, but it was never as long and disturbing as yesterday morning… the loud talker sitting next to me was on a role. She was out there. At Olympic level. She was doing some teaching through the telephone thing and talking so loud… You wouldn’t believe it!

Funny enough I had told Bastiaan about her a couple of days earlier and I had promised him that I would call him when she was on the phone again, so he could be the judge about the volume. So I did, and his reaction left no room for discussion. He was stunned! :-)

I don’t mind it so much if people are on the phone around me. I usually can just block out the noise, hear it’s there, but don’t listen and just ignore it as noise in the background. But not with her… Her volume is so loud, it’s impossible to block it out. And even if you succeed, it’s takes to much energy to do so.

After she had been on the phone for more then an hour, it finally stopped… relief… Then she thanked me for getting her a cup of coffee when she was on the phone. I couldn’t accept… I was blunt and went straight to the point. “Sorry, don’t get me wrong, I only went to get coffee because I couldn’t concentrate on my work with you talking so loud.” Her excuse was simple: “Yes, the headset is so good, it’s blocking most of the sound so I can’t hear myself and therefore have to speak very loud.” …

Weird… because when she was on the phone I asked my other colleagues about the loud volume, they said it was normal. Even borrowed a similar headset while she was on the phone, put it on, but it didn’t block a thing for me! Strange…

Today, when the noise was back, I used the headset from my phone to listen to the radio while she was on the phone. What pleasure! This weekend I will look up my old Formula 1 earplugs, to make good use of them again next week! Grandprix or not! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

So far cycling to work is proving to be somewhat of a mixed success. In the morning it’s just great! It’s quite a short ride, just about 15km or 40 minutes, easy and safe parking of the bike and I can shower at work, so no problem at all. I do start quite early, but that’s mainly because I like to finish early. Especially when cycling home and afterwards having to shower, do grocery shopping and cook, it just takes up a lot of time and it’s nice to leave for home a bit early.

But that’s the morning… in the afternoon it’s a different story. I take a little detour on the way back, through the dunes and that makes the ride about 10km longer. Still, cycling 25km shouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a bit more then 50 minutes, but every single day I start to feel quite “empty” after about 35 minutes…

Don’t exactly know why, but my best guess would be a simple lack of energy… true, around 1700 I do get a bit hungry, but it’s quite rough on the bike. I have breakfast just before I leave in the morning, and a normal lunch at noon, so that should prove to be a problem… even introduced a couple of “snacks” (apple or Liga EverGreen) before I leave, but that hasn’t helped much so far…

Not sure what to do now. Probably will just try to keep cycling and see what works best. Maybe a bigger lunch, a later breakfast, more nasty snacks? Or maybe it’s just getting used to the fact I am on the bike so often now. OK, the rides are a bit shorter then normal, but still get a good 1 and a half hour of exercise every day.

And normally I would always praise and follow the classic “one day on, one day off” tactic, especially as numerous times that has proven it’s success… or actually I should say, not following that philosophy led to problems, so that might be the case now as well… I guess time will tell. Maybe it’s just because I am only moderate and am expecting to much! ;-)

Posted in Work, Cycling | 1 Comment »

Introduced to my world some years ago by my good friend Bastiaan. “Afsmsen” or “Cancel by SMS” in English. That was the historic and legendary way he cancelled his appointment for a massage on the last moment. By SMS. For me, that’s were it started. Never heard about it before that, so all credits to Bastiaan. But yesterday I discovered time has progressed things quite a bit. Not just massage appointments are cancelled by SMS, people now also report not coming into work by SMS!

Amazing… not calling to the office anymore, no more pretending to sound more sick then you really are to justify staying at home, not having other people calling for you because you are to sick to call, non of that! A simple SMS will do! :-)

I do wonder what he wrote in his text message though… He was probably still giving an explanation… I wonder how long it will take before we just send “WORK OFF” or “SICK ON” to our employer to report in sick! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Yes, cycling to work for me must be cursed. Well, at least a little… tried 3 times, failed 3 times. First time last Friday. Got up early, but from my bed I could already hear I wasn’t going to cycle that day. Very heavy rain, thunder and lighting… I really wanted to cycle to work, but not that bad I considered going through that kind of weather! I would try again on Monday.

Well, yesterday I did try. But didn’t get further then about 200 meter on the bike. After that distance I noticed my rear tire was surprisingly soft. Or at least not as hard as it was the day before, when I rode my bike on a little ride after fixing the unexpected puncture on my front tire and pumped up both tires in the process. So when checking the rear tire before pumping it up again, I could hear a little sizzling sound… F#ck… another puncture… And at 0645 in the morning not something you wanne fix right there and then. So I left the bike for what it was, and took the bus/train to work again…

After fixing the tire that night, I got up early again this morning for the next attempt! Quite motivated I got on the bike on 0630 (!!) and took off. And then disaster struck again… after 4km I heard something funny… psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. Oh no! And indeed… another puncture… Just my luck… Only problem now was that the distance to work (probably at least another 13 or more km) was a bit to far to walk with the bike… so there was no other option to return home again… *Aarggg* So after cycling for 15 minutes I had to walk back with the bike for 45…

Well, I guess there is no other option then to just keep trying! Some day the curse will be gone and I should get there without any problems! :-)

Posted in Work, Cycling | 2 Comments »

Today was a dark day… The darkest day in the MinusOne history. I am trying to get some new contract work in Holland and was not allowed to send invoices from my company, like I normally do. For 2 long weeks I fought like a tiger to make it work and be able to invoice somebody. Together with Bastiaan we figured out a bit dubious scheme of payment methods to get around the rules, but in the end it all turned out pointless… Only thing left was to get pay rolled in order to get the work…

In theory there is nothing wrong with that of course, but still… after 4 rather good years with MinusOne it hurts more then I expected to let the company sit on the sideline for this project. We have been through a lot together. So with pain in my heart I agreed on the pay rolling solution today and for the next 6 months will be working on a project again. So be it. I guess there need to be dark days in all histories.

Posted in Work | No Comments »

“We need you to pick up some people at 1800. Possibly drive them to work at 0900 in the morning as well. Just for a couple of days. You will get to drive a Kia Picanto and you would do us a great favor!”
Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Who would say no to that? Well, not me! :-)

And although probably not the most challenging job in the world, fun it was for sure! The fun already started when picking out my temporary car. Besides the Kia Picanto there was a slightly better car available, this one with power steering, a Opel Agila… Oi… that’s a real difficult choice! The bad or the ugly. As the challenge seemed bigger with the Picanto, that was my choice.

And a challenge it was. It almost became a mission impossible after opening the door of the Picanto… oh my lord!! The smell that came out of it!!!!! My first thoughts went directly to many taxi-rides I have taken abroad… Often foreign taxi drivers would, for some reason, hang up a magic pine tree in there car… Well, anybody who has been in such a taxi will know exactly what I am talking about! These things smell absolutely horrible! And now “my” taxi had one! The previous owner must have either had a serious smelling problem, or been really smelly him/herself… but who could be more smelly then the pine tree?! You need a serious lack of personal hygiene to accomplish that kind of smell!

It turned out that my “work” was limited to just two pickups in the evening. And where the first day was all about getting to know the job, the second day I could only be distinguished from real taxi drivers by the lack of a meter, a taxi sign on the roof and the fact that I wasn’t driving an old Mercedes, but still struggling without the power steering in the Kia Picanto…

The taxi driver feeling flourished! The smelly car was for free, the radio bad and always on SkyRadio and I even developed the bad taxi driver version of English while talking and turning to my Polish passengers on the backseat. Their English wasn’t so good, and it’s amazing how fast, and with what great enjoyment you can adjust back to their level of English. Conversations all of a sudden sound like: “Work fun today? Yes? You like work? No? You here long time? Holland good? No? Miss Poland? Yes?”.

When the last pickup on Friday evening got cancelled because they had found a Polish friend who could drive them home, I actually felt a bit sad. Wasn’t I good enough as a taxi driver? I drove safely, for as far possible in a Picanto… The smell wasn’t me… I was able to cheer them up with telling them we have Polish supermarkets in Holland and one is actually close by to where they live… We had good conversations… I just hadn’t seen it coming…
Taxi Picanto no more.

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Granny Mundt. I worked with her for quite some time on a project in Stockholm. She got the nickname very early in the project when nobody really knew who she was, just that see talked a lot of our technical teamlead at the time, who’s last name happened to be Mundt and for some weird reason we thought they had to be related…

Later I learned her real name was Mona and she was our most dedicated tester! A very sweet woman who could really put her teeth into her test work and wouldn’t let go until things were working properly. Not always to the great joy of the development team, as her finding problems always meant more work for us. But she would become legendary in the project for remarks like: “There is something wrong with the teasers”, which could point to a million things that could be wrong. As well as smoking the waterpipe with us on a project outing and drinking another 4 half liter of beers after clearly stating she had enough after beer number 1! I always liked her a lot. You just had to love granny Mundt! :-)

So I was greatly, but pleasantly, surprised when she called me today! She was applying to a new testing-job and needed a reference for her work in the past and was wondering if she could write my name down for that. Well, of course I would love to be a reference for her. How could I not be! So now I am actually hoping the people of that company will give me a call… because besides mentioning her qualities in testing I will have so many fun stories to tell! ;-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Well, the return to Stockholm turned out to be much shorter then I expected and hoped for. Last Friday was truely a “Friday the 13th” for me, as I was kicked of the project. It left me quite stunned I must say. The main reason was that I missed 2 project meetings. Unacceptable? Apparently. The first one I totally forgot about, the second one I missed because I didn’t have the impression it was so important, it was very late on the day and most of all… I wanted to go spinning… The weather in Stockholm had been beautiful all week, I missed the cycling after the week in France and just wanted to exercise really bad! Well, no excuse at all for missing a meeting. I realize that now.

Looking back at it all, I realize the problem is much bigger then just being kicked of a project. It’s not like me to miss meetings. Not like me at all. I seemed to have lost all passion for the work I do. Funny enough I talked about the same subject with some people earlier last week. That I was doing my work but mainly on routine and that was about it. Normally I like to push myself to put in extra effort and that combined with having lots of joy with the people I work with give me the extra satisfaction I need and want to find in a project. But this time around it was only the joy of being around the sweet people I worked with before… The main reason to return to the project was simply to be back in Stockholm… I guess that was the wrong reason from the start.

So the conclusion has been one that I probably should have drawn some time ago, but what happened on Friday just accelerated the whole process. The conclusion was simple. My IT days are over! :-) No more. The end of an era. Strange feeling comes with that for now, but I guess the decision is still so fresh I haven’t really realised it yet…

So the new question is: What’s next? Good question, but hard to answer just yet… I need to think a bit about this one. But as the way back is closed for good, it will only be a matter of time before I find an answer! Exciting stuff!!! It might be a new study, it might be something else… time will tell! :-)

Posted in Work | 1 Comment »

Where last week I couldn’t remember many of the bad things about the project I was returning to… they slowly came back to me during the first meeting on Tuesday… At some point I was really thinking to myself: “What was I thinking to return here?!”. Especially when they mentioned that the work we had to do had to be “seamless” for the customer. Seamless had been the keyword in the last project I did at Ericsson. At the start of the project Ericsson was promised a seamless migration. But from day one it would turn out to be anything but seamless… And the word turned out to hunt us throughout the project. As with every little issue we raised, it became less and less seamless, finally resulting in a huge amount of extra work for the customer and something as far from seamless as you ever could imagine! And now they mentioned the same thing again… You would think people would learn from the mistakes in the past, but no no no no, not here! :-)
Good thing is that the project won’t be as complex as the last one. Or at least I will try and do everything that is within my powers to keep it as simple as possible! And luckily being back in Stockholm is truely great fun again! Almost felt like going home when I arrived here on Monday evening! Strange but true. Things just feel so familiar again… So with seeing so many great people here again, and the many more I still have to go meet up with I am sure I will have great time here again! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Yesterday I had a job interview. A job interview with a company I already worked for. A company I worked for, for more then 13 months in the last 2 years… Sounds weird? Well, it feels weird as well. It’s a new project, but very closely related to the project I worked on last time. And the main thing I fail to understand, is why they need to hear from me what I have done in those 13 months?! They have direct access to the best possible inside information they could ever get: The people who sat besides me during that time! They know exactly what I did and how I do my work, plus they work for the same company that interviewed me, so who better to give an honest opinion about me?!?!
I didn’t mind the interview at all, but I think I would have preferred them to check internally first, to get a recommendation from the people I worked with. Or maybe not. But that would mean I wouldn’t be the right person for the job! Or that the people I worked with didn’t have much confidence in me. Either way, it felt very weird explaining what I had done for their company the last 2 years. Even more, as the people I was talking to had no clue about what we had done in the last project… But well, apparently they liked what I had to say. Just waiting for their confirmation now and if it comes, I could be in Stockholm again on Monday! As always time will tell…

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Two days ago I was asked if I wanted to return to Stockholm, to work on another project for Ericsson. Funny enough I agreed. Funny because when I left there I was happy my time was up, as I had a lot of negative feelings towards the project. Things did not go, as I thought they should go. But weird enough I can hardly remember the bad things anymore… Very strange… The solution we build was very shaky, and it wasn’t something I would proudly hand over to the customer. But as often my opinion didn’t really count. I do remember the last months having lots of fun with my own little project, within the big project: “The left-hand navigation”. I was very determined to make that little piece of the project the highlight of the solution. Spending way to many hours, not following anything that was written in the design document, doing it the way I thought it had to be done, and guided by endless discussions about tiny details with Peter J., Mia, Peter B., Stuart, Eva, Helena, Louise, the Go-Go-Girls and all other people I could find to bother with my questions! :-)
For some reason the things I enjoyed stayed in my memory and almost all bad things have disappeared as snow before the sun… Maybe that’s why I agreed so easily to return to Stockholm… Just so I can meet up again with all the lovely people I met there last time! And that joy makes me not think or care much about the work at all. Strange. And maybe not good, but it’s a great feeling work is not the primary thing I am going back to Stockholm! :-)
But, as always it seems, things are not 100% sure yet. I demanded to have the first week of May of, as of the cycling holiday in the south of France! No way I am going to work that week! I am just to excited to go there! 2 days ago I was told I would get my confirmation yesterday. Yesterday I was told I would get the confirmation this morning. And indeed, still no confirmation…
But even if it turns out the work is not going through, returning to Stockholm is just a matter of time… I just hope when I do, I have time to meet all those lovely people in person! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Yes, I am a short timer again! I was told last Monday my contract will be cut a week short. Development went quicker then expected and all of a sudden they have run out of money. Strange, but everybody has been only positive about my contributions the last 6 weeks, so it can’t all be bad. The mad thing is that I still haven’t gotten a contract. Crazy. The English company (let’s call that company “Autumn”) Shell wanted my contract to run through, still hasn’t got me the final contract… It took them 4 weeks to send the initial one, but that one didn’t have the change in a section about timesheets we discussed for almost 2 days… Luckily they have paid my first invoice, so that is at least something. But sadly they forgot to pay the invoice VAT… It’s truely unbelievable I am paying 4% of my fee to the Autumn company for them to only arrange my payments. Customer service don’t seem to be in their dictionary…
But well, just two more days! No new project yet, so I can totally put my focus to getting in shape for the Amstel Gold Race! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

“Would you like to sign the card?”
“Sorry?”
“Would you like to sign the card?”
“Sorry, what card?!”
“The card we bought for the girl and guy who are leaving the department.”
“Why would I wanne sign that?”
“Well, it’s a present. For when they leave. In the other envelope you can donate some money so we can buy them a nice present.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes…”
“Why would I wanne sign the card, let alone give money? I don’t even know those people?! I got here 3 days ago…”
“Well, you don’t have to, but it’s ok if you wanne sign it as well.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ok, if you don’t want to…”
“You sound disappointed?!”
“Yes, everybody is signing it and giving money.”
“So? I don’t know them, they don’t know me! Why would I join in??”
“Never mind.”
“…”

As you can see, I still have some slight problems integrating in my new working environment :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Yes, it has been a while, but working life will be resumed coming Monday! For 40 days oil giant Shell has purchased my services. It doesn’t seem to be the most exciting assignment ever, but as I don’t know much of the details at the moment, it might all turn out all right. I guess I will have to wait and see on Monday!
And no, for you jokers out there, I won’t be working at the petrol station, filling cars with unleaded, checking oil and cleaning windows! Or, at least not that I know of! :-)

Posted in Work | No Comments »