Breakthrough

Seems I have a second interview for the job.

Unfortunately it's not for a while, due to holidays and the like, so I'll have plenty of time to second-guess how to approach it. There are, alledgedly, a number of candidates involved, so obviously not everybody ran screaming from the building.

Knowing the situation they have themselves in, I think I've got a few pointers on what to research, so a couple of new software project books are winging their way from Amazon as we speak. I genrally find its good to get your mindset aligned beforehand, so I'm hoping they will do the trick.

Sign on day tomorrow too. I have to print out my 4 page job hunting log to prove I've not just been sitting on my backside whilst the government shells out everyone elses hard earned money. Fun.

Land of make-believe

I've returned from a job interview today.

It's the first interview I've had in a little while, and it was somewhat different from the norm. Usually you get asked a load of leading questions, answer them by selecting a situation, viewing it from the most favourable point of view and adding 6. It is then traditional to spout mumbo-jumbo about technology or processes or synergistic flangehandly doohickies and finally retire for coffee and contracts.

This interview started by being told in no uncertain terms that they were up a certain place without a certain implement, that the customers were banging fists on tables, the developers were delivering dodgey code and everyone was running, at increasing speed, around an ever-collpasing singularity of terror.

My first thought: RUN AWAY!

My second thought: Well you could hardly make things any worse, and it would be nice to have a job ... or more particularly, the money that comes with a job.

Don't get me wrong, I've been there before, with project falling around your ankles, code that just won't work and impossible deadlines for impatient customers. It's just that most people try and keep it a little bit quiet. To be faced with this in an interview was interesting, and, I must say, has piqued my curiosity about the company. It's probably some kind of self-harm urge brought on by unemployment, but I actually thought - yes, I could go and sort that lot out.

I am now waiting to hear if they want me for a second interview, so I may never get the chance to find out any more, but we shall see. At least no one will be able to pretend they didn't know what they were letting themselves in for when they joined.

Housebound

Looks like January's in the bag for this year and not much progress for me.

Job market has been decidedly sluggish until about the last week when several things all came along at once. Of course the big achievement was applying for Jobseekers Allowance (which I've heard I'm going to get).

It seems strange, but I feel I have less time to spare than when I'm working. Despite the fact I hardly emerge from the house on many days, I seem to fill the time up with a combination of (often futile) calls to agents, hunting through job sites and fiddling around on various epics of my own devising. Of course, I haven't mentioned Lego Star Wars, which is also consuming a degree of time, and proving rather compelling.

Motivation seems to go in peaks and troughs, but generally is not as hard to come by as I was expecting. I was starting to wonder how long it would be before I actually landed an interview, but I now have one lined up, albeit in a week's time, which seems like an eternity away. It's not that there are no jobs out there - I see them advertised every day - it's just that people seem to be very, very slow at progressing at the moment, probably hoping that all the doom and gloom of the economy will somehow nurture some small ray of sunshine that can be clung to like flotsam in a shipwreck.

Looks like my annual skiing holiday is off, much to my annoyance.

For some light relief, however, I've actually been and performed a demo for my old company. They are still trying to sell the edifice to someone who'll take it on and do great things. It's a strange situation, but somehow seems about as surreal as the rest of my existence at the moment.

Dole scum

I took the plunge and decided to claim Jobseekers allowance.

After my first attempt to use their online system which just got lost in digital oblivion, I had a lovely half-an-hour on the phone answering lots of questions about all my personal finances. I then had to attend an interview at my local Jobcentre which I did yesterday.

It was a strange experience. The actual people were actually reasonably pleasant, but the whole process did seem very protracted, with photocopies of things being taken and tons of paperwork to fill in.

I then had to formulate my Jobseekers agreement, which is basically the beginners guide to looking for a job. If I don't do 3 things to find work each week, my money is cut off ... seems like very little to ask. He also did a search for jobs for me which yielded absolutely nothing - which was funny because I had 2 emails about jobs whilst I was sitting there.

I think it was a good idea to reinforce that the unemployed should be looking for work, and hence be called Jobseekers, but I also think that the blurring between the benefits side and the looking for work side is counterproductive. The stated goal of the centre is to help you back into work, but in fact half of what they do is make sure you're actually looking yourself. The one-size-fits all approach which sees me having to ring the Jobcentre for jobs just as if I were an unskilled school leaver seems like a waste of everyone's time - when the specialist agencies have far more to offer.

Possibly the most amuzing thing is that I can specify the sort of job I want and the salary, but this only holds for 13 weeks, after that, I have to take any job - which is just foolish. If the pay won't cover the mortgage, there's just no point.

All in all though, I felt it was a more positive experience than I was expecting and, given the range of people they probably get, I felt it was quite constructive. I am, however, looking forward to officially being Dole scum when my application is finally processed (about 3 weeks, apparently).

Quiet

It's been very quiet on here of late.

This is for a number of reasons. I've been busy with a couple of things; the first being Christmas and all the various paraphernalia that surrounds it - especially having to cater for lots of people, but more of that another time. The second is a project I've been working on for myself, which is proving rather tricky, but also compelling. It's basically been eating time where I would otherwise be lazing around, playing on the Wii and posting here.

Also, however, there is my general apathy at the moment. This is not helped by having an interview for a rather promising position just before Christmas, and then the whole company toddling off on holiday without deciding if I should work for them. A bit frustrating since I will officially be unemployed tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm working on a few posts which I hope to cram in before the end of the year (day), just to fill up some space and to make 11th December seem as far away as it really feels to me.

So I hope you all have a smashing Christmas and have something suitable lined up for New Year's eve ... I know I have.

Era ended

Today was (hopefully) my last day in the office.

I say hopefully because my boss has been hedging his bets a bit and has refused to take the office keys off me - but I've finished the tasks stipulated on my termination letter.

I've spent the last few days not only pulling all of the last 2 years work into one place, but also having a go at cleaning out some of the junk in the office. Given that the company is (probably) winding up - pretty much everything is junk, especially all the products we spent the last 2 years struggling to put together.

In a way it is quite sad, and I do feel some pangs of regret, but in many ways I am glad it's at an end. The last year has been difficult and I've had to deal with taking the blame for all kinds of things, a witch hunt against me, some rather unprofessional antics by both my bosses and team and also the continued and persistent playground politics of the directors.

I still feel that we did a good job, against all the odds, and produced something which, under different circumstances with a different company, could have been a nice little product selling into a niche market. We were never going to be huge, but I think we could all have made a good living and had fun doing it - however it was not to be.

Ironically, healthcare is probably one of the few sectors which will weather this downturn quite well. But that's all behind me now.

Being so close to Christmas, the job market is very sluggish at the moment. With the added uncertainties of financial meltdown it's proving very difficult to find a job which doesn't just disappear overnight - I've had a number of really good looking prospects which suddenly cease to exist - so I suspect it will be the new year before anything concrete comes along.

I've got a number of ideas for projects and products but it is difficult to get the motivation to really drive them forward - I also don't have the money to finance them myself - but perhaps I will tinker around with a few ideas and see where we go. I don't need to desperately find a job imediately, but some form of income is going to be essential in the not too distant future. It's interesting to consider this may be a crossroads in my life, or it may just be a little blip which is soon forgotten - only time will tell which.

Closed

The inevitable has finally happened.

It's been rather quiet on here recently whilst several things have been going on. But as of yesterday it seems my ailing company is finally locking the doors. I've been given my termination letter.

I've been expecting this since April when the majority of other people left the company, but it is sad for it to finally happen. There are lots of bad things about the place but we were working on a great product and it's sad to see it end this way.

I think the most frustrating part is that the whole enterprise has really failed because the directors lost interest. It seems they can't wait to move on to the next things they have lined up. And overall it seems they aren't losing much money either - which probably explains why they never really fought for the company or really committed themselves to its survival.

So a brief pause for a bit of reflection and then its time to step up my search for the next thing. Not the best time to be looking, but hopefully something will come along - I hope something quite interesting - but will settle for paying the bills. In the meantime I have several ideas and projects that are filling my time, plus some finishing off that needs to be done for my old company.

Surprisingly this is the first time I've been made redundant and only the second time I've left a company at their behest rather than mine (the previous time was the end of a contract which wasn't renewed). Given my liking for small companies, I think this is quite unusual.

Afoot

Sometimes, it's frustrating that secrets have to be kept.

One of the reasons it's been a bit quiet on here of late (other than my completion of Mario Galaxy) is that there is lots going on in my day-to-day work life that I'm not allowed to discuss for reasons of commercial sensitivity. I did consider just ignoring this, but in the end discretion got the better of me and I decided that I just wouldn't discuss it at all until matters have been resolved, or at least a little more resovled than they are now.

Once again, with things hanging in the air, it's difficult to get motivated, but I do have a number of things to do, which will keep me occupied for the next couple of weeks, by which time I think at least some of this will be resolved and I can return to normality again.

I understand the curse of "living in interesting times" with a little more clarity than I'd really like.

Confused

It is confusing how much work I'm suddenly having to do.

After months of quiet solitude and bimbling about with very little to do, things have suddenly come to a head and I'm dashing all over the country giving demos and having meetings. It's just not on.

Admittedly, none of these meetings seem particularly productive and we've just had a major foundation stone unceremoniously ripped out from under us, but I am still surprised at how much interest has suddenly been generated in our company and product. We do have a new freelance sales chap - which does explain a lot of it.

The physical new product (due end August) is still not here - mostly due to the fact we still have some outstanding issues with the supplier (which are a bit commercially sensitive).

So all in all, we seem to be steaming at full speed in ever descreasing circles and probably generating our own whirlpool in which to drown.

Anyway, this, and the fact I decided to embark on a programming project of my own which is rather far-fetched and foolish, but keeps me off the streets, is the reason for lack of posts and general activity in the past couple of weeks.

P.S. I still haven't seen the next episode of Fringe, but if and when I do, I shall be sure to report back

Big Business

It's been a strange week at MG Towers where I work (pictured).

I was going to do a story so far opening, but decided it would probably depress me too much so that I wouldn't finish the post, so you'll just have to go and look here and here.

We finally have some movement on our next batch of hardware (due end August) and it looks like it's about ready to ship. This has now been held up by a number of commercial issues mostly centred around a senior figure in the company doing b'all for the last 4 months and holding up all the financial transactions above about £1.37 in value. This has somewhat annoyed me (as you can probably tell) because I've been pestering and chasing our supplier to sort themselves out at get our order sorted out for about 2 months now. Nasty words have been exchanged - via me because there is never any response from aforementioned senior figure.

So that is pretty much buisness as usual for us.

The strange thing is that not only do we seem to be close to getting a partner to handle calls for us, but we also have another project which has suddenly revived itself (although, the rumblings are that it will all fall apart again), 2 out-of-the-blue enquiries which actually sound quite interesting and two forthcoming demos, one of which is to a major high street retailer considering a retail version of the system.

We've been here before, of course, when everything looked rosy and then nothing happened, but at least it's something. It's been so damned quiet (both in terms of the office itself and the buisness) for the past 6 months, it makes the Marie Celeste look like Spearmint Rhino on a Friday night. Also strange when everyone else appears just about ready to board up the doors and call it a day.

We also seem to have somehow managed to get ourselves back on some kind of moderately stable financial footing, at least for a while (also a bit of a mystery). I keep asking myself if it's really going to make a difference or just prolong the inevitable. I think I probably know the answer.

Big Smoke

I had a trip to London today.

I had to drive to Paddington, which I really wasn't looking forward to. My general experiences of driving in London involve sitting in queues, ridiculous one-way systems, total lack of signposts and a Rolls Royce nudging the back of my car every time I stop at the lights. None of this was to come to pass, though. I had an excellent trip down the A40, managed not to get lost (despite the somewhat misleading signage) and arrived at the hospital about 40 minutes early.

I was giving a demo of our system to some patients - although it seemed likely they were simply there for the (rather splendid) catering that'd been laid on. But I did the demo anyway. One of them fell asleep. But it looks like it was a success and the hospital staff were very enthusiastic. We just need them to actually order something now (not that I care, because I'm leaving and everything, but perhaps I do care, just a little bit).

Amazingly, I had an equally good trip back - a couple more queues, but got back to the office in record time. Then I got stuck in a traffic jam for 45 minutes going into Henley on my way home. Ah! the delights of Henley again.

... and I did it all without the SatNav (mainly because it's so hopelessly out of date now that not only have the roads changed, but the continents have drifted significantly).

Jobs, apathy and general despair

I had a chat with Vic today.

I used to work with Vic in my second ever job, when I was still wide-eyed and the World was a simpler place. He's one of those people who always seems to have a smile on his face or find the funny side of things no matter what. By a strange coincidence he contracted at my previous workplace and now works in the office downstairs from me. It's nice to have a chat from time to time.

Only problem is, I always comes away from chatting - about work and the like - feeling just how ridiculous my situation with my company is right now. Things really are in a real mess and I don't see it getting any better (no matter what I do). Sometimes, small triumphs during the day make me forget just how far the whole enterprise has plummeted since the heady days of last year, but then conversations like today being it all back into focus again.

So that leaves me thinking that I really must get myself sorted out with another job. But right on queue I get another email from an agent telling me "on this occasion I've been unsuccessful" - when the guy has never taking a single phone call or answered an email from me. I don't mind not getting jobs (even ones I quite like the look of) but I do mind when I don't feel I've been fairly represented. Not even talking to me is a fairly good indication of that, I think. And so then I get disillusioned with the compitence of the agencies and their inability to tell the good people (i.e. me) from all the rubbish people out there and then I think I should give up this whole technology buisness and become a semi-nomadic goat herder in Bromsgrove.

Except the agency say they've had too many applications and they'll keep me on file, but would I like to try for a deep-sea possum fisher in Stoke-on-Trent?

@Home

A few times during my working career I've ended up working from home for some time. I find it can be quite a strange existence.

I am now in such a situation, although somewhat different from previous times. Usually I have some pretty agressive timescales and opt to work at home in order to focus on the important stuff I need to do. Right now I'm at home because there is no one else in the office anyway.

I work about 30 minutes car journey from home and I was leading a team, producing a telecare product. At the end of March, money became very tight and my entire team either left or were made redundant. Since then, myself and the sales chap have been going into the office twice a week, since it makes little difference, most of the time, where we are physically sitting. This has worked quite well, and although it's a big change from being in the office each day with lots of people, the variety of home and office has been OK - at least for novelty value, if nothing else.

Now, the sales chap is leaving. So that leaves me and our two directors in the company - directors who seldom show up in the office. So now I wonder how to divide my time between home and office. There are, of course, some things I need to go into the office for, but many things I don't.

There is also the question of motivation. A company which has an ever shrinking workforce, a lack of money and no customers is not the most inspiring place to be. Even when you believe in the product itself - and I do - it's difficult to find the drive to do all the things that need to be done - especially when you're at home and there are the inevitable distractions. I guess it's all about balance and finding the right mix of work and non-work to keep things sustainable. Having spent 2 years battling and working flat-out to get the product completed it's quite a shock to the system.

I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.