UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

greetings from Gdansk. Easter has been really great this year. Cross country skiing on Saturday and Sunday, followed by a walk on the beach on Monday. Coming back to England later today....

Oh, I didn't mention going to visit my brother to him, so it's probably too late now.

I actually had to do some work! This poor young man came over and asked me to explain him Crystal so, well, I did, and I rather fear I've made his head spin a bit.

Gdansk! I am jealous of the x-country skiing. I haven't done that in years and miss it.

Sag Paneer is spicey today! The lady at the whole foods shop now recognises me when I come in. Tee hee.

funny, I never think about how Crystal works, I just use it and I'm usually quite impressed! the reports come out really fast, tho i think that is to do with the good architecture of the database that feeds it rather than Crystal itself. Unlike the interface design of said database, which is lousy!

we were skiing in this forest which is managed by the Polish equivalent of the Forestry Commission, which, if I understood Asia correctly, is quite a corrupt organisation, not averes to felling & selling perfectly healthy trees to make a few readies rather than, y'know, looking after the things.

I am still not used to seeing środa, 26 marzec appearing next to my online name.

Were you designing reports in Crystal, or just running them?

Crystal should run quite fast if it's set up well, but the databases I work with are, quite predictably, usually monsters. I think they're set up either for ease of use or ease of reporting, but not both.

I think the poor lad was expecting something, well, less programmy.

just running them admittedly - I think I wouldn't be much use if I was *building* them and still didn't understand how they worked!

Why does all of Northampton seem to think I'm a scientist? I'm a MATHEMATICIAN. Not quite the same thing. I blame that Carruthers. He's been going around spreading malicious lies about me.

You wouldn't be the first to build Crystal Reports without knowing how they worked, though, Mark!

I shall retaliate by sending him into SPACE:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/22/spaceexploration.spacetechnology

Yawn.

That was my entire excitement for the day. Now everyone is back to ignoring me. I wonder if I can sneak out early to go to rehearsal.

I think you can
s/rehearsal/dental appointment

My turn to go for a job interview this week. Everybody seems to be changing jobs.

Is yours by accident or design?

How early is the next question. I'm going to try for 5pm! Shocking!

4.30

No, someone would definitely notice.

Is yours by accident or design?

Accident. In the sense that I wasn't really looking very hard and somebody emailed me about it. Or is that design? Unintelligent design? Their website is a total mess that I could merrily spend ages licking into shape, they have content coming out of their ears, more than they know where to put... unfortunately, marketing is mentioned, and I phear the marketing

Well, I would call it an accident if you were made redundant and/or sacked from your last role, and you *have* to look for a new job. Or design if you decided to go do so. I think. I don't know. My head has just been rearranged.

Ummm. Could someone please try to explain or comment:

http://www.nigelhaversalliance.com

I can't figure out what on earth it's on about, but it is making me LOL rather suspiciously.

Is it a satire of Conservative websites? A fan site? I'm very confused. But still lolling.

OK, now someone else wants to come over and be learned Crystal. OK...

Ha! Re-reading the job description for this position, I realise that what's actually being described is three different jobs! Typical.

Well, I'd rather have three jobs at once to do, than absolutely nothing at all, and be reduced to reading spoof websites.

Which reminds me, the Connaught Square Squirrel Hunt should be announcing its meet card for 2008 soon!

won't you need to borrow a dog?

No, everyone is allowed to chase Dillon/Dylan.

Ah, so FreeLoveBabies are playing at the Cellar tomorrow. I want to goooo. But I cannot get back to London in time to get a decent night's sleep to be at work on Friday.

Employement sucks. :-(

Oh how did Diamanda Galas go?

... let me guess:

WAHHHHHHHHHHHH.... tinkle-bonk.... SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... plink plink.... AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE

I knew of the nigel havers site. I saw him asked about it on terry wogan on uk gold. The guys a bit of a fruitcake apparentlynot Nigel Havers)

btw Boris have a website now.
http://www.myspace.com/borisdronevil

Bastards are touring with Growing but no Scotland date. I wanna see Growing!

No, Diamanda was really good. Very emotionally intense, and perfect for the state that I was in.

Ha ha, I thought at first you were trying to say Boris Johnson had a MySpace. I've gone right off him since he started opening his mouth.

Why has ILX gone all weird revival today?

Usually they wait til bored fridays

What other messageboards are there on the web. That are, you know, multi-interest, not just about music?

I think it's time for me to find one. OK, wait, no, it was time for me to find one about 4 years ago. But better late than never.

argh, the deluge has come, and me without my umbrella

Is it deluging down South? Oh no. I have an umbrella, but I also have a bass which does not fit under said umbrella.

very much deluging in CR4

Which means it will be at SW16 in about 20 minutes.

Wait, I'm not going straight home! I'm going to Surrey Quays.

Also... I have finally, after only, oh, 5 weeks here, discovered what my job is supposed to be!

If only I'd been talking to the techie all along instead of the useless admin type boss.

I'm sure theres millions of multi-interest message boards, but also millions of wankers on them far worse than ilx.
Only other boards i post on regularly are Doomed Forever(used to be Southern Lord til Greg pulled the plug) and VLV.
I do sometimes post on stonerrock.com and I Hate Music.
I dont think i could post on another general interest board. I ignored ILE for like 4/5 years when i 1st read ILM in 1999/2000.

Does Ned still post on the cooler? I've hardly seen him post these past few months compared to usual.

And where's Mitya ,emil.y, FP ,onimo , mark c and ailsa and anyone else I left out?

After this morning's events, I have just sent this letter to my agent:

Hi ::Kate's Agent::-

Just to let you know, my boss has rescinded use of the internet for all purposes, so if you need to contact me for the next week, please do so by phone on XXXXXXXXXXX rather than on email.

I have to say that I am rather relieved that this project is coming to an end. This is one of the most poorly managed projects I've worked on in my life. I've been left for days without any kind of adequate direction, let alone supervision. Attempts to get any kind of basic information about the project have been passed from department to department, and when I try to follow up my requests, I get told not to "pressure" people.

Despite all this, I have managed to come up with some workarounds and got the project done to the best of my abilities. (This is nothing short of a miracle, considering that I've developped some kind of reporting before the developers have actually even finalised the basic dataset of the database. I explained this to my supervisor as like trying to paint the walls of a house which has not been built yet.)

My manager has been absent for days or even weeks at a time, at crucial stages of the development. I've been left for days at a time, with no answers to requests, trying to stretch 20 minutes of work a day into eight hours - and then, to add insult to injury, criticised for accessing my personal email during that downtime. Information has been so lacking that it is only now, in week 5 of a 6 week project, that I've actually been given the full, relevent background to the project.

I realise that this email sounds like one long complaint. I can only compare this project to others I have worked on, and indeed, the project I worked on and completed in the course of being "lent" to another department within this agency.

I just wish to say that I have done as much as I can within a difficult situation.

Please tell me this wasn't a really stupid idea, but after weeks of complaining about having nothing to do, they've just told me I can't use the internet. I asked, directly "what am I supposed to do, read a book?" Which I am now going to do. Talk to you at lunchtime, I guess.

Sounds like fair comment to me

This is definitely not a stupid idea. (s)he is your agent, and if you can't tell this to them, who can you? They are meant to work for you. If the client has issues with your work and complains to the agent, they have some immediate comeback/defence that they can use in your defence. And in their defence too, as they will be defending the commission they earned by placing you. Naturally, if the client does not 'complain', the agent is not going to go in guns blazing as they will be more interested in keeping the door open for them to place more people (including yourself, your not wanting to go back notwithstanding...)

So, yeah.

I just had a job interview! But don't ask me how it went, because I always think interviews go well, even when they haven't.

I have just been offered a job! It's all go!

I was googled! I don't like that. No.

Sounds fair to me, Kate, and Mark G very much OTM.

Congrats GG.

I am starting to be capable of being busy at this job, which is pleasing.

this pm I find out whether my 12 week notice period here is negotiable or not.

12 weeks!!!!!! WTF how is anyone ever meant to leave? Although if they are shedding people then maybe they will let you go sooner.

It's usually negotiable.