This Business and Moment...

Still here until friday. They moved our booths yesterday so I'm now in the back corner of the room facing the wall, which I'm ****ed about. Not exactly helpful for the amount of money this cost me. Someone's getting a hoot-a-gram when I get back. Hoping that I can still get some decent traffic through. See how it goes.

Good luck with the interview!
 
Back from my many weeks stateside conferencing and trying to catch up with product development and follow ups with people to try and get some sales into get some actual ROI on these things, which would be nice.

My eyes are stinging like mad. I'm beat. I need a week of sleep I think.
 
Nice one, good steps to some change!
One thing with being subcontracted that always got me (I did it for a year) was it just annoyed me that the company I worked for got a good day rate for me and yet I got a small chunk of it. Hence me going contract after that. What's your background? I haven't paid enough attention to know :p
 
Sadly, it's all the 80/20 rule of doing the 20% of stuff that matters. By matters I mean, is visible to the people it needs to be to help you. Crap way of doing it, but that's big business. It doesn't reward the hard working. Or rarely in the way you want it to.
 
^^ Ooof gutter about missing out by 7mins! Recruitment is totally time critical and cut throat!
How did it go with the mandate?

Yea, that's the one. Although it's kind of taking most of my time at the moment. I'm contract elsewhere, so I just don't get paid if I don't work, which is good for flexibility, bad for income! I can "work remotely" sometimes too. Which has this year been stretched somewhat, I have to say...
 
Skillmister said:
Ours have. We're under half of our usual number of cases in June/July this year compared to the last 3 years :eek: Quiet times ahead..
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What sector are you in? I think it's all down to perception at the moment, and confidence. I reckon once an actual plan is set out, it could have a good effect on the economy. Though, it's run by morons, so you know...
 
Just had a meeting with a company in south africa that are trying to make it easier for people to get courses etc. wanted our product, starting with a 500 user / student license and review useage monthly with them as it increases. Guy was like send me over the invoice and let's get started.

Which is wicked!

Rather than, the process which is STILL ongoing with Arizona state uni, which has been 6 months now and taken me a lot of time and therefore money! Still, we're getting there...

Small deal but deal's a deal when it's yours! :D
 
Where I'm contracting, I really want to do a project using digital badges (like openbadges.org) as I'm putting together a training program for SharePoint here, and it's logged in their crappy system somewhere people have completed training, but it's not a searchable entity. I want to make it so people can see more about what people can do based on their credentials etc through decent search.
I don't know why, I just think it would be a fun project and stop me wanting to kill myself here.

Outside of here, we got our invoice paid by the south africans, which is an awesome cause trying to bring MOOC (massively open online courses; such as edx, kahn accademy etc) to people who do not have access to computers etc. Which I love.
We've a demo scheduled with a group of Mexican Universities next week, and had an email from the Uni of Adelaide asking for a demo, which is a nice world spread.
I've been bogged down with a technical issue, which has meant I've taken my foot off the sales gas a bit and cost me too much time, but getting back up to full speed now. Ugh.
 
Rids said:
Think I'm going to have to put myself back on the market - only been with the company 8 months but I'm just not feeling it.

When I came in the place was a mess, and month-end was taking 15+ working days with 95% of the Excel work all being performed by manually hardkeying things in. I'm at the point now where I can do all my month end bits comfortably in 5 days, I could easily get that down further but review process here is overly stringent so I spend a lot of time waiting around for my work to be "reviewed" - which is pointless as the review has never picked up anything, and when there have been errors they've been caught by my own built in checks further down the line.

Problem is that once we get out of month end I'm pretty much twiddling my thumbs, I've got a few bits I'm working on to further enhance processes outside of my area, but other than that I'm being pushed towards things I have absolutely zero interest in. There are a lot of good things about this job, the salary is good considering its not in London, its 30 minutes door to door from home and the lack of a workload means that I never have to work anything more than 9-5 but I need a challenge before I go stir crazy.

Sorry, just needed to vent.
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Sounds like they're benefiting from you but you're not getting out of it enough to stretch you. Keep your eyes out like you are, I'd say!
 
AHarvey said:
I've started looking for something else, but the issue is as I now work a 10 minute walk from home I have no issues getting to work. As my daughter has now started school it means I'd need to buy a second card to get to and from a place of work unless I just settled on some random factory/fork truck job.

I have no idea what I want to do. I was really enjoying the SEO/PPC work I was doing before the redundancy and job merge into the position I now have. I've started working on a few hardware and coding projects for work but they are so cheap it's doubtful they would be interested due to a tiny cost. They won't buy a £7 extension lead to plug in the new 43" tv and smart webcam thing they've fitted so it can't be used, but they are giving away a million pounds on Saturday to one of their sales team...

I can't carry on dealing with this stupid IT issues:

1) Sales consultant having a meltdown because his email signature disappeared.
2) People complaining that dropbox isn't updating when it doesn't have an internet connection.
3) People complaining their wireless mouse doesn't work despite changing the batteries, when they've put the new batteries on the desk and put the old ones back in.
4) People complain their scanner isn't working when its just a USB cable that has been unplugged.

I miss having to use my brain, I miss having something interesting to learn about and work on.
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See what you can find out there. If you need another car, it'd be worth it if you take the hit now but have a better job with more of a career path
 
That's fantastic news Davey! Well done on holding out too, bet that was tough. It's hard, because as soon as you're in a lesser role, it's what you'd be looking at after that! You devalue yourself in doing so, but when you need something it's not that easy to hold on, so kudos!


My side gig is going OK at the moment, seems to be gathering some interest I just need to convert it to revenue. I was all set for sorting my E2 visa to the US this week, or starting the process anyway, but I've hit a snag.
My wife has had a pain in her hip for a bit so went to the doctors to try and sort it out. She's had xrays and is due an MRI in the next couple of weeks. Though the results of the X-ray have shown that she has osteonecrosis, which is basically the bone not getting enough oxygen and breaking down in her hip.
She's likely going to need an operation, but her mobility is going to be **** until that happens. When you have 3 kids, one being 2, this isn't ideal. She's beside herself and I'm putting on the whole "it'll be fine, we'll get you sorted" but I just hope it will be OK for her.
We obviously can't move to the US whle all this is going on, so have to look at our options when we know more, but I might have to take another contract back in the UK and move back while it's all sorted. She can't communicate well with doctors over here and she's not confident about them.
Kind of throws things up in the air a little.

Sorry for the rambling.
 
I know what headhunting is like, it can be pretty draining. It took it's toll on me a lot at times. Putting together a document for the whole structural engineering companies in the Middle East (which was a new market for the company at the time, geographically, anyway), including all hierocracy, project experience and personal experience of the top 3 tiers of management as a particular ball buster.
It's a really tough one though, as you can take a horse to water etc. and I think you need to set a real concrete period going forward to try and iron out any issues, or you'll spend more time trying to make it work, than it's worth to you. Easier said than done when there is a personal connection there though, that's for sure.

I think I'm definitely going to have to try and find a PM role in the UK (anyone need a PM on contract give me a shout :p ) which is not ideal, as I'll just have to work even more evenings to try and get my side work going too, as we've taken on money, albeit not millions, enough to have commitments to external shareholders.
*starts looking for job*
 
skaif said:
Ain't it weird how things work out....Over the weekend we managed to secure funding from a family friend, no strings attached which takes our total savings to £50k, today we confirmed rental on our temporary accommodation (well minimum 2 years) that is an awesome house everyone is happy with!

Now the real work starts, moving house, renovating the old one, starting the business. Here's to the next 12 months!
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Well done! You'll no doubt find it gets more tough, as these things tend to, but hey it's worth the work for the pay off in the end!
 
Phate said:
Just had my interview with MS via Skype.

The interview began with a career history of me and then I got a lot of the standard corporation questions "What would it mean to work at a company like Microsoft?" etc - kind of questions I hate but have to be answered.

Then the technical questions began, this is where it got difficult. I answered them all the best I could. They also asked me a lot about technologies they knew I do not have direct hands on experience with so I kinda had to play it out with them anyway, but they repeated that they knew I wasn't sure...so maybe they were trying to see how I handled situations where I wasn't sure or confident with the tech involved, who knows?

It last 45 minutes in total. They said they were going to give their feedback to their manager and that I would hear back from them. They didn't say when. But then again things move slowly in Portugal, so we will see. But the next step would be an interview with another member of the team and the manager.

Overall I don't think I did well, but then the agent told me to expect that. So it's kind of mixed feelings, but hey I was a bit nervous and gave it my best, we will see!
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I think always with these things, it's not about trying to answer if you don't know but knowing where to go to get the answer, or what you'd do in the situation where you didn't. No one expects anyone to know everything, and if they do they're idiots. Hate going through those though! Good luck!
 
Phate said:
So I haven't heard anything back from Microsoft or the recruiter. Bad form from the recruiter IMO. But I'm guessing that means I didn't meet the mark, never mind.

Now making contact with various recruiters across the UK & Switzerland looking for remote based jobs and trying my luck that way. Fingers crossed :)
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You want to work in Switzerland, or remotely from where you are for a company in Switzerland? If you fancy Basel, I could probably hook you up a decent agency. They're mine and bang on.
 
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