Two months in (selected) tweets

Right. This work lark ain't particularly conducive to blogging. Who knew? Still, as I do occasionally send out the odd random tweet, I thought I'd use this medium to bring you up to speed. I know, I know, it's cheating, but Mr Tin has been complaining that this is the only medium through which he finds out what I'm up to.

First off, the usual new job jitters:

I only hope new job won't involve making too many decisions, as it's taken entire w/e to work out what to wear on 1st day (still undecided).
— Julie (@SardineTin) January 26, 2014

Even 10 years on you can still rely on an office sleaze to message with a totally inappropriate message via Linkedin re new job...
— Julie (@SardineTin) January 29, 2014

Hoping new colleagues are not into practical jokes, and meant it when they said Fridays are dress down...
— Julie (@SardineTin) January 31, 2014

...then we have the early false sense of security and annoying smugness (pride comes before a fall, they say...):

I an on a train. I now feel like a proper working person again.
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 4, 2014

Every single pair of work trousers I own appears to suddenly be too big. Excuse to eat more cream cakes, or go shopping...?
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 6, 2014

Yeah. Jinxed it.

I may have confidently declared that we were "getting in a good routine" yesterday. Famous last words so sick child throws spanner...
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 11, 2014

Still, it's good to see I've still got my priorities right:

Baftas, Shmaftas. I'm more excited at the prospect of tonight's episode of #TheArchers
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 16, 2014

By week 3, I'm starting to definitely feel more at home in the new job:

Am the only person in my bit of the office today. There are no social norms holding me back from raiding the communal biscuit tin.
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 19, 2014

...and my colleagues' little foibles are as familiar as those of my family:

There's a bloke sat at the next desk CRUNCHING boiled sweets so loudly I've had to come and hide in the toilets. (cc @jenwen12) #misophonia
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 21, 2014

...whilst I soon find that work not only gets in the way of blogging, but also Twitter itself:

Twitter needs a 'Births, Marriages, Deaths' section for those of us who don't have time to tweet as often as we used to...
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 24, 2014

...and there are other annoyances to being back at work:

HMRC have just sent me my 4th tax code for 2014/15. I hope I get a pen or something with my 5th.
— Julie (@SardineTin) February 25, 2014

...such as those "novelty days" at my children's school:

This coming week fills me with dread. Whose idea was it to have Shrove Tuesday and World Book Day in one week, hmmm?
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 2, 2014

...and the odd commute. "L'Enfer, c'est les autres"(*).

Somebody on this train is eating Quavers and it is KILLING me.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 4, 2014

The thing is, I normally like food. A lot. But I guess I wasn't really feeling it. Who knew the humble pancake could cause such strife?

F'ing pancakes
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 4, 2014

Daughters have been recreating the Crimean conflict tonight. With the part of Crimea played by a pancake pan.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 4, 2014

Things then went from bad to worse:

Effing World Book Day. 😠
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 6, 2014

Dear colleagues; I promise I DID try and shower, but there's no bloody hot water.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 6, 2014

I think it's fair to say today is not going well.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 6, 2014

Do I really moan that much? I guess I do...

I swear Sainsbury's have changed the formulation of their toilet roll. "Super soft", my (ouchie) arse.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 10, 2014

Hosiery of less than 10 denier might as well just be classified as "disposable".
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 11, 2014

Yep. Still doing the rubbish mother bit:

French day at school tomorrow. Kids want to go as Marie Curie, Simone de Beauvoir or Joan of Arc. Am compromising with a beret and stripes.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 13, 2014

Have spent the evening at my first school disco in over 20 years. Was just as awkward and sweaty as I remembered it. But with a bar.
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 14, 2014

...and the rubbish housewife bit.

I reckon that missing plane is in the same place as my pillow cases. #BermudaTriangle
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 16, 2014

Not forgetting the rubbish working woman bit:

It's nice being in a building with more women than I've been used to, but I miss the days I could hide away in the ladies' toilets...
— Julie (@SardineTin) March 17, 2014

So, all in all, no real change. Life is busy, and generally good, although reliable hot water would make it even better.

_____________________

(*roughly translated as "Hell is other people", Jean-Paul Sartre)

Nothing Will Work Unless I Do*

It's been three weeks since that initial awkward conversation with my boss. Three weeks in which the actual work I have to do has pretty much dried up completely, and I find myself in what I can only describe as a strange state of limbo. There is still the minutest possibility that another internal job may come off, but as time passes and that possibility fades into the distance, I'm coming to terms with the fact that I may soon find myself unemployed.

The timing is actually rather fortuitous, meaning that at least I am unlikely to have to worry about childcare over the summer holidays. Brilliant, right? Finally loads of spare hours in the day to get around to tackling my paper mountain, or licking the house into some kind of acceptable shape. I even have time to blog more regularly. Um. However, despite my previous protestations, I'm more than aware of the fact that the life of a stay at home mum can't be mine on a permanent basis. The past couple of weeks have given me a very brief insight into how it might look. Apart from the odd day of unusual productivity decluttering the kids' toys, I've come to the conclusion that I'd just end up eating too many biscuits and spend too much time doing online shopping. So much for economising.

The need for money and mental stimulation therefore mean there is only one thing for it - I will have to find some kind of gainful employment. I can't deny that the prospect scares the hell out of me. I've worked out that my last "serious" interview was probably around 14 years ago. Realistically, much as I'd love to find something flexible, I fear my only real option would appear to be to go back to a full-time office-based role.

Or maybe it's time for a complete change of direction? Get off the treadmill, escape the rat race and start something of my own? The problem is what? I'm too much of a generalist to specialise in selling any of my services. My childhood dreams included an acting career (I fear I may have missed the boat on that one), writing a novel (not self-disciplined enough, even if I thought I had a talent for it, which I'm not sure I do), or owning a bookshop. And sadly headlines declaring the "end of the bookshop" appear all too common. Plus I don't really fancy working weekends. I fear my other interests of gin, cheese and interior design are already well covered in the marketplace...

The return to a cubicle farm beckons. Unless anyone has next week's lottery numbers?

Have some pretty flowers. Don't they instantly lift your spirits?

(*attributed to Maya Angelou - Nothing Will Work Unless You Do)

Hello, my name's Julie, and I'm a paperphobic.

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

― Albert Einstein

We have a clean desk policy at the company where I work. It's a high tech industry where protection of company confidential information is treated extremely seriously. Security come round on a regular basis and check whether paperwork or laptops etc are left out, or any drawers are unlocked, and note the names of offenders, who then have to go undergo the shame of a big sticky note on their desk and a trip to security to collect the property in question. Together with working in an environment where pretty much everything has been as paperless as possible for as long as I can remember, I'm therefore used to a clean and decluttered working environment.

I mention this because you probably would not believe it if you saw my home office. The problem is not work clutter, but personal untidiness. You see, my biggest Achilles heel is:

Paperwork.

I can run a multi-national department of 70-odd people. I can deal with multi-million-dollar issues needing resolution, I can deal with an email influx of tens per hour, but ask me whether to keep or bin an old piece of paper, and I'm completely lost.

I dread it more than anything else. Even thinking about it fills me with dread, and the knock of the postman can bring me out in a cold sweat as I glimpse more potential things needing to be dealt with and filed. I can just about cope with paying bills, but once the immediate urgency of that is completed the responding piece of paper floats around my office mocking me and my general uselessness.

I've tried to combat it with more paper, and more lists. I've printed checklists, I have organisers and I've bought box files. Yet still the paperwork mountain evades me.

This weekend, my husband declared enough was enough. For three hours he sifted through the piles of paper on my office floor - sifting, filing, shredding and even opening unopened statements from 2008. The pile has now gone, and a weight has been lifted, for which I will forever be eternally grateful to him.

Since then I've tried to deal with each piece of mail as it has come in- two days in and it's not looking too bad. I'm taking it a day at a time, but I'm still searching for my 12-step programme...

In praise of home working...I think.

There's probably been enough said about Marissa Meyer's decision to ban Yahoo employees from working from home...but the subject is one close to my heart and has been niggling away at me ever since I came across it.

Yes, I work from home. Originally a couple of days a week, but for the past year or so on pretty much a full-time basis. This coincided with both a change in role, and the redundancy of a number of former "work coffee buddies". Not one person I work with on a day to day basis is now based in the same country, let alone the same office as me. As long as I have a phone and a computer, it does not matter where I am when I want to talk to someone in Milan or Mumbai. I can relax at home, in comfort, without the stress of the commute, and still have time to do the school run. This way, my employer also squeezes a couple of extra hours out of me a week.

Sounds perfect, right? In many ways it is.

However, if I'm completely honest, it's the lack of familiar and friendly faces in my office any more that is the main thing that keeps me at home. Going into an office and no longer seeing people you know very quickly gets disheartening. Soon you end up going in less and less often, which means less contact with those who are still left, thus creating a vicious circle of "strangerdom".

Now, the thought of going into an office and effectively being a stranger fills me with dread. The thing is, if I look at it objectively, it probably is holding me back. I'm starting to feel more detached from my current employer, but the flexibility afforded by working from home is a big reason why I didn't look for another job a long time ago. Swings and roundabouts.

If I therefore look at Marissa Meyer's edict, I'm torn between being completely outraged that she could take away something that has a lot of benefits to individuals - especially working parents. However, deep down I secretly also understand her reasoning. Seeing colleagues face to face on a daily basis does help you share a special kind of camaraderie that you don't get over the phone, email or instant messaging. Yes, I miss that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Because that's what we home workers do.

Fuelled by caffeine and conference calls

P.S. If you're reading this on a mobile device, and you'd like to comment, you might need to view the standard web version. Sorry, and thank you...

Made in the UK

Eldest daughter and I had a conversation a while ago about how lots of things these days were made in China, which must have stayed in her mind a little bit, for she came into our bedroom the other morning and declared that she had found something that wasn't made in China, namely her pillowcase, which was made in Pakistan.

This led into a lengthy conversation about what other countries manufactured, and how some countries specialised in certain goods - e.g. "all the best watches are made in Switzerland".

"Yes", came the inevitable question, "but what is made in England?". "Lots of things", I replied, quickly racking my brains. "I tell you what, I'll go through the house and show you all the things I can think of off the top of my head".

So I did. Here, therefore, is a completely, random, unscientific post of things made in the UK (yes, I'm going slightly wider than "England") that I came across on a random morning - deliberately excluding food.

First, there were the obvious handmade items, like my lovely jewellery from Natalia Lovat:

Easy.

I was also grateful to see that a few of my cosmetics were made in the UK:

as were the tissues for my snotty nose:

...and when I had my mid-morning cup of tea, at least my kettle and mug were home-grown:

This probably indicates how old my kettle is, more than the state of British manufacturing!

I'm not sure this is scientific enough to really draw any conclusions from, but it was certainly an interesting exercise for both me and my daughter, and it's made me wonder whether I need to make a more active effort to think about the heritage of something, as I already do with the food I buy.

____
(not in any way sponsored!)

There's No Place Like Home

It's no secret that I have been lucky enough to travel a reasonable amount, mainly around Europe, but also (with the exception of South America and Australia) briefly touching the other continents.That's not to say that there aren't a great many places I have yet to visit that are on my "to do" list!

I've also been lucky enough to spend extended periods of time living in other countries in my childhood and early adulthood. I'm therefore no stranger to adapting to different cultures, although to be fair they have been mainly Western European!

Whenever I go anywhere, whether for business or for pleasure, I therefore naturally find myself wondering what it would be like to live in the particular country I am visiting. In my head I've lived in the US, done the expat lifestyle in Dubai, lived the good life in France, and even returned mentally to Germany and Finland. Whilst there have never been concrete opportunities, I am sure if at any point I had really wanted to, I could probably have found a chance to push for one of those locations over the past *cough* years.

I do often wonder what has stopped me from taking the plunge. There was always an excuse or other. I guess the truth is that in a two-career household neither of us felt strongly enough about it in order to warrant the inevitable disruption to the other partner's career it would have entailed. Then there are the little excuses that creep in; Dubai is too hot (true, and very valid), the US seemed too far away at the time, France has too many smokers (although the wine may balance that out), Finland is too cold and dark for half the year, I don't think I could cope with the formality of Germany any more etc etc.

When it all comes down to it, this funny little island we live in suits me. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the UK is perfect - far from it by all means. What I am trying to say is that I guess I have finally realised it is kind of perfect for me - probably more by a process of elimination than anything else.

Of course, now that there are children to throw into the equation, and they now both at school, there are different considerations to bear in mind. There's no doubt I'd love to give my children the same experiences I had, and the ease at which they would now earn a foreign language is almost too good an opportunity to pass up. However, I also remember the stress it caused me in my own childhood - the stress of starting a new school in a whole different country when you already have a grasp of the language is reasonable is bad enough... Whilst I know, deep down, that children are adaptable, maybe I'm just not brave enough to take that chance with my own. Finally, from a purely selfish point of view I have friends and family here. I have a support network - not something to be underestimated as a working parent, after all.

It never stops you wondering though, does it...

The Gallery - Outside my Front Door

This is my first attempt at participating in The Gallery by Tara Cain, over at Sticky Fingers. This week's prompt is "outside my front door". The indecisive Libran in me couldn't quite decide which pic to go for, so you I have gone for two. The first; literally the view from outside my front door. As you can see, we live in a Victorian part of town, which I absolutely adore.

We moved here 3 years ago (11 days before DD2 made an appearance - not to be recommended!), from a typical 80s cul-de-sac in the suburbs. We have lovely neighbours, and behind our back garden we have the most wonderful park (second pic). It is a great place for people to congregate and for children to play, with a little tea shop selling refreshments, and brass band concerts on the bandstand in the summer. There is also a fishpond and an aviary, and some very tame squirrels.

Most people move further out of town when children are born, but we did the opposite, and I am so glad we did!