Jobs : I have one

As you know I have had three possible jobs on the go. Sportcentric wasn't really on the cards: the guys were great, and we got on really well, but the team was much to small for what I really want to do.
BioMedCentral are a large company, with the division I would be moving into having 15 developers. The job would be full life cycle development as a senior developer, moving into team leader as my career progressed. This paid 3XK in the middle of London.
Opodo were offering a Technical Lead for their support team. This would involve, mainly: liaising with all the other groups to manage releases and bug fixes; some bug fixing as well; managing 6+ support engineers. This was a huge step up from what I've done and the pay reflects this - 4XK! (plus bonus 20%)
Well I gave Opodo until last Friday to offer me a position, and the long and the short of it is they didn't because I was underqualified. So I took the BMC job.
This was all well and good until last night when Opodo offered me a senior support role, with the idea that this position was training for the technical lead role. Basically I think they had realised that the TL role was so specific they weren't going to have someone walk in off the street straight into the role. This new role was for 4YK + 20% bonus (where YSo what was I to do? Take a support role in Hammersmith for lots of money (breaking my commitment to BMC in the process), or a development role in Central for quite a bit of money.
I rang BMC and told them the situation. I explained that while I am far more attracted to creation than fixing (development versus support), it was very difficult for me to say no to such huge $'s, and the potential of technical lead. The thing is, I didn't want to come across as demanding more money.
So I did anyway. I got some more, but more importantly I am having a salary review at the end of my probation (3 months). I felt that this was a good way of saying "look, I believe I am worth more than I am taking, but I want to prove it to you rather than demand it."
So I definitely start at BMC on Monday at 9:30 (they start late, which is a nice change from support too :) and have informed Opodo that I am not interested in their offer.
Have I made the right decision? I can't know. Ever.
The two deciding factors -
a) I am far more fulfilled creating than fixing/detectiving
b) "A once in a life time opportunity comes along every other week"

Long time no speak

Since Last Tuesday lots has happened, but a lot of it is 'confidential' work related stuff so I can't put it in. Basically

• Thursday I had a 3 hour interview/test with Opodo.com. This went very well, with my test being one of the highest scoring! But they realised that I had been put in for a different position than was really relevent to me : support team leader! Huge job with Huge pay.


• Friday I returned home to Brum, and ummed and arred about what job to take. Opodo hadn't got back to me


• Saturday I say two films - AvP and Bride and Predjudice (which I saw with Jan) which was great


• Sunday I came back here, after playing a really good game of scrabble with Grandma where we ignored the extra scoring boxes on the board - so it all came down to how good a word you could get. I found this much more rewarding, and we both finished the game much quicker than otherwise.


• Now I am here, waiting to go to Khaled's film which is on at the festival tonight.

Emailing people

I have been slack since leaving Oz/Nz, and have only emailed a select few (you know who you are) so I thought I'd make myself a little list to remind myself of other people I should email. If you think you should be added, leave a comment :)

• Housemate Greg


• Greg, Aaron, Brendon and Kev from work


• Alessandra


• murray (even if he does SUCK)


• Jimbo from Ladakh


• Cathie and Reece


• Oli


• Jenn

that'll do for now. If you aren't on the list and you think I should email you more, email me and tell me! I'm not toooo bad at returning calls

Job offers left and right

I got a call this morning from company A offering me a job!! woo hoo!!! Of course the agent wanted me to say yes straight away, but I said I would get back to him in 2 hours.
So I rang around to the other people I've had/am having interviews with. And discovered that company B had offered me a job last Friday in a conversation that I thought was totally hypothetical. So now I had two.
And company C has me lined up for an interview on Thursday morning. That was the snag. I really didn't want to miss out on that interview - what if company C turned out to be perfect? Fantastic atmosphere, great pay, whatever. But how does one say to Company A and B 'look, I think you're great, but I just want to see if this other one is better.' And more to the point, how do you say that and _keep_the_offer?
Company B already knew about my Friday deadline (which I talked about in my 'hypothetical' conversation last Friday). They, and Company C, encouraged me to 'just say no'. In the end I realised that, with one offer already pending, I could just tell Company A to go jump if they didn't want to wait.
And if they said get stuffed, I could always panic and ring back 5 mins later :)
So I rang Company A's agent and impressed upon him that I wanted to have all the cards on the table before I made my decision. Maybe he could get all the paper work done and sent to me to smooth things along in the (likely) event that I said yes to him. Oh, and what are the extra salary benefits of the company?
So he went back to the employer and then got back to me, and it seems that his contact at Company A is away until Thursday anyway, so one more day isn't going to hurt.
Yay!

Hey big spender

After last weeks stressful interviews I treated myself on Friday afternoon and bought myself some stuff :)
a) 3 books for £17 -> happy with that
b) 3 games for £10 -> v happy with that
c) 3 CDs for £43 -> not so crash hot
The CDs have so far been a dissapointment.
The first was a tribute to Evanescence by some session musicians. But it's exactly the same! What's the point? They didn't put in anything of themselves that I can tell at all.
The second was Electric Eel Ache, a japanese band that supported Blood Hound Gang when I saw them. Unfortunately their music doesn't translate live that well :(
Finally is Nick Cave's new double album, which so far I _am_ enjoying, but one out of 3 ain't so crash hot :)

Bill's Birthday

Twas, of course, great uncle Bill's 90th birthday on the weekend (actually today :)
He'd already had one with his swimming friends (still swims twice a week) and had to save up some energy for Sunday when he was having his third party with the people from church (a further 29!)
But Saturday was family day, and more than 35 people turned up - people I'd never met such as Nigel, an 'uncle', and Lucy, a 'cousin' who is the daughter of Keith and Anne whom I am stying with while job hunting (thanks again!).
Lots of yummy food (especially Iurna's Obergene/Garlic Turkish dish) and fantastic cake. We all had a good yabber, and I was delighted with how accepting the family is of complete strangers such as myself. I am really enjoy the company of my relatives here, they are all a delight to be around.
Keith and Anne also did up a big (and I mean big) 'This is your life' for Bill. It was great: even though they couldn't cover ever aspect of his life (a lot was overseas with the Airforce when no one except him knew what was happening) I think they got the vast majority of it, and what a lot of work it was!

Jo's for Dinner

Went to Jo's for dinner last night, which was a yummy vegetable pasta dish. Had a great time with her and Sara and Sion chatting away (I chatted a little too much, but I think I am making up for all this time when I haven't been chatting; on bike, with grandma and so on)
I also went round and caught up with Jo last Tuesday, mainly to pick up my suit, but also to say hello. She had just returned from Prague with Al, and then worked a 12-14 hour day! No need to say she was tired... So I tried not to stay too long.
She currently has an Audit coming up, and so the whole bank that she works for is going crazy, doing insane hours. Doesn't help that she's got this friday off to go to Florence :)
If only I had the energy, enthusiasm and endurance to work like her!

Another day, another interview

Had a great interview today with a bunch of guys called Sportcentric. They do websites for Sports Organisations (like football clubs and so on). We had lots of fun, I answered all their questions well and even met the boss!
Their interview style was cool, I was asked Java question after Java question, but every now and then they'd throw in a curly one to throw you off. The two I remember are; what is your favorite film ("what's eating gilbert grape" which one of them agreed with me was excellent), and what is 17 times 7 (which I realise afterwards I actually got wrong, but I think they were just doing it to see how I would react to something that was so far left field... I said, outloud, 'well, 7 by 7 is 49, and 4 by 10 is 40, so it's 89'. Of course it should have been 7 by 10, for a total of 119, but I really think they don't care :)
Bill's 90th tomorrow, so I'm up to Birmingham with Will.

Phone Interview

Had a phone interview at 1:30, which went well except maybe the first question (what is overiding and overloading of a method) which I put down to 'warming up'.
Answered the rest fairly well and quickly. So we'll just have to see where it goes from there. It was, again, a good experience as I start to warm up into the interview game.

Thinking that maybe this should be called Diary

and the other blog 'thoughts', especially as I am moving back into the working.
Don'tknow if I can change it now though...

Wot's up?

So I am here with the Overly generous Keith and Anne (and William) until Friday when I return to Birmingham. I am taking them to dinner tonight.
Saturday is Bill's 90th, so Grandma and I will head off for that.
Saw Jo for an hour last night which was good. She is working insanely hard, as per usual, and especially so yesterday to make up for monday when she was in Prague :)
Apart from that I am starting to get a little homesick. Though I doubt I'll recognise the place when I get back, what with the devil incarnate currently dominating the country.

First Interview

Went OK. I was there for 1.5 hours so they mustn't have hated me :)
I did answer some questions poorly, and a few I blabbed on before working out my actual answer, and I took a while to come up with some decent 'have you got any questions for us' questions (What is your development life-cycle, who are the clients, who does the webpage design, what is the employee review process).
But it's all a learning experience :)

The only dissapointing thing today is that I haven't had any contacts from anyone, email or phone, about anything else! I haven't sent off any new applications, which I'll do shortly, but was hoping that some of the people who have been ringing me over the last few days might have moved forward somewhat.

Election blues 2

And the little turd has a majority in the senate too (according to Dad, I can't confirm this though, the ABC website is very hard to work out the most simple of results). What were you thinking Australia?
So it's

• goodbye Telstra
  
• goodbye one-tiered Medicare (or any Medicare at all)
  
• goodbye single family support
  
• goodbye media ownership rules
  
• goodbye balanced industrial relations
  
• hello even higher education contributions
  

And Mark has said that even conscription is on the table!! (And non-compulsory elections, but that would at least have to go to a referendum)
What about the death penalty? Then we can really be like Texas (we already have the village idiot in charge :)

Election blues :(

Well since I went to the Donnas I've done a few things - applied for a few jobs, got some positive replies, took Keith and Anne to lunch, went out with Jo and Al for a catch up, gone back to Brum and then back to Keith and Annes after I found out I had left my mobile charger behind (which is where I am now).
And on Thursday morning I voted in the Australian election. Well I've found out that not only did John Howard, who lied to the Australian people, win that election (as expected) he increased his margin! I wasn't there, but from afar Latham really looked good - maybe not to win, but certainly not to do worse than Beasley at the last election (BTW I thought at the last election that if it wasn't for 'children overboard' and 11/9 etc Beasley would have won...)
Looks like I'll definitely be going back to NZ if I ever leave the UK, 'cos I don't need to live in a society that condons the use of terror on civilian populations.
Of course this all means that Bush is almost certain to win his election too.

The Donnas!!

Went and saw The Donnas last night. Stayed at the YHA because they were finishing late and I didn't want to have to try and get back to Hampton Court at that hour - cost £22!!!

But anyway they rocked.

Support were 'Do Bad Things To Me' or some such. A wierd band that no one really understood; they had an awesome black woman singer doing soul kind of stuff, and a David Bowie copycat and a deep/growling bloke all leading the troupe of heavy guitar playing, drum hitting and backup singing wierdos :)

Kind of interesting, might buy their CD just for the hell of it.

The Donnas were on next, but their Roadies had aweful problems so they didn't get on til late, which cut their set short because they have to finish at the same time :(

They played two new tunes for every old tune, total of maybe 12 songs? The place went off when the familiar ones were on, and still rocked when the new ones were played. Not too much moshing or crowed surfing, though _way_ to much smoke :P

At Keith and Annes

Who have very generously let me stay at there place while job hunting so I might use their computer and broadband. Thank you!!!

Tomorrow I am off to vote and go to the Donnas in Camden town. Then I will see Jo on Thursday night. Then home again for the weekend. Then hopefully some interviews next week!!!

At Grandmas

As er usual :)
I am going to see a movie today, but I spent yesterday playing scrabble and so on with Grandma. Keith and Anne aren't coming up anymore, so I am going down to them tomorrow for the week - to get my webpage etc going!
I tightened the chain on my bike this morning - and in the process re-aligned my back wheel which has made the back brake feel MUCH better than it ever has. Sometimes I wonder about mechanics - surely the guys who replaced the original chain would have aligned everything correctly? And shouldn't the guys who sold it to me have at least had a glance?
Oh well, it feels much safer to ride now, and I have some mechanical experience under my belt - may be my first ever!!!

Home James, and do spare the horses

So on Thursday I head home, via Cirencester and Stratford.
Since I was passing through Cirencester (Siren-sester) I thought I'd stop off there for a walk around the local Roman Museum. After finally finding a place to park I had a wander and suddenly it was 2 hours later and I was late for Martin in Stratford! It was an excellent museum and I found out that it had only oppened 2 weeks before - which was why there were no seats, half the numbers on exhibits were missing and there was no souviner guidebook to buy!
Well worth going though.
Then I headed to Martins (having failed to find a fast food place in Cirencester) in Stratford. About 2/3s of the way I got caught up in traffic, so I looked ahead and noticed there was debris on the road - an accident :(
We weren't going anywhere so I thought I'd go and see if they needed help, riding up and parking my bike. A guy had been overtaking, up a hill, before a crest, and misjudged the maneouver having to pull in quickly so that he clipped the car behind him, which spun him straight into the oncoming car (at least 60 mph each). These two cars collided dreadfully, totally obliterating each other and ending up on opposite sides of the road - the clipped car behind 'simply' ran off into the hedge and went bush bashing for 30 meters.
And no one was hurt.
It was a total miracle and testament to the amazing cars that are being produced these days - all three were written off. And the overtaking guy seemed to be the most ok, even though his car was on it's side!
So I tried to help them deal with shock, and stay put, but they pretty much ignored me (I wasn't confident enough with my 15 year old First Aid knowledge to command them what to do), and the police had already been called.
Everyone turned up - ambulance people (who took the three drivers away in neck braces, just in case), firemen (who cleaned up the road and made sure the petrol tanks in the cars weren't ruptured) and police (who insisted that I stay to make a statement).
In the end the whole thing was cleaned up, and I guess because it was so obvious what had happened we didn't need to make a statement.
But it did mean that I was some 3 hours late for Martin in Stratford (I did try to ring but because he was out the front waiting for me he never heard it). MArtin's place seems really nice - excellent, friendly staff that he is already flirting with! We chatted for an hour and I got the answering maching going on his phone. I will go back again shortly for a longer stay and lunch (at 12:30 :)
Then home to Grandma.

Oh, I of course rode very carefully and slowly home after the crash. If Id been involvd, I certainly wouldn't be here anymore (unless I'd managed to skoot out of the way and not actually be involved). Because I only go at 55MPH typically, and right on the speed limit when that is too fast, I am always having tossers overtake me. I usually sit in the middle of the lane to stop it, and then move to the left to let them past along long, safe bits of road. But at least once a day I have a dickhead just do it, hardly paying attention to what's going on. And now I have witnessed the results and it pisses me off even more.

Wookey Caves and Farleigh-Harrington Castle

How could I not go to Wookey Caves? I'm not a StarWars fan particularly, but that's not an opportunity I could turn down.
And it was excellent. I think I racked up instance 2 of being awed (number 1 was at the Taj Mahal) though it does remind me of other times I've been underground and felt similarly. Really good tour, and makes me (someone who swore they wouldn't) really want to get into the sport...
Then you come out and go through a hand made paper factory - using cotton. Really interesting. Cotton paper is much more durable than wood paper, and would make an excellent repository for recording appropriate technologies for future generations (after the apocalypse :)
Finally there is the mirror maze which really tickled my fancy and a bunch of old style penny arcade thingies (not really my thing).
After this I went to the affor mentioned castle (may be spelt wrongly) found nearby. This was interesting - really detailed history and good ruins. It was also being investigated at the time I went, but I foolishly didn't take a picture now I think back. I don't know why I liked it so much but I did :P
Then I went back to Bath and was talked at by a Norweigan woman with a pommy accent about how good she is at electronics. Riveting.