Work on A Geek's Life

A different kind of the middle of nowhere

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 12:40:51 +0000

Image Source: Wikipedia

--- Nursing a double espresso in the Air France lounge at Charles De Gaulle, it’s the first time in a week that I get the chance to be by myself and reflect on what has been a whirlwind week. From being up at 5.00 am two Sundays ago (to catch an early flight westward from Heathrow to Abidjan via Paris), multiple flying stops to a number of offshore assets and then to this stop on the way back to normalcy, it has felt like a blur of perpetual motion. It has also, much against my natural bent, been a time spent overwhelmingly in the company of others - work colleagues, fellow travellers and the odd hustler looking to make a quick buck amongst others. With each change of location - Heathrow, Paris, Abidjan and offshore - there has been a progressive browning of my surroundings, one that means that by the time I arrive at the work site I am lost in a sea of similar faces. Not since my last job in this part of the world at the back end of 2008 have I found myself in this sort of surroundings; not in the minority but one face in a sea of similar faces.

Winging It

Thu, 02 Aug 2018 11:54:10 +0000

I am seating in a meeting, listening to the folk around the table drone on about some subject now lost to memory when it hits me – in the way I imagine an out of body experience might – just how much of what is often dressed as expert opinion is little more than strongly expressed opinion. Far from thumbing my nose down at others, it is a farce I very much consider myself as a contributor to. That sense of winging it, making things up as I go along, is one which has come to define the first half of the year for me; from the vagaries of the aforementioned work situation to the minutiae of doing life, spread as it has been between the grey, dull granite of the ‘Deen and the leafy, colour-suffused greenery of the Wey country.

The Diary: Notes From The Northern Isles

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:30:42 +0000

What could have been. Image Source

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It is in the middle of shovelling rice and chicken down my throat that just how similar to prison these cubby holes I pop into from time to time are. For one, there are a number of hoops to jump through to get here - in my case a 5.30am check-in followed by a fixed wing flight up to Scatsta in the Shetlands and then a further helicopter flight out to the platform - and the overwhelmingly maleness of everything, tattoos and all. There are also the shared rooms, the strict meal times and the restricted choices there tends to be for meals. The one statistic which goes against the prison narrative is perhaps the proportion of ethnic minorities in prison vis-a-vis the general population, but that is neither here nor there. And of course, we’re all out here by choice, getting paid a premium of sorts for the joy of being out here.

Weekly Photo Challenge - Evanescent

Fri, 26 May 2017 17:47:14 +0000

For the Wordpress Weekly Photo Challenge Prompt, Evanescent: ---

A curious combination of events - somehow in my early thirties becoming an insomniac and flexible start times at work - is how I manage to get the entire floor at work to myself for an hour on week days. Rather than stay awake in bed waiting for 8.00am, I figure it makes a lot more sense to use the morning hours up at work and free up my evenings.

Weekly Photo Challenge - Danger

Wed, 03 May 2017 17:10:34 +0000

For the challenge, Danger. Rope Access inspections.. #Offshore

With Grace

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 19:39:59 +0000

For the prompt, Criticise.

To chide with Grace and Encourage, not criticise Everyday I pray.

On My Return To the Middle of Nowhere

Sat, 08 Oct 2016 06:04:08 +0000

Back at the heliport for a trip offshore - the first time since March - it feels like a lifetime ago. The last time there was the pressure of my counterpart from the government regulator looking over my shoulder to deal with, this time the roles are reversed as I am the one asking questions of others. Waiting to be checked in, what strikes me is how empty the terminal looks. Spending one’s days in an office which was only recently re-stacked has somehow shielded me from the reality of just how much more reduced offshore activity has been over the last year.

Nine Fridays of Summer: Coming Up For Air

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:15:14 +0000

It feels much longer than 12 days since I was last in London, mixing it with the young, free and saved at the Hillsong Europe conference but I suppose life and adulting can do that to you, particularly when that sometimes indecipherable line between work and life is crossed. Shed loads of emails and the cumulative effect of multiple weekends away finally caught up with me both in my work and personal lives, leaving me wondering if it was all worth it after all. All told, the amount of time I have spent scouring YouTube for snippets of the songs I heard, and the satisfaction going over pictures from that weekend still brings, suggests that there is still some lingering benefit.

Nine Fridays of Summer

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 21:59:45 +0000

For the first time in a very long time, I have four day work weeks to look forward to. The theory behind getting these nine Fridays off is that they have been earned by working an extra thirty minutes each work day. How productive those extra minutes have been remains to be seen, but I suspect their value to our employer lies more in promoting a sense of being cared for in us than anything more tangible. The first of these was spent down south, catching up with friends and reacquainting myself with Stratford and the Olympic park.

#100 - How Do You Make Jeans in Jesus Name?

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 12:48:47 +0000

From this Louie Giglio message which I find myself returning to over and over again.

… You make the best jeans that can possibly be made. You don’t do any half hearted jeans. You don’t do any we’re-Christians-and-we-do-a-lot-of-stuff-half-hearted-jeans. You go make the most excellent jeans that you personally can muster, asking God to inspire this passion, inspire this vision, to awaken in you by the life of Jesus Christ amazing creativity. You work hard, you are diligent. If you are in fashion school you are in class; you’re paying attention, you’re absorbing. In your internship you’re humble not proud, you’re learning, not teaching, you’re absorbing everything you can. You’re serving in every way you can, taking every opportunity to get trained; to hone your skill, to develop your passion to get more experience so that you can do the very, very very best thing possible when you make your jeans.

#74 - The Middle of Nowhere

Wed, 16 Mar 2016 15:05:42 +0000

The view…

#73 - Worn

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 23:45:12 +0000

Worn.. Is how I feel following an 8 hour grilling by the regulator… I could use winning the lottery after all…

#37 - The View

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 19:07:59 +0000

4.30pm, after what has been one of those hectic days from which I am only too happy to be saved by the end of my work day. Today though, the sense - for the first time in a long while - that I have been productive.

#Content

#20 - TGIF

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:50:18 +0000

A Guinness for the pain…. and to kick off the weekend

#TGIF

#16 - Work (Talk) Shop

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:03:28 +0000

Yet another day spent in a workshop, hammering out the finer details of the support we’ll need to provide for an upcoming project. This time away from the office; sequestered in a building on the corner of Market Street and North Esplanade West. I could get used to this; talking about work as opposed to doing work…

#12 - What A Bloke Lives For

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 20:30:16 +0000

Detailed, intense, technical conversations debating the finer points of a certain choice of material of construction. Worn, drained and tired at the end of it all but with all that comes a sense of satisfaction at making progress. Better to be busy than out of work I suppose, particularly given the state of the commodity market at the moment.

#Thankful

#7 - Of Mentors

Sat, 09 Jan 2016 23:37:32 +0000

Watching Whiplash again reminded me of the power mentors (or more correctly in this case, people who we look up to and whose opinions we cherish) can have over us, driving us to become singularly focused on achieving, thereby impressing them. The merits and demerits of the influence of Fletcher on Andrew may be open to interpretation - the methods certainly are - but the intensity with which that final scene was delivered might make up for every thing.

#4 -Of names...

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 21:11:20 +0000

At the coffee machine, catching up with the new, younger engineer who shares my first name, he asks me what my surname is. I give him the anglicized, easy to pronounce version which doesn’t satisfy him. He asks me how I would pronounce it - cue five attempts, after each of which he fails colossally to reproduce the sounds I make somehow ending up adding, subtracting and transposing syllables through his various attempts.

#2 - Savouring the Silence

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 21:46:35 +0000

Each year, on the last day before work officially resumes, I pop into the office to clear my desk. Something about the emptiness and the quietness allows me to, as I put away the detritus of the past year’s work, progressively bring myself to a place where I feel prepared to face the new work year. A large part of that is about trying to ease myself into the routine of work, acclimatising to my work space again after what usually has been two to three weeks of absence, and a food fuelled haze of sorts.

New (old) Job - A Testimony of Sorts

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 23:54:26 +0000

I came into church on the 10th of May feeling deeply distraught, the overwhelming sense being that all was not well. Two main issues drove the sense of disjunction I felt; uncertainties around work and an inner turmoil around a decision in my personal life I had wrestled with for nearly a year.

The message on the day was by Rev Charles Achonwa - one of the first things he said being about surrendering to grace. This spoke directly to where I was at the moment, as I had taken time off a month before to come up with what I felt was the perfect plan with multiple backups and redundancies but had made little progress which fed the sense of frustration I felt.

The Sense of An Ending

Fri, 12 Jun 2015 11:30:33 +0000

I sit here at my desk, amidst a sea of boxes, piles of paper and open drawers, grateful for the peace and quiet these last few minutes before the lunch break starts afford me. The morning has flown by quickly, lost in the blur of furiously packing, sorting and binning four years worth of work and junk that by the end of the day has to be organised neatly so the office admin staff can get them moved as required. The powers that be in my neck of the woods have decreed - having decided that we have been stuck in our silos for far too long - that moving to an office sharing arrangement that has us clustered functionally will foster a more collaborative approach to work, create synergies and improve efficiencies. Fundamentally democratic - and buzz word heavy - even though the unspoken elephant in the room is that by some quirk in the system the supreme leader has scored a corner office looking out onto the harbour; a far more eye pleasing sight than the endless parade of bus tops that I can just make out from my desk if I squint hard enough. Earned perks of office I guess.

Of Journeys and Endings...

Thu, 07 May 2015 20:35:52 +0000

[ Source]

When March finally dragged itself to an end, I remember thinking that I hadn’t felt as stressed as I did at the time since 2008, 2008 being a nadir of sorts; one that ended up with me quitting my job and heading back to grad school, my version of navigating a delayed quarter life crisis.

So out of sorts and form did I feel that I took myself away to the Starbucks in Union Square, one Sunday after church, ordered the most decadent hot chocolate with cream on offer and proceeded to have a conversation with myself. What quickly became apparent from that exercise was that there were a number of pressure points which were driving my malaise.

Of Rust, and Metaphors

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 19:30:44 +0000

[ Source]

Amidst the hurly burly that was the last quarter of 2014 at work - not helped by the unease set off by sliding oil prices, and questions around the future viability of North Sea oil and gas given lifting costs and taxes - the crazy gang team at work made time out to head across town for a day to reflect on how we’d performed through the year and agree objectives for the 2015. For what it’s worth it was good craic, much better than I expected given the strong personalities within the team, and the sense of simmering conflict, even though it was a tad too reliant on woozy, zen-ish things like sitting in a circle and taking time out to reflect in silence.

A Week's Worth...

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 19:59:38 +0000

Monday Driving into work on Monday morning, the sense is one of wonder at where the weekend went. Not so long ago – my knackered brain thinks – it was Friday afternoon, and thoughts of a restful weekend filled my mind but here, tottering on the verge of a return to work, the memory of the weekend already seems like a blur. Looking back, the two things that stand out are a cringe worthy gaffe, one occasioned by a particularly blatant reading of a certain situation on my part, and a head scratching conversation with S.

Day 6 - Update Your Resume

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:35:40 +0000

Day 6 of the Better Man in 30 days challenge - Update Your Resume

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Another apt prompt - given I’ve been feeling like I could use a job change for a while, and I have only just received pass notification from another exam in April. Another day, another review which shows I am headed in the right direction but am still missing some critical research skills… That PhD can’t be put off for much longer at this rate :(

About Town : On (yet another) return to the middle of nowhere

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:17:08 +0000

Wide awake, with not even a lingering hint of sleep to becloud my eyes, I pause to ponder the day that lies ahead of me. Difficult as it may be to wrap my head around them, the facts are what they are. It is very nearly six months since I last made the journey that lies ahead of me. Back then, LK was the developing conundrum, one that those days spent in the middle of nowhere ended up resolving, ultimately to my pain - not that I knew that at the time. My alarm snaps me out of my little reverie - I have a 6.00am check-in at the other end of town to contend with, and a 15 minute walk to catch the bus that will haul me across town - small margins for error given it is already 4.05am.

The End of the Beginning

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 20:36:47 +0000

When I first came here, it was not love at first sight. There was no instant click, no immediate sense of belonging; only a sense of tentativeness.The call that set it all off had come out of the blue one Tuesday afternoon, from a Manager I didn’t work for directly. My first response was to email the guy I actually did work for - he took a day and a half to get back to me - by which time the moving train had gathered speed. After less than three months back at the mother lode, following a six month stint sequestered in a client office, I was on the move again.

Talent spotting, couch surfing and getting the autumn blues...

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:57:45 +0000

Standing at the window looking out - as I am wont to do on most slow Fridays - waiting for our old, creaky coffee machine to piddle out water for my cup of tea, G. asks me if I am ‘talent’ spotting.

I do not ask what exactly he means, but there can be no ambivalence here. The coffee machine sits right next to a large window, with a view which although largely taken up by monolithic grey, granite buildings does include enough of the perennially busy street to provide a feast for sore eyes on most days. Unfortunately on this occasion there is no talent to be spotted. It is that nearly dead period just before lunch hours kick in across the city where most serious talent is locked behind desks squirrelling away at work rather than strutting their stuff across the streets. The clear nip in the air also means that what sparse talent there might be is very well covered up, the skimpy summer outfits now replaced by coats and scarves. G. and I moan about the weather - it is predicted to hover between 10 and 14 degrees all weekend with a smattering of showers here and there; hardly the kind of weather to inspire any serious weekend plans. The darned autumn I suppose.

An English man abroad... Of sorts

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 18:00:17 +0000

Seems like you’re having a ball for one, the ginger haired man who had seemingly popped out of nowhere said to me as I attempted to retrieve my cup of tea, and turn around at the same time.

Epic fail. I managed to do neither, very nearly tipping my life giving cup of tea over in the process. I had been waiting on our epileptic coffee maker to finish pissing a shot of hot water into my cup, passing the time by whistling to myself and looking out with longing for the clear, sunny day that was out there, just beyond my reach for the next few hours.

Stumbled on

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:02:13 +0000

It is a bright, sunny day outside. On the radio as I come in, the weather forecast - tacked on to the end of the news broadcast on the BBC - promises great things for the weekend; 12 to 15 degrees and sunshine, loads of it. If there is any doubt that our summer, typically bipolar at best is finally here, this dispels it.

Inside, in the open plan office I share with the team at work, it is quiet. It is early too, just past 8.00am and I am the only one in; perfect timing to chase down my regular Friday piece of junk food and savour the quietness – unusual in the last year I have worked here. That was the back story to how, and why I was humming in my head and chewing noisily on a bit of roll and bacon as I ambled towards the coffee machine for a free brew to wash down my breakfast.

Journeying to the middle of nowhere

Thu, 30 May 2013 20:27:52 +0000

The one last, irrevocable act that settles the inevitability of these trips is the phone call, typically sometime between 3.30pm and 5.00pm, confirming a check-in time for the next day. Beyond that, it is a fairly straight forward routine - wake up just past 5.00am, sort out my morning ablutions and then proceed to drag my two pieces of luggage down Park Road, up Kings and up to the bus station just outside Union Square. Thereafter there is a wait - between five and twenty minutes depending on when I arrive - before the 727 to the airport begins its crawl towards Dyce and the airport.

First World Problems

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:36:10 +0000

Thirty odd people, myself included, cluster around a table in a somewhat private corner of the Monkey House. Once a quarter, the guys and girls from work all pile in here to de-stress, and let our hair down. Rumour has it that after enough beers have gone around, fortuitous slips centred around what certain bosses actually think about certain staff have been known to occur. Usually, the evening starts with a few beers and nibbles - fish fingers, spring rolls, and all the other light food we’d collectively call small chops in my other world, the small matter of a few thousand miles away.

Thankful....

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:01:59 +0000

Just because…

AJ McSedge CEng does have a nice ring to it, if I say so myself… Leaving XCorp in 2008 does feel that bit more justified now.. :)

Humble pie-d

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:52:26 +0000

Further to your application for the position of ***, I am writing to advise that you have not been selected for interview on this occasion.

We have received other applications from candidates whose skills and experience more closely matched the role criteria. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in this role and we hope our decision will not deter you from applying for any other suitable vacancies in the future.

Sunday delights, deconstructing the Nigerian conundrum and difficult work moments

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:32:11 +0000

An altogether forgettable weekend - and at my age they all are - is bookended by a pit stop at Union Square for lunch with a friend of a friend. A random conversation a couple of weeks ago about (yet another) mutual friend and my lack of proactivity had ended up in a challenge of sorts being issued in my direction. Three phone calls later - with a few text messages thrown in - I end up making my way up the stairs towards the safe bet that is Nandos for a quick bite and chat. I arrive early - knowing Union Square, getting a table can be a hassle on sunny Sunday afternoons - the added advantage being that I get to see her first, and the satisfaction that she fits the image I have of her in my head. We order simple food - lime and herb flavoured chicken with a mixed leaf salad for me and a ratatouille for her and bottomless drinks and make small talk over the course of an hour and a half. All told it is a pleasant afternoon, and but for the fact that I have dodgy genes, and family history I would already be inventing scenarios involving white picket fences and 2.1 kids in my head. :) Given the choice, I would most certainly like an encore by all accounts.

About Town: Chance Meetings, Moments of Discomfort and a life-in-a-song moment

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:40:30 +0000

A sudden bout of hunger assails me just before the clock chimes 5.00pm and I find myself making a detour - turning left at Guild Street and then making a beeline for the KFC on Union Street. Usually at this time of the day the singular focus is to get myself home, settle on my couch with a bowl of cold cereal and unwind with a Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother TV marathon. Even the spectre of steaming morsels of eba potentially chasing themselves down my throat in short order is not enough to draw me home - the coup de grâce is, I suspect, the fact that it has been the better part of six months since I have savoured the fiery goodness of battered, deep fried chicken.

Eight things I Wished I knew Eight Years Ago...

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:36:11 +0000

Eight years ago, I was a wee lad, barely 23, fresh off my year of serving the nation in the foothills of Sango; with the mellifluous, if unintelligible, sounds of the music that consistently wafted upwards from the traders that surrounded my very modest lodgings at Maraba still ringing in my ears. I was none the wiser of the ways of the world at the time – like the good son of my Mother that I still was, in addition to being the pitifully shy, introspective bloke, I still greeted older males and females as ‘Sir’ and’Ma’ - a predisposition which perhaps made me fall prey to the shenanigans of a couple of police men on my first day at work.

About Town: Journeying to the Middle of Nowhere

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:31:45 +0000

I get the call late – sometime between 5.00 and 5.30pm on Monday evening - as I drag my bone weary self homeward, plowing a lone furrow down Guild and up Union through the masses of people heading home in the opposite direction. A sudden change of plans on The Project has thrown the curveball that is being the designated short term relief in my direction, and being the young, unmarried bloke on the team I get first dibs at the possibility of catching a 9.30 am flight the next morning. With the prospect of performance reviews due in a mere two weeks, I’m not exactly keen to refuse an opportunity to demonstrate my ability to ‘handle changing priorities’, so I shrug inwardly, accept my lot and grumble all the way home.

On women (Or a somewhat concise history of the women I have worked with)

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:39:31 +0000

Note: If a few of the following characterizations seem stereotyped and larger than life, they probably are. Others more intelligent than I have chalked it up to Time, and how it conflates memory and reflection into a blended - often distorted - whole.

Given the marked paucity of females in my sector of the industry, I was amazed a few days ago by just how many women have left their marks – both in positive and negative ways - on my career till date. I am coming up to what would have been the eighth anniversary of my resuming at my first job - if I had not packed my bags one November morning, deciding I had had enough. In the main, I find that five women stand out from that phase of my life:

Friday afternoon conversations

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:40:41 +0000

Huddled around the lone telephone in Meeting Room Twelve, how we end up talking about the potentially explosive subjects of immigration and living on the dole escapes me, but once the first, tentative blows are struck, it all takes off from there. There is me - very Nigerian, Ahmed – devout Muslim, Pakistani – born, but as English as they come and Steph – part free thinker, part new-ager, also British. We are waiting for the phone call which will initiate a teleconference – one which should have started a full ten minutes earlier.

Decisions, again

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 21:37:14 +0000

I turned down another job offer, opting to stay with the safer option (yet again). The first time it was to a competitor in my city, this time it was back to Nigeria, and a return to UX5 where I cut my teeth and learned the bulk of everything I know. There were a number of issues - a few powerful interests stacked up against me courtesy of toes I’d stepped on in the past, and the fact that I’d seen all that and done that before. The key sticking point was that the pay on offer was ridiculous - clearly designed to price me out of accepting (plus rumour has it that on of the lead engineers on the project had a candidate)..

Crunch Time

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 22:38:27 +0000

Big, potentially career defining, decisions to make..

The safer option - stick with my current job for the next three years and decide what the next steps after that will be: The pros - stay in a truly professional work place where my skills are appreciated, working for a boss whose ar*se I don’t have to kiss, remain in an environment that allows me complete my progression to Chartered Engineer status. The cons - sky high taxes, an increasingly hostile host population, remaining in a section of my field I’ve spent the last six years - and some - working in and a government that seems intent on playing to the gallery on the immigration debate.

20/20 Hindsight.

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 19:11:05 +0000

The job I didn’t take? Turns out that the project I would have got placed on just went sour and the bloke I wanted to work for quit the company….I should be feeling pretty smug, but then I have friends who may have just gotten burned.. Sigh.

Globalisation?

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:48:56 +0000

Sitting in the boardroom at KOX Corp today i realised its truly a global village.

Technical Manager - Scottish; Project Manager - South African; Me - Naija Boy; Integrity Engineer - Mexican; Technical Assistant - Pakistani; Client Rep - German.. It doesn’t get more global, does it?

Beannachd Leat

Phew.. finally its over...

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:25:02 +0000

Thankfully this week is over, finally. Its been a maelstrom of activity - two client work sites, hand overs, reviews and piles of stuff to catch up with. The worst bits had to be the getting set up bits - setting up remote access to my company email and network, new log on IDs and network access at the new place and all - plus there’s a first review in five weeks of stuff I was never involved in.

Heatwave Dividends...

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:16:45 +0000

Twenty-six degree weather has its perks - especially when one has valid reasons to be within the city centre. Knee length skirts, low necklines, and the occasional sleeveless top are easy on the eye, if not downright encouraging to a mind beaten to senility by spreadsheets and excess coffee. After choosing the worst winter in 20 years to come up to the NorthEast, I can be forgiven for reveling in the warm - almost barmy - weather. Winter was mind numbing, depressing, tiring, and fun sapping. I really wouldn’t be bothered by the excess skin on display, but being stuck in a nearly all male working environment does things to the mind, especially when there is no relief valve to vent it out on in town. I’m so needing to get a holiday men - dang!

(Almost) the first week

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:24:00 +0000

One week in and its already shaping up to be a hard long slog….Our honeymoon lasted exactly 4 hours and then it was me being thrust into the deep end…. Sub zero temperatures - the coldest winter in Scotland in fifty years - and a role that seems so much like a continuation of the one that I fled all those months ago - only more intense, only less margin for error.

New Starts..

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:10:00 +0000

I thought long and hard about the ramifications, but I accepted nonetheless - I agreed to bring forward my start date by 60 days. Truth is the only other option was more sleeping, eating and waking - a totally quotidian experience.

The first day is January the 4th; for the first time in a long while I have to dress formally to work. Its totally against the grain of me - the lost, non-conformist son. The alternatives are not exactly great. I would rather have to wear a shirt and tie to work than to file away products in coveralls. For that I am thankful.

Yay..

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:12:00 +0000

They called me. Number was hidden, my phone was on silent, so I missed it the first time. They left a voicemail - asking me to give them a call back. I did and yes we did it! I am to start off the first week of February, so I have a few months to put my feet up and drink some beer (or not)… Thanks to The Source and Myne Whitman who have read my constant prattle for the past few months. You are real Therapists.

Waiting (Part 2)

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:32:00 +0000

I think I’ll get the job. Our discussions went very well, the interviewers were very friendly, and only just stopped short of saying they didn’t see why an offer could not be made ASAP. I had scaled through the technical bits of the interview a few weeks ago before meeting up with the HR folks this time. Fingers crossed though. And there is an option to remain in my city! Now that’s some good news, first bits of decent news in a while too.

Waiting.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:15:00 +0000

The bad part of waiting is the uncertainty - the vacillation between extreme positions, the rehashing of the entire sequence of events in the mind seeking clues as to how it went - and the undoubted clarity that hindsight often brings along with all the could-haves and should-haves that tag along.

I am waiting, have been waiting since a couple of days ago, for a response from the chaps I spoke to. I thought we had fruitful discussions, answered all the questions they asked, and chipped in with a few myself to ensure their expectations for the proposed role matched mine. Now, its time for the wait, while they decide if we are a match enough to progress to the next stage. Fingers crossed, done my bit now, all I can do is wait…… and hope……

Musing....

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:13:00 +0000

I think I have done a 180 degree turn, when I review the way the past year to a year and a half has gone. From wanting to resign my job and quit Nigeria in the light of the politics surrounding my last job, to deciding an MSc would afford me the time to sort out the issues, then trying to return to my last role and then finally deciding staying away was the correct thing to do, I think Life has pulled me through several undulations.

Job Hunting..

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:28:27 +0000

Its is a well known stereotype that the English love to talk about the weather. In truth, until a few days ago, I was yet to see anything particularly talk-worthy about the weather I have had to endure at my end of the world.

I’ve been chasing a job – similar in remit to the one I was schemed out of in Nigeria – which has required me to do a lot of travelling by train to the City dubbed the Oil Capital of Europe! In the main these journeys have been in phenomenally abysmal weather – made worse by the fact that my student budget requires me to divide the journey into little bits to optimize my spend.

The Damned Recession

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Had a particularly soothing phone call with the bestie today - Olu and I are in a similar place - uncertain about returning to our old jobs in Nigeria and all that…. As usual we rambled on about many things - book work, wives/ girl friends, our Nigerian folks and the like. Eventually, we got to talk about post-study plans and all what not.. He’s open for both options - the UK or Nigeria, as I am. There’s still some time till we decide one way or the other, so I shall just keep my fingers crossed, and take it from there!

Exam fever..

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:31:56 +0000

Against my better judgement, I went back to school for a dose of ‘adult’ education, after nearly six years of slaving for the capitalists working. Its exam time and I am not finding it funny. Hours on end of swotting, tons of material to store in my head and a few non academic thoughts running through my head. There is also the minor distraction of Football Manager on my laptop… Thanks to Jaguda.com radio, I have music for comfort through the night. Thankful for minor miracles after all….