I'm finding this job a real struggle at times. The politics and lack of coherence in the business makes it feel pretty un-do-able. No one has complained about what I'm doing, and I think that they do recognise the issues to some extent...Maybe it's just me beating myself up that I am not making enough progress, but if I was paying my salary to someone I'd expect more. This is my twelfth week so just a couple of weeks til the end of my probation, but after a phone call with one of the senior bods in the Middle East the backdrop has changed as they are seriously considering an external supplier to provide recruitment services to the Region which is potentially yet another barrier to getting anything done effectively.

Suffering from post sales marketing fatigue

due to spending a couple of hours with Linkedin and the retained advertising agency. I sooo hate sales pitches. I know what I want (don't I always ;o) and don't need all the spin or subtle pressuring. It was very interesting though... you can see the footprint of who has been looking at whom in finite detail, which really highlighted how much you can discover about someone on the net if you just put your mind to it.... Slightly scary stuff

Ooo give me

a nice hierarchical business structure any day.... Bleeding matrices, there's no flipping clarity, and even less chance of someone saying JFDI (just f*ing do it).... My life nowadays revolves around 'influencing stakeholders' and making sure I have considered all of the 'touchpoints'... It's unbelievably time-consuming and hence progress is soooo slow. It clearly does my head in as during a meeting with the HR 'Change Manager' earlier today she said, "I sense your frustration"...you don't say...

She's lucky she didn't get a worse reaction than me rolling my eyes!!!

I am now a festival vetran

in all senses having spent a day exposed to the great unwashed and overflowing loos, and the delights of the 'mosh pit'. The girlies and I absolutely fab day yesterday despite the downpours, pottering down to Reading via a sumptuous lunch at Amanda Darling's. The festival was really well organised with a a free water taxi down the Thames to the site, and free 'she-wees' for the ladies urinals (WTH !?!?). We caught sets by 'Dog is Dead', 'the Vaccines', 'Florence & the Machine' were great, but unquestionably 'Kasabian' were outstanding!

I think I want to audition as one of Sergio's groupies even if I am a few years outside the upper age limit.

Ms. Sensible

is not called that for nothing. On delivering various items to Pony Club Camp early in the morning she was discovered grooming her horse in her PJs! Apparently the justification was that they worn to protect the pristine cream jodhpurs she was competing in later in the day. To be fair, you can't argue with the logic but...

This year's horse was Keilem and the pairing came second overall in the Eventing.

Am I past my 'sell-by' date?

As an avid fan of Kasabian I have been desperate to see the in concert. Both Miss Sensible and the Strident Student are also heavily into them so when we saw they were headlining at Reading this coming weekend we bought tickets without a further thought.

Much as it's great that the girls are cool at going with mum, having seen all myriad of Reading go-ers (so to speak) on my journey home last night I feel whatever I wear I will be over-dressed having not acquired some ridiculously short shorts and skimpy tops to wear with my Hunter wellies.... Given I am suitably tanned from my hols, do my Blog readers believe I should rush out and purchase said items? ;o)

I asked the Middle Eastern Correspondent who replied, “oh dear, old people at Reading!”

To which I retorted, “I'm sure there'll be worse than me there... anyway, I've got a few years less on the clock than you and am in better condition”

That said, I am beginning to wonder if I should have paid good money to undergo the psychological damage of being the oldest swinger in town (in a manner of speaking), the trauma of festival toilets, never mind the potential mud bath as rain is forecast!!!

So about this jelly

I'm trying to nail to the tree... I am now starting to think it's not even as solid as jelly...

and the tree is protected by an invisible force-field of subtle politics...

The cancelled meeting was to plan mobilisation issues so we were ahead of the game.... but a roll of the dice (well a successful bid process actually) means we've now won another 2 programmes which need a bus-load of bods... How long before they start screaming for me to come and sort things out...the clock is ticking....

Then there's the miriad of low level practical challenges...

I asked someone to advertise two vacancies:

1 in Aberdeen (not posted for a couple of days as there are not enough HR bods to get this done even though this was a priority last week),

the 2nd a role in Qatar, which has been advertised but no one put the location so it doesn't show up in any of the job opportunity searches...not particularly helpful when you're trying to fill it...

Temporary intermission

whilst batteries were re-charged