"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."
- An apt quote as we commence 2013. 

You are cordially invited

to the State visit of the President of Indonesia comprising of the firing of a 61 gun salute at the Tower of London.

Please aim to arrive around 11.30 at Finsbury Barracks on City Road from where you will be transporting in the Regimental Mini Bus with a police escort to the tower. The guns will be setup and fired at 13.00hrs and we will then proceed to dine in 'Armoury House'.

Ladies are expected to be attired in smart dress and a warm coat and scarf is recommended. You will be issued with ear defenders to reduce the noise.

Good News

The Strident Student finally got her wish and has managed to secure a placement with the Department For International Development doing Aid/Charity work next summer in either Kenya, Sierra Leone or Somalia. It might not be most people's cup of tea but she's dead chuffed as it's part of her master plan. Until then she's slogging away at the Law conversion course and still hoping one day to make it to the realms of Advocacy.

Ms. Sensible completed and submitted her UCAS application and was rewarded with a conditional offer from Bath to study Natural Sciences so can now study in the knowledge that if she can get the grades she has a place at one of her chosen academic institutions :o)

Could this be a chink of light

Following the submission of a paper to the Board about the shopping list of issues which need to be tackled in order to make the function more effective it would seem I may have gained some recognition that someone needs to get a grip and address the situation. In the normal way of working, I have heard this anecdotally from a Board member but now need to be officially informed of approval to progress in the form of a 'Decision Sheet'... There was me thinking I had left the Civil Service in July 2001....

Another new stamp for the passport

Qatar! The landscape of which reminded me of the scene in 'Star Wars' when the X-wing fighters are dog-fighting.

I won't bore you with the work politics, nor whinge about the lack of progress.... suffice to say I did a whistle-stop tour of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, & Doha!!! The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly socialising with a few folk I rarely see. I managed to catch up with a few of the security crew and had an excellent but fairly messy night with the Sales team catching up on all the gossip, followed by a somewhat more civilised evening with Mr. & Mrs. Munro culminating with a bit of tourism watching the Dubai Fountain play to Lou Reed 'Walk on the wild side'.

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

Pah!

I was supposed to be flying to the Middle East this weekend to meet the management team in Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and to start to compile resource plans and a delivery strategy etc. However the plug has just been pulled on the basis that there is concern in certain quarters that I am being parachuted in with some political agenda, as opposed to simply trying to do my job.

Instead there is now talk about having a flipping workshop to get some 'thought leadership' and position 'outcomes'.... Pah!!!!

So other than a couple of presentations and a paper, everything I've done is purely tactical, twiddly around the edges and adding diddly squat value to anyone. Trying to get things moving via spreadsheets and phone calls just does not work.....I'm starting to fret I don't justify my existence :o/

On the upside I now have a weekend I wasn't expecting I guess... Along with a wallet of Riyals and Dirhams I can't spend in John Lewis...

The gang of four

From previous posts dear reader you will have noted that Frosty is feeling somewhat like a fish out of water in her new working environment. In order to maintain sanity (if it were ever there in the first place) one has sought out like-minded individuals and identified three other personages who have fairly recently joined the organisation and are also wondering WTH (NB how polite I am being) they have come in to. Two of said group and I were at dinner the other night recounting tales of incredulity at some of the things were were encountering when we came to the conclusion we have been selected as part of a 'social experiment'. Having formed that opinion we now are all inclined to laugh in the face of adversity albeit in a huddle in a corner somewhere....

Life is feeling slight more bearable.

Begging to be posted.....

One of the problemettes I am contending with is staffing for the key projects in Qatar. These are humongous affairs programme managing the construction of key bits of infrastructure worth £Ms so pretty key that we are able to mobilise individuals with fairly specific, specialist skills, at the right time. At the moment there's a whole heap of heroics going on to make this happen...rather than a plan! Consequently I have I am heading out there to look at that in more depth and try to 're-align' them with best practise.

Queenie's in da house

...well she'd popped into Worcester earlier today so to protect the Royal personage one's not-so-small son and some of his Air Cadets Squadron chums provided a cordon for HRM Liz & the D of E... The prep for this was quite astonishing. Cue much un-bidden polishing of shoes and pressing of uniform.

Just look how shiny his shoes are!!! I only wish I could get him to put so much effort into his school work ;o)

Am I now working in some sort of fictional environment..?

I reckon a goodly number of the folks I now work with could be more successfully employed a Dementors - I swear my soul is being slowly sucked away....

Do they have their senses of humour surgically removed before they enter the Head Office foyer!?!?

I need to find some 'normal' people...or at least on my wave-length (which might not be quite the same thing ;o) to ensure I keep my sanity. Who'd have though I'd miss the "JFDI" culture of one's previous employer...?

Transport chaos

in central London today....they decided to close a few Tube stations during this morning's rush hour in order to simulate possible problem scenarios during the Olympics.... Unsurprisingly Bedlam ensued!!! Kings Cross & St. Pancras were a nightmare; gridlocked traffic, people spilling onto pavements, folks crammed onto buses, puzzled tourists scrutinising maps, harassed Police Officers and tempers decidedly frayed.

I think it's fair to say that they better hope the worker bees stay at home and eat cheese when the Games visitors descend as Boris has advised!