Since we all still drop in here but don't post as often as we used to, I figured it would be nice to see where we all are more or less with our lives. We have been 'hanging out' for over 10 years already after all, scary as that thought may be.

I've been back from the Mauritius project for a few months now and still living in Malta. I've been steadily expanding my responsibilities at work and at one point it was a done deal that I was going to replace my direct superior when she would quit (supposedly within a week or two), but this shit turned around for reasons not entirely clear to me - a missed sideways promotion/relocation on her part I assume - and a month or two later she is still there and informed me that she will likely be staying til the end of the year at least. She also told me she'd pick up some responsibilities that are part of her job again, after me doing most of her job for a few months already. So yeah; that sucks.

It was bad enough that I was having to take charge of management tasks without any of the executive power to back it up, but I did it with a view on the long term. Now I will have a more relaxed time than before, but to the outside world it'll look like I'm being put back. Mmm. So yeah, been looking around for other jobs. I suppose I might move country again but I like it here, so we'll see what kind of jobs open up.

On the brightside workwise, my actual psychopath of a project manager has finally been thanked for her services after 1.5 year of tragic mismanagement, fouling client relationships and completely alienating and bullying all of her employees. Hallelujah! When they announced the news I was grinning from ear to ear, and was on cloud 9 for the entire week. Oh happy day etc. Now if that bitch would just fall down some stairs on her way out on her way out and never get up again then she'd might have gotten what she actually deserved, but I'll settle for this! Didn't apply for her position, since even though I'm probably one of the 3 most important people in the entire project in every aspect of our job, I am technically not even lower management (see above). So there is no way HR is gonna promote me to a position managing 70 people. I'm not that delusional.

On a personal level things have been a bit rocky. I broke up with my gf of more than a year very recently, and even though we both realized that it's the best thing for both of us it isn't easy to get used to it. The up side is that I will have a lot more time for extracurricular activities, which is important as that is not always so straightforward with my working hours. Been picking up BBQ, swimming, board game evenings, reading and of course gaming. I'm teaching myself Swedish too, and brushing up on my Maltese. May be taking a trip to Prague soon too as I'm in a nostalgic mood.

I think that's a pretty accurate description of where I'm at right now. Some good, some bad, some fun. What about you bitches?

I guess i'll highlight some things from last year too. I'll get straight into it:

By Summer-time last year, things started to get shaky with my gf, and I decided to move out and get my own place. We were still together, and we thought we'd have another go and have her move in with me. So I chose my own place (rented) bought some furniture, and a new car (just a Ford Focus 2009 but I love it to bits).

By xmas, we figured the relationship wasn't working, so we split up for good. She went back to Italy.

After that, workwise until March, I worked my ass off on a project for 5 months and figured that because I liked it so much, I should seek specialisation in what it was dealing with. I averaged most working days pulling a 9am to 10pm for the whole time but I loved it. So I decided as a Systems Analyst to specialise in HR systems. I think its a smart move because there are some interesting investments and tech developments happening.

By June, having worked so hard, this consequentially highlighted to me that the company I was working for was filled with morons of considerable calibre. Sub-par colleagues that I could learn nothing else from, or try to get to understand certain things. I hit the intellectual ceiling, so I decided to look for another job.

A couple of months ago, I accepted a job offer from another company. So now I am carrying my 2 years HR specialisation into a law firm that is throwing relatively crazy money at me. I would have never thought at this stage I would be earning what I am, so I am pretty damn lucky for that. The job is in a new city (a proper 2m pop city) and I LOVE it. At least once a week I take the train to the London HQ, The City to be precise... so right now i'm living it up... albeit alone. Got myself a nice flat in the city centre. What's more the job seems much easier, but I will hold my judgement for another 6-12 months. I have some headhunters on my ass now wanting to throw more money at me, but I'm staying put for now. The only downside is that i'm all alone. No friends and no family... so ronery. But hey ho, i'm pretty distracted for now.

Just before I took the job, I went to the Greek islands for a couple of weeks holiday alone. Didn't really need it because I was elated at the job offer, but hey it was a great holiday. Met some nice people, ate some great food, and saw some amazing places. (Just for the record - Greek girls are fucking amazing looking).

So yeah... pretty crazy times when you look at it like that. Ending my relationship was an excellent win for me. Putting it bluntly, the bitch was dragging me down... I mean... poor girl, there are reasons and everything, but in the end I just needed out. Now everything is lined up nicely for a new start of something more meaningful. I'm still feeling my way around work, and the city, so once the dust settles i'll figure out what the next step could be.

I'm still up to the same old stuff really.

Been with my boyfriend 4 years now and been living together for 2 years, still going good. Generally gaming, movie watching and all the usual stuff (mostly gaming though ) plus I've taken up horse riding again in the last year which I love (my wallet doesn't though, it's gotten so expensive since I used to do it before).

Work is... meh. The company is still a hell of a lot better than some (still beats working at Game by about 3 billion on a scale of 1 - 10) but my role is changing and getting more annoying. I'm not enjoying it as much as I was and our department (I know, everyone says it) gets all the crap dumped on us. The trouble is we sit in the middle of everything - we're supposed to facilitate everyone else doing their job by basically pestering x department to get y info over so the support teams know what we support etc, but because of this it means every other department just sees us and so if anything goes wrong it's our fault. Plus we might have to become customer facing which I have loved not being so I'm giving it til the new year before looking anywhere. And like you guys have said it's also the usual thing of I feel like I work so much harder than everyone else for the same pay, the same praise (or lack of) and just to get the extra stuff handed to me because I'm reliable. Only reason really that I'm leaving it that long is we're getting a new CEO next month and I want to see what he's going to do plus I actually have a Christmas booked off (first one in 11 years!) so am actually going to be able to see my parents and there is no way a new job would let me waltz in and say "yeah by the way, I can't work for 2 weeks over the holidays".

Good to hear about where you are at guys.

Derf, pretty jealous of your situation man! I know you worked really hard to get there but damn, it sounds great. I understand that it's not always great to not have any friends or family around the corner (having lived abroad I've been in that situation a few times) but in the end they're never too far away. The only time when I really felt like "well, shit" about it is when I was in Mauritius. I was having fun, don't get me wrong, but if I had to double back home for whatever reason it wouldn't just be a few hours and a 100-200 euro ticket; but a 15 hour flight of 700 euros. Besides you're a spartan anyway. And your gf situation sounds very similar to mine. I feel a lot happier right know without her, as sad as that may sound. Also feel like she was dragging me down.

As for you Pev, I really hope you don't have to perform customer care services in the future! Depending on how direct they are (phone vs emails) it may not be so bad, but yeah it's hardly glamorous work dealing with angry people. Did they hire the new CEO yet? What's your impression?

I'm still waiting for a new manager at my job after they axed the psychopath. She's still roaming the halls doing out her notice period, being kept out of every decision, and doesn't talk to anyone anymore. Even desk-wise she is sitting in a faraway corner 10 feet away from the closest colleague. It's amazing. Feels like a mad emperor Nero haunting the streets of burning Rome.

I wake up. Eat breakfest, wash.

I sit behind my desk and write my master thesis. Sometimes it takes two hours of thinking before actually getting stuff on the paper.

I eat lunch.

I write or try to write more.

In the evening I play a game of TF2 to unwind.

I go to sleep.

Been so for about two three months now. My thesis on Cyber Defense or rather the lack of it. Sometimes I read so stupid things I just bang my head against the table as well .

Cyber defence... that sounds pretty damn applicable.

I love the contrast between Peltz' master thesis and mine. His is actually about something real and mine was just literary analysis, so I could pretty much make up 80% of the stuff I was writing as I went along. I first wanted to postponed it altogether for after summer, but when I realized I had 2-3 weeks without classes before my summer exams started I wrote what was supposed to be a trial version in 2 feverish weeks. Laughed my ass off when I got a 15/20 on the first go, which is considered a fairly high grade. Then I of course refused to refine it for another go after summer for a potentially even higher grade because I was too lazy.

So, the lesson is: if you want wing your entire academic career, literature is the way to go. If you want an actual succesful professional career in something though, you're better off doing it the Peltz way.

Hi guys. Been awhile. My name's Satis.

I still work at the same job for almost 11 years now. I'll have been in the testing department for 3 years in the near future. My company was bought and went public a little over a year ago. I still have a job, which is a bonus. I own some stock that I (ultimately) didn't pay for thanks to some smart/lucky buy/sell timing, but it's not worth so much at the moment. I'm now the senior tester, since the last one quit in disgust. *shrug* It's ok. I make decent money, though I haven't seen a raise in 2 1/2 years. If that continues, I'll be finding another job. It doesn't help that I'm currently in crunch time and am working a whole lot of extra for free. Yay salaries.

Outside of work, I stopped going to college because it got pointless. If I go back, it'll be to a 4-year college to get a bachelor's degree. I'm just not sure there's a point. I have many many years of highly technical hands on experience... a degree isn't really going to help me. Except I like learning. *shrug*

Shiny and I are still together and going strong. We spend most of our free time playing the Star Wars MMO. We did just spend a week in Antigua in the Caribbean. I'll eventually post pictures and a more thorough description. To keep it short, it was freaking awesome. It was also all-inclusive...nearly everything was free, from the food to the alcohol to much of the recreation. In a week, I spent $120 on gifts, tourist stuff and Cuban cigars. :p

At any rate, I'll post more, but I have quite a few more posts to catch up on.

Good to hear you're still alive and kicking Satsi. And that you and Shiny had a great time in Antigua. I will be eagerly awaiting those pics. Which reminds me, if my ex ever comes around to sorting her 1002020221454 pictures of our time in Mauritius I will post those too. Not all of them, just a selection.

Company going public is usually not so great for the employees in the middle to long run...unless they have piles of stock I suppose. I hope you get the payrise you deserve in the future too.

Hey I heard ToR offers quick levelling to high levels now for people who purchase the expansion or something. Any idea how it works exactly?

I hear ya on college...learning is fun, but it's a little harder when it takes up most of your spare time outside of an already busy job. Especially when there is no immediate point apart from personal enrichment or enjoyment. That kind of takes the urgency out of it all. Still, I find that as long as it is not a highly technical subject that requires deep attention it's fun to just read and/or test yourself in little bits here and there. Before, during and after work for on hour a day or something. It works for languages since a lot of that is just building slowly towards new things, but I can imagine it isn't so effective for studies that require a lot of basic memorization.

Yea, I'm still considering college. I'd really like to get a computer science degree, but that's a lot of math, which means a lot of studying. We'll see. I'm not ruling it out, but it just seems like a ton of time I don't feel like dedicating. We'll see.

Regarding ToR, yes, if you prepurchase the expansion that's coming out in December, you get an xp bonus for levelling. Basically, any class missions (the primary, non-side quest stuff) gets a 12x bonus. This basically means you can ignore everything but the class missions and level normally, so it's REALLY fast. You get a level per 1-2 class missions. It wouldn't be too crazy to level to 55 in 3 days. *shrug* I have 13 characters now. It's getting a little crazy.

On a different note, I got my raise. It was a very healthy chunk, even considering it was almost 2 1/2 years. I'm marginally happy now. Crunch time is over, which is also a plus. My boss also got tired of giving weekly reports to our most recent boss, so I spent a week coding a reporting web page to make the reports automatically. It's a nice change of pace from testing all the time.

So, yea, good times. What're the rest of you folks doing? I know Ox is just bumming. j/k...sounds like you're actually being responsible. Same with Derf. It's like we're all growing up or something. Ugh.

Congrats on the wage rise! It's been a long time coming. Now you can start putting that money towards canned goods and ammo. And water. Never forget the water (especally in Texas).

As for responsibility...yes and no. I work a crappy job in a crappy sector for relatively crappy pay. I am quite important at work, if I may say so myself, but unfortunately this will not translate into adequate compensation or a good CV. So still thinking about switching jobs.

But yeah we're all 'growing up'. Whatever that means. I'm a single 32-yr old hunk, but I don't own any property, a car or have any kids. Not sure how grown up many people would think that is.

Oh god, computer science. I dropped that in my first year like it was out of fashion. Too much programming and subsequently algorithmic shizzle which isn't my strong point or interest. Although when I did solve something I felt like a nobel prize winning mathematical genius.

"growing up" pfff, such a conformist notion.

Oh, good. I was getting nervous. Hell, I spend more time drinking and playing games now than I think I did in college.

Slight update: my boss resigned, leaving her job open and I applied. I got the job and am now the glorious and infallible leader of a team of around 10 Dutch speaking people within my project. But all stabs at myself aside, it's a promotion and comes with better hours (management stylee) and pay, and it looks a lot better on my CV for any direction I would like to go after this. So yay for me.

Of course with my luck shit is falling apart as we speak, partially bad luck with timing, partially because my boss was careless with some things like giving christmas leave to everyone and their mom.

Short sketch of the situation: there are normally about 10 people in the team. There were only 9 because I hadn't been replaced yet after moving up the totem pole. I fired one of them because he 'lost his passport' when already on a 3-week leave without pay to his home country and then barely reported in for weeks after. Long story with increasingly insane aspects, but for several reasons I would have fired his ass 5 times over before if HR hadn't bitched and whined. Managed to in the end.

So that's 8. Of those 8, 4 had booked leave long ago under my previous boss for the christmas week. As did I. Of the 4 who didn't, one resigned earlier this month and the other resigned this week. So that left me with 2 people to work everything around christmas time. We have 2 new people coming in but it's unlikely that they will know wtf they are doing by that time.

Net conclusion: we will already be severaly understaffed and unable to reach any targets the next month, and that is not even counting possible sickness and other leave that still needs to be taken. Then around christmas, everything will go to shit and I will be responsible while a 1000 miles away. Lordy lord.

I booked leave and a flight for the end of this month but I'm cancelling it and losing the money. No way I can afford to go away at this point in time.

What a way to start my career as a supervisor. In between all of that I had to tell one of the employees that he can't give shit to the client we work for, and his reaction was "To be blunt, I don't really give a shit what these people think of me". Yeah dude. These people who employ us and pay our salaries? Ughhhh. I sense another dismissal coming up.

I swear, where do they find these people? Basic work ethic, common sense, people skills, I'm not asking for the moon here. Gonna have to tell recruitment how to do their jobs as well.

More than ever, I feel like Kim Jong Il in Team America.

I vaguely remember a quote about great men being forged in fire.. or in your case - shitstorm . Enjoy