Haha, thanks! Today one of the remaining people called me to inform me that she resigned as well. Sweet jeebus have mercy.

Forged in fire? Feels more like being burned alive.

lol

excellent news for your CV. it's only up from here on now. sounds like you inherited a shitstorm indeed though. I guess it's a nice healthy challenge for you though. Beat this one and you'll beat them all.

No massive update from me. I'm now 3-4 months into my new job and still looking good so far. I've been given 2 hefty projects to manage so i'm bossing them around. Should nail them and learn alot from it. Aside from that, getting into boxing and football which is pretty fun although I have to make sure i eat enough (and eat well) otherwise my body starts to complain. Boxing is pretty fun but i dont think i'll be aiming to do amateur fights. Want to get my basics down well first, which could take a good few months, and might even need to up my regime and do it more times a week, but i doubt that's realistic. work keeps me very busy and it can be draining too. also, a couple of girls i have my eye on but nothing concrete. too concentrated on work right now.

Having to choose between work and women, I choose women every time. Though Shiny may not approve. I think she stopped reading these forums awhile ago, so I can get away with that. :p

Grats on the promotion, Ox. Just don't burn yourself out too quick. Sounds like you inherited a bad deal, but at least you can blame all the people that are leaving/quitting. Stick with it for awhile... even if crap goes to hell, as long as you maintain that position for awhile, it'll be a boon. I'm sure you're aware of this.

I had a bunch of vacation left for the year, so I've been taking time off. Spent 4 days in Austin this past weekend boozing. This coming weekend is Thanksgiving and I'll be spending 4 days in Oklahoma City. Looks like it'll be a lot of fun. Mid Decemeber I'm going snowboarding in Colorado for 4 days, then late January/early Feb I'll go again for a week. There's also a tentative trip to Moscow in March for a few days. After that I'd probably spend 1-2 weeks in Europe. It's very tentative so far, but if it looks to become a reality, I'll let you guys know. I'm thinking Italy, Malta, and eastern Europe. We'll see. Probably not Ukraine, though.

Definitely let us know when/if you're coming to Europe, so I can clear some time on my schedule. I actually think Derf is going to be in Italy during spring as well for some time, so might be able to catch a few of us in our respective semi-natural environments.

How are the projects going at work Derf? Nice to hear you're keeping busy and healthy outside of work too, but yeah, make some room for some sweet lady loving in between all that work sometime!

So, update from my side: a short while after the shitstorm started, something changed at work...the client was looking to cut costs and looked to renegotiate the contract they have with us to be cheaper. The new manager seized the opportunity to make a lot of changes and wrestle some autonomy from the client's side.

For one, we are no longer working shifts to cover the entire day but just 9-6ish hours now. Idle time (during slow moments for a CS like Saturday evenings) will cease to exist and cuts will be made in the wage budgets, as we no longer need physical staffing on every separate shift. As such, it turned out the voluntary resignations of several employees in my team is not the clusterfuck it could have been. We're still short-staffed and struggling, but building up (hiring and training) is easier than firing for sure. Maybe not in the USA, but in Malta or Europe in general.

I've still been working extreme hours and days in the last two weeks to cover everything, especially as I have had to make several key employees take up their remaining leave before the end of the calendar year. One guy had 13 days of paid leave left, another 12.5. Jesus. It's that they can carry over 5 days to next year, but otherwise that is pretty much the entire of December they'd be taking off, taking into account bank holidays.

The biggest problem I've had so far is that on the client's side, the management had not informed our direct contact persons in the Netherlands of the new contract conditions. So last week we start working completely different shifts on Monday (and other changes they immediately will have noticed), but I was under orders not to talk to them about it. If they asked I had to refer them to my manager and he would refer them again etc etc. All very silly since I obviously knew what was going on (I was working according to the new contract already) but because of tactical/political reasons we were not allowed to explain anything to the client contacts until their own manager communicated it to them. Which he obviously did not (we anticipated this already). So they were pissed off, at their management, at my management, probably even a little bit at me. But fuck it, I've been working very well with these people for years now and trust them, so I gave them a 'act surprised, but this is about to happen' heads up. I'm not gonna screw people who are loyal and helpful over for some games I'm not even a part of. Didn't bite me in the ass; luckily.

Now I'm putting in the final pieces of the puzzle for the new way of working we have. Almost there. Christmas period is still gonna be a nightmare, but other than that I think we will make it.

Jeez. I'm getting shivers down my spine reading that as it reminds me of the previous companies i worked for. Horrible now to realise some places have problems RUNNING the business let alone to CARRYING-OUT the business. Your point on holiday brings up something interesting to me ... I accumulated some holiday myself at the end of this year (10 or so days) and I ended up taking odd-days off here and there as well 2 weeks over xmas, but my natural inclination for holidays is to blow it all on 1 massive stay abroad. Yet no company allows this (max 2 weeks without strong reason). I think its BS that we're entitled to holiday but not entitled to take it whenever we please (given sufficient notice).

Oh, Italy for Xmas this year wont go ahead (long story short - someone is about to pass away not the best of ways, so its best not to go). Don't worry i'm pretty meh about the whole thing. But Italy in June is a go-ahead. June 21 is the wedding, so i've been pondering whether I can take a nice 2 week holiday somewhere sunny before the actual wedding. I was thinking Spain but now i'm thinking Sicily. I should really be spending some time with the family in the north but I frankly don't give a shit So yeah, Italy in June sounds appealing. Somewhere on the coast with a city nearby. Might even move around a little. I'd be more than happy to hook up and do some sightseeing and drinking, so let me know where you guys are visiting and I can flex my plan.

Work goes well. I'm putting some hours in this weekend to stay on top of things but I kinda like it. The international rollout project goes well. Slight annoyance is that we've submitted the business case to IT, but they came back asking for more detail on a template they provided us that clearly doesnt facilitate anything more than summaries. The example they gave us aswell, was very very basic. So this has cost us a few days. I resent them the business case with a shitload of details attached on an email that affirms the template isn't suitable for purpose. I need IT to approve this on Friday otherwise some dates on my plan will have to move. Other than that, spirits are very high. It's been 3-4 weeks now that things have clicked and I am way more comfortable now and my mind feels free at work. I'm definitely not committing much time at all to ladies right now. I'm into boxing and gymming now. There's this really good website that has different groups of people host events and meetings that i've signed up to, and i've been to a number of events and meets (some meh, but some quite fun) but recently there hasn't been much of interest at the moment, or some dates have coincided with boxing. Admittedly, i do it only 33% for the social-aspect and 66% for meeting girls, so when I can't see any hotties attending, I tend to not bother going LOL. Hey, i'm only flesh and blood.

EDIT: No flights into Italy from Birmingham (not as big an airport as I hoped) so i'm either going to Spain from Birmingham or taking a 2 hour train to Bristol for a flight to Sicily.

Been reading everyones though not commenting, Ox your place sounds a nightmare but congrats on the promotion!

On my front I'm off to my parents for 2 weeks on Thursday, spending Christmas with them for the first time in about 13 years so that will be nice. Downside is I'm having to leave the boyfriend here but we'll cope. Not much else really to update at the moment (or that I can be bothered typing about anyway).

So, Moscow's definitely not happening. Visa prices made it unrealistic. However, my sister's band is still planning on hitting Europe sometime in March, so I may still tag along with Shiny for at least part of it. The plan is a couple dates in Germany and then... who knows. I hope to have more details next month. Unless something crazy happens, I fully intend to do Europe for 2 weeks next year. But hey, I could lose my job, buy a house, or something else, so who knows. :p

BTW, we're also limited to 2 weeks consecutive vacation here without extenuating circumstances. There are exceptions, but not very commonly. Considering I get 5 weeks of vacation a year (which is a ton for here), it kinda sucks. But whatever.

Regarding vacations, Oklahoma City was meh. Their little 'bricktown' bar/restaurant area is still pretty formative and shuts down at 11pm. On a Friday and Saturday. WTF. My little suburb of Dallas has more a night life then that. During the day it was better, but still a bit too rural for me. Tomorrow we fly out to Colorado for some snowboarding. That should be good fun. I'll need to post pics of Oklahoma City and Colorado at some point.