Archive for the ‘Work’ Category

Rush hour

Friday, September 11th, 2009

I used to work in the city.

And yeah, I already mentioned this in a post. It’s just that it weighs so heavily on my mind, I’m hoping that writing about it will be a little cathartic.

Mornings are all go in our house. There are kids to get up and dressed, lunches to pack, kids to ask again to get dressed, cups of tea and breakfasts to make, and “Kids, why can’t you bloody well get dressed when you’re told” to be said, repeated and yelled day after day. Getting out of the door on time means being in the car at 7.45, or 7.50 at the latest. 8 am is doable but it’s a rush.

My wife and kids get off together at school in the city. To get a park for drop off, we need to be there by 8.15, otherwise we’re doing laps of the block for 10 or 20 minutes. On a good (early) day, I can even get out and take the kids into class and say goodbye. I realise that in a couple of years they won’t want me anywhere near them and all kids probably wish they could take out restraining orders to keep their parents a safe distance from school, so if I get the chance to do classroom activities, I’m fine with that.

If I’m catching the bus, I need to be in the centre of the city by 8.20. I rarely make this and usually end up having to wait till nearly 8.35 for a bus that gets me setting foot in the office around 9.07.

If I’m driving to work I have to be on the road again by about 8.35. Taking the car, I can usually get in the office before or right on 9. See, I like to get to work early. Because if you get to work early, you can leave early. And who doesn’t like leaving early?

I sometimes get all narky if I’m running late: when traffic’s heavy, when there are too many 25 zones, when people don’t know that when the light is green and the red arrow disappears, they’re allowed to turn right. Or if the bus is late, I get annoyed having to sit in Victoria square… waiting in disbelief that the buses can be so early/late/irregular (really, they publish timetables for buses. I can’t think of anything more useless).

I should say I used to get narky. I don’t really now. Not anymore.

I don’t enjoy working out of the city. At least not on the other side of the city from where I live. It’s not that I dislike the north in particular but I am in a rather unattractive corner of the metro area. The first day I caught the bus out here, I knew to get off at stop 18. I dutifully pressed the Next Stop button after stop 17 and stepped off a minute or so later. Turns out it wasn’t stop 18 but stop 17A. Of course. Obviously.

Stop 17A puts you right outside what looks like some disused packing plant. There’s a derelict factory with those really high rail things that you could move stuff on (don’t ask me what). There’s an expanse of overgrown grass and a brick building close to the road. It’s been tagged to the point there’s hardly any brown brick exposed. All the windows have been smashed. Some have been boarded up and subsequently had the boards smashed.

I was stopped in traffic the other day at Light Square. About a billion people wanted to turn right into Currie St and the right hand slip lane had filled up so nobody could get past the right-turners to go straight; they were all in the straight-ahead lane waiting to turn right. I thought “this is gonna make me late. I have to get to…” Then the image of stop 17A popped into my head. And I realised that this—being in the city amid the chaos of morning rush hour—was where I really wanted to be.

The place I work—the suburb, the strip mall, the broken footpaths—is so disconnected from the city in my mind, it’s like I work in another country. When I’m in the city, I can’t believe that it’s possible to get to a place so far away, not in distance but in mood. Of course, I know the way, and whether I’m on the bus or driving, I get here eventually.

And I still want to get here early because the work itself is fine and I want to impress the right people well enough so that I can get another job back in the city. And I still like to leave early.

But the crazy driving, dropoff, driving again. I don’t really get narky anymore. Driving through the city, or waiting in it for a bus… that’s the highlight of my day.

Posted in Adelaide, Idea v. Reality, Ma vie, Work | No Comments »

I just work here

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I started a new job a little over a month ago. The actual job, where I sit down and do the actual work, isn’t too bad.

But I’m now working north of the city.

I live south of the city.

So getting here, taking so long to get here, having to catch the bus rather than the train, being here, sharing an office big enough for three with five other people, getting sore eyes from staring at two monitors all day, being subjected to another staff member’s musical tast all day, NOT being in the city, having to go to other non-city, outlying suburbs regularly, having to sit on the bus for more than an hour to get home… that sucks.

Not happy. And I’m so unfit I feel disgusting.

And I need a haircut.

I used to get that done in the city.

Posted in Adelaide, Work | No Comments »

Time I checked in

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

As I said a while ago, I’ve been neglecting this space but there has been much going on at chez Drew over the past few weeks. The upshot of it all is that a few hours ago, I handed in my notice to my current employer.

There has been no real bad feeling regarding seeking other employment, which has been a pleasan surprise. Sure, there are issues that have motivated me to find something else but after six-and-a-half years with this employer, I think it was time to move on about 18 months ago.

So I’m now moving from the marketing unit of a large organisation to the realms of online media. It’s exciting, it’s immediate and it means I’ll be having the internet hardwired to my brain at some point in the coming months.

It’s all a bit surreal at the moment. I’ll have to start thinking about clearing out my desk (had better clean it up, first) and backing up the music library from my hard drive (I have priorities).

Normal service may never resume.

Posted in Ma vie, Work | 2 Comments »

Suddenly rather tired

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

I’ve been neglecting this blog of late but with reason.

Full-on job-search mode has been the order of the day, so every spare minute has been spent putting together a profession folio site. I had an interview this morning, which was a good motivator in getting the site up, so all I had to do this afternoon was send the prospective employer a link, so they can see all my great work in one location.

The interview went well. Very well. So well, I’m more nervous now than I was before I went to it. So nervous, I’m getting all jittery and distracted not knowing how I’m going to last till Friday, when I’m expected to hear back. And now that the interview’s over, I’m coming down all tired because I’ve probably been more worked up for it than I’d realised, or had time to stop and think about. And now I have nothing to do but wait, so my body is telling me to rest while I’m doing it.

But you can’t be nervous and tired at the same time. It’s not good. You can’t sleep you’re so nervous and you can’t calm down because you can’t sleep. You just get more tired and more nervous. It’s one of those catchy-number things I’ve read about.

Everybody, cross your fingers. Now.

Posted in Ma vie, Work | 2 Comments »

Big jobs

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

I went on leave today. I have two whole weeks of anything other than work to look forward to. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while and it’s almost a little scary how quickly it’s come around.

Most of this week, I’ve even been in holiday mode: not getting too stressed about things, thinking about handballing current projects to colleagues, getting a few things finished and choosing to do the kind of ongoing jobs that aren’t too stressful at all. I wasn’t even in the office today, but organised a day out with the camera to build work’s photo library. (And fuck this lens makes your camera a bitch to carry around all day.) I even finished a little early to pick up Little Miss L from school.

So I bet you can’t guess why I’m stressed now.

Well, someone sent me an email, which was a link to a job-seeking site, and there’s a job there that, right now, is my dream job. So of course, I want it. And of course, I’m going to go for it. But it’s the post-going-for-it bit that’s concerning me. See, I know I could do it. I know I could be really good at it. I know I know what I need to know to get it and I know I could grow into the bits that I don’t have down pat yet. I know it would be an opportunity to get closer to where I think I’d really like to be.

The problem is that because I’ve been doing the job I’m doing for so long, having been away from some parts of this other job, I can see how, on paper, I might not look like the ideal candidate. I’ve been doing one kind of writing for a living and this other job requires talent in another genre. I can do it; I’ve done it before, but I haven’t done a whole lot of it recently and I think that counts for quite a lot when you’re asking someone to trust you that you’re, like, really really good at it and stuff.

And the epiphany I just had in the shower was that, for the last few years, I haven’t been doing the job I really want to be doing, I’ve just been doing a job at a place that’s really good to work. I’ve been mistaking flexitime, parental leave and good coffee for job satisfaction. Yeah, this has helped me through the rearing-young-children years of my career but enough is enough. I’m done.

Anyone got any good ideas on how to get extensive, recent journalistic experience over, say, a weekend?

Posted in Idea v. Reality, Ma vie, Work | 3 Comments »

Let’s go fly a…

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

I’m at a bit of a loss at the moment, feeling as though I’ve hit a wall in the career department.

And I can’t stop thinking about a book my kids have, about a family who buy a hotel by the beach but realise quickly that it’s windy ten months of the year, so business is bad, which is why the place was on the market to begin with.

So instead of selling up/giving up, they make a whole lot of kites and by the end of the book their little seaside hotel is full ten months of the year because it’s known as the kite-flying capital of whatever country they’re in. During the non-windy months, they have a nice summer holiday. Lovely.

I know there’s a great next step for me. Something creative, something original, something that will let me put to use the skills I have. I just don’t know what form my kite will take.

And please, don’t comment and tell me the answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Posted in Ma vie, Work | 1 Comment »

Some walk by night…

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

I’m home from work, have made and eaten dinner, put the kids to bed and I’ve just had a power nap.

Now watch as I turn the candle around and light it at the other end.

Posted in Work | No Comments »

Long service

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Just realised that yesterday marked my 6th anniversary with my current employer.

What am I doing with my life?

Posted in Ma vie, Work | 2 Comments »

You go to the toilet, I’m trying to edit.

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

I’m working on a really big project right now. It’s a bastard. Lots of text, lots of pages, lots of people who need to be sure that a lot of the text on a lot of the pages says what they want it to say. I’m in the middle, trying to make sure it says everything it’s supposed to say in a consistent and uniform tone. I’m trying to bring the body of work together, to make it harmonious and lovely. It’s like I’m growing a tree.

Occasionally, other people need to see parts of the text, to make sure it says the right thing (which I just explained). For the most part, I think it says the right thing. All the facts are pretty much there. Very little of it is actually wrong. Very little of it really needs to be changed.

But people are curious. Put a piece of copy in front of them and they try to change things so it says the right things in the particular way that want the right things to be said. Them, that is, and 25 other people. It’s not wrong, you understand, the bits they try to change. Some words, you can spell different ways. I’ve chosen to spell this word this way and I’ve done it the same way every time I’ve written it. If they spell it the other way, it’s out of place. It becomes more wrong than they thought it was when it wasn’t spelled their way.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, I want each branch to look the same as the other branches; each leaf to look the same as the other leaves.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, these people are dogs, who see the tree, sniff around the tree and have the uncontrollable urge to piss on the tree in an attempt to make it their own.

But this does nothing at all for the tree; it just makes the tree smell like piss.

But they don’t mind. They just want to come back to the tree when it has been chopped down, pulped, and had the information I’ve been gathering printed on it, smell it, and say ‘Yep, that’s my piss!’

Posted in Featured, Idea v. Reality, Work, Writing | 4 Comments »

Work and not work

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

I finally broke the back of the bastard project I’ve been working on for the last month. In my department, we’re not supposed to be responsible for the accuracy of the information in this particular part of this particular project; the info is supposed to be correct when I get it. But once again, I have become the funnel through which all the additions, deletions and corrections have had to go before the content can be printed. This means, basically, that if it’s right, that’s because it’s supposed to be but if it’s wrong, it’s somehow my fault. At least, that’s how it feels.

But I’ve had a not-too-stressful week this week involving some photoshop work, which I haven’t done for a few months now. I’ve basically put together the cover photos for a couple of our brochures: taking someone else’s location shots and inserting some of my portraits to make it look as though the people are actually there. It’s easy enough to contour the subject and drop them in but I’ve been painstakingly looking at the lighting of the background and matching silhouettes and hairlights to light sources already in the shot, getting the colour temperature to match fore-and background and putting just the right amount of blur on the background to simulate a slightly wide camera aperture. It’s been fun. Would be nice to post results here or on flickr but there’s the whole IP and commercial-in-confidence thing. That, and I don’t really blog about where I work.

Today was back to a bit more gruntwork on a related project and boy, has the day dragged.

Having this big albatross off my back (or is it from around my neck – must read the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner) has been good. I’m setting aside some time to get a folio/CV in order to shop my wares around the place and another freelance job has just come up, so that’s all good.

And tomorrow I’ll drop off the first film from my Holga. I’m not expecting very good results. The reasons for this are:

  1. Holgas are notorious for light leaks and I didn’t tape it up beforehand. The result was that:
  2. The back of the bugger fell off two or three frames in
  3. I was using an old slide film my Dad had in the fridge. It had been there a while. The expiry date on it was 1989

These shots (if they work) I will be able to post. I have some more, b+w film (not quite as old, but still pretty old) I’ll be using next.

Oh, and my birthday was a cracker. Thanks to all who read this and know it was my b/day for whatever you may have done with/for me.

Posted in Photography, Work | No Comments »