Jul 3, 2008 | Personal, Work
And it’s not a good one …
I’m going to have a little vent here. You can indulge me or you can move on. It’s cool; I won’t be offended if I see you’ve clicked away after only a few seconds.
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Physically, I am shattered today. I had a really bad night’s sleep and I’m totally exhausted. I also woke up with a splitting headache (what’s new) and I’m freezing cold. So I’m sitting here feeling very sorry for myself – miserable, tired, frozen and sore =(
I really need a holiday. Any kind of break will do, I just feel like I need some R&R.
Other than that, I’m so bloody bored and completely frustrated! Being short staffed is the pits. I am still looking for new staff and having no luck. The ad on Bizcommunity has run it’s course and we got nix out of it. My inbox is normally flooded with CV’s – where the hell is everyone?
I desperately want to move on to new projects – ideas that have been bubbling under for a while that I want to bring to the front burner and start developing. But I’m stuck DAMMIT! I’m doing donkey work on websites because I don’t have enough people. It totally sucks and I feel like I’m wasting my talent.
Jeesh, 10 years ago I was doing much more exciting work. Hells, even before I got into the web I was having a ball running a design studio and lecturing at a college after that. Then I discovered the internet and found my passion. I designed and developed a very large corporate intranet, I managed some big international sites and I created front ends for some high profile online medical and banking systems. Then I setup my own business and had tons of fun developing my own projects.
After that, well … shit happened.
And now I’m bloody stuck and I don’t want to be. I’m not doing anything new; I’m not learning anything new. I feel like my creativity is being stifled and as much I as want to start doing sexy work again, I can’t! I’m turning away a ridiculous amount of work every week.
Don’t get me wrong – I am VERY grateful to be able to work and make a living. But this business is my only source of income and if I can’t move it forward, it’s not going to last for very much longer. And then I’ll be screwed.
I’m also not getting any younger you know – I want to use my brain before all the relevant synapses go on a permanent strike. Shit, the last time I did any serious development, PHP was just a puppy! And I haven’t touched Flash for ages.
And then there’s the fact that I want a personal life too. I feel like I’ve missed out on so much and I want to have a life outside of these four walls that I stare at all day, every day. But being drained of energy and robbed of time because I’m forced to put in long, tedious hours doing repetitive crap work is ensuring that that doesn’t happen either.
I need more staff!!!
I’ve even contemplated selling the business and retiring so that I can get out of this horrible rut and buy myself the time to do what I love. I could do that. I may have to if things don’t change soon.
Sucks to be me right now.
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Ok, that’s it. I’m done. Vent over. If you’re still here, thanks for listening.
Jul 1, 2008 | Life at Home
Ze gate. She ees feexed =)
Well, almost … silly thing is still displaying a mind of its own and opening all by itself for some reason, but at least it OPENS and I can now leave the damn house!!!
We worked late last night and I was MORE than happy to volunteer for the grub run at about 8pm, as dark and cold as it was – I just needed to venture off the property, you know what I mean? So I went to that “fast food” place down the road, McDonalds.
Fast food my ass! It took about 30 minutes for the chick who was serving me to put my order together. She decided to start with the chips, so of course they stood around on the counter for an age before she got around to sorting out the rest of the order. They got ice cold and I had to ask her to please replace them with an edible batch. Cold, rubbery french fries totally suck. I was one of only 3 people she served in that half hour. Jeesh, worse than a stoned tortoise, I tell you!
Anyway, today is yet another screamingly busy day in the trenches for me, so best I get back to it.
Later everyone, have a rocking Tuesday xxx
Jun 28, 2008 | Rants
I don’t know what’s going on, but since Thursday 26 June, some applications on my phone don’t work anymore and my mobiwebs browsing experience has been completely screwed up!
And this has nothing to do with the N95 firmware upgrade I did on Wednesday because after that I tested all the bookmarks on my phone, tried out a few of my applications and everything was fine. But I noticed on Thursday night that things are definitely NOT fine anymore.
Vodacom seems to have hijacked my phone!!
They have plonked 2 horrible red and black bars at the top and bottom of each screen with the live! Logo, a search link and links to the top and bottom of the screen. How utterly invasive! The screen is bloody small enough thank you! And now I have to pay MORE for access because you’re adding to the page overheads?
AND the website screen layouts are now a total train wreck. They used to look 100% fine and now they are broken, with layouts that make no sense, odd buttons all over the place and much of the previously functionality of sites just no longer exists!
WTF??? How can they do this?!
I am extremely annoyed, to say the VERY least. I paid a lot of money for my phone and I use it a lot when I’m not actually in front of my computer. Now the browser is completely messed up, some applications no longer work and I may as well not even bother, it’s that painful to use. I think this is highly unethical and some heads need to do some serious rolling here.
Bear in mind too, those of you who are planning to get an iPhone … guess which network operator is supporting them??
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UPDATE 29/06/2008 – please see “Work around for Vodacom’s mess“.
May 22, 2008 | Mumblings, Rants
Grrrrr … Is it just me or does anyone else notice that there seem to be more and more idiots on the roads these days? I don’t normally suffer from road rage (mostly because I work from home and don’t have to be in my car all that much), but the increasing number of fast-asleep morons that seem to driving around is starting to get to me.
So here’s a piece of my mind …
- Just because you drive a big, expensive car doesn’t mean you have the right to forego using your indicator
- Oh, and if you actually do decide to indicate, it doesn’t mean you can just change lanes without looking
- Put your makeup on at home sweetie
- Cutting me off, driving at 20kms an hour and then slowly pulling to the side of the road without indicating is just not a good way to win me over
- Why do you have to turn in front of me when there is absolutely NOTHING behind me? Couldn’t you wait 3 more seconds so I don’t have to slam on anchors?
- If you want to catch up on the news, turn on the radio or something – don’t read your newspaper on your freaking steering wheel
- A Stop sign means just that – STOP. Duh
- Is it REALLY necessary to give me the finger when I remind you that you are driving the wrong way down a one-way street and are about to collide head on with me?
- Seeing nearly half your car jutting over the white line is a tad annoying – pick a lane buddy!
- If you plan to turn right at an intersection and you need to stop at a red robot, PLEASE indicate your intention to do so BEFORE the robot changes and you actually pull away
- You may be out for a Sunday drive (every day of the week), but some of us really do have places to be, TODAY – try to keep up with the traffic … please?
- What do you mean your phone doesn’t have hands-free? Try turning it off or just not answering it – thought about that?
- I loathe bringing this up BUT … perhaps you just actually shouldn’t be driving at your age?
- Driving up my arse when there’s nowhere for me to go just encourages me to play the amusing game of Just How Slowly Can I Drive before You Realize That You Are Being a Complete Prat?
There … I feel better now!
May 21, 2008 | Kids, Out and About, Rants
Fick. Fack. Feck. Need to have a little vent …. My ex has done it again – messed things up for me, and the boys.
You see, I don’t get to go out very often. In fact, if I go out once a month, it’s a lot. If I go out twice a month, my social life is overdrive! When I actually do have plans to go out and do something other than gym or grocery shopping, it’s a big deal for me. And the boys only get to be with their dad every alternate weekend and perhaps one night during the week, if he’s not working.
This weekend, I’ve hit the jackpot – TWO invitations for dinner! I’ve been psyching myself up for over a week already, trying to generate some adrenaline to combat my fatigue and pain so that when the weekend rolls around, I’m mentally prepared to have a good time.
So there I am, all geared up and excited to go out and relax, knowing that the boys are going to be with their dad and I’m going to have a bit of a break. (I love my kids to death, but I do need some time out occasionally, you know what I mean?) I emailed him to find out what time he’s going to fetch the kids on Friday, because sometimes he gets here really late. And he replies to say: “Sorry, I’m away on business this weekend, and I’m away the whole of next week too.” AAARRRGHH!! Thanks for letting me know, thanks for letting us all down … AGAIN!
He keeps doing this to us – messing us around, inconveniencing me and sending out a clear message to the boys that his work is more important than them! I know he’s a big shot at his work, I know he works hard and he’s all very important and all that, but really, this is just not on anymore …
