I'm feeling quite gloomy about the move to the Fens today.
As part of our impending relocation to Cambridge we are updating our 1929-built house to better reflect contemporary tastes, which means basically halving the number of internal walls and putting in a cool kitchen.
We had the designer guy from "Betta Living" around last night and he was here for FOUR hours, and it wasn't like we hadn't already decided what we wanted down to the last drawer. It was exhausting, and it made the move that much more real, which left me with a nasty sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
That's been happening a lot lately, being assailed by unwelcome thoughts about how finite our time here now is. I was especially struck by it when my son goes to cricket. He's become quite a regular pick for the Marple CC junior team and one of the coaches was talking about his "future at the club" the other week, which almost had me in tears. People keep telling me we'll find new Cricket clubs, dance schools etc. at the other end but that's missing the point. The hopes and dreams I had for my kids now lie in a future that will no longer take place, like another country that it's no longer possible to visit.
Maybe I should just man up and stop feeling sorry for myself but this move is going to be very tough for my kids.
Tuesday 28 May 2013
Thursday 23 May 2013
Modern Workplace - we are nothing but abstractions
Going to work is crap.
I hate it.
I have no idea how to do my job properly, it stresses me out and given the choice I'd stay in bed all day watching DVD's and eating biscuits.
And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Going to work has always been crap. It's like being forced to eat shit.
However, in the modern workplace, going to work is like being forced to eat shit but also being forced to call it chocolate, because in an effort to avoid the appearance that you're nothing but random meat to them, your employers now seek to restrict the very thoughts you have in your head.
Example? Two years ago I was unlawfully dismissed by my employer for being unable to do my job as it stood, due to a disability, in direct contravention of the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005. But I was repeatedly bollocked by HR for saying I'd been fired or sacked. I wasn't being sacked,. I was being "re-deployed", to the DWP benefits office as it turned out. But it was considered supremely important that at no time did I think that the employer didn't have my best interests at heart.
Even when they're dumping on you from a great height, be it unlawful dismissal, unpaid "promotions", enforced relocation or "re-structuring" in such a way that ten people who have worked together for years as a team suddenly have to fight over nine jobs, you mustn't think you're being treated unfairly, let alone say it.
For a long time I thought it was just a litigation thing. But then I realised.
We are all just meat.
Underpaid, unvalued, anonymous, expendable meat.
And meat is always better if it goes to the abattoir willingly or unknowingly.
I hate it.
I have no idea how to do my job properly, it stresses me out and given the choice I'd stay in bed all day watching DVD's and eating biscuits.
And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Going to work has always been crap. It's like being forced to eat shit.
However, in the modern workplace, going to work is like being forced to eat shit but also being forced to call it chocolate, because in an effort to avoid the appearance that you're nothing but random meat to them, your employers now seek to restrict the very thoughts you have in your head.
Example? Two years ago I was unlawfully dismissed by my employer for being unable to do my job as it stood, due to a disability, in direct contravention of the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005. But I was repeatedly bollocked by HR for saying I'd been fired or sacked. I wasn't being sacked,. I was being "re-deployed", to the DWP benefits office as it turned out. But it was considered supremely important that at no time did I think that the employer didn't have my best interests at heart.
Even when they're dumping on you from a great height, be it unlawful dismissal, unpaid "promotions", enforced relocation or "re-structuring" in such a way that ten people who have worked together for years as a team suddenly have to fight over nine jobs, you mustn't think you're being treated unfairly, let alone say it.
For a long time I thought it was just a litigation thing. But then I realised.
We are all just meat.
Underpaid, unvalued, anonymous, expendable meat.
And meat is always better if it goes to the abattoir willingly or unknowingly.
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Animal names for tanks
I was reading a book about German armoured vehicles of the WWII era and was struck by the rather whimsical use of animal names, especially cats and insects. Some, like the Panther and Tiger tanks are well known but some others are more obscure and I shall list them here. I have not bothered with umlauts, I hope you will forgive me.
For example, other tanks (experimental or unbuilt, by and large) included the Lowe (Lion) heavy tank, the Maus (mouse) super-heavy tank, the Leopard light tank (not to be confused with the contemporary German main battle tank of the same name) and the Wanze (bug) one-man tank. There were numerous self-propelled guns including the Wespe (wasp), Grille (cricket), Heuschrecke (grasshopper), Elefant, Hornisse/Nashorn (hornet/rhino), Hummel (bumble bee) and Brummbar (grizzly bear).
There was an experimental amphibious vehicle called the Ente (duck), miscellaneous recon/APC vehicles like the Luchs (lynx), Maultier (mule), Puma, Katzchen (kitten), Falke (falcon), Schildkrote (turtle), UHU (eagle owl) and anti-tank or anti-aircraft vehicles like Marder (marten), Gepard (cheetah, again, not to be confused with...) and Coelian (a legendary monster, referring to a converted Panther tank).
Anti-aircraft guns in particular were often given eccentric or dramatically lyrical names: converted tanks carrying AA guns were known as Mobelwagen (removal vans), while more adavanced AA vehicles became Wirbelwind (whirlwind), Ostwind (east wind) and Kugelblitz (ball lightning).
My absolute favourite name was for a prototype heavy tank destroyer called Sturer Emil, stubborn Emil.
By comparison, the allies in WWII often (but not always) used rather prosaic names if they went beyond simple model numbers at all. British tanks usually have "C" names like Covenanter, Crusader, Comet, Cromwell, Churchill, and the more modern Centurion, Conqueror, Chieftain and Challenger, although informality and eccentricity did creep in occasionally, tanks converted to APC's were called Kangaroos, Valentine tanks were so named because their design was initiated on 14th February, M7 Priest SP guns were so called because of their pulpit-like machine gun mount, an unofficial ecclesiastical naming system being established which led to later SP guns like Bishop, Sexton and Abbot. American vehicles were named, unofficially at first and often by export customers, after famous soldiers (mostly generals), Lee, Grant, Stuart, Chaffee, Sherman, Pershing, a tradition continued to this day (Walker, Ridgeway, Patton, Abrams, Bradley, Stryker) and taken up by other countries, e.g. the French LeClerc.
Tanks and armoured vehicles are bad things that are designed to kill people, plain and simple, but some that conceived them had poetry in their souls.
For example, other tanks (experimental or unbuilt, by and large) included the Lowe (Lion) heavy tank, the Maus (mouse) super-heavy tank, the Leopard light tank (not to be confused with the contemporary German main battle tank of the same name) and the Wanze (bug) one-man tank. There were numerous self-propelled guns including the Wespe (wasp), Grille (cricket), Heuschrecke (grasshopper), Elefant, Hornisse/Nashorn (hornet/rhino), Hummel (bumble bee) and Brummbar (grizzly bear).
There was an experimental amphibious vehicle called the Ente (duck), miscellaneous recon/APC vehicles like the Luchs (lynx), Maultier (mule), Puma, Katzchen (kitten), Falke (falcon), Schildkrote (turtle), UHU (eagle owl) and anti-tank or anti-aircraft vehicles like Marder (marten), Gepard (cheetah, again, not to be confused with...) and Coelian (a legendary monster, referring to a converted Panther tank).
Anti-aircraft guns in particular were often given eccentric or dramatically lyrical names: converted tanks carrying AA guns were known as Mobelwagen (removal vans), while more adavanced AA vehicles became Wirbelwind (whirlwind), Ostwind (east wind) and Kugelblitz (ball lightning).
My absolute favourite name was for a prototype heavy tank destroyer called Sturer Emil, stubborn Emil.
By comparison, the allies in WWII often (but not always) used rather prosaic names if they went beyond simple model numbers at all. British tanks usually have "C" names like Covenanter, Crusader, Comet, Cromwell, Churchill, and the more modern Centurion, Conqueror, Chieftain and Challenger, although informality and eccentricity did creep in occasionally, tanks converted to APC's were called Kangaroos, Valentine tanks were so named because their design was initiated on 14th February, M7 Priest SP guns were so called because of their pulpit-like machine gun mount, an unofficial ecclesiastical naming system being established which led to later SP guns like Bishop, Sexton and Abbot. American vehicles were named, unofficially at first and often by export customers, after famous soldiers (mostly generals), Lee, Grant, Stuart, Chaffee, Sherman, Pershing, a tradition continued to this day (Walker, Ridgeway, Patton, Abrams, Bradley, Stryker) and taken up by other countries, e.g. the French LeClerc.
Tanks and armoured vehicles are bad things that are designed to kill people, plain and simple, but some that conceived them had poetry in their souls.
Monday 20 May 2013
Relocation...part 1
I started this blog out of curiosity but with no clear purpose in mind. I have hardly ever posted to it. But now it has a purpose, to document what might just be the darkest hours of my life.
AstraZeneca (those motherfuckers) announced that they're relocating their Alderley Edge R&D operation to Cambridgeshire in 2015, and the BEST CASE is that we'll have to uproot and trek down to East Anglia.
The enormity of this has finally hit me when I was forced to consider how many things, large and small, will have to be sorted out to allow this to happen. I finally sat down and thought about the minutiae that add up to a life and how every single tiny piece has to be uprooted and moved, I finally started to realise what will be lost in the process.
Top of the list, I have to find a job down there. I'm 47 years old and not exactly transferable. Sure I know a bit of Python and Java and I'm working on my Perl but I seriously doubt Sanger or EBI would be interested. I couldn't even get into Cambridge Uni as a student, when I would have been paying them to be there, so getting a job there is frankly unlikely. My wife has suggested commuting to Manchester and living here in the week, returning to Cambridge at weekends, but I honestly can't see that working, not least financially. Maybe if I could've stayed in London rather than moving to the North West and built my career there instead of in this provincial little hole I'd be in a better place about this. That milk's spilt though, no point crying over it.
We will also have to tear the kids away from the schools, friends, clubs etc. It's going to be heartbreaking.
We've become deeply embedded where we live, we have friends, hobbies, sports and other activities set up for the kids. We own a house, have favourite places, our kids took their first steps here and said their first words. I've never loved where we live but I guess I'd always assumed that we'd be here to see them take their first steps into the wider world, first loves, first triumphs, first failures. That future has now ceased to exist and I think I might be mourning it.
Now our home is just a house again and it's all down to some corporate bastard's bottom line. It's hard to get up in the morning because what's the point of going to work when I know I'll never finish what I've started in my job?
I feel robbed, sad, lost, scared. I feel like I'm suffocating.
I feel like checking out.
AstraZeneca (those motherfuckers) announced that they're relocating their Alderley Edge R&D operation to Cambridgeshire in 2015, and the BEST CASE is that we'll have to uproot and trek down to East Anglia.
The enormity of this has finally hit me when I was forced to consider how many things, large and small, will have to be sorted out to allow this to happen. I finally sat down and thought about the minutiae that add up to a life and how every single tiny piece has to be uprooted and moved, I finally started to realise what will be lost in the process.
Top of the list, I have to find a job down there. I'm 47 years old and not exactly transferable. Sure I know a bit of Python and Java and I'm working on my Perl but I seriously doubt Sanger or EBI would be interested. I couldn't even get into Cambridge Uni as a student, when I would have been paying them to be there, so getting a job there is frankly unlikely. My wife has suggested commuting to Manchester and living here in the week, returning to Cambridge at weekends, but I honestly can't see that working, not least financially. Maybe if I could've stayed in London rather than moving to the North West and built my career there instead of in this provincial little hole I'd be in a better place about this. That milk's spilt though, no point crying over it.
We will also have to tear the kids away from the schools, friends, clubs etc. It's going to be heartbreaking.
We've become deeply embedded where we live, we have friends, hobbies, sports and other activities set up for the kids. We own a house, have favourite places, our kids took their first steps here and said their first words. I've never loved where we live but I guess I'd always assumed that we'd be here to see them take their first steps into the wider world, first loves, first triumphs, first failures. That future has now ceased to exist and I think I might be mourning it.
Now our home is just a house again and it's all down to some corporate bastard's bottom line. It's hard to get up in the morning because what's the point of going to work when I know I'll never finish what I've started in my job?
I feel robbed, sad, lost, scared. I feel like I'm suffocating.
I feel like checking out.
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