Category Cheese International
Bookmark :              


Having finished the contract at Cheese International on Monday (not the best paid, not the most taxing) most of Tuesday was spent relaxing and looking for other work and doing some work for an old mate of mine (well for one of his perspective clients at least).

Tuesday came and went. Wednesday came and almost went until I get a call from a guy in the US (who works at Cheese International BTW) saying that the contract extension of 10 days work has been agreed. Wow. That was a bit of a surprise. He'd asked me last week - if he could get the budget agreed - would I be prepared to do some more work on an application I'd been developing for them? It's not really rocket science but it is quite complex and I'd more than likely get it finished quicker than anyone else as they'd have to "get into my code" so to speak.

So then, all of a sudden, as if by magic (come on, who remembers "Mr. Ben") it seems all agreed without me even saying or doing anything! It's presumed that I'm "privileged" to be asked to perform such an important and vital task!!!! (well, as an IT mercenary I'm not going turn away work just for the sake of it).

But then, later that afternoon, I get a call from an old Seagull I know (flies in, flaps about, 5h1ts everywhere and then flies off again - yes, he's a salesman) asking me if I'd be prepared to do some work for him in his new venture!

Well, again, I'm not gonna say no. That'll follow on quite nicely from what I've got in the next 2 or 3 weeks. And I'm off doing a workshop at IBM Hursley entitled "Advanced Business Application Integration using WebSphere Portal Enable for Multiplatforms v5.0.2 Workshop" with Wild Bill and Les Adams. The site's large, but not quite as big as Raleigh NC.

Reading this back, I apologies. Seems I've been rambling a bit. Think I need to get some sleep. My eldest daughter has just got in after being out to a club. Only a little problem balancing on her high heels but, "no, of course I'm not drunk" is her reply when asked if she'd had a good time.

Kids (especially daughters). Who needs 'um? Can't live in peace with them. Can't shoot them!

Night night!!!!  

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:09 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Cheese International
Bookmark :              


Well, today is the last day working at he salt mine called Cheese International. The contract actually expires on Monday and I've said I'll continue working thrugh Monday but an email I received from their automated contract management system 3 days ago said that my accounts would be disabled at 5PM on that date. So it's probably going to happen today knowing them.

It's strange how many people I've been trying to warn about the fact that their applications aren't going to work when they're moved to the new servers that have either not bothered to responde or have said "don't worry, we'll sort it" that have contacted me this week demanding that the move be delayed or with questions like "why haven't you fixed my app?", "didn't you test it using an R3, and R6 client?". In classic "Teflon Shoulder" mode I've responded "that's someone elses problem now". As a professional it's not the way I like to leave it but what else can I do?

The other stange thing is that there have been a number of conversations that go along the lines of:

Them:  "So would you be prepared to do some additional work if we can find the budget?"
Me:       "Of course but why didn't you look for the extra budget earlier so we could finish this off properly?"

No matter how long I work in this business I don'tthink I'll EVER understand the mentality of large corporations "penny pinching"! It's "spoiling the ship for a ha' penny of tar". Hell, this corporation only made £6BN profit LAST QUARTER!!!!!

Posted by Roy Holder At 8:38 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Cheese International
Bookmark :              


After weeks of trying to let everyone know that my contract was up at the end-of-the-month I've suddenly had a plethora of enquiries along the lines of "so what will we do then?" and "who's taking over?"

If truth be known I don't really care any more. The low flying elephant of scope-creep has been hovering over me too much recently. There's only so many times you can dig yourself out from under the pile of 5h1t and stand up and say, "See, it doesn't matter what you throw at me. I'm Superman. I am invincible".

For those of you who have seen Goldeneye you'll know what happend next. For those of you who haven't seen it,  well...............................tough luck. What rock have you been living under?

Posted by Roy Holder At 7:41 PM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Cheese International
Bookmark :              


Some of you may remember that England won the Rugby World Cup last year.  

Well, one of the leading brands of Cheese International were major sponsors of the team and as a bit of pay-back they had the cup displayed in the central reception area this morning.

Needless-to-say I wasn't there ('cos it's much nicer getting up and going to work in my office witout having to get dressed (no more detail ).

Anywise, thanks to Wild Bill for the picture!  

Posted by Roy Holder At 10:22 PM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Cheese International
Bookmark :              


Having spent the past 6 or 7 months at Cheese International (along with Wild Bill et al) I heard it from a VERY reliable source today hat they have made the descision to move to IBM WorkPlace. And what am I spending time at Hursley learning about next month, IBM Portal Server!!!

Who knows, perhaps our time at Cheese International hasn't come to a complete end!!!  

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:09 PM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)