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The life of an intercounty jetsetter is never predictable, so tomorrow I am back to the north for 2 days. I am stopping in Birmingham this evening as I am going to see Neil Diamond, then first thing I hop onto a train to Leeds and upon my return I head down to Oxford, a right old rum time, lots of travelling and a lot of work up in the north.

In the meantime I have been assigned to another project and that looks interesting, a lot of hard work, and I mean a lot, but it looks fairly interesting work in a nerdy kind of way.

So the last 2 days have been spent at home because of the old leg thing. A fair bit of hobbling around, a little bit of work and the St Trinians movie and Chris playing Call of Duty, oddly relaxing watching the latter.

Today I return to work, I need to get back as its coming close to the go live date and every day counts.

Thats the week done, and yesterday I had a call that I was to have a second interview for that place in Oxfordshire, this time on a client site in Birmingham (oh my!). As time goes on I want this job more and more, its very appealing, to be fair at this point being a drugs mule with a pack of cocaine up me arse is quite appealing, anything appeals when you have got nothing.

Just over a week left in my current job, I found out yesterday what will be happening on my last day (a week on Monday) essentially I will have a meeting with my grim reaper and I sign the official secrets act, hand my pass in and then I am off. I asked her for an early appointment so the day wasn’t wasted. I may be back for this thing the unemployed call Jeremy Kyle. Darren Hayman assures me that Hill Street Blues is on one of the cable channels.

Last night I met Lisa in the pub, she was there for someones leaving drinks, I really like her workmates, they are fun. I did however wake up with a hangover this morning and the remains of Chinese food in the kitchen. I do recall suggesting to one of her workmates that we blow my redundancy on hookers in Vegas, he seemed rather keen on the idea.

This week consisted mainly of a lot of stuff, job seeking stuff, but stuff none the less. I went to a CV writing workshop and that was interesting, I found that my CV was a bag of shite and if I ever managed to get a job off the back of it, that was merely down to the stupidity of the person employing me and not my CV. I intend to rewrite it this weekend.

What else, I have applied for a number of jobs, I dont think I will get them due to the first point in this post, so I will resubmit my CV to them next week.

Pippa was and is at Crufts this week, not competing, I really couldnt imagine any of our dogs trotting around that green ring, she actually got a press pass due to a friend of mine working for the Kennel Club so she has been taking pictures for a Uni project, she is loving it to be honest and I think she will go back next year.

Thats it really, quiet week, hoping I start getting some interviews next week, I am on holiday all week so I am available.

So then, I haven’t much talked about my redundancy, I guess I better had. On Wednesday I got the phonecall that we were all dreading, well unsure if dread is the word, but I got told I was to have a meeting with HR on Thursday. I know what it is becuase everyone knows what it is. Thursday comes around and I am told that in a month I am off.

How have I been, well remarkably OK, certainly at work, to friends etc, Lisa knows me all too well and sees through the facade, but really, I am OK and as long as I can find another job that pays in the region of what I was earning, then no harm no fowl.

I was a company man, extremely positive about all their hard business decisions, but now, I dont want to work for them, I know what you are thinking, erm Pete, they have made you redundant, you got no bloody choice mate. I know that but I think the reason that I am OK with it all is that I know it is time to move on, perhaps ever since the bus incident I have known that I need to get out of Telford.

The biggest thing, and I say this even with the knowledge that some of them read it is that I have made so many friends at work over the years that made it more than bearable to turn up every day, people that I am unlikely to see out of work. Jo in particular is one of my best friends and it’s the fact that I wont see her as much as I did which will be the hardest, and the thing that makes me most sad about this redundancy.

Ouch. I am being made redundant.

Next week is D-Day here. We find out who has been made redundant and the speculative theories have been working overtime for the past 3 months. You find yourself sat there measuring yourself against others. Invariably I come up short. Don’t get me wrong I am just being self deprecating there, I am not cocky, far from it, I think though when it comes down to it I am not part of the 20% that my company thinks are a sack of shit.

We are unsure how we are going to be told, my friend Jo and me were thinking it should be like American Idol, actually thinking about it, Randy looks all cuddly and friendly, AND he played bass in Journey, you could take any news, no matter how bad from him. (As long as he called you Dog!). So we are assuming that it will be a phonecall, a meeting and thats it, collecting trolleys for Asda in a months time.

EDIT: Reading it back, should I be made redundant next week, I deserve it for being so cock sure.

EDITED AGAIN: Ben who I work with has implied that I sound very arrogant on this, my cockyness is a front, thats all.

EDITED YET AGAIN: Bugger.

Long week all told, busy at work so that meant stopping in Telford. Not a massive hardship as it does present some perks. Admittedly the perks revolve around watching eggheads, having a lie in till the giddy time of 7am and a different set of faces on the bus both too and from my parents house.

As you can see here, it was packed…

Other than that there is no broadband, no Sky TV and I didnt get to see Lisa every evening stood on the step of our house waiting for my return like a ruddy faced 50’s housewife.

I won’t bore you with the details of work, as you don’t care, well I assume that you don’t care as the people that tend to stumble on this blog do so via the words Tenacious and Documentary, so I assume that they are more interested about the D than they are about my week spent at work and my thoughts on idiot savant Peaches Geldof.

Briefly about work, we got all the main testing done and he saw that it was good, we got a little tinkering to do and tidying up, “regression” its called but hopefully we are putting this April release to bed. Did I actually say putting to bed???

Other news, hmm, not much really, wasn’t at home this week so know very little, oh Jo, my friend, she found out that she wasn’t going to be redundant so thats a good thing, in a couple of weeks I find out if I am, the time for worrying about that has long passed.

Long week working due to late delivery of the code *taps side of his nose* the release date doesn’t change so we have to step it up a notch to get it all complete. So this week I stopped in Telford for one night and I am stopping there all week next week. Not ideal scenario but it beats travelling back on the bus at 7pm every night and not getting through the door till nearly 9.

Outside of all that not much else has happened, watched the fantastic Ashes to Ashes and have a load of other telly to watch. Oh the buses are shit incident has made me realise that I need to learn how to drive or find a job in Stafford so that is what I will be concentrating on over the next few months. I would hope it’s the latter though as I really do not think that the UK is ready for my driving skills just yet.

Tonight on the bus an assault happened, the lad who says the C word loudly was on the bus with another lad, the other lad rang the bell, stood up and piled into the man that was sat next to him then hopped off the bus and was away. The man was bleeding a bit, possibly from his nose, it stopped anyway. The police were called but it appears that the man had some prior “beef” with this lad. I hate Telford, I really need to learn to drive now.