lime jell-O and edamame

Like The Little Engine That Could, it’s amazing how much more a person can do when necessity strikes, compared to what they thought their limits were. It’s also amazing the amount of bitching, manipulation and cajoling that goes on in some cases to achieve the required results.

I look back to this time last year when I first shouldered the responsibilty of heading a group of 5. It was daunting to say the least. Some of them were superior in smarts and seniority, while the remainder were young and fresh out of our training boot camps. How was I going to achieve our financial and personnel targets? Nothing in my previous capacity as a rock nerd had prepared me for this. Suddenly I was busier than I had ever been before: daylight hours were spent in people management and proposals, evenings were spent trying to catch up on the technical stuff that was still part of my workload. The first few months passed by in a blur of exhaustion.

But like everything else, you get to a certain point where you say, ‘OK. I got the hang of it now’, and start looking for other things to do. And as of last week, after weeks of negotiation (another job offer came along), I quietly took on a new role that completely removes me from the technical world I’ve been a part of the past 6 and a half years. I’m shocked at how much I miss being part of operational support, being in the thick of action as a well is being logged and the clients breathing down your back.

All I can say about the new job is that the knives are out and it’ll be sometime till I can breathe easy and not feel like my continued employment requires each task to be done fabulously. As always with our people, the moment someone inches upward (or laterally in my case) the so called corporate ladder, speculation abounds and the eternal questions of, ‘what did you do to get it? and the even more insulting ‘who helped you get it?’ starts floating around.

So wish me luck, folks. It’s gonna be some ride! 🙂

update on la la land

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged that when I logged into WP, I had a WTF moment for a few seconds. I’m still trying to figure out the new stuff. It’ll take a while but I’ll get there.

Recently some people were nice enough to ask about the status of this blog and why I wasn’t updating. Had I quit? Did I move back to Blogspot? Am I satisfied with just Twitter? 

I haven’t quit, not really, no. And yes, I’m still on WP. Twitter is lovely and convenient, thank you, but it does require a lot of brain cells to condense things into 140 letters, especially when I get in the mood of lovingly reporting what I had at mealtimes 😀 

All I can say is work and its associated exhaustion gets in the way of a lot of stuff I love doing. Sleeping, catching up on reading, meeting friends, quality time with MC. Writing. Somehow blogging just fell by the wayside. Now when I get the urge to write, I just type a quick one liner in Twitter, or when I think the world at large needs to know how’s it hanging with me, I just change my FB blurb. Mike tells me there’s a WP apps I can install into my phone. Looks like those long hours at the airport can now be killed with yet another gadget-related activity.

So yeah, I’ll continue updating and all but prolly nowhere as often as I used to or would like. I was reading all my past entries and it struck me how it seemed that I fell off the face of the earth once I had taken my new job last June (my Flickr page shows the same trend, and uh didn’t I say this in a previous post?). Now that a new job possibility has reared its head, will things get better or worse?

stop! in the name of love

Thank god I went home early yesterday. After a terrible downpour, this was the view around 5ish as weary worker bees tried to go home on a wet Friday evening.

It got worse as time went on and only cleared around 8ish.

So yeah, I finally picked up my camera again after months of leaving it in storage. Tomorrow I’ll be taking it with me to take piccies of twin baby boys for a friend and colleague. I just hope I still remember how to fiddle with the settings. Haha.

Atticus_huge

Posted via Pixelpipe.

atticus magnanimous

atticus magnanimous

Originally uploaded by grouchiosa

It was with a shock when I realised that the last time I uploaded pics to my Flickr page was at the end of May – coincidentally also the time I accepted this new job role.

Although I’ve snapped a few food pics here and there with my trusty point-and-shoot (which is always in my backpack), I’ve dreadfully neglected my other cameras. This goes for all my other interests too. When was the last time I went for yoga? I don’t even remember what month.

From now on, I’m making it a point to spend more time taking pictures. Nevermindlah it’ll all be of the critters in various stages of vulgarity, The aim is to have something else in my life besides work.