IBM, iRiver & 1 Bolt

Yesterday was a very eventful day, for 3 reasons. Two I had planned, 1 I had not.

1. I worked my last shift at IBM yesterday. It was a gracefull departure with hand-shakes and well wishes from my bosses. As I said in my farewell email to everyone:

   My time at IBM has come to a close today! With the end of my B.I.T. at Uni just 35 short days away it’s time for me to leave and concentrate on my final assignments, as well as exams. As well as celebrate during Week 13.

   Being a tech support person definitely helped my communication and confidence in dealing with people. I now know that in whatever job I do I need to be learning and being challenged. The challenge had been lost in my tech-support role, and I was starting to find it repetitive.


2. 
   After work I shopped around for and purchased an iRiver x20 4Gb MP3 player for $184 from JB Hi-Fi. Which is the coolest shop in Ballarat, since it opened earlier this year. The reason for purchase was that I was sick of only having the radio to listen to in my car, & it would be cheaper to buy a portable MP3 player than get my CD player fixed/replaced. I've had a play with it & it also has an FM radio & can play Video and display photos. Oh, it has an inbuilt-mic & a line in port & did I mention a Micro-SD slot for extra memory! You can't get that functionality in an iPod.


3. 
   I was driving back to res after buying said mp3 player, when my clutch pedal broke while attempting to slow down to turn into a supermarket. Later inspection would reveal that the clutch itself isn't broken, but rather 1 bolt very similar to the above has fallen out of the clutch pedal housing, so now the pedal won't push in far enough to press the clutch. Just because my 4 assignments due this week arn't keeping me busy enough, I now need to get my car fixed.

All in all it was an interesting/ fun day!

Time on

I've just got back to Uni again for the final run home. I've just moved into Time-on in the final quarter of my University career. In 8 weeks & 4 days I should hopefully have a University Education. Which on a global scale at least, makes me very fortunate!

So here is the closing stages of the game by statistics:

• 8 weeks & 4 days to go
• 5 weeks of classes
• 1 week of swotvac
• 2 weeks of exams
• 5 assignments
• 1 presentation
• 4 exams
  
• 1 massive (or more) celebration(s)
• 1 Bachelor of Information Technology w/ approx 18 months experience @ IBM.
  

I have a lot of work to do!

The quest for the Holy Grail

Last Friday at work I attained the ultimate in call-center work. I reached the pinnacle of my job. It will never better than it was on Friday. I may possibly never work a shift that good again in my entire life and because of this I almost resigned on the spot so I could do a 'Steve Bracks' and quit while I'm at the top. So what happened on Friday at work that was so awesome? I wasn't promoted, I didn't get a pay rise & my work was the same as any other day. So what happened? The answer: nothing. I attained the holy grail of IT support. No calls for my entire shift. Ok, so it was only a 2.5 hour shift, but I still got money for nothing. It will never get any better than that.

Thanks to APEC & the public holiday in Sydney, the calls where few and far between. I actually think that APEC was worth it because of the above, and the fact that the Chaser team got to stage a fake Canadian Motorcade. It certainly didn't achieve anything for the good of the planet. If only HECS & HELP debt repayments were "aspirational & non-binding."

Now stop typing Jonny, before you get angry that innocent people can get locked up overnight without legal recourse in THIS COUNTRY for accidentally crossing the road at the wrong time.

Flatout Neglect

I've been negelcting this blog quite alot recently, with only 4 (this makes 5) posts in the last month. My site statistics have reflected this, with August likely to be the second lowest number of hits in a month since the inception of this blog. The positive side to those statistics is that it shows that people will come & read what I have to say, as long as I'm saying stuff. So why the neglect? Two reasons that I can pinpoint:

1. After the excitement of getting engaged, everything else that I'd normally blog about suddenly seemed trivial & un-important.
2. I am pretty flatout with different things at the moment.
   

Here's a rough listing of events on each weekend starting 1 week ago from today.

• Went home for the weekend.
  
• Team weekend for Rock Solid Kidz mission.
• Going to Adelaide (next weekend) to visit Tiarnee.
• Nothing at this stage (Switchfoot, Pillar Antiskeptic Gig in Melb on the 6th.)
• Engagement Party weekend (at home/ Bordertown)
  
• Rock-Solid Kids Mission in Ballarat from the 22nd-28th Sept.
  
• Home for the final weekend of the holidays, before coming back for final few weeks at Uni.
  

So all that on top of the roughly 15 hours a week at IBM & the final Semester Uni assignments. Speaking of which, I've gotta go and design me a website. I have 2 assignments due before I leave for Adelaide on Thursday. I'd better start one of them....

Corporate Machines

They've just introduced a new 'coaching' system at work. Where we are given statistics on our previous weeks performance and then work out a couple of 'goals' to work on to improve our call handle times. I'm lucky enough to be apart of a pilot group, that'll be extended if it's a success. (Early signs are pretty positive) The aim of this is to obviously find ways to help us improve our call handling times. Stated benefits of this system include:

• Over the weeks being able to see improvements in our performance & therefore being better at our job.
  
• Better motivation to work as we can see that our improvements are helping.
• Better working conditions as improvements slowly mean that things will get less hectic & so everyone is less stressed and happier.

Non-stated benefits of this new system include:

• Better employee productivity/ more efficient labour.
  
• Lower wage expenses/ better use of wage expenses.
  
• Revenue growth due to better overall performance.
  

Apart from the aesthetic positives listed above, there are no benefits for the individual. I don't get paid any more for doing my job more efficiently. Yet the system works, after only just over 1 week on the new system, I've already shown strong improvements in some areas. Therefore, I'm doing quite a good job at helping an American multi-national corporation boost it's profits.

Yep. I'm a good little cog in the machine of capitalism. Doing my bit to maintain the socio-economic status quo. That is, the divide between rich and poor, and those in between like myself.

Cricket & Trampoline

The rest of last weekend was really awesome. We(Tiarnee & I) stayed at the Melbourne Metro YHA in North Melbourne. Me in a 4-bed male dorm. Tiarnee in a 4-bed female dorm. The cricket was great, we had awesome seats and Australia won. Not that that's unusual. So yeah, it was fun. Even Tiarnee enjoyed herself a bit once Australia was batting & the Mexican Waves had started up. Two funny things that happened where: Pietersen being hit in the ribs by a McGrath bouncer. A streaker (guy with shorts only on) running to the middle of the field and causing a policeman to fall over on the pitch before getting tackled to the ground. You don't see tackles that good at a game of footy.

Ummmm Saturday was shopping, at the Queen Victoria Market & the Bourke St. Mall, before heading out to some cafe in North Melbourne for tea & then into the city to Southbank. Speaking of Southbank, TRAMPOLINE IS SO GOOD!!!!! Honestly, the Ice-Cream they serve is comparable to Cold Rock in it's awesomeness. Not quite as good as Cold Rock, but the fact is they're on the same page and totally yum.

On Sunday, we went to the Melbourne Aquarium which is pretty cool. As was the view from the top of the Rialto tower. Ok, so not from the top. But from the observation deck.

But the biggest thing for me on the weekend was having prayer answered. Tiarnee prayed just after we left that God would teach us something over the weekend. The lesson? Forgiveness & pride. Tiarnee & I had an argument, which really wasn't cool. Looking back, we probably both over-reacted. But if we hadn't forgiven each other (You know when you have to do somthing you don't want to?) it would've turned a great weekend into a crap one fairly quickly.

In other news, I worked 38.5 hours this last week. A personal highest at IBM. Have worked all this week & am working next week before heading home on Australia Day. This Monday will mark the first occasion that I've ever worked on my birthday. I love having my birthday in January.