Poo sandwich

So we have a 2 hour meeting coming up at work for which we have been set homework. The homework is to come up with a feedback sandwich for each person in the design team.



What is a feedback sandwich you ask?

A ‘feedback sandwich’ is an honest and open way of delivering feedback to individuals; on areas / things that you believe they may do well, things that they may find tricky in your opinion and things they could do differently and/or better.

There are no rights or wrongs, however your feedback sandwich should contain;

Context for the feedback – a situation, an instance or a scenario
1. It should highlight a minimum of three specific context-related things the person does well.
2. It should highlight one specific, factually and contextual appropriate thing that the individual could improve on.
3. This should be depersonalized and you should be ready to give other examples in the same context.
4 .It should finish with an overall observation, in context, confirming what the person does well.

I am seriously struggling with this. I've been trying to come up with these for 5 days now. i know that i've not written anything down so i'm not tried extremely hard. But everything that is floating around my head about people is very subjective and emotional and I dont seem to be able to think of exact situations. I've always been like this though. And this is all stressing me out cause I really dont want to hear what people have to say about me either. Most of them do not understand what I'm going through at the moment and honestly I dont think that they care. But i suppose this is what the meeting is all about.

ARG

Busy busy and still sick :(

Well my attempt to keep up with my blogging is being thwarted !! bloody work - I mean really.

It seems that once we cut people at work not only have we had extra work to make up for their absense but we suddenly started winning pitches and gettting a load more pitch work to do. So we have been run off our feet. And yesterday it got even worse. We normally have about 2 weeks to work on a pitch before presenting. Yesterday we had 3 companies demanding a presentation for the end of this week. Everybody trying to get things sorted before christmas and holidays. Plus all the jobs that we have won lately are all wanting to be on site before Christmas which means drawing packs to get out so that they can actually build. So work life is a delicate balance and juggling act at the moment. But I only have to do it for 3 more days !! YAY

Highlight of the weekend was heading off to a gig down in Camden at Underworld. A friend had extra tickets so C and I got them. It was a ska band called Streetlight Manifesto. Which was awesome. It was a small intimate venue sold out and full of massive fans. The entire space was one big varing degrees of mosh pit. It was great! I just thrive on that kind of energy. The opening act was pretty cool too!! They were Random Hands. So it was an awesome night with some very cool friends!

Last night was a nice night of christmas cake and red wine at Mr & Dr I. They invited us around for christmas cheer and it landed up being one of those situations where you have no idea if there will be present exchanging or not. And you cant ask if there is going to be because if they arent then they will feel forced into it. OMG the admin! So C and I decided to go with the token present thing. We went for a stroll down the street market near work and picked out a pair of "cost effective" earrings for Dr I and a Rubiks cube and a book as a bit of a joke for Mr I.

We did arrive to gifts and they got us a book on all the British festivals and the first series of the Sarah Connor Cronicles. Dr I seemed to love the earring so much that there were even tears. I was completely taken aback but it also reminded me why i love giving presents. I love it when I get someone a present that suits them so much. That is thier style or that they really wanted or didnt even know they wanted until you gave it to them. So that was nice. I actually was a really cool way to start a week.

Well I have to be up early for a physio appointment (finally trying to get my back pain sorted) and we have want should be a great night planned for tmr. We won tickets to a dinner theater thing - for the South Africans...its Madam Zingara. Hopefully i'll be able to blog about that later in the week.

Oh yeah and btw ...I hate the whole secret santa thing...this is what I got ....

Racing Spiders. HUH??? i mean we are supposed to spend £5 ...which I actually spent £6 on the one I gave and how much could these have cost. It is just weird. I hate having to open this shit in front of everyone else and seeing all the way cooler stuff that was being given. I one that I would have loved was a large "rubber" duck for the bath that also is a radio...you twist its head to turn it on and then twist the tail for find the frequency.

oh well

Sick and tired

So the weekend in Madrid had its high points and its low points but on a whole was a very cool weekend away. I will def have to write a post about it when i have more time to sit down and add some of my pictures to it as well !

But I was feeling pretty exhausted and not too well for most of it and by the sunday night as I got home and was recieved by HUGE hugs I had no voice and was full on infected!! So come Monday morning I just could not move!! Same with Tuesday!

Since I was starting to feel better I thought I would go into work on the Wednesday for a nice mid week ease back into work...oh no...that was not what Miss Trendy had in mind. I came back to an A4 list of things to do with the title URGENT WEDNESDAY WORK. I mean really - she never once replied to the fact that I was off sick and then didnt even bother to find out if I was well enough to come back to work. That is an insane day back at work and now i'm not feeling any better and maybe perhaps a bit worse.

Oh well - it is Friday tmr and i'm about to leave the office - YAY.

We are doing secret santa at work tmr morning so had to do a bit of rush present buying and wrapping...while still trying to keep it secret. I'm not sure about this whole secret santa thing though. In our company it seems to be about buying tat for you as a joke that is supposed to say something about you. Last year I landed up with 2 gifts...go figure... and one was a usb table lamp in purple and the other was a doll called little miss perfect. The doll seriously disturbed me. I get that the light is all about being designer "cusion placer". But the little miss perfect ...I mean what was that trying to say about me...was it a compliment or an insult? I still dont know and it still bothers me. This is why i'm a little nervous about the gift giving tmr morning. I hope it is something kinda nice.

Off to Madrid

Ok so - have no time to actually write anything since i have to be up in 5 hours to head to the airport...as C keeps reminding me from the bed!! So am off to Madrid tomorrow with the whole company for our christmas party - is going to be very cool (i hope, i'm always aprehensive about these things.

On the other front i'll hopefully be free of the 5 DAY migraine that i've been living through. Went to a cool new doctor this afternoon - have nice strong painkillers and medication toprotect my tummy so no more ulcers for me :) So all is looking good... plus soon i'll be heading on the ovely long holiday home.

ok i seriously have to go now before the bf kills me and so I wont be too grumpy when i have to get up and 04:30 am!! ARG

ARG

TOO much work, TOO much pain, TOO much stress...NOT a happy bunny am I.

Well last week consisted of some late nights of work and some very early mornings to work for me. And mad pressure to get a presentation together. Thankfully it was worth it since we did win the job.

Work has just been flat out and there is no letting up. My weekends now consist of me sleeping 12 hours each night and basically only being able to get myself out for 1 outing per weekend. PATHETIC ...and NO FAIR! So now i'm just counting down the days until I dont have to think about work for 30 days...19 days to go !!! Well technically 18 since today is mostly done.

Plus working flat out is pretty difficult if you've had a migraine since yesterday.

oh well,

that is all i can say for now...sorry for the ramble

Strange days

It really has been a strange few days, I dont even know where to start...

The horrid friday was all about work that I had on that I just couldnt seem to get done by the deadline since it was things that got changed on me and then crazy requests like try and get 6 pages of a A4 word document with text and tables onto ONE A3 power point presentation slide!! (I still cant figure that out). It was a seriously stressful day and I was trying to make it work out but when you also have to go thing like recreate excel documents it get time consuming.

Our electrical contractor was throwing us a Christmas party in a casino and all the girls going were going to get all dressed up in party dresses etc. So we had to get ready - the plan was to be ready by 6pm...now since i was working away on Miss Trendy's work I would have thought since she was getting ready too she would make a comment that she was off to get ready - but no she didnt seem to be talking to me. I finally realise that it is 5:55 and I'm not ready. I go through to find that the rest of the people are all waiting in reception all ready to go - fuck i was pissed off and the flippant comment "oh you still coming" Damn i was pissed off.

Anyway it did ruin the evening over all as it was loads of fun. We got the the casino and went through the whole sign in process and then were lead off to a private bar area where the free drinks began. We then were shown to the practice tables where they had a roulette, poker and blackjack table set up to teach us the games etc. This was great fun and I def learnt loads. Plus it is cool to practice with worthless chips. We were also served nibbly foods and more champayne and alcohol. We then got given £50 worth of real chips to go play with on the real tables.... scary !

I didnt do to badly as i chose the blackjack table which I was so good on at the practice that I won a poker set :) I didnt walk away with anything but the girl i was couching did - me thinks I was concetrating enough on my own cards.

I then stumbled home getting the very last northen line home (so lucky!) and crawled into an empty bed...No C until the sunday afternoon... he was off playing in Brighton.

I was rudely awoken by the alarm clock at 6am and i nearly threw it across the room and cursed C for not showing me how to turn it off. I finally get it to shut up and in the proccess apparently turned the 2nd alarm on that made it go off at 8:30. Damn now i was unhappy and hung over. managed to turn it off and turned over and went back to sleep only to wake up at 14:39!! OMG I've slept over 12 1/2 hours! crazy stuff.

So the rest of the weekend was nothing special and involved me not going very far from the warmth of home.

Monday bought with it work issues with me being bitched at by Miss trendy about the Friday stuff and getting a bit of a lecture - I'm not convinced it was all fair and neccessary but hey I have to move on and not get stressed about it. So I just carried on working as usual. It is now Wednesday and I've out worked her and am now waiting on her to get her workload sorted. ANYWAYS

Now for the strangest and saddest day... Terrible Tuesday.... Tuesday morning started off really weirdly with Miss quiet (my friends and neighbour at work) went away then came back picked up her bag, put on her coats and was walking out...I knew she wasnt planning to be out the office so looked up and one look I knew something was really wrong. She couldnt even talk just mouthed at me she would text me and then left.

I then find out that 6 people from the company have been made redundant which is 1 or 2 per dept! We were all in shock yesterday and didnt really know what to do with this information. And as everyone just up and left there were no good byes - it was very weird. But it also feels was to close to home. Miss quiet is brilliant and her job and def better then me on the drawing front. But they cut support staff so that is why she got cut out of the design dept. I already miss her!

This now means that since the design dept is smaller we are no having to move onto one bench...this means i'm back at the first desk i started off on here which has me with my back to the entire open plan office so they can all see what is on my 2 screens!! FUCK! so this means no more blogging at work, less email and who knows about chat.... Actually I dont know if I'll have to time to do anything as the workload that Miss quiet had will have to fall to someone so that means knock on effect is me having to do more random work. ARG

Now I hear that she or her husban ended up in a car accident last night. AND so did our design director (Posh Scot) What was the universe thinking yesterday!!!

The one funny thing that happened yesterday ...after wonderful talk with my dad (he is doing very well considering) I landed up missing a call from C and then having to run for the bus... I get on the bus, stap upstairs, sit down at the front and call C... Next thing I can hear his phone ringtone, and then not only do i hear him on the phone I hear him in the distance too...So I look up to the glass and there he is in the reflection in the window, sitting half way down the bus.... we had managed to unplanned get onto the same bus. What a wonderful surprise! :)

Halloween Carpet Event

Last week Thursday night in honour of Halloween one of our carpet suppliers organised an event (as they do) and invited our design dept as some of the lucky few. It was a little different then the usual supplier/furniture event where you just stand around trying to get your hands on the food floating past while they have no problem providing copious amount of alcohol that just appears in your glass. This event included a Jack the Ripper walking tour! Now if you know me then you know that I could never say no to this!
About 7 of us headed down to the carpet showroom after work which they had done all out in Halloween stuff... included the very first carved pumpkin I've seen (it was seriously intricate!)This is where I discovered winter Pimms and i love it! It is basically heated up pimms cocktail and it was so divine as it was freezing outside! and we were soon to be head back out into the cold for the walking tour.
We were split into groups and ferried off to the start of the walk in the east end. The guides are beefeaters at the tower of London and this was their moonlighting gig which means that they were absolutely brilliant at giving tours as they do it all day long. We got a big burly barrel of a man with a booming voice - it was perfect. I also found out that the beefeaters and their families actually live on the grounds of the Tower of London - how insane must that be to have as your address!

For the next 2 hours we meandered around the east end getting told all the stories of each murder and being showed where each one took place. It was so detailed and sometimes it was hard to keep up with all the information. Luckily I knew quite a bit already. I did find out loads more though and just love all the useless pieces of information.

One of the best parts was the whole conspiracy theory around the Freemasons and the Prince of wales ...This is sort of how it all goes in a nutshell...

Firstly the way the bodies were placed references on of the main Freemasons stories
about how the architect of King Solomons buildings was a Jew (spelt Juw by only the Freemasons) and how once he was complete with the building he was given freedom BUT if he betrayed any of the secrets of the building and King Solomon he was be
killed in a very specific way (this is replayed in a ritual today by the Freemasons - the guides brother is one) and this is replicated in all but the last murder. The
last girl murdered was the only one murdered inside in her own apartment. She
was a redhead with green eyes and was a prostitute to Buckingham palace. She was also roman catholic.

The Prince had a thing for redheads with green eyes. She then left the
royal brothel before the murders started. They reckon that the Price got her pregnant and that would have been fine if she wasn't Catholic. It was over heard that the head of the city police (a Freemason) had said to the Prince that the prince's
troubles would be over before his birthday. The last murder happened 3 days
before his birthday.

It is thought that a down on his luck Freemason was paid to
kill her. The first murder had been to see if he had the guts to do it and the
2nd was a woman with red hair and green eyes and her uterus had been removed (to hide a pregnany)...mistaken identity perhaps. Then there was a break of 3 weeks before the last murders. So they had thought he had killed the right girl. 3 weeks
later the 3rd one was probably to test the waters again but he got disturbed
just as he had killed her...so he rampaged off and killed another girl just over
the boundary into the city police jurisdiction.

Then the police found an inscription in an alleyway near by written in chalk where they also found some of the blood stained dress of victim #4. This was an inscription that probably means only something to the Freemasons as it used the Freemasons spelling of the word Jews. The same head of police that was overheard saying the stuff to the Prince only got out of bed and came down to east london with the news of this and ordered it to be washed off immediatly but ignored the murders that night.

Finally the last murder was the most grusome since it was in her apartment he had all the time in the world to "destroy" the evidence. which he seriously did... here is the photograph that the City police took (they were the only police force with a camera)
...

Well that is basically it - written very badly! But I def like this theory to it. I think that all the freemason architecture and temples in this city also aid the love of a freemason conspiracy!

After the FREEZING 2 hours of walking around in heeled boots we got taken back to the showroom for those nibbley foods and lots of alcohol! Why on earth did I do this in heel I hear you say - well they are knee height boots...lets just say my feet and legs may have been sore but they werent too cold...the rest of me i'm not so sure about. And then seriously what is with sneaky cocktail pouring waiters that have to fill you glass up so many times that you loose count of how many drinks you had! It wasnt too bad and I toddled off home and was pleasantly surprised when I had no hangover on Friday!

Survey hell continues

But now it is a furniture audit that is doing my head in. Seriously i've now had 2 weeks of surveys and drawings up of surveys! This is just getting too much now!

And to top it all off....I have to go survey another space tomorrow morning ! I mean really - WTF is going on! I hate surveys and i'm not the best at them since i'm kinda dislexic and stuff. There are always measurements that i get messed around.

Anyways have to get back to the planning the audited furniture into the new buildings...

Here is just how much furniture i had to measure and note and photograph and draw up:

Monday craziness

So what is driving me mad today ?? Well the survey that was sending me round the bend last week has now taken the madness a step further.

These are the elevations I now have to draw from the survey... These are the first 4 i've drawn this morning... There are 32 that need to be done by the end of the day !!! I'm already exhausted and no where near finished - now i have food in me.. back to the crazy world of my drawings.

I am currently out of the office...

Doing an elevational survey on the most horrid grade 2 listed building!! There isnt a straight wall in the entire 6 floors ! Wall lean outwards or inwards. Half the building has dropped at different levels on different sides to the building which means that the floors and ceiling are all different heights everywhere that you measure ! It is just HORRIBLE !!! And i'm doing this all alone in the building that creaks and moves and has some very strange noises. I tried putting my ipod in but it was just to unnerving as i was still hearing things.

I suppose this is all to be expected when we are dealing with a building that was built in 1860 odd. And used to be the gardens of King Henry the 2's mistress. (weird fact for the day)

It is just insane fiddlily and time consuming survey work when you have to measure every little detail. Like the window frames & panes of french sash windows, and panelled doors and walls and light switches and plug points, and dado rails and cornices (there are 3 at the top of EVERY wall) etc etc etc...this is going to drive me mad! And i'm going back for more tomorrow!!! only 4 more floors to go !!!

If i'm not back by friday then you'll know i've been locked away in the looney bin!

Friday Blues...

So i'm back at work and not too hapy about it. I feel like i'm seriously lacking in sleep now that it is the end of the day since i've been sleeping during the day for the last 3 days. Plus I think I kept waking myself up when I rolled onto my arm in the night. My arm has a bloody great big (ok maybe not that big) hole in it from having the contraceptive implant inserted.

I am so happy about this!! I have a very good feeling about it as well as being happy that i'm now truely 100% certain not to fall pregnant. And since everyone around me is doing it or thinking of it etc I def want to be certain I dont fall into that trap ! ! lol They took a big hollow needle with a 5 cm implant rod inside, out the needle into my arm under the skin for about 6am and then took it out leaving the implant behind. Thankfully there was an injection to numb the area! otherwise we are talking serious piercing pain. But it is def sore at the moment esp if it gets banged.

So anyway, back at work, still feeling sick (not as bad as the rest of the week but bad enough to make work unpleasent) Trying to actually get drawings done (not happening) and generally not feeling in a happy socialble mood! I just want to go home and get some sleep or veg out and watch a movie.

There is ONE wonderful happy thing to this friday ... Miss Unhinged is leaving today !! SHe is going to move to the middle east and work for our company there. Just to quickly fill in she is the designer that made life a bit miserable for the 6 months I worked under her. She also caused me a great deal of insecurity and that I was not impressed with. I played a few office politics and got myself moved away from her. I just have to point out that in the year that she has been here she has only seen 1 project to the end (and there was another senior designer on it) And has only 2 other projects running at the moment. That is it. She hasnt won a pitch of her own while she has been here - and she was supposed to be my mentor. I have to say that I'm pretty glad to see the back of her. BUT I do know that things in her personal life havent been the best and as a person I do wish her the best in her new path. I hope she makes it work for her there. Otherwise it is just going to break her if it doesnt.

So with that I'm going to hunt the bf down and go home. Oh and I've realised that DAMN do we email each other alot during the day ! It is very rare to get through a work day with no communication at all!

Competition

So i've been wanting to Blog all week... I have so many things to catch up on, like our lovely bank holiday weekend in the Lakes, the stunning resturant that we went to last week etc etc ... BUT sadly work has seriously been INSANE of late. I've had a huge workload of CAD drawings which are freak dead boring and take forever when they are as complez as the ones i've been doing lately. Its been the norm to see me still sitting at work at 7pm rushing to get stuff finished so that I can just go home and eat and crash for the night...

ANYWAYS...that isnt the point of this little post that I'm going to make before going back to the most horrid drawing of acoustic panels!!!

Last night Trendy and Mr Nice (her bf and our team leader) invited Miss quiet and I to join them at the cocktail party being held for the finalists of a photographic competiton that they were in. It was to be a little team 2 celebration for all the hard work we have been doing lately ...basically an excuse to drink free champagne!!!

It was a furniture company that held the competition where they sent you their chair and then you had to submit a photograph with the chair in it. You also had to write a blurb about your photograph as well.

Now while most of the entrants did VERY styalized photos (some even heavily photoshopped) where it was all about light and composisition etc. But not Trendy and Mr Nice...they are just too quirky to be normal... this is what they did....

Plus for the "blurb" they simply took the chocolate pudding packet it and photoshopped to make the recipe on the back all about drizzling it onto the chair. They were the only ones the didnt use words!

Much joking around by them and by us about winning and what the acceptance speech should be (none of the suggestions where suitable for the people there's ears) but it was all so sacrcastic when how could they win with such a silly pic compared the serious photographic images it was up against.

AS they were doing the presention of the winner speech the guy was explaining the criteria that they judged on. They said that they expected to just judge photographs on the classic things like composition and light and shadow etc but they landed up judging them more on the emotive quality and the relationship with the chair ...etc etc etc. It was at that point that Miss Quiet and I turned to each other and both said "they've won it" .... 2 minutes later and the announcment...

THEY WON!!!

How funny! when it was all such a joke...just a laugh and a bit of fun. They certainly didnt believe it at all and Trendy just stood there and laughed while Mr Nice gave a lovely drunken speech laden with seemingly nice comments...but we all knew it was so not meant like that. But luckily he has the most dead pan face that you wouldnt be able to tell at all if he was serious or not.

So they now have won a all expenses paid trip to Paris...now lets hope that our company will let them have more time off together (so far they are only allowed to take 5 days leave at the same time - which is in a few weeks ARG) This also probably means more work for Miss Quiet and I.

I'm so happy for them and they def deserve this credit for thier creative craziness! congrats!

Geeks R Us and Work stuff

So other then getting the new bike and going climbing on the weekend the rest of the time was filled with being a geek !! C came running in to show me that he found an open source free version of Civilizations called freeciv...and that you could download it for Pc, Mac or linux even. So after showing it to me and telling we could network, I went and downloaded it. So there we were me curled up in bed with my laptop playing and him at the kitchen table playing the same game. I did join him for awhile in the kitchen and later on he came back into the bedroom. Finally at about 4am when we were both getting our asses kicked by the AI players and not being able to team up against them very well we decided that we def need to get to sleep.

It was incredicbly hard getting to sleep tho even if it was 4:30am by now because I had the game sstill running in my head! I def felt very geeky having spent pretty much 12 hours straight in game play!

Work this week: boring ! I got pretty much everything sorted last week with Trendy away, and now with her back I've been relatively free of too much work.

Annoyingly though a project manager let the wrong flooring get laid on one of our sites and tried to blame the drawings etc. Landed up in a big arguement about it since I could back up the drawings. And then finally I got him to check his email order and the correct drawing was attached so basically the flooring company was going on an old quote and not the drawing. So it is their fault BUT... I have to say what a WANKER of a project manager to not even know what finishes are going in on his jobs. He should have noticed that the order was wrong and that when it was being laid that it was wrong. but NO it took me walking past it on site to suddenly turn around and go how come the floor is green not black !!! And then he wanted me to convince that client that that was the choice all along...I think they would know if they approved a green floor rather then a black slate effect. IDIOT ! I swear all project managers do the flippin bare minimum and expect you to pick up the slack in the job.

Another little work thing is that finally the air con broke ....YAY. I've been sitting pretty much underneath this air con having freezing cold air being dumped on me all day long causing me to wear stockings, trousers and jerseys in summer (I know that the summer is not exactly boiling hot here but this was even on the 29 degree day!) So after lunch time yesterday water came gushing out of the unit all over the carpet - it had sprung a leak. So of course we have to turn it off and call in the mantainance guys.

Now i've been complaining that it is working properly for ages. It dumps air just where I am and then doesnt circulate it so the rest of the office doesnt get anything. I also said it was making people ill and that it was making funny noises. So of course when the maintainance guy was reporting on it I could help but over hear what the guy had to say:

1) The pump in the unit had been broken for awhile so wasnt pumping the air.
2) the water pipes were all clogged up and seriously needed to be "disinfected" asap.

About bloody time that this gets sorted !! Hopefully when it gets fixed then I would be so freezing cold everyday cause it has really been affecting my joints and headaches. We'll have to wait and see.

Regular posts ?!?! I try

I open up blogger everyday with the aim to write something most days...I actually even have stuff to write about since so much is going on at the moment...but i just cant seem to steal enough of a moment to sit and write it all down. And this annoys me so much !!

So anyway this is only a little update !

Last week was CRAZY!! work was insane and involved running around to quite a few sites - one being all the way up in leisester (so cant spell that!) which involved hours of train travel ... which was all well and good if I didnt have to rush back down to london and the office to drop everything off and then rush off to hyde park to see Jack Johnson in concert. It was all worth it tho as it turned into a lovely sunny blue skied evening (compared to the cold grey day it was before) and he was just great - what a wonderful evening...

Much more running around happened last week to try do some shopping for the impending hen weekend away. It was pretty much all a waste of time and I just landed up living with the clothes that I have...other then a very cool new grey/silver waistcoat...such a daring buy for me and i'm so happy.

So from friday morning to Sunday evening it was all about the hen party and travelling to and from Manchester for it. So in other words loads more hours spent on the trains!!

Much more to write about the hen weekend...but that is going to have to come another time as i seriously have to go off and work now... have managed to con a day off work to spend with one of my best friends for her birthday...she is also only in london for a short while - so and going to have to make the most of it. But this means that I have to get all of todays work and tomorrows work done today !!! ARG

Lazy

Ok so i'm going to admit it ,....i'm being lazy at the moment. There i've said it. I've so enjoyed the last 2 weekends of being lazy ! but no i'm getting restless. It really doesnt help that the weeks are so hectic that I just want to be lazy on the weekends but it is getting to me as well. I get into the lazy pattern and just stay there. And the tv is a great distracter (ok so the spell check doesnt like that work but i'm making it up anyway!) ! Plus C is obsessed with House so happily added to the general laid back feeling - not that i'm complaining at all! I've loved these lazy weekends...but they are to end very very soon...as in tmr! This is going to be a crazy week as I'm off shopping for the weekend tmr. I've got to head up country on Wednesday and then rush back down to london and to hyde park for jack johnson. Thursday is huge furniture launch party, and friday I head off in the morning to Manchester for Dr Intellectuals hen party all weekend ! Then sunday one of my best friends is arriving for a visit - WHOO HOOO!!!

Crazy I tell you!

Anyways... so for a little catch up - Last thursday I headed off to a exhibition created by Phillips lighting whereby they gave a shipping container to a design/architecture firm - 8 in total - and told them they had free rein to create a installation it just hate to deal with light. It was def a very different night out and so brilliant to have done it with Trendy and her bf (my team leader) Mr Nice/Hard. They have the driest, sarcastic & blackest humour I know and I love it. They have me in stitches most of the time. They are the best to do shows with and they take nothing seriously ...except getting as much food and booze out of the night. Through the entire speeches they were cracking jokes and ripping off the speakers and we were standing there giggling our heads off. Then then after an attempt at a dance show the containers opened for viewing. By the time we had gotten to the 2nd container we were sure that we were going to be thrown out ! This container was lined with thousands of LED bulbs that came on when you moved your hand over the fabric infront of them. While everyone else was gently standing there and waving their hands around....we were jumping around trying to make body prints and bum prints and boobs prints...creating havoc at the back of the container. This attitude continued as we went through all the installations as well as ripping to shreads the concepts....I was SO much fun. They are just such a lovely couple and so suited and make you feel so at ease (again the reason I'm so happy I moved over to their team) Even Iranian Princess/Sample Queen loosened up and was talking about hot sex by the end of the night.

Here is an image of the only installation that we really liked

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And a little video as well...

Random moments yesterday:

1) while walking to site with new project manager he comments that I must get tired of striding on heels to keep with the guys... I was so surprised and just replied truthfully that that was how i normally walk on heels so no I dont get tired of it. LOL

2) as piling everything out of my carpet bag styled handbag last night to find the painkillers that i knew were somewhere inside C comments how amoungst all the girlly handbag stuff there is a 5m construction style tape measure !

Sad moment... Just found out that my little cousin is heading into surgery today as he has landed up with his 2nd collaspsed lung this year! So am sending out all the positive healing vibes I can today !!!

Becareful what you wish for...

So after me writing about loving getting to be creative and deal with finishes etc...I'm now so over it. I've been up to my eyeballs in finishes all week and now i've had enough !

I had the task of helping Mr Nice get 4 different schemes together for a pitch yesterday. This was extremely difficult as I had to work with what was in the library as there was no time to order anything. The carpets where the hardest and when Mr Nice and Trendy came back from holiday they were amazed that I had to pull together 4 schemes with 4 carpets each ...that is 16 carpets to source and match and organise. *Panic*

So after that I had a job that has partly become all mine which I had to get visuals done and of course finishes and furniture sorted out...This mean more playing around with finishes. And now i've just had enough. I have to pick 3 more fabrics and i'll be done and I just cant face it !!! ARG

Since I've been work until 8ish every night this week today has just been impossible. I have no desire to actually work (or choose those last few fabrics) so have been faffing around for large chunks of the day! OOPS... but i just have no more motivation.

Well it is friday to I get to head off home now and look forward to a hopefully not too hectic weekend :)

Have a good one everyone out there!

ARG!!!!

I want to be back in Amsterdam enjoying the sun and the relaxing and the...lifestyle !!

Work has not been good to me today. I came back from holiday to both Trendy and Mr Nice/Hard (our team leader) being off on holiday in Snowdonia. This would be all well and good if i didnt just have Trendy's work to do but now I was roped into helping on MR NIce/Hard's urgent pitch work which involved me having to pull finishes together from no where with a very loose brief and no time to order more samples. ARG!! Its been insane. Now i'm just supposed to run with these without anyones approval to put them into the visuals for this huge client !! ARGG!! TOoo much responsibility!

So anyway finally got as much as I could get down ...was exhausting and my attention span was down at zero again! I just flippin hope he likes it all tmr as the pitch needs to be pulled together tmr and they fly off with it on Thursday first thing. I can jsut see myself helping tmr and it being another late night.

Now that that is done and it is now 18:00 I still have to get the work that Trendy needs finished done...so its a late one for me...So i shall get back to it!

Being Creative

So am getting to be creative in my job again - YAY! When working with Miss Unhinged is was extremely difficult to get her to not design with her usual minimalist palette and set finishes. So for me there was very little creativity with finishes etc. All I had to do was dip into her stash of samples and use the same finishes for job after job. She is still doing this and I'm so happy to be away from that. Iranian Princess (friend and work college at the same level as me, there are only the 2 of us there) has had to work with her on a pitch and she has the same problems with Miss Unhinged as I did. Maybe not as many with personality clashings.

Anyway I'm getting off track. I've been work with Trendy non-stop designer and have mostly been working on her current jobs which means mostly doing CAD work which can get very boring indeed. But we've had a few pitches coming in lately and I've gotten away from the CAD a bit which is wonderful. Am def feeling more creative because of it. Trendy sent me off with a brief of the client and the budget and got me to do all the finishes for it with no controlling actions. So I had nothing holding me back. Am very happy with what I've put together and she is very happy and we'll just have to see what the client thinks this afternoon.

We have also been working on a pitch for a big football clubs offices in London. Trendy gave me the task of prettying up the plans in CAD but I reckon that people have gotten better results using Photoshop and I had a few basics so decided to take some initiative. After spending the morning seriously stretching my brain muscles trying to get it done in Photoshop Mouse (CAD technician next to me and friend) said to me why dont I use the new Autodesk programme that she has been testing for us. It is called Impression. So I started on that and wow what a difference. I'm sure Photoshop is useful for the more complicated effects but this programme did the basics much faster and easier. Plus since it is Autodesk it work so well with our CAD drawings. It is almost as simple and drag and drop finishes onto a plan and TA DA, you have a beautiful presentation quality plan.

I really enjoyed stretching my brain and learning new software - even if Photoshop is them most frustrating programme to learn. And I obviously did so well at teaching it to myself that now the studio manager wants me to teach it and help Iranian Princess with it today. So i'm just sitting around waiting to do that.

Teary Thursday

Well today started off badly! I got an email from Miss Unhinged and it was the most confusing toned email and upset me no end. I think that it was just a last straw after so many other events that i've ignored. She would throw in little "nice" comments between her tell me off for no reason. The 2 hour lunch came up again. She accused me of leaving things unnecessarily undone until her return to the office, and the main thing was to sit and do space plans and dont help other people or start 'networking' in the office. Basically she doesnt like me talking to anyone ! it drives me up the wall as I am a very social person and dont enjoy sitting infront of a computer all day and not saying a word to the people around me. I have had no complaints from them that it distracting them and they have actually said it makes it easy to approach me when wanting help.

I was just so angry and emotional! I hate being like that as I see it as a weakness so who knows what other people think. But i just knew that I couldnt let this one slide. I was planning to speak to my boss about it at some stage but as soon as I stepped into the office he just knew something was really wrong and approached me and I landed up showing just how upset I was which upset me even more.

Anyway we went for a long chat and a hot chocolate. (yes yes i know I failed to stay away from the chocolate today. But it truely was the most devine hot chocolate - or should I say chocolate soup!!! It was so insanely thick that I had to stir it the whole time to stop it from becoming solid. The place that serves this divine stuff is Apostrophe ) He was great and helped me work things out for myself and try and see all her side of things etc and teaching me methods for conflict resolution.

After that the day went pretty well as I got to have lunch bitch to Persia (Designer & friend that sits across from me) and then we also made plans to go shopping after work and retail therapy was def needed :)

Once Miss Unhinged got back to the office she was all sugar and sweetness and didnt even notice anything was upsetting me. (even tho post her being at work others were still noticing that something was up) For once I was able to calmly confront someone and bring up what was bothering me. We had a chat and it was all nice and stuff but now that she was all appologetic etc she still made me feel like i was over reacting and that it wasnt such a big deal.

Basically she STILL confuses the hell out of me and I HATE being all emotional! My boss says that I will become harder and that I just tend to be very feelings orientated even in the way I perceive other people. I'll learn to turn down the volume button on that when needed to.

He also confided in me that he has been given alot of negative feedback about her attitude and that she doesn't seem to have enough respect for the directors including him. So I don't feel so unvalidated in my feelings.

What an up and down day ...but ending on a good note with some much needed shopping in Zara and a few other stores :)

Pitch

So the pitch is overs, so the serious stress of the last 3 weeks is overs! So today was my first day attempting to cut down on chocolate. And it seems to be working out better then I thought. i broke down at about 11am and had a single minstrel (chocolate button type thing) It did however help that we were taken out by a lighting company to a 2 hour long lunch! so basically was at my desk for less hours of the day and therefore not being taunted by the bag of chocolate on my desk! 

But dispite my happy mood or because of it Miss Unhinged (my senior designer - who we work as a 'team') decided to ruin the afternoon with her insane demand, snide comments and general all around bad attitude. She seemed to be unhappy with the 2 hour lunch that "I" had decided to take and seemed to want to lash out at everyone around. I would just like to point out at this point that the lunch was a design dept event that both she and I rsvp'd to go and then she decided to take lunch with her boyfriend that she lives with anyways. I was at this lunch with my boss and he had no problem with us taking off some time for lunch after working so hard on the pitch. I am completely confused by here. So i landed up staying at work until 19:30 helping out the other design support guy as she had given him a whole load to do with a deadline of tonight and told him unequivocally not to leave until it was done! I dont understand her and sometimes i think she just enjoys the power trip! Not to mention that majority of the time I think she is just trying to hide her massive insecurities. 

Anyways - besides her multiple unhinged personalities she and I did happen to put together a great design for the pitch yesterday and the presentation as a whole including loads of work from the other departments was apparently one of the best presentations that the people in the company had ever seen done there. So at least we do seem to be producing some good work together - which is a good thing and it will mean winning more jobs and then getting better bonuses :) 

So that is enough of my ranting! Am def exhausted but in a much better mood then the one i left the office in thanks to the lovely bf and the housemate! They do make me laugh hysterically ! And we watched a cute little movie called Dedication which made you realise that there were alot more crazy unhinged (but in a good way) out there! But now am off to sleep land now to recharge the batteries and prepare for tomorrow afternoon (thankfully I will not have Miss unhinged designer in the office tmr morning).