Sleep Interrupted

Last week I got promoted — I now have the lofty title of Development Manager. Previously my job title included Team Lead but now I no longer lead, I manage. I have stepped over the line from doing into getting other people to do.

In practice, as our company has a “managers who can also do / lead from the front” ethos in R&D, this is more a change of rank than anything but I can’t deny one fact: For the first time there are people who report to me on the organisation chart. Wish me luck!

Back before Christmas I had a conversation with Richard about job titles. I released during that conversation that the grammatical form of jobs titles indicates a lot about their relative position within an organisation.

Let’s say you work at Balloon Corp (who changed their name to Xeloflex in 1999 but changed it back again in 2002 when they realised nobody knew what they did any more). You start at the bottom where there are lots of people doing things, so there are lots of agent noun job descriptions like Balloon Engineer, Balloon Analyst and Balloon Administrator. Of course there are lots of people who’ve been with the company a long time, so you also have Senior Balloon Whatever so that you promote them and get away with smaller pay rises.

Going up a level, the managers naturally adopt the title Balloon Manager but what about their managers? Here, for the first time, we see the principle I call Job Title Reversal: Manager of Balloons. That little “of” makes all the difference. In addition, the pluralisation makes you sound busier.

Now, if you have many layers of management there are several independent means of increasing the job title pool. Firstly, for those who do less doing and more managing you can swap Manager for Director. See how strategic Balloon Director sounds? US companies will generally have a “VP” level too: Vice President, Balloons.

Secondly, you can add geographical adjectives, such as European Balloon Manager or Global Balloon Manager. This really expresses the scale of the job.

Thirdly, you can cover more than one area of the organisation, for instance Balloon and Pump Manager. The person with this job must be really busy!

All of the above can be combined, as in European Balloon and Pump Director. Furthermore, our old friend JRT can still be employed, even at this heady level: Global Director of Balloons and Pumps.

There is a subtle twist on JRT. You can replace “of” with “for”, which leaves you with a more strategic, caring title such as Director for Balloons.

Finally, as you approach the very top of the organisation, job titles collapse back on themselves in the same way that Queen outranks First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. In our example, we are left with Chief Balloon Officer.

I was halfway through this conversation and we were commenting what a load of bollocks it all was when Richard remembered he had an “of” in his job title. D’oh!

I have a new computer to play with at home, so don’t expect anything productive from me in the next week or so. Details of exactly why this exciting to follow; I have some kit to go stroke.

Despite being pox-ridden, Ben decided he wanted to be a football player this evening. He got dressed in his shorts and red t-shirt so that everybody would know he was a footballer and then dragged me outside to play football. Well, I say dragged, I actually volunteered because I’m trying to encourage him in his sporting endeavours so that he has some hope of being less of a sporting klutz than his father.

We kicked the ball about a bit and I explained the concept of dribbling the ball to Ben. Eventually Ben settled on playing goalie, which he really enjoyed.

After ten or fifteen minutes Ben got distracted by the moon, then asked me, “Is that Mars?” and pointed a patch of rapidly darkening blue sky. “Errr, I don’t know, perhaps. It’s certainly the right place.”

Ben and I have been making tentative steps into the world of astronomy. This is something I used to love and I’d spend cold evenings out the back of my parent’s house learning the constellations when I was a teenager.

A couple of months back Ben expressed an interest in the stars one night when we were getting out of the car and he happened to look up. Keen to foster his interest in something I love, we dug out an astronomy book that was a dust-gathering Christmas present from a few years ago. We’ve been looking at it together on and off since then.

Ben is very interested in the constellations and can now identify his first, Casseopia, or “the lady in the sky” as he calls it. The advantage of this constellation is that it’s high in the sky — currently you just look straight up in the UK — it’s bright, and it’s easy to spot: five stars in a W shape. I’m attempting to show him The Plough but it’s too close to the horizon currently and the atrocious light pollution doesn’t help either.

About ten minutes after Ben had asked about Mars, I glanced up again and there, pretty much the only thing in the sky besides the moon, was the red twinkling dot of Mars. Damn kids with their working eyes.

One thing I discovered while starting to pick up on the astronomy again is Stellarium. It’s simply… well, stellar! If you have evening a passing interesting in the stars you should check out this amazing, free piece of software.

Just before Christmas Jessica got into the Disney Cars movie in a big way. She watched it from start to finish pretty much everyday for a week or a more. She then gave up on it for a bit, but yesterday Lightning McQueen made a comeback in her favours.

As we went to pick Ben up from pre-school, Jessica told me she needed some Lightning McQueen clothes. I said she already had McQueen pajamas, and a top that Ben had given her. She said she needed more clothes. When I asked her why she needed more clothes, she replied “For my body” in her ‘what a stupid question to ask me, mummy’ voice.

She gets more like Ben every day….

Just as Jessica is getting over chicken pox, and is all scabbed over and ready to go, Ben woke up this morning covered in spots. So looks like he didn’t have it over New Year after all. He seems absolutely fine in himself, no temperature or cold, which is good.

I just feel about as yesterday we went to Toddler Group with Jessica, and of course Ben would have been highly contagious. So we may now be responsible for an epidemic in our area. Ooops.

How shall I start the year on the blog? How about a grumble? Is there anything more depressing than being stationary at junction 8/9 of the M4 at 7.30am as the rain buckets down from a cold gray sky and you watch your windows slowly mist up? Okay, I’m sure there are plenty of things but it certainly didn’t help on a Monday morning.

Grumble over, normal service will be resumed shortly.

The questions were posted on a baby board I look at. They were intended for children of Jessica’s age, but Ben decided to join in as well.

What is your favourite colour? Red/Red

What do you like doing best? Putting Ben’s head in the water/licking kisses

Who is your best friend? Katie/Megan and Joseph

What do you want to be when you grow up? a skeleton/a rescue helicopter driver

Why do you love your mummy? cos I do/because she helps me

Wht do you like eating? sausage rolls/my lunch and my dinner and my breakfast and my tea

What do you like to drink? milk/milk and juice and water

How do you like to travel? strawberry/train

The first answers are Jessica’s, the second are Ben’s. Ben is now having hysterics about Jessica’s last answer. It is a bit bizarre….

As Andrew posted earlier, Christmas was a bit miserable this year due to most family members having colds and coughs of some sort. Then Boxing Day night Ben woke up and was sick, we think this was probably due to the unusual diet of the previous two days which seemed to consist mainly of Christmas lunch - cocktail sausages, 12, Boxing Day lunch - mince pies, 3, and Boxing Day tea, sausage rolls, 6. Usually the children’s diet is pretty good, but Andrew and I figured that with so many nibbles about, we were not going to get stressed about forcing them to sit down and eat a meal, so for two days they just got to eat pretty much what they wanted, when they wanted. Which was great, we didn’t have to shout at them to sit down and eat lunch, they got on with playing with toys. Unfortunately the downside of this was the Boxing Day night purging of Ben’s system. So there is something to be said for three proper meals a day…

Over the next couple of days Ben seemed fine, maybe a little more grouchy, but we put this down to over tiredness as he had a few late nights. One night he also had a temperature of about 102, but again, after some Calpol seemed fine. The only odd thing was a couple of little spots around his neck, and one just under his chin. Anyway, he was soon back to his normal self. Then Jessica got very tired and grouchy, also quite warm, and yesterday at lunch at my parents house Andrew noticed a couple of little spots on her neck by her ear. Pulling up her vest showed her back and tummy to be covered with spots. Chickenpox!!

So a mad dash ensued at 3.30pm on New Years Day to find somewhere open that sold calamine lotion, luckily Boots came through. Last night Jessica didn’t really sleep at all, and had a temperature of 104, which I think actually qualifies as a fever. So much Calpol and Calamine later, and some Piriton syrup to stop the itching, Jessica is now covered all over with a light sprinkling of horrid looking blisters. She has them on her face, her back and front, her arms and legs, inside her ears and also some more delicate areas. She is not a happy bunny.

Lets hope the New Year gets better from here on in.