I’ve got sucked into watching the tennis this week, which is something I haven’t done in several years. While watching the Nadal-Murray match today, I was suddenly reminded of the bleep of Cyclops. When I was younger I thought this noise was because the players were swearing and it was being bleeped out. I think I prefer this explanation to the real reason!
The eastbound slip-road traffic lights at the Maidenhead junction of the M4 were operational today for the first time. They didn’t seem to be helping much but I was passing at a time later than usual so perhaps it’s relative.
My view on “the future” is that it is arrived at by the accumulation of many small changes, a bit like evolution. This is probably why flying cars aren’t likely to turn up any time soon; there’s little evolutionary advantage to a car that flies or glides a little bit, so the process of getting to a fully flying car is a bit of a non-starter. Bummer.
I was just ploughing through my Google Reader backlog when Ben walked up and asked, “How do you make it go up and down?” He was referring to the page on screen.
“I use the mouse wheel, you know, on the mouse. The little wheel you use to make things go up and down.”
“Can you use the arrow keys?”
Without waiting he reached out and sent the page flying across the screen. Laughing he said, “Why does it go up when you press down?”
I had to stop for a moment and suddenly I was thrown back to the mid-eighties and the first time I used an AMX mouse with AMX Pagemaker on our BBC Master. The problem is, to go down the page you press the down button but in doing so the page appears to move up the screen.
Clearly our brains are wired the same way.
While writing this post I had music on random play and it produced a surprisingly good track transition: From Hemp by Living Colour into Into Temptation by Crowded House with a three second crossfade. Not perfect but not bad for a random selection!
Yesterday evening, after I’d put the kids to bed, I lay on our bed. Through the open window I could here the sound of voices drifting in, people living their lives somewhere outside. A first glimpse of summer on the breeze.
I treasure those few minutes after the bedtime when you know they are asleep. It’s the first time in the day that I don’t have any responsibilities that require immediate attention. A serene quiet settles on the house and I can relax, read a book, doze off for ten minutes or cuddle up with my darling wife. If I were looking for a definition of Domestic Bliss, this would be it.
It’s strange how quickly normality returns. At least it’s strange to me; I have very little experience of death. The next day I’m back at work and the rest of the world is carrying on regardless. The next day the kids still need a bath. The next day we still need to go shopping.
Tuesday is Les’ funeral. I think this will only be real for me then.
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!
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.
At nursery, Ben has been learning Christmas songs, Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Star and Away in a Manger. Which has opened up a whole world of questions. Mainly who is Jesus, and why does he live in our hearts?
Tricky. I have tried to be diplomatic about this. I have no belief in anything religious (well, except for Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. Oh, and the Easter Bunny) but don’t want this to unduly affect any belief that Ben may have or develop. So I said that Jesus was a man who lived a long time ago, he was very kind to be people, and did lots of nice things. He was born on Christmas Day, and lots of people brought him presents, which is why we give each other presents on his birthday to remember him and the nice things he did.
Ben then wanted to know how he lived in our hearts. Obviously he is a slight pedant like his father, so I explained he wasn’t really, actually, in our hearts, but that when somebody is dead, you can remember them, and all the things they did, and you say they have a special place in your hearts. That seemed to do it. Then came perhaps one of the stranger conversations I have ever had with anyone.
Ben: Why was Jesus born in a stable?
Me: Well, because his mummy and daddy had to go to a big city, and when they got there, none of the hotels had any rooms left, so they stayed in a stable with animals. They had lots of straw so it was nice and warm.
Ben: How did they get to the shops?
Me: They walked or went on their donkeys.
Ben: Jesus didn’t have a car?
Me: No Jesus didn’t have a car.
Ben: So how would he get to Legoland?
Me: Sadly, I don’t think Jesus ever went to Legoland.
At this point I have been given some very funny looks by parents coming towards me and who have only heard the last sentence. Not one I ever thought I would be saying.
Watch now how I skilfully waste half an hour of your time.
Catching up on my blog reading today, I read about Emperor Rectal Hose. A few minutes of research later and I discovered that I was Damn Dwarves Hid It. Go on, you know you want to…
Ben, coming upstairs after having seen something on CBeebies, : Did you know that if you have dinosaur bones, they can turn into birds??
Me: No, I would have to admit that I did not know that Ben.
Ben: Well, life’s like that.