Tuesday, 5 December 2006

Rejoining battle

Despite arriving home from work in the wee small hours, I rose early to rejoin battle with our recalcitrant network. I got to the office at 7:00 am to find (oh joy!) that our exertions of the previous night had paid dividends and the new network was substantially up and running. Not only that but much of the follow up work had also been completed. I’d left the office at about 1:00 am, but Angelo must have worked for a good few hours longer to progress things this far. I tested a few of the settings, and found that the new desktop and security settings hadn’t fully deployed. Shortly after 8:00 I called Angelo who admitted he had worked until 4:00 am, but he soon logged onto our server again to tackle the security problems.

As it was now light enough, I went outside to try and sort out my poor car. I managed to change the tyre, and then scrubbed like fury to remove the oil and grime from my delicate office-boy hands. Our exchange server had meanwhile kicked into life depositing dozens of e-mails into my in-box. I quickly scanned them, deleting the spam and responding to the most urgent.

Shortly before 9:00, some of my colleagues started arriving and I busied myself showing them the new network. Mostly this involved advising them how to work around the ongoing problems, and reassuring them that things would soon improve.

Kwik-fit

Around mid-morning, I drove to the local Kwik-fit to let them sort my car out. What a wonderful invention Kwik-fit is! I have never experienced any difficulties there and have consistently found their staff to be helpful and polite. Today, they performed to their usual high standards and I confidently left my car in their hands. I had only found the garage by following Sue in her car, and she now gave me a lift back to the office. After tackling the most urgent needs at the office, we went out for a coffee together.

This meeting was arranged some weeks ago to talk through Sue’s job. Since I started at WCVS, she has acted in several different roles as circumstances have demanded and as I have requested. She has never complained and has offered reliable and practical advice. Over two Café Mochas, we talked through the main heads of a clarified role for her in the new year, both of us relieved that she can finally settle down to a consistent role.

After another few hours in the office, Sue and I drove to her house in her Citroen, and we then walked together to Kwik-fit. I thanked Sue profusely and then thanked the Kwik-fit people with almost equal enthusiasm, before driving myself and Sue back to work.

Home at last

It was now about 4:00 and I was nearing exhaustion. After a few rather pathetic attempts to fix Sue’s PC, and a brief telephone call to Angelo, I headed off to WGC.

Jackie was delighted to see me. I will always love her for that. And for feeding me Steak and Chips. We spent some time discussing our Christmas, and then I settled down to finish The Idea of North. This has been a curious book, exploring mythical, social, literary and artistic references to “North”. The author delights in leaping from one subject to another. At first I found this irritating but eventually I grew to appreciate its eccentric charm: Ovid, Norwegian mythology, Auden and Isherwood, Bergman and Ibsen, Nabokov, Moomintrolls. How I yearn to read the Moomintrolls again.

In the evening, Jackie and I settled down to a double offering of Poirot and Midsummer Murders. And then I slept.