Just as I was beginning to wonder if my company was crazy for paying me a very decent salary for next to no work, I was given a considerable amount of work with a very narrow timeframe. The start-up documentation, budgeting et.c. for a multimillion £££ project. My boss is under the impression that the bulk of the work can be done by Thursday, i.e. in two days.

It looks like I’ll be managing the next phase of this enormous project after all. It’s to do with developing and deploying a piece of software in 13 European countries.. The development team is partly in India, partly in Canada and, of course, in the UK. The whole experience certainly looks fantastic on the CV, and I’d no doubt learn a lot. But as mentioned previously, I’d be much happier as a traditional housewife and mother. The irony of it!
PRINCE2 process flowchart. This is the bible of IT project-
management in Europe. Luckily I am a certified ‘practioner’.
My manager who is nice and funny in a way, can also be quite crazy. When he wants to, he bullies people like you wouldn’t believe it.

The guy who is managing the project in question, for one. My boss, (Jacob), seems unable to behave in a reasonable way towards him, always being rude, bordering on obnoxious. The Indian team members are quite scared of Jacob.

I’ve only been working there for about 2.5 months, so I have had no reason to fall out with him yet. I always behave like the committed employee, always asking Jacob for advice and taking it unless it’s too crazy. Jacob hence is mainly nice to me, constantly joking and being quite funny and decent. But I notice how he behaves towards other collegues so I can’t relax with him. The wind could turn any time. Maybe he is letting me off easiser for being the only woman who works for him. Or maybe it’s nothing to do with that.

I am still in pain from the surgery though; not feeling even close to 100%. I will spare you the details of my symptoms. Suffice to say that nobody cares how you feel at work and you cannot talk about it… If you are there, you have to do the work to your best ability. I am just biting my lip, popping painkillers and getting on with it. I’d love to lie in bed and rest another week, but it is not an option.

A nice surprise (apart from the flowers) awaited me after I was back from being off for the surgery; I have been given a really nice desk in a secluded space by the window. It’s a top spot in this massive office! I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Daylight cheers me up during the working day so I am very pleased about that.
St Helen’s Church, a very dynamic
bible-believing church in the ‘City’
The business analyst in my team gave me his palm tree, so I have that to look at too. All the guys are very fascinated by the destruction of a high-rise post-war building next our office building. They are often standing by the window near me, observing the builders as they tear this large building down. It’s a very noisy and violent process though and personally I wish they had chosen to just renovate the building. So what if it was a bit ugly! With the destruction work going on there is a constant background noise of cement-drilling…

I wanted to attend the dinner and talk about Christianity at a City church this evening at 7:30, but because of the surgery etc I am too exhausted by the end of the day and need to go home. Hopefully I can attend next week. I really like the people on the course, the topics are interesting and the church certainly lives up to it’s reputation as the most dynamic Church of England church in London.

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