Stuart Herbert

I smell of train, that horrible recycled stale-air smell you find on British trains these days.  But I don’t care.

The first week in the new job has been great.  I’ve got this big silly grin on my face (even though I’m thoroughly knackered from all the commuting).  There’s a lot of hard work ahead, but it’s exactly the sort of work that I find fun.  I guess there’s something wrong with me

The travelling hasn’t been too bad.  Monday was the worst, when the 18:35 from Bath Spa didn’t turn up at all.  I finally got home just after 21:00, thoroughly shattered.  Lesson learned; I need to be out the door in time for the 16:35 where possible, or for the 17:35 at the latest.  Any later than that, and a hotel for the night is worth serious consideration.

Working on the train out from Cardiff on a morning is a real luxury.  Most managers never get - or take - the time on a morning to review the day ahead.  At the moment, the time’s mostly going on all the new stuff I have to learn, but it’s going to be a real godsend as I’m more involved in the day to day.  Amusingly (to me, anyway) this is the same train I was catching down to Southampton during my secondment to the OS (albeit an hour earlier), so it already feels like I’ve been doing this routine for months.

On the train back, it’s a bit more hit and miss.  Most days, I’ve been able to snag a table seat, or one of those seats at the end opposite the space for the wheelchairs (those spaces are the best; the table seats on these First Great Western commuter trains are quite cramped), but when FGW forget to stick the right number of carriages on the train, it’s standing-room only all the way back to Cardiff.  Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent audiobooks one can buy and listen to when this happens.  Management audiobooks are very popular, but I’m seriously thinking of getting all of the Harry Potter audiobooks for when distraction is the better approach.

I have to give a special mention, and a huge thank you, to everyone for making me feel so welcome.  Most places make an effort for new staff, but this is different, because I don’t think they’re making a special effort.  It feels a lot like my time working at the University of Sheffield - and those were without doubt the happiest years of my professional life so far.

I definitely owe Aled a beer for putting me onto this job in the first place.

I ran into Richard from Box UK on the platform at Cardiff a couple of times this week.  It’s nice to hear that I’m being missed, and I certainly miss the sort of work I wanted to do there, but right now I don’t miss the work I ended up doing there.  Everyone tells me that I’m great at consultancy, but it doesn’t give me the personal satisfaction that working on products, services and systems does.  I guess it’s why I took to Tai Chi; I’m a natural observer, and I love that iterative polishing and improving something release after release after release.  You just don’t get that in consultancy.  Consultancy all to often is like a one-night stand.  As some of you who are married will understand from your own experience, there’s a much more meaningful fulfilment to be had from a deeper commitment.

I bumped up the RAM on the MacBook Pro this evening.  It’s now at the max of 3GB; shame it won’t go to 4GB like the later generation MBPs will.  It’s mostly to speed up Aperture 2, and to make things a bit quicker when I’m running a couple of virtual machines at a time (CentOS and Ubuntu for work).

Tomorrow is toy day.  Got to send the dead Cisco router back for a replacement, and the new phone and GPS navigator should arrive too.  I’ve bought the Garmin Mobile XT product and an unlocked Nokia N82 to run it on.  The N82 is mainly to play with VoIP over Wifi, although it does have a 5 megapixel camera too, which I’m looking forward to.  Bath is a very pretty place after all, and I’m learning the virtue of travelling as light as possible.

Hopefully Sunday I’ll make it out to get some more Merthyr Road photography done.  There’s some old railway tracks in the woods at Treforrest that I wouldn’t mind taking a careful look at.

… and I’m really looking forward to starting the new job on Monday.

Most of Thursday went on a nice walk around Pontypridd, taking photos for my next Merthyr Road article, which I’m calling Bridging The Rivers At Pontypridd.  I also wrote up blog articles for two older photosets from my travels … Winter In Eden, and Back in Brighton.  That brought me almost up to date (but not quite) with my backlog of work.  Spent the evening processing the bridge photos, and went to bed unhappy with the results.

Friday was a lazy day, after tidying up the house that is!  Two more photography blog articles to clear the backlog: The Towers Of Brains Brewery, and Easter In The Malvern Hills.  Took another look at the bridge photos.  Decided to keep the HDR versions after all, but to tone down the colours to make them look much closer to LDR (ie normal) images.  Figured out how to fool Aperture into backing up photos to a network drive - I need to write that up in a blog posting.  Also had fun playing around with the “create a book” tools in Aperture.  I like the idea of taking my Merthyr Road articles, and making them into books that can be ordered online, but I think Aperture’s book features are a bit too limited for that.  More thought required here, me thinks.

Work up this morning with terrible cramp in my left calf.  Haven’t had a cramp attack like that for months!  Taught Kristi some basic Chinese massage so that she could fix up my leg.  Hobbled down to the station, and bought my monthly season ticket to Bath for Monday.  The look on the lady’s face was priceless, and I promised her that when I can finally afford an annual ticket (costing over £3k), I’ll come back and buy it through her, and not down in Cardiff.  Watched Never Back Down at Cineworld in Cardiff with Kristi … it’s shallow and predictable, but with plenty of eye candy on offer for both sexes.  Watch out for the guy who plays Ryan; I think we’ll see a lot more from him in the future.  Enjoyed the first episode of the new Doctor Who series this evening, although I still think that RTD over-uses background music. Here’s hoping he takes a back seat from here; the best episodes of the last season were those he didn’t write.

Kristi made me watch the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie this evening (boo for Sky+ boxes).  I’m utterly amazed that they managed to get a TV show off the ground on the back of this outing.  I managed to escape after an hour or so, but Kristi carried on as apparently the comedy vampire death at the end makes it all worth while.  Go figure.

Haven’t seen the footie yet (yay for Sky+ boxes; I get to spend Sunday morning vegged out watching Match of the Day), but I did read that Newcastle United won again :)  We must be safe from relegation now, and a good end to the season will improve spirits at the club ready for the next campaign.

I think I’m all set for Monday.  Part of me isn’t looking forward to the commute, but once I’ve settled into a routine and I’m able to work on the train, I’m sure it’ll just become a normal part of the day.  I’m really looking forward to starting the new job.  Working on secondment at the Ordnance Survey for the last few months reminded me just how much fun work can be when you’re working for the right sort of people and you’re encouraged to apply yourself to make a real difference.  In the last year, after years of a fairly stable life, I’ve lost three people to cancer.  Life is transitory, and if you’re just going through the motions every day, what’s the point?  That’s not living, it’s surviving.  That’s why I left my old job, because I want to get back to making a real difference, and I want to work for someone who demands that I do, rather than being afraid of me and looking to hold me back every opportunity going.  I wish everyone at Box UK well, and I hope they all achieve the success that they deserve.  But that chapter of my life is over now (well, almost; it’ll be over when basic paperwork like P45’s turn up), and I’m ready to take the next steps forward.

Well, I have my MAC code from Demon, and it’s good for 30 days.  I’ve been with Demon for many years, and it’s a real shame that I need to take my business away from them, but what can you do?  I don’t believe that Demon care about my custom any more, and the final proof of that was my experience obtaining my MAC code.

When I called Demon to obtain my MAC code, I was asked about why I’m leaving.  I explained my reasons (I’ve gone from a 2mbit service to less than 512kbit service - that’s sub-broadband speed imho), and my disappointment in their technical support.  The chap on the other end of the phone expressed his sympathy; apparently I’m not the first customer to transfer his business for this reason.

But what struck me is that there was no effort to try and retain my business.

If a company cares about my custom, then I expect them to at least try to convince me to stay.  I would expect them to explore the options, just in case something can be done to make me happy once again.  (It doesn’t take all that much to make me happy; all you’ve got to do is keep my trust).

But Demon didn’t even try - although the chap I talked to was very helpful.  Like the call centre staff at BT, he seemed powerless to do anything to make a difference.

Hopefully someone will turn them around, and restore the excellent service that made them one of the very best ISPs before THUS bought them.  But until then, if you’re looking for a broadband service, I can’t recommend Demon at all.  

This is my week of unemployment, before taking up my new job with Gradwell.com.  I was hoping just to chill out and spend the week out and about with my camera, but there just hasn’t been any time for that.  I’m beginning to understand what some of my students mean when they talk about how their retirement is going!

After fun with the call centres on Monday, I dug my old bike out of the shed and headed up the Taff Trail for some much-needed exercise.  I made it all the way up to the Abercynon Feeder bridge, which is pretty good going for my first bike ride in a couple of years!  Then it was cook tea for Kristi before collapsing in a heap.

Yesterday went on my Tai Chi class prep.  I bought a Samson AirLine 77 wireless mic system a while back, so that I could record an audio lesson for my students.  Took the CDs down to the class last night, and hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll get some good feedback to help me plan a v2. Also learned yesterday that one of my students passed away recently  More on that this evening when I update my Tai Chi blog.

This morning, and it was back to dealing with Demon and BT.  I checked with the bank, and neither organisation had provided the refunds that they had promised.  

I found this particularly amusing rant about Demon’s poor customer service, and whilst I don’t necessarily agree with his refusal to call their support line to get his MAC code, I have to say that his experiences with Demon largely mirror my own.  Now I just need to do some research and decide who to switch my broadband service to.  Sky is tempting, because it’s cheap, but I’m very happy to pay more in order to get a fixed-rate service.  I’m currently looking at the service from ukfsn.org.

BT got a letter of complaint.  I can’t remember the last time I wrote a snail-mail letter.  Anyone else unhappy with BT may find their Consumer Code of Practice to be a useful guide, especially their escalation procedure.  I’ll write more here when they respond.

As with Monday, it’s difficult to overstate the difference in contrast between Demon and BT, with their poor customer service, in the one corner, and other companies who do provide excellent customer service.  On Monday, it was Lloyds TSB showing how to do this, and today it was Hardware.com.  My brand new Cisco router has died  A quick chat with Anthony @ Hardware.com, and it was agreed that I should return it for a replacement.  Whilst it’s a shame the product turned out to be faulty, the way a company puts problems right makes a huge difference!

This afternoon, it’s get the shopping done, and then decide which dish to cook for when Kristi gets home from work.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll make it out to get some photography done!