Friday, December 02, 2005

First day of work and the joy of public transport, namely, buses

First day of work and the joy of public transport, namely, buses

I'm tired now, having a pint in the pub and a much needed plate of hot food - I went for an all day breakfast - I need it. It's 9.00pm and I've just relaxed after 14 hours on the go, after having had a rotten nights sleep, typical.

Don't feel like blogging at all, but I'll make this entry anyway, for the sake of it.

Working in a small village 40 miles from London central is not easy if you don't have a car.

Morning :-
Up at 5.30am
Walk to station
Get 6.30am train to Surbiton
Change at Surbiton for train to Hook
Get to Hook at 7:49am
40 minute walk to Odiham
Arrive at office 8.30am

Afternoon :-
Leave work at 5.30pm
Bus doesn't arrive on time, as I'm inquiring in a shop, it goes by 20 minutes late
Order taxi from pub and wait 30minutes
Get taxi for £6 to Hook station
6.31pm train to Surbiton
Change at Surbiton to arrive in Wimbledon at 7:44pm
Walk back to B&B

It's for 2 weeks and I'll have to get used to it - can't think, brain dead.

At least I did well on my first day contacting - thrown right in the deep end with no time to "settle in", you just have to get in and work. I'm using a very temperamental old PIII with 512mb ram which is a dog.
I've had to figure out a few other peoples way of working and work along in that style.
Not easy when you feel like you just want to curl up in bed and sleep - I got about 4 hours kip last night, too many thoughts racing around in the old noggin.

I was going to go out and about Saturday, fuck that, I'm going to get up late and about all I'm going to do is my laundry (woooohooo) and some online stuff and visit friends for an hour or so.
Sunday I have to go up and meet Mom in Stratford before she heads off to South Africa, drop of a few bits and have a coffee then it's Monday work.

Anyway, it's all gone mad.

I have to try and sort out this damn Umbrella company for tax reasons - without it, I don't get paid.
Now I'm furiously trying to sort out when I get paid, because right now, the Umbrella company reckons end of Jan. The agent is furious and will sort it out. It's all really rather complicated, but standard practice. I get a job via the agent, if I don't have a limited company, I have to get hired by an Umbrella company for tax reasons. The company I contract at pays the agent, they take a cut. The agent pays the Umbrella company, they save me money because they use offshore bank accounts, but they also take a cut.
I sign a contract with the Umbrella company.

Then I got 4 calls today about different job contracts and actually couldn't take them for obvious reasons. I told all of them to call back after 5.30pm. None of them did. Suprise suprise.

I also noticed I got an email sometime from a company who wanted animated flash banners done for around £25 each. I just noticed that this evening, sent me files and everything. I'll have to send a polite reply back and say I'll get it done on Sunday I suppose - on the train. Lord.

No worries tho, busy arranging an interview for a permanent job at a way cool web agency close to where I'm on this contract. If I land it, I will have to relocate.
To be honest, I'd prefer the possible 6 month contract in Soho starting in Jan.
But how to arrange that interview if they need to see me soon ?
I'll have to sacrifice 3 hours of pay I suppose.

If a do get a perm job 2 hours commute from London, I'm getting a car ASAP.

Spin spin spin goes the head.

Too tired to even research anything online right now - bleh.