We went away earlier this month for some well earned R & R and it was great but since we got back, which will be 3 weeks this Saturday, I have not been able to get back into the early starts which allowed me to go out for early morning runs and I have to say that I am really missing them at the minute. That compounded with the freezing weather keeping me off the bike it has not been a great month for exercise for me and it's starting to bug me now.

What I've had to do in my own head is to rationalise it and resign myself to the fact that I will not be back out running until the New Year now, which thankfully is only next week. It would be all to easy to allow myself to get completely demoralised by this and, in my own head, really start to beat myself up for being a complete failure at getting motivated. On this occasion I have been able to look at where I want to be and lay out a plan for me to get where I want to be. What I have done is to ensure that I don't demoralise myself further by punishing myself for failing but instead working out how I can move past this in a positive way which in turn will allow me to move forward.

So if you find yourself in the same situation then don't focus on what you are not achieving but instead focus on what you can do to succeed.

- Rob

When we look closer at one of the entries we see the following:

Quite clearly this is a problem. Now the “D” drive is actually a CD/DVD drive and after checking with the client the drive was empty.  The errors were occurring throughout the day as well as overnight when clearly no-one was using it. So I recommended that he call Dell support as the unit was under warranty and it was most likely going to be a hardware fault probably a controller issue.  I spoke with him again later to check how things went and he told me the guy on the phone, in a strong Indian accent, has got him to run the diagnostics and everything checked out fine.  He was told that the error he was being shown was “normal” and was caused because there was not a CD in the drive!!! I really wish someone would have told me about this…all these years I was under the illusion that this symbol combined with the word “Error” was a problem.  I’m so glad that a “quality” support service was able to clarify this clear mis-conception of mine, cheers Dell

- Rob

It was not just the public transport system that failed miserably it was also the hi-tech systems that run the UK.  Mobile networks creaked heavily under the extra load of trying to call friends and colleagues, it’s reported that some of the networks experienced up to 73% more calls that usual and a steep increase in the number of picture messages being sent as snowmen make rare appearances in gardens.

There was also politicians that venture into the fray making bold statements about how sadly unprepared the country was despite having plenty of warning from the Met Office.  Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary, Norman Baker said it was "an absolute disgrace" the country’s transport networks were unable to cope with bad weather.  He went on to say "The lack of preparedness is astounding and damaging for the economy. I have travelled from Stockholm to the Arctic Circle on a train that arrived five minutes early, yet Britain lapses into chaos at the first hint of snow,".

So why was this country so unprepared?  I don’t have the answer just an opinion; that is that we are just British, no matter what type of “extreme” weather we experience we just panic with hosepipe bans in summer while pipes lay leaking gallons of water per hour.  The economy stops when snow falls because a lot of people see it as a great way to get out of work.  Either way we need to sort ourselves out and get prepared as the country cannot afford too many of these “snow” days..

This was the scene in Nottingham today.  Not too bad considering how bad the weather gets in other countries but as true Brits we were totally ill-equipped to cope with the snow.  Still it was fun and apparently there’s more snow on the way, lets hope so then the media can blame the recession on Snow!!!!

Here is an example of how NOT to perform customer service:

We recently had to make a claim on our insurance due to a leak in our central heating system, this resulted in a number of our carpets being ruined.  While that other areas are still being sorted the carpets have been ordered and I was contacted by Carpet Right over at Derby yesterday to inform me that they were in and to sort out fitting.  The conversation went like this:

Me: Hello can I help?

Man: Hi this is Carpet Right at Derby we’ve got your carpet in, can we sort out fitting it?

Me: Yeah that’d be great, but I am just with someone now would it be possible to give me a call back this afternoon to arrange a time?

Man: What me call you?

Me: Errr yes please.

Man: Errr Ok I guess I will if I remember

Me: Oh..O K … thanks

I have done a course in customer service in that past and while I do not profess to be an idol to look up to on this subject I know what is poor customer service and clearly this man should not be in any job which requires him interacting with a paying customer.  Needless to say that when I do want carpets in the future, which I am paying for myself, I will NOT be going to see this company and as we are always taught “If someone has a good experience with your company they may tell 1-2 people, if they have a bad experience they will tell 20+”.  Guess which category I fall into!  Oh and just for the record, he never rang back so clearly he didn’t remember.

So I am resolved that while I cannot slow down the work pace while doing on-demand work what I can do is slow down outside of work. I am also resolved to doing things different to the way I have before.  So earlier today I decided to walk to our local shop, something which I have NEVER done in the whole time that we have lived at this house which is almost 7 years.  The local shop is only about 3/4 mile away and while I going running three times a week and pass it then I have never walked to the shop.  You should try it sometime, it’s a surefire way to completely spin out your partner/wife.  I said to Julie “I think I’ll walk to the shop”, you should have seen the look on her face.  It couldn’t have been more stunned if I had said that I was catching a flight to the other side of the world!  So leaving behind a rather confused Julie I walked to the shops, the thing was I ended up looking round with almost schoolboy fascination at houses that I had seen before but never really looked at.

So if you are looking for a New Years Resolution try this, “Do something once a week different to the way you have always done it”.

We have also just returned from a weeks holiday in France which I have to say was an enlightening experience.  It is some years now since I travelled abroad so I was a little green about these things but I knew all the normal stuff that was required (passport, GB plates etc).  However, being a devout techy I had to take some essentials to ensure that I didn’t loose connection with the world.  First stop was with T-Mobile to see what it was going to cost me in terms of mobile phone calls, should clients need me then I want to know how much it will cost me and also to ensure that it was enabled for "roaming".  I was told that it was indeed enabled for "roaming" and to make a call back to the UK would cost me "38p per minute" and to receive a call would cost "19p per minute", not too bad however I was then told that I would also be charged "19p per minute" for someone to leave a message and then "38p per minute" to collect them!!  Not too much of a piss take.  I then asked what the rates were for data usage while abroad…this just go better again.  I was told that it was much cheaper than it used to be as previously it cost £7.00 per MB but now it was only £1.60 per MB.  Now obviously the young lady that I was speaking to but I am afraid that I do not agree I mean come on, on one hand we are told that we are part of the EU, the European Union, but all that goes out then window when the mobile companies have the opportunity at a pound of flesh.  Needless to say I decided to see how much the Wi-Fi would cost on site.  During the ferry crossing my mobile picked up a network called "On-waves" which is the maritime network between then English and Franch coast, what a fantastic service.  However, when my mobile joined the network I was greeted with the following message:

Welcome to Maritime.It will cost you /min to make and /min to receive calls here.  You can send a text for 40p a message and a picture message for 20p. To speak to T-Mobile Customer Services call +44XXXXXXXXXX from your mobile.

Now this was a nice message to get however it failed to provide a clue as to the cost of calls on this network.  However, on my HTC TyTn which has a T-Mobile 3G data only sim inserted I received the following message:

You have latched onto a maritime network.  Please note making and receiving calls are charged at £1.80/min from this network.

Slightly more dramatic costs for calling, I mean come on £1.80 per minute to make or receive a call you might as well just butter me up and stick it to me!!!  Once in france another SMS was received confirming that call costs that I had already been notified of prior to leaving.  Once we were at the site it transpired that Wi-Fi usage is charged at 8€ per hour which I just wasn’t prepared to pay, I mean it just doesn’t cost that much to buy it so I ended up spending the week with no Internet access whatsoever which was really quite surreal but oddly pleasant.  Some would call me a tight git but I refuse to pay unreasonable rates for services such as this, what do you think?