Wednesday, May 26, 2010

There Is No Meat In This Hamburger

I'm far from in the flow, especially work-wise. I mean I'm not at all in the state where I'm fully immersed and focused on my tasks and projects.

We are facing another reorganisation. It's the forth affecting me directly in 4½ years (if I counted correctly). Each had as the side-effect that it got more difficult for me to perform my tasks - that is, the organisation got more complex, I had more interfaces to deal with and landed between more millstones. Yes, if you can do it more complex, my caring employer does it.

Rumours had been floating around for a while. Finally last week I've been informed officially that there is another round due in a month. Our team will be dispersed to four different departments. We are still supposed to work together in the project but four more line managers will have the chance to play silly games with us. In our organisation, line managers are far more powerful than project managers. In addition, the processes will be more complex, more people will be involved, which increases costs and decreases productivity. A certain portion of my salary is profit and performance based, thus this reorganisation will have direct negative consequences on my salary.

In this mess, I'm offered a position with an impressive and flashy title, however, I do not see that this position comes with the competences needed to do the job, or in other words, there is no meat in this hamburger.

There are nice projects on the horizon, but right now it's just digging at the coal face. Is it time for a transition?

Monday, May 24, 2010

Pentecost Gave Sun a Chance

The last about four weeks have been a complete disaster. It was far too cold and far too wet. But finally for Pentecost, the weather changed its mind and gave sun a chance.



We used this opportunity to complete the plant scheme for this summer. Only the chilli plants are missing. They will follow next week. Then we are ready.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Saturday Flowers



A Medinilla from the Philippines

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Saturday Flowers



I already took a picture of a wet flower in the morning while getting some croissants for breakfast, but then suddenly, after 8 long days of rain, the sun came out :)

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

5 on the fifth - A Journey

This month's 5 on the fifth theme is a journey. For once I did not cycle to work but decided to make a bit of a journey out of it by walking. Though, I did not overstretch myself, it's only 2 km. Here is what I saw:



Everlasting roadworks and of course it's the pedestrians who are diverted.



This dog poo disposal box is called Robidog. We Swiss are very proud of things like this.



A typical traffic sign contradiction. when the red light at the gate is blinking, one is supposed to wait, however this is prohibited by the "no waiting" sign. Which one outranks the other?



A towery errection in the Ash Tree park. I only made once on the top of it.



A cubic structure in the same park. I have no clue whatsoever what it's for.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Wtf?

It might be just utter carelessness, however this week the brass of my caring employer's engineering department went one step too far. An engineer showed up in my office and demanded to be told about the project I'm working on since the beginning of this year and I'm supposed to work on for about the next 5 years. I'm the engineering project manager and also responsible for the systems engineering. It turned out that bloke was told that he has the same role and he should inform himself. Screw-ups like that don't just happen, do they?

Toño called it an early night and left me sufficient wine to get into a good mood. So here is a picture from 1993 when I was in a seriously good mood:



I dare to cite an older post of mine:

# On Kamchatka, I was told that the flight back was postponed by a week due to lack of fuel.

# I then bought some smoked salmon and drunk a bottle of vodka, which the salesman offered because he never had a Swiss customer before. There is photographic evidence that I then tried to teach my dead and already smoked fish to smoke a cigarette (not that I remember this).

# Thanks to bribery, we got a flight three days later.

# The first money given was rejected because the dollar bills were not clean and new enough.

# At the bottom of the stairs to the plane we had a fistfight, because we bribed more than others and were given access first. The ones who bribed less did not liked this. There were no boarding cards.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Saturday Flowers

Workers' Day Music

It is a rainy day, I'm doing the most boring stuff (editing photo libraries) and always when I'm doing boring stuff, my mind starts to wander. Today, my mental stroll took me to the time when I was 18, when I went so see a concert by Propaganda, only because the warm-up was Mittageisen with their amazing track Automaten:



Evening - unrest in the streets - today there was much to do
Work - only for machines

In the noise of the streets - the silent majority is waiting at the terminus
Work - only for machines

Oblivion - balanced on TV - ignorance is spreading
Work - only for machines

New ideas used without thought - history is still being made
Work - only for machines

Life - in challenging times - orders is dissolving
Work - only for machines

Torn phrases by new masters - strange voices in my ear
Work - only for machines

New sounds - a smile from opposite illuminates the darkness
Work - only for machines

Kisses in the rain - no time to wait - we are going our path
Work - only for machines