Year: 2009
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Owen Anderson is a Crook – Official!
One of the things about being an ‘independent’ contractor/consultant is that everyone assumes that you have loads of money. Sure, you may get a bit more in your pay packet than Johnny Punchclock, but there are a lot more factors to take into consideration – things that a salaried employee’s company shells out for. One of these things in moving expenses. I’ve been fortunate in that my work has taken me to a number of different places: from England to Belgium, from there to Singapore, then to the U.S., then back to Belgium, and finally (so far) back to the… Read more
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Card Sharp
Earlier this year I managed to commit all sorts of social and business faux pas by going over to Japan without a stack of business cards. Over there, everyone you meet – from business people to the concierge at the hotel – hands you their business card and expects the same in return. I was blithely unaware of this and subsequently appeared even ruder and more antisocial than usual through my perceived unwillingness to be contacted. I’m due back in Japan in December, and this time I’m determined to be prepared. I do actually have several business cards (one for… Read more
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My Life In The Underclass
After 18 months of development, my current project is finally being implemented at the first of ten scheduled sites. This being a Warehouse Management project, the site is – obviously – a warehouse. Which means that most of our users are forklift drivers, plus a handful of ‘office-based’ supervisors, and a few gatekeepers. My training team (three including myself) has been here conducting training for the past month, and this week the developers arrived in force, deposing us from our training room, and generally riding roughshod over everything we’ve had organized since we got here. Despite having managed to navigate our way around the… Read more
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The Decemberists, Riviera Theater, Chicago
Given that I had to back out of the last two gigs in Houston that I had tickets for (Gomez, and Green Day) because I was sent to Chicago on gig-day, I was super-bummed to learn that my current loves, The Decemberists, were playing Houston when I was, yet again, in Chicago. But as I was scheduled to be up here for five weeks, I decided I may as well see if there was anyone interesting playing in Chi-Town (correctly pronounced shit-town, Colin Meloy was pleased to inform us) whilst I was here. And joy of joys, I discovered that The Decemberists’ tour… Read more