After a decent four day break – a couple of days added onto the weekend because cousin Iain was visiting – today was a fairly hard day back at work.
It wasn’t that the brief holiday was exceptionally peaceful, nor that the day was exceptionally heavy in the workload department. It was just one of those days where you realise early on that staying in bed would have been a far better option.
I’ve been building this intranet for the company pretty much since I joined. The first phase is done and dusted – used by 50 or so people, works well and does its job. The company already has a corporate intranet – which is not specific to the building or location or audience in the same way that the one I’m building is.
So, to avoid treading on any toes, I’m meant to learn where the boundaries of both of those sites lie… there should be no overlap. However, right in the middle of a day that wasn’t going particularly easily in the first place, a very short version of this meeting is sprung on me – I’m told to give the visitors a run down on what the intranet I’ve built does. So I do that – I don’t show too much detail in the short time, but I do show them the “features”.
Later I’m told, and this is only a slightly shorter version, that those “features” will probably end up in the corporate intranet – there will be no need for my intranet and there will be no need for me to be employed. That, as they say, was the icing on the cake for me.
I really hate corporate politics. Really. Lots. At a previous company I was played as a pawn for a year and a half in someone else’s game and it really sucked. Having this freaking imaginary sword hanging over my head which could result in the end for me through no fault of my own ended up in crazy amounts of stress.
What bites is that I love my job – I really do. I take work home with me to play with when there’s really no need, I surf the developer sites for the latest techniques and software scoops. And I genuinely look forward to coming in to work each day – I’ve had two days off sick and only five days holiday since xmas – mostly because I haven’t felt like taking any because I just dig doing what I do.
Recently I’ve been getting to do some Very Cool Stuff ™ – and I’ve been very motivated due to that. But there’s nothing to suck all of that motivation away and leave you feeling spent than the thought that it might all be in vain no matter how hard you try.
The recent seal of approval by the big kahuna seems like a distant memory.
