Overload

I had barely recovered from my leaving do from Sony when I was sitting on the train on the way to Glasgow on Monday morning. Actually, I hadn’t recovered enough, as the low, bright sunshine brought on a migraine and I had to nip to the chemist for headache pills before making my way to work.

It was starting to clear by the time I was in front of my desk at Vamosa, but unfortunately it lingered for the whole day. As first days go it was par for the course, really – reading documentation, getting familiar with the new surroundings, that kind of thing.

What was weird was being in an office so small and quiet compared to the environment I’ve been in for the past few years. By mid afternoon I was going a bit crazy from the silence and put my earphones in to listen to some music whilst I read, just to keep me alert.

By the end of Monday my brain was really fried; I really must have been coasting in the comfort zone for the last couple of years, because I haven’t felt so dumb in a long time, struggling through the technical docs. When home time came I even managed to make a long day longer by getting the train times confused, so I didn’t get back until well after seven.

Last night I slept a little better, but hardly perfectly, and was sad at having to say goodbye to Fliss and Elisha before I left for the train this morning. I spent the journey sitting listening to music with my eyes closed to ease the tiredness and was glad to arrive at work feeling a little more awake than the day before.

However, I’d barely put my bag down when I was being told to make a remote-desktop connection to a server and load it with five discs worth of data in preparation for the afternoon. Unsurprisingly, I cocked it up at first and had to start again after a half hour or so, and it took me until 1pm to get everything copied into place and resembling what was on the cd’s.

After a flying lunch hour, where I managed to buy myself a new coat and grab some food from M&S, I had a crash course in using the applications courtesy of a really nice guy called Andy. It was tough going, though – there were so many things to remember, so many gotcha’s that I’m sure I failed to note down because my head was swirling with information.

Towards the end of the day it was sort of coming together, though, and we’d managed to do some worthwhile cycles of the data. That and talk about gadgets during the hands-off bits – it’s always nice to meet someone with the same fascination with shiny consumer electronics, and that helped diffuse the intensity of concentrating on absorbing so much input. 🙂

By home time I was glad to have another day under my belt – mentally I was done for – and I successfully made the right train this time.

With Fliss and Elisha safely making the trip back home today, I’m flying solo for the time being. I’m sad to be apart from my girls, but I think right now I really need to focus on the task at hand and that’s learning the ropes of my new job.

With a bit of luck I’ll get down to see them in a couple of weeks, and hopefully it wont be long before we’ve sold the house can think about getting settled north of the border once more. 🙂