Wednesday - Long afternoon

Still writing that household accounts software.  I’m glad I’m not getting paid for this, as every hour or so, I change my mind, and try another way of doing things.  That’s the beauty of writing for yourself though, and that’s how most programming constructs are learnt.  I've found it’s no good if you just read about a construct, you have to use it the real world for its function to really sink in.  There’s nothing like working in a real production environment though, I really do miss that.   It’s great to be able to bounce ideas of people who are at least on the same thought plane as yourself is also a fantastic way of learning things.

Incidentally, I notice that the school is still offering the Legion as one of its activities.  I wonder who’s running that?

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning, on a beautiful early autumn day and I’m just about to start my day's work. I'm writing a home accounts software package mainly for the practice, but also because we need one. Have you ever wondered were your money went at the end of the month? I do, and as I don't like questions, I’m writing this.  It’s looking pretty good so far, and I’ve come up with some good ideas.  Talking about software packages, I’m still smarting a little bit about not being given the job of writing the management package for the school.  This is a thread that you’ll hear more of, so I won’t belabour the point here, just a small warning that I did give to the IT people before they went the proprietary software way.  Any software that is not part of MS and gets too popular either gets taken over by MS (the good way), or gets sidelined by MS (the bad way). If you want to know how the bad way works, remember Netscape?

The strange case of the disappearing job.

Well, here we are back in Auckland, one day into a normal working week.  Winter’s coming on here, and the nights are drawing in and the clock goes back next week.  I’m still sitting in shorts though, and the window is wide open, and the weather forecast says it’s going to be 21°C tomorrow.  Oh well, it’s a hard life. 

Now for my next rant.  Looking back over our time in the school, it’s hard to take on board how many promises were made to us, and then broken. For example, we were enticed to the school with the offer of the houseparent’s job, with a new flat on the premises which was to be totally renovated and decorated for us.  We were even shown swatches of material and colour charts, which seemed to us that the school was actually serious about us having the job.  The first cracks appeared though, about month or so before we were due to take up the post, when we were told that ‘the renovation was a little more complicated than first thought, and would take a little longer’, and we were offered a temporary cottage about half a mile from the school.  What we didn’t realize until we moved in was that one of the other teachers from the school had been turfed out with 24 hours notice.  Poor chap, we didn’t find out until later.  What we did find out though was that the house parents job had evaporated, as a northern queen bee at the school had decided that her and her husband needed the status, spat her dummy out, and threw tantrums, so that the management at the school crumbled, and we finished up living in the ‘temporary’ accommodation for three years, until we got fed up and voted with our feet.  I wonder if we do have a case for constructive dismissal.  Watch this space.

First Rant

I’m going to try and write something to this blog every day, that is, every day I’m connected to the net.  Unfortunately, we go to our lake house every weekend, and that’s not even got a ‘phone, let alone the internet. (Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, It’s great)  Anyway, here’s my first rant.  I’m never going to mention the name of the school where we last worked, and if asked, I will deny everything, so don’t ask, just try to work it out.  I noticed from a brief visit to the website that the last (and first) blog the headmaster did was back in November 2010, and in pdf format as well.  Come on headmaster, at least do it fairly regularly, and in a proper format, not in that stuffy formal way.  But if that’s your management style, well Rock On…

First blog from New Zealand

We've been back in NZ for nearly 3 months now, and we're settled in nicely, thank you.  There are times when I do miss home, especially now that Spring must be there, that was always my favourite time of the year, and I do hope I get to see it again.  There are a few things that I'm glad to see the back of, and they are going to be the subject of this blog, especially since I can't get threatened with the sack any more for saying them, as I've left already.  I'm sure those of you who know me know  I'm talking about, and I'm not going to pull any punches any more.