Tuesday

So...  After telling everyone on Monday - and being a complete emotional wreck in the process - I was kind of dreading Tuesday.

In the end there was no need for any of the panic.  I had my outfit chosen, actually I picked my outfit some weeks ago.  The only change was the shoes (trust me this becomes important) as Mrs Stace suggested a pair different to my initial choice.

The change in life started from the moment the alarm went off.  Normally Mrs Stace showers first whilst I make the breakfasts then I shower whilst she is getting ready.

Hmm...  With my hair and make-up I now take a little longer than before, and so we we have swapped.  I jump in the shower whilst Mrs Stace gets breakfast. I managed to get ready in time to get Mrs Stace to the train station in time for her train, not bad I think - alarm going off to sitting in the car was less than 40 minutes.  Considering it used to take me an hour just to get ready I think I've got it down quite well.  I certainly couldn't have coped with having to get up even earlier in order to be out of the door in time!  5:40 is quite early enough!

The drive to work was actually very uneventful, and without any stress.  I got to the office changed shoes (I can't drive in heels so I always drive in my deck shoes) and...  Stepped out of the car.  I shocked myself there, I had expected to need some time to get out of the car before I started but in the end I just did it.

I always get to the office really early, in fact their are generally only one or two others there at the time.  So I thought that the best thing to do was get the first introductions out of the way before more people started to turn up. I got some nice responses, again like when I told them the day before they were all supportive, and thankfully treated me completely normally!

With those out of the way I tried to do my normal routine.  Going for the first coffee of the morning with our DBA, which we normally take in the entrance to the building.  This actually had a very good effect - drinking coffee and chatting about both work and my feelings whilst people arrived made things much more normal than they could otherwise have been.

I'll be honest the rest of the day is somewhat of a blur.  I got lots of great comments from the people I work with, both on how I was handling the situation, and how I looked.  Normal was a word used regularly - and I can't think of a word that I would rather hear when someone was describing me!

Throughout the whole of the day I managed relatively stress free; I think that after telling people on the Monday them seeing me just didn't seem as scary. The only exception being just before lunch; it was the one part of the day that I was worried about, after all it's one thing see individuals on their own and quite another to walk into a room full of people!  It passed without a hitch, though for the rest of the week I did not go on my own.  Hopefully I'll get over that soon enough - I am certain that it's all in my head!

Something else started on Tuesday in the office.  We had three Christmas trees delivered (well 4 - one of them was for the canteen decorated in the company colours) although for once there were no decorations on them.  We found out why when someone from marketing came around with post cards.  All of them with a different complement on the front, and then space on the back to write a message.  You can then put your cards in the tree.  Someone dropped a card off on my desk almost immediately, and apparently there are loads of cards to me in the trees; though I am being blind - I checked three times after 7 or 8 people told me that if I was still worried about reactions I had to check the trees and I can still only find a couple of cards...

The whole day passed without incident, lots of compliments, lots of people trying really hard to get my name and pronouns right (more on that in another post); but most of all it passed with people treating me just as they did.  Everything felt so normal, and so right - but it is something that would not have happened without the support of all the people I work with day in, day out.  It felt normal because everyone made it normal.

Remember I said the shoes were important?  Well, I had planned on wearing my boots.  They have a small heel, fit like gloves and are really, really comfortable!  Only, Mrs Stace said that the black didn't really go with beige and brown of the rest of the outfit and suggested my shoes instead.  So I had beige court shoes with 8cm heels on (I'm sure there is a picture of them on the site somewhere).  Which brought some comments, people wondering how long it had taken me to learn to walk in heels (I've been doing it since I was a teenager so no problem), and people commenting that they were lovely shoes, but was I insane to pick those for my first full day.

I just said that Mrs Stace obviously hates me because at 10 in the morning my feet hurt like hell!  Sitting in them was fine.  Walking in them was fine.  Being stopped in the corridor and chatting to people caused me a lot of pain!  So did playing fussball before we went to lunch! Our HR woman told me not to remove them until I was ready to take them off for the day (we had arranged a chat to see how the day was going), otherwise I would not be able to get them back on.  Good advice, but the next time I expect to be on my feet for most of the say I'll pick some different shoes I think :)

Monday

Well actually that should read Sunday...  It's the day when the stress of the week really kicked off, and I became a bit of a wreck.  Well, a lot of a wreck actually.

For some stupid reason I managed to notice the clock at some point in the afternoon and the thought 'in 15 hours I'll be telling my team' came to mind.  Stupid!  If anything is sure to make me panic and stress it's counting down hours until something happens...  I called my parents and had a long chat with my mum - who again offered to fly here to be with me during the week and managed to get me somewhat calmed down - and ordered me to have a cognac (a Christmas pressent from my parents last year) to help.

Sunday night I pretty much did not sleep.  I went to bed and took a valerian tablet to help me relax and it worked; for a few hours.  Then I was awake, panicing and stressing in bed from 2:30 until 5:40 when the alarm went off.  I managed to do some breathing exercises to make sure I got some rest even if sleep did alude me.

I got to work on Monday morning then the stress hit me completely, I honestly can't tell you what I did for the first two hours (except check my watch every couple of minutes to see if it was time for the team meeting).  We all made our way to the meeting room and rather than try to talk around the issue and lead up to it I just said what was going to happen the next morning.  It seemed the easiest way.  Cue lots of shock, and one guy in the team looking like a bowling ball for a couple of minutes.  Then a few questions, a bit of explanation and a some talk.  All of it positive, no negative reactions at all.  Phew :)

When we ran out of questions I told my team that the other department meeting that was planned later in the morning was to tell everyone else, and at the same time the other business unit managers would be telling their people too; and asked them not to discuss it in front of others until that time.  Saying that caused the stress that was receding to start building again and our web master came out with a fantastic phrase for me...

'If anyone gives you any grief about this, just tell them that your team is completely behind you'

I don't think I could have asked for a better reaction than that from him!

30 mins of stressing again and we were in the biggest meeting room, with the whole department - about 30 people I think.  My boss was giving the news, with me there to answer any questions that I felt I could answer but with the instruction that if I got to stressed I was just to leave.  He brought the news over to the team 'X is in a process of transition and as of tomorrow we will have a female team lead in IT, Stacy.'  Cue lots of quizzical faces and our one female developers asking the question that I have since found out was in the minds of a few others. 'But what will X be doing as of tomorrow then?'  I couldn't help but smile here, and answered that I was going to be Stacy.  My boss said some other things (which I can't remember) and asked if there were any questions.  None came back and so we went back to work.  Well we didn't...  I got back to my room to find it filled with people and we spent the next 30 minutes chatting about it.  Again the reactions I had were great.  There were the people who were shocked, and the people who said something along the lines of 'I always knew that you were somewhat feminine, but never really thought anything of it.'

The rest of the day I tried to keep working (failed miserably) and tried to make some calls to ex-colleagues so that they found out from me and not from other people.  There were 4 people that I really wanted to tell in person (well 5, but one is visiting family back in India so I knew he couldn't be there) and so I tried to arrange to see them.  I think I managed to scare a few people that day.  'Hi it's X.  I have some news for you, but it's not something I really want to tell you over the phone.  Can you meet me in a cafe at 4:30?'  Now...  I made these calls between 12:30 and 2:30 PM, not giving people much time to be able to get there, and I was expecting a rather 'hmm, that could be really difficult' response.  The first person I called couldn't make it - he was in bed sniffling - so I had to tell him over the phone.

Wow...  Really!  You're not joking?! (I've become accustomed to the last one in recent days) was the response.  This is a person that I was dreading telling, there is a story somewhere on this blog about why - he has come out with a very scary story in the past - but he was fine.  'You are still going to BBQ next year aren't you?' was one of his responses.  We had a bit of a chat, which was cut short as my boss then called my phone to find out where I was as I was late for the team lead meeting (oops).

The others just commented that it was very mysterious and that they would be there.  Including a guy on the other side of the country in a business meeting (which he said he couldn't concentrate on after the call as he thought something very serious was wrong).

At 4:30 I got the cafe where two of the group where already there, we chatted for a while as we had to wait for the last to turn up (he brought his wife with him as we know each other as well) and when everyone had their drinks and we were all sitting down they demanded to know what was wrong.  I told them.  Three times.  Again: No?!  Really?!  You're joking aren't you?  When they understood that it was not a joke and the shock had worn off a little we chatted for an hour.  It turns out that they all had the same couple of thoughts.  I'd quit and wanted a job (they all have their own companies since leaving the company I work for).  I'd quit to start my own company and wanted some freelance work.  I'd started my own company and had an amazing idea for a startup but needed some collaboration to get it off the ground (I wish...).  I was seriously ill and not long for this world (thankfully not!  That is thankfully not serious ill, not thankfully not long for this world).

The wife of my friend said that we needed a getting to know Stacy party in the new year.  I like the idea, after all I don't see these people day in, day out and I would be good for them to meet the real me sooner rather than later.  I am just not sure if I am going to be hosting a winter BBQ (I like the idea I must admit) or just to go for drinks one evening after work.

The responses from all were amazing, and I was really impressed that I have friends who will drop everything and drive across the country if something is important.  We are not the closest of friends (we see each other 4 or 5 times a year at most) but obviously we are very good friends - that was a little overwhelming when I stopped to think about it.

We had to leave before one of our party had his car clamped - he had not put enough money in the machine to park very long :)  And I still had a couple of people that I needed to tell - unfortunately I knew that I was not going to be able to tell them in person so I had to call.

One was another ex-colleague from where I work now, and I always watch at least one match of the 6 nations with her.  I called her, told her and guessed correctly from her voice that she already knew (I kind of figured that she would do as she is close friends with a few people in my department still).  She was very supportive, and came out almost immediately with 'You're are still coming to the 6 nations aren't you?  You're not going to make me go on my own?'  Again we chatted for a while about this and other things before I had to go.  I was home by now and needed to cook, then there was one last call of the day.

This time to a colleague who I worked with a while ago.  Again he took it fantastically, and made sure I was still throwing my yearly BBQ in the summer.  I don't think I could have asked for better responses so far.

After that it's a bit of a blur and exhaustion was really setting in.  My parents called to check how I was doing, I watched Only Connect (wonderful program - makes you feel really stupid ;p) and went to bed.  And slept!

Sorry for the long post, but I guess there was a lot to tell!

A very quick update...

Well, I'm absolutely exhausted!  The stress is finally draining and I am starting to relax but now the problem seems to be that recovery is now trying to take it's place.  Roll on the weekend!  And please let me have a lie in!

I have now been full time at work for three days after the company finding out on Monday morning.  I have had lots of support, lots of questions and everyone I work with is really doing their best to get the name and pronouns right.

There are, of course, far more details - but I think I will see if I have the energy at the weekend to write that up in a few posts, at the moment I just don't think I could manage something that is not a ramble!

But a very overwhelming (in the best possible way) week so far...  Now to try and chill for the rest of the evening!

I feel so guilty!

I had an external meeting this morning at one of our suppliers; we are looking into changing our database server and wanted to know what the possibilities are.  As it's a difficult thing to get across via email between 4 people I thought it would be a better idea to get everyone around the same table and get some ideas flowing.

I arrived a few minutes before the DBA, buzzed the reception and let them know who I was there to visit and was let into the car park.  Seeing as I had a few minutes before he would arrive I spent my time checking mails and blogs (Smart phones are wonderful, I hate being without mine now - though Mrs Stace does not always see it that way when I am constantly checking it in the evenings...)

Anyway back to the story, the DBA arrived and we had a quick chat about what we wanted from the meeting and went inside. At the reception and let them know we were there, got our visitor badges and waited for out service manager to come down and take us to the meeting room.

When he arrived he was started a conversation with the receptionist about another visitor - I only caught half the conversation but it seems that someone was missing.  I assumed that this would be their logistic and architecture guru who was going to tell us what our options were; after all they are spread across multiple locations and it is not unlikely that they would have to travel across Amsterdam to get to the meeting.

He collected the DBA and myself and led us through the meeting room where he explained that we may be joined by a mystery guest!  Apparently a woman had buzzed to be let into the car park 5 or 10 minutes before we walked into reception but the only people to walk into the building were my colleague and myself.  It was a mystery as he was not expecting any other external visitors that day.

I worked out the time in my head and almost cracked up.  It was me.  I had buzzed reception and then waited for my colleague to arrive - which was 5 or 10 minutes.  Then we walked into the building together and she must have assumed that we arrived together.  Whilst waiting in the car park there was no one else who arrived.

Why the guilt?  There were three other people in the room who didn't know this and I could not explain it to them either - I'm not that out yet!  When we left they were still trying to work out who it could have been.  I did tell the DBA when we left, after all he knows Stacy, and he cracked up - he assumed I had accidentally said Stacy when arriving - to be honest I didn't say anything, just that I had a meeting with the service manager.

But the fact that it happened really made for a wonderful morning.  There is nothing like a little validation when you are not looking for it that can perk you up!

A day later, a slightly different world

(Apologies to Jenny - this is basically an expanded version of the mail I sent to you yesterday...)

As I posted yesterday I met with my boss, my ex-boss and the woman from HR.  It was something that scared me immensely - almost as much as telling family in fact.  I guess that having an income and a job I really enjoy is also really important...

I spent most of the day wanting to be sick and struggling to concentrate on my work (and either the cold is making a comeback or the stress has started to really get into my throat).  The throat is still there, and I am shattered - whether it is as a result of the stress or an actual cold I am not sure...

I got changed after work, something that took more time than normal - as it was hot and I was stressed things did not go quite as they should.  But after spending too long, and using too much hair spray, my hair was something approaching what it should be.  I know I sound really vain, but having good hair and make-up gives such a massive boost to my confidence still. I wonder when I won't need it as much and I can be up and out in a similar time to Mrs Stace in the mornings (she takes less time than me as him, let alone Stacy and still looks amazing!)

Then when I left I found out that there was a vehicle fire on the motorway and I needed to take a back road detour - what can I say thank god for a friend who pointed me in the right direction to start with and the SatNav which took me the rest of the way.

I got there, went inside and got the table that I had reserved and sat to wait - I have to say it was so great to walk into a place and say 'Hi, I have a table reserved for four people, in the name of Stacy'; and to get no strange looks at the same time it was a bit of icing on the cake.  It wasn't long before my ex boss turned up, he is on vacation today (he leaves for Italy tomorrow) but wanted to come to the meeting as well, after all he has been involved in this now for nearly 18 months.

He commented that it was a little strange in that we have known each other for more than 5 years and it was still me, but it was also meeting me for the first time.  We got chatting about various things when the HR woman turned up.  "You look so different than the image I have in my head, and I mean that in the best possible way!"  I'll take that as a compliment.  I know that she was concerned about meeting me, I had kind of assumed that was going to be part of the problem - the other being that there was no agenda or real aim for the meeting besides introducing Stacy to them.  She did say that she knew I had told her that I was not a drag queen, but a more out there image was still making its way into her head.  I won't blame her for that.

My current boss was late, something last minute happened in the office so he was a few mins late leaving.  He got there, and basically said the same as the HR woman.

We discussed plans for the new year (the point that I expect to transition) and where we expected the problems to come from.  We are an open company, and I think that it will not be a problem per say, but you never know.

As my boss said, the company is responsible for my well-being in the office and obviously they will make sure that I do not suffer any crap from anyone (not his wording, but close enough).  His concern is from people within my team - where the same rule applies obviously - should someone not take kindly to it and refuse to be led by me.  They will be told in no uncertain terms should that happen - but it's not good for my standing as team lead for someone to have to step in.  Hopefully it will not come to that.

At this point I got a wonderful compliment from the HR woman.  In the week between the company being told and me returning to work there are likely to be many discussions (obviously) but seeing as how I look she doesn’t expect any the moment I return to work.  That was very nice to hear, from both view points.

We discussed how to let the full management team know, and how we should tackle it.  Whether to tell them a day before it goes public - or whether to tell them before hand.  Or tell them with the rest of the company.  I think that I am going to take this up with my therapist as I really am not sure.  I do not expect any issues from them though.

The HR woman also asked who did my hair and make up now.  I said that I did everything myself (except cutting it obviously) - 'Wow, oh well done - you do a great job!'  I think I may have been smiling at that point.

After that it was more a discussion about this that and the other.  All in all a nice couple of hours spent in what would be the equivalent of an beer garden in England overlooking the Dutch countryside.

On the way home I was stuck in the traffic jam caused by the lorry fire earlier in the day - it had completely burnt out and damaged the asphalt, so they had to close down most of the motorway and it caused a 8km 1 hour traffic jam.  Whilst I was stuck I called my parents and had a quick chat.  My mum was happy with how everything went and asked me an interesting question.  Given what everyone who has met Stacy has said, at what point am I going to believe it and stop stressing before going out???

At last, the others in the office know how to speak to me!

I got this from someone at the office.  I thought it was great, and mostly accurate too :)

Busy, busy, busy...

Life has been unbelievably busy and stressful in the last few weeks!  Ergo, no almost no posts and not that many comments being left.  Sorry…

So what’s been happening in this neck of the woods?  Well, to start with I have been learning a little about myself. I needed to write my life CV for the VU – something that I am sure enough of you out there have also had to do.

I actually thought that it was going to be fairly easy – after all I had to write it 12 months ago for my therapist, I assumed that all I would have to do was add a bit about all (admittedly a lot) that happened in the last 12 months and email it to the team.  As I say, easy.

Only it wasn’t.  Oh, adding the new section was not that much of a problem – it’s a little in list form rather than a description, but it’s easy enough to do.  No, the problem was that a different person wrote the document last year.  Whilst the text is correct and accurate it I can’t imagine writing like that again.  So I spent a long time editing, rewriting and checking the existing text to get it somewhat more akin to what I would write today.  I failed miserably – the only way I could have achieved what I wanted to do was ‘ctrl-a’, ‘delete’ and start again.  Thinking about the amount of time that I spent on the document maybe that is what I should have done…

I sent it earlier this week, but before doing so I checked the document properties.  Ouch, 24 hours total editing time for 18 pages.  Told you I have been busy!

There have also been big changes in my work over the last week or so.  I couldn’t write about them – and as they were causing a lot of what I would have written about I basically didn’t…  But they are now out in the open.  Two things have happened – a change in management structure, and a change in development teams.

The first means that my two bosses who I have told are no longer my bosses.  I have two new ones.  This is going to be a little of the unknown, I have yet to work with my new boss closely – and he is going to be managing both the developers and the innovation teams.  Ideally we should work as one team, but there has always been an atmosphere of ‘us and them’.  I think that having one manager, and one department, will certainly help that – providing it is handled correctly and not handled as an innovation team with a little IT tacked onto the side.

The team changes are due to a promotion of my tech lead developer to team lead of our second development team (how confusing could I make that sentence ;p).  The fact that he accepted that position surprised me, I was not expecting him to want to take a team lead position as he is a real techy, but I do think that he will be great in the job.  Unfortunately it does decimate my team as I lose the person with the most experience.  In order to maintain a pair of balanced team we have been discussing how we are going to reform them.  We have a plan which is going to be discussed with my new boss today.  Fingers crossed that he agrees.

And it has been a time of, as Jenny puts it, ‘long talks’.  My management structure knew what I was going through.  I did that deliberately, as I don’t think that it is a bad idea for them to know.  However, now that they are no longer my managers I have lost that.  I have spoken to my new boss already, and the new team lead, and have an appointment with my bosses boss (which with a flatter structure also happens to be the director of the company) this afternoon.  Update since I first wrote this post...  My other boss has now been told and took it far better than I was expecting...  So I can start to relax again...

My boss, and the other team lead took it extremely well.  The only fly in the ointment was my boss asking why I was so worried, and why would I think that he would not understand.  He wants a chat to ensure that he is not coming across as a macho man that people can’t talk to.  The other team lead was actually quite funny.  We talked, he wasn’t entirely surprised, and came out with the most intriguing sentence I have heard when having these talks. ‘It’s not the strangest thing I have heard in my life’.  I want to know what is! :)

And…  On Tuesday I had dinner with a  friend and his wife so that they could meet Stacy.  But that will get a post if its own :)

Plus...  I have just noticed that this is my 200th post...  I had not really expected to be able to keep up the writing for this long when I started.  Apologies for the rubbish I have inflicted on the world in that time :)

Why I am quiet at the moment...

What a week…

I wish I could say that things are going well at the moment, but I would be totally lying if I did…

For once though it has nothing to do with GD or anything in my private life; that part is going fine at the moment. There is still a large degree of uncertainty at the moment, but that is not causing any problems in day to day life.

No, this week it all came at work. More than that it all came from one department: ICT. I’ve talked about this department before, and no doubt will again, but things just got to me really badly this week – leaving me tired, depressed, unable to do my job, and with a very, very painful hand.

It seems that they have decided to work to rule, causing all sorts of problems for the whole company. We are currently trying to improve our deploy process for the web site, and ancillary applications. At the same time we are looking at upgrading our servers from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 R2 and our SQL servers from 2005 to 2008 R2. We have a new UAT server (which is also used as a staging environment for user configurable data), this replaces an existing machine, and when we asked for it we simply stated ‘same connectivity as the existing machine’. The machine was delivered (several weeks too late – I always thought that having a virtual server environment was supposed to increase flexibility, but in our ICT department it seems to take more time to get a virtual server than it takes to get a physical server that has to be ordered from an external source). We installed SQL server and set all of the databases up.

On Wednesday we commissioned the server and users started to use it. Well, at least that was the plan… All of the database admins could use it, but no one else. The error message that was coming back simply stated that the server did not exist. But only for non-admins… I went up to speak to the ICT department only to be told ‘Yes, that’s right. You just said the same connectivity – we won’t work with that we want to know what IP addresses to what IP addresses. We didn’t know that you wanted people to be able to use the machine’

WTF! Yes, we want to spend weeks setting a new server up so that no one can use it. Does the name ‘USER acceptant test’ in the name of the server not give the game away? I kept reasonably calm whilst explaining that with the machine not being available we had a production issue and then left. Walked outside where our DBA and web master were having a smoking break and lost it. In itself it’s a small thing, but this happens a couple of times a week at the moment and has been carrying on for months. I’m sick to bloody death of the crap they pile on the rest of the company. I also lost it and punched the wall… Take my advice, don’t do that even if you are ready to explode. It still hurts now (though the swelling has gone down). It was a choice of doing that or breaking down in tears, which I didn’t want to do…

That was incident one. The second was on Thursday – I had a day at a VDI workshop (the ICT department want to virtualise all of the desktops – because they have done such a good job of doing that to the servers…). The workshop was good. There were some very knowledgeable people from the consulting company there and gave some good insight into what is possible, and where the technology currently is.

After a day of meetings and discussions it became obvious that it will not work for the developers (actually I don’t think that it will work for the rest of the company either – if you actually want to provide them with a reasonable working environment, something that ICT doesn’t actually care about; their exact phrase ‘regular users will not notice if we give them a broken desktop, they should just be happy they get something’ kind of says it all about their attitude) and that either it will cost a lot of money or it will not provide the functionality we need. The response from ICT ‘Well, the developers will just have to change their requirements then’. Then they asked if I thought this would solve the issues that we have working from home. Let’s see… Working from home is a nightmare as we have to be permanently connected to an RDP connection (meaning no one else in the house can access the internet due to the bandwidth that is required for remoting to your office machine) to do something as simple as read email. In the new situation it will be exactly the same. How is this going to help us exactly?

Even just typing this is sending my stress levels skyrocketing…

Friday I was screwed, I sat at my desk and stared at an empty screen for the day – I went for a walk with my boss and explained the situation, along with my inability to work due to the stress, and the fact that I just didn’t want to go into the office on Friday. We’ll see what comes of it.

Sorry for the rant… But I am so stressed at the moment that I have to try and work it out somehow…

There is much good going on at the moment, and I can’t bloody enjoy any of it due to the crap that this department throws around. In my whole career (now spanning 15 years) I have never had to work with such a group of incompetent, useless people (I refuse to use the word professionals) or such a poorly designed infrastructure (and I use that term very loosely) – it works well for them, just a shame about the other 97.5% of the company.

When does it stop...

After having a few weeks where I thought I was catching up with things, both at home and at work I now feel back to square one.

I am just not sure why I have so much on at the moment, or where the current interruptions are coming from, but they are coming fast and furious and just keep piling up and up.  On top of this it leads me to finishing the day exhausted, but having no idea where my time has been spent - which makes me worry that people think I am not pulling my weight as even I can't say where the time has gone.

I think I am going to have to make a list and see what I have to do, what can be done in the office, what can be done outside and when I think I can spend time at home to work without interruptions and try and cut the list a little.

The there is the outside stress.  A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to the VU to find out when my next appointment was.  I heard nothing back and so on Monday I called, they said they needed to find my files (it is about a year since I last went) and they would call me back.  Today I gave them another call, they had the file and are organizing their psychiatrists at the moment.  I'll get another call in the morning to try and arrange an appointment.

I have no idea when the appointment will be, but at least it seems that things are moving.  I sound positive, but I've been a nervous wreck since sending the first mail a couple of weeks back, and leading up to, and just following the calls I've been absolutely spent.  Which is daft (as Mrs Stace has told me), all I've done is make a call.  There is no need to be nervous about making a call...  And yet...

OK, finish on a positive...  Whilst I am shattered I have been doing a little more shopping this week :)  My online shopping trip from a couple of weeks ago never actually a happened due to running out of time (see my first paragraph...) but this weekend I made time for it.

So a couple of online shops hit, a lilac skirt, two pairs of skinny jeans, a couple of tops and a new beige blazer were ordered.  A mix of nice quality and cheap and cheerful (Zara and H&M) should mean that I should have enough outfits to hopefully last me the spring and the start of the summer (once I get a pair of low heeled black shoes and a handbag of course - to save me always stealing one of Mrs Stace's bags).


Now we just have to wait for everything to be delivered.  I was hoping that we would get it today so I could try the new things tomorrow.  But apparently not...  Everything is likely to arrive tomorrow.  One day too late.  Hohum :)

A nice end to the week

Well after the stress of Thursday, yesterday actually went really well.

It's the end of the month, and so time for another round of walk'n'talk one2one's with my team.  I really enjoy these walks and discussions with the guys that work in my team.  It gives a chance to give good feedback to them - and get there thoughts and idea's.

This month was even better as we have some projects that are due to start soon - which meant that we could have the discussions about who will do which projects, and how we are going to tackle them.  That and discussions about the R&D projects that I am trying to push my team to do took up all of the discussions today.

What I hadn't counted on though was my choosing the wrong footwear...  I was in my all black outfit yesterday and I normally wear either white trainers (Mrs Stace hates the idea of white trainers with black, but I like the contrast that they provide) or my cowboy boots (that Mrs Stace hates on principle :p).  I went with the boots yesterday, and regretted it after the first walk as the pain started to climb in my feet.

You see you can't get cowboy boots easily in smaller sizes, and so my boots are somewhere between 1 or two sizes too big for me, stuffed with insoles to try and take up the extra room.  But my feet still slip in the boots and after the first loop (2.2KM's) they started to hurt.

Halfway through the second I was worried about blisters starting on the balls of my feet, I've had these the before and I really do think that they are about the worst blisters I have had - on the heels they hurt, but right at the front of the foot it's just awful.

At the end of the third loop I tried to make sure that I was just tried and hide behind my desk for a while to let my feet recover.

Then in the afternoon I had a meeting with ICT to discuss the new way that we are going to set up infrastructure for developers.  Now I normally have an issue with ICT (they were the people that sent me into a tail spin on Thursday) and so I was not really looking forward to the meeting. But...  I have to say it went really well, we were bouncing idea's (and hopefully one idea I had solved an issue I have with the new infrastructure and if they take it up would also make their life easier.  Basically the idea is to move to a VDI environment - where all of the developers have a virtualised desktop stored on a server, rather than having hardware under their desk.  The discussion on how this works put a few of my fears to ground (though I want to see it in action before I am completely convinced).

Whilst I can see it working well for those who only need a desktop, I work from home, on the train and would like a laptop.  Using a server based machine for this is not what I want to do - I don't want to have to be connected to the office in order to work - and so I was against it for those who need to work in the same way as I do.  However, yesterday I was reading a techy web site that discussed desktop caching - having a server based computer, but when you disconnect from the network there is a local version of the machine that allows it all to work seamlessly, without a connection.  Fingers crossed...

We have a demonstration coming up soon, hopefully I'll get to see it working flawlessly and I can put the rest of my fears to rest and try and convince the other developers that it is going to work.  If it doesn't work flawlessly then I don't want to think about how I have to proceed...

And finally, a friend came back to the office after a 4 week vacation and we had a really good natter and catch up just before he left.  He knows, and was asking how it's going, and if I have any issues that he can help with.  Apparently I also have a present coming from Mexico when his wife returns.  he wouldn't say what it was and knowing his sense of humour the mind boggles :)  I don't know whether to be exited or nervous :p

It was a nice end to the day though, and a great end to the week.  Now to see if I can relax over the weekend (I have to finish building the radio control car for my niece - it's almost working, I just need to find all of the screws and clips to make sure it does not fall apart on her)

Have a good weekend all :)

Up and down

Today, as they say in football, was a day of two halves.

Due to internal politics and technical problems the morning was less than fun, in fact it had me doubled in pain during a 40 minute walk to work off stress.  But I won't go into details, they are both too raw still and it'll just be a rant (I just tried to do it once and ended up deleting the whole post as it got too long and way. way too much of a rant)

I was not happy.

But (always good to use after a phrase like 'I was not happy'), it did pick up.  We are looking into a new computer for home.  Mrs Stace is using my old laptop and it's starting to get a little long in the tooth, it takes too long to do certain tasks, and the battery is totally dead - if you unplug it it does instantly.

So I am going to do a clean install on mine and pass it on to her, and replace it with a DTR to last another 5 years.  Sony is just about to release a new line of laptops using the latest and greatest chips from Intel, with a huge amount of processing power, lots of memory and a fast disk it should be lovely to code on (and to process photo's).  We put the order in today, and should be amongst the first to get it when it's released in a couple of weeks.  Fingers crossed :)

And then this afternoon, in the glorious sunshine, we went for our office run across the country park near the office.  50mins, 500cals and 27g fat later I was quite happy again.  There were 5 of us there, me and another girl run ahead, a couple of girls running a little slower and the guy who organises it (and can run us all into the ground - I swear he didn't even break a sweat!) running between the two.

A nice drive in the evening sun, some spinach and pesto past and I'm done...

And now that this is written, I'm off to bed to carry on with 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' - it's just getting interesting!

Goodnight!

Work, Therapy and Shopping!

This week has been terrible in the office…  I have been exhausted with the pain in my jaw (though thankfully it's now gone completely), and have simply been too busy doing unplanned work – no matter how much time I block in my agenda someone always comes and asks if I can unblock it, and there is normally a good reason for it; it’s just a shame that it doesn't help the things that are always on the back burner.  As a result I fall further and further behind with the tasks that are not less important - just less urgent...

Friday was the worst day or the week for me.  There was a problem with a project: poor inter-departmental communication and misuse of tools that have made it almost impossible to keep track of.  The person involved sent a mail saying that this was an example of why we need to change things and so I tried to arrange a meeting to discuss it.  No going, ‘I don’t want to be involved.’  My boss however made an appointment anyway and we had a discussion – I already have the solution outline that fits in the direction that the development team wants to take anyway.  This got a warm response from most involved in the meeting and I am going to fill out the outline with to something I can go over with the developers and project teams next week.  I'm doing this from home on Monday to ensure that I can actually do the work - and not spend my time on the unplanned things - it's the only way to ensure that it will actually get done.

Then in the afternoon I had to help the other development team change on of our import applications.  I was not impressed that this needed doing – the people involved shout very loudly, and constantly that they are senior developers and demand to be treated as such.  If you are going to make these statements loudly then I think it’s a good idea to follow it up with actions and when debugging a very simple application it shouldn’t take the two of them working for a week, plus a half day of my time.  Since becoming team lead I have not coded that much, and whilst I still read code fine, I am not a fully geeked up techie anymore – and yet I had the layout of the code in my head inside an hour, and I was actually deciphering the details as I was explaining it to the coders.  And still it was not coming across and I had to keep going over how the application was built, and why I thought that lines written along the lines of 'Product.CompanyName = xmlDoc.FindNode("CompanyName");' fills the product company name from the XML document field 'CompanyName'.  I am not the best teacher in the world (I just don't have the patience to be honest) but I just can't help thinking that the code was fairly self explanatory - we do have some seriously complex code and this just isn't it.

When I eventually got back to my teams room ‘Air on a G String’ was playing, I had the guy who controls the music rewind it to the start and turn it up and just sat in the corner, eyes closed practicing a breathing exercise to get rid of the stress - the people involved don't just say 'I don't get it' they argue that you can't be right, over and over again.  I could have had a better end to the week...

Earlier in the week was not so bad. On Thursday I had another therapy session – it was a very relaxing session this time, discussing the shopping trip last week; how it made both me and Mrs Stace feel.  I think that one of the biggest changes after the trip was actually evident just before the session.  I went to my friends flat to get changed and there were absolutely no nerves when leaving, or when walking in Amsterdam, or when coming home.  For the first time I was completely comfortable for the whole time – to the point that it was not until afterwards that I realised that it was not a problem.  :)

Of course one disappointment from last week was that we didn’t manage to get everything that we wanted (well, actually, all we managed to find was a summer coat for me!  And then it went cold again so I couldn’t even wear it on Thursday!).  Mrs Stace managed to correct that slightly yesterday when we went shoe shopping – she got herself a lovely pair of low heeled shoes for spring.  I’m thinking of getting the same shoes in grey. We actually went in for shoes for me, I had seen some lovely ones in a catalogue that came through the post, but in real life I am not so sure.  I have to go back as Stacy and actually try them on and see how they look I think - maybe they are completely different on than they look sitting on a shelf...

Today we are going to go in for an online shopping trip – I have seen a couple of really nice outfits on zara.nl that I am thinking of getting for spring, and Mrs Stace is going to try and see if she can find something as well :)

No more crappy room!

Well after a long wait our department finally moved today.  So I spent most of it without a running computer, running between rooms with handfulls of stuff, or in meetings completely unprepared as I had no computer.  Still we are now in a room with better accustics, air conditioning for when it really gets too hot, a giant whiteboard that I am going to try and encourage people to use and...

Room for the table football that we brought as a department a few years ago, but have not used for a couple of years due to lack of space.

I have a few busy days coming up, going for a meal with a friend tomorrow - his local pub turns into a restaurant on Tuesday evenings and tomorow they are doing something special.  So Stacy is going out again.  I really have to get out more.  Except for visiting my therapist I rarely go out as me - it's the one thing that I think I have to work harder on to get some confidence.

Which is good, because on Wednsday I am having my hair cut as Stacy for the first time, the wife of a friend cuts it for me.  So I am eating there, having it cut and styled, and then I'm going out for a drink and chat with him.

Two trips in two days.  Scary, but I'm looking forward to it.  I just have to pack.  On the bright side, I have my outfits picked (one per day).  I wonder if I'll change my mind and end up taking two anyway...

And here are a couple more shots that I took whilst playing last week:

This guy sits on an elephant in the living room.  A present from India from a colleague.  Details: 20second @ f32, Sigma EXDG 180mm Macro 1:1 lens.  I found my tripod :)

And this guy sits on some of our long drinks glasses.  They were brought from BHS about 10 years ago - we were walking through the shop as a shortcut when we saw them.  We have tried to get some more, but to no avail.  So we try to be very careful with them :).  Details: 10 seconds @ f3.5, same lens as above.

I'm really enjoying playing with the camera again - especially now that I have found the tripod so I can do more long exposure shots.

If the weather holds I may take a trip and try and get some shots of the buildings that keep my feet dry in our lake :)  Some of them (espcially the older ones) look amazing!

Yearly reviews

Well it’s been another stressful week; I had to give input for a review that was very difficult.  When I am normally asked for this type of thing I start with something positive and then give improvement points.  This time I could not do that, I had no positives.  It’s a position that made me extremely uncomfortable and so I spent the week in total stress about it.

On Friday I just went to the person’s manager and had a chat with him, going through my thoughts.  It was actually a very good chat, and there were points that he wants to come back on when he has more time.  He has also asked me to speak to him directly whenever I have any issues to stop me getting as stressed as I was this week.  We’ll see what happens there…

I also have to start actually doing reviews this year.  I have the first two coming up - in fact this afternoon is going to be taken with reading up on the review procedure so that I can start preparing tomorrow afternoon...  Not looking forward to it, The first two are going to be easy (in fact I have a great team so it should all be great), it's just that there is something very nerve racking about giving a review to someone else.  Almost worse than worrying about my own review...

I also did something stupid this week.  My boss told me of a documentary on Dutch TV about a 16 year old girl, who has been living as a girl since she was 6.  She has been one of the subjects of a long term photo documentary that Mrs Stace’s newspaper has covered for the last 10 years, so I was aware of the background story.  It was online so I had a look.  Bad idea, whilst it was a very good documentary, not sensationalist, it also left me in quite an emotional state.  Maybe I should have saved that for after work…

The car has also managed to annoy me this week.  After spending a small fortune on it for its service a couple of weeks ago it decided to break on me the very next day…  So a trip to the dealers to get the error code read, and had to order a new part – which has to be fitted tomorrow.  Grrr…

It was therapy week again – after the heavy session last time this week it was really great.  But that’s a story on its own…

And finally – Friday I had the second round of having my face zapped.  Less painful that the first in most places, but where there are clumps of hair it still hurt like hell, and my eyes still streamed from the upper lip!

The bright side?  The effect is amazing – I have swathes of face that is hairless now; the effect has been *very* good - the woman doing the zapping commented on how little regrowth there was (excpt for the upper lip).  And this time, as there is much less hair, I’m not red raw from it.  I could even wet shave the very next day.  Here’s hoping it’s even better next time…

Busy weekend, slow day

The weekend was spent doing a spot of spring cleaning (not quite spring, but we have our niece and nephew coming next week so we are doing a deep clean).  Saturday we got about three quarters of what we wanted to do done.

Sunday...  Sunday was different. I went for my run (the weather was not as nice, but the run itself went well).  Breakfast, more coffee (a *big* part of my weekend) and a long shower.  When I got out Mrs Stace was running up the stairs with my phone.  Our webmaster.  At that point you know your day is probably shot.  And it was.

Our provider was doing some maintenance this weekend and it all went horribly wrong.  I was calling several people over the next two hours to try and get things working again.  Hats off to our web master - he gave up a personal appointment that he should not have had to do in order to get things working again.

So that was my Sunday gone.  By the time everything was working again my mind was spinning from 20 calls in 2 hours and with too many people.

Today I had no energy at work.  Not feeling great, but that was not the reason.  Whilst the weather had been getting warmer the radiators had refused to turn off.  Now of course they had, I was cold to my bones and the atmosphere was just awful (and I don't mean emotions).  I think that one of my team showed just how bad it was.  He was in an all day meeting with an external consultant.  I saw him in the kitchen in the afternoon when I was about to fall on my keyboard - as the others looked like they were going to so as well.  He, not spending the day in a CO2 rich office was full of the joys of spring.  I chatted for a few mins and had a sudden rush of energy.  I got back, blasted a few jobs and just when I was starting to enjoy my second wind it vanished.  Seriously, the sooner we move to the other room the better.  Even more so for the company!

Then I came home and got a wonderful text from my boss.  The time and channel of a documentary about a transgendered Japanese artist.  Even started the message with a joke about yesterday (which was good - I saw the text was him and thought nasty words, expecting the worst with the site).

I just think I'm quite lucky to have a boss like him (even if he can be infuriating at times :p) 

Here comes the sun!

It's been a mixed bag this week.  The rain has slowly died out, and been replaced sun.  But also by seriously cold temperatures!

But it was beautifully crisp this morning.  The best winter weather as far as I am concerened.  I don't kow how cold it was when I left to run this morning, but the cars were still white from frost, as was half the road.

When I reached the lake it was a wonderful winter landscape (minus the snow).  Everything was white with frost, and everyones breath hung in the air in front of them.  For once I was wearing gloves for running - and didn't take them off until the last 1 or 2 km's.  I also kept my running cardigan on - I normally take it off after 3kms (or at the very least undo it and pull the sleeves up.  Not today - on and done up until I got home.

But, it was one of those mornings that made me glad to live here - the trees hanging in the slightly misty distace, the first and second bridges (yesterdays picture is number 3) poking above the tree line in the distance, a slightly darker shade of white to the mist and almost like a shadow.  Wonderful - I couldn't help but smile whilst running, it makes the distance a breeze to run.

A great end to a difficult week - work has been so rushed.  Too many final things for the project, and too many meetings to get anything else done.  I did at least manage to go drinking with colleagues again though - it's been a while since I did that, and was an enjoyable hour or so.

Friday was great - it's time for my monthly one to ones with my team and I decided to do a walking talk to take in the sunny weather.  Problem was it was about -5 and by then end of the last one my fingers were completely numb!  Still I had a good chat with my team members, and we got some nice plans for the short term future that should make their life more interesting, and bring the innovation back to the department.  Should be fun for all involved and make the business happy at the same time.

It's cold outside...

The weather has gone decidedly chilly here in Holland.  Checking my phone it's -4c outside, and I can go with that - my face got quite cold walking from the station to the office.

And yet the heating in our room is so awful that we opened *all* of the windows when we came in.  According to the radiators they are off.  According to our fingers you could fry an egg on them.

Roll on the big move next week!

Stace

Out of breath!

Wow, what a week.

In the last week I’ve barely had time to breath – let alone do anything else.  So apologies for anything that I have missed…

We are ready to release a new product at work – really it should have been released last week, but with constant changes in specification, and with no lack of business knowledge at the start of the project (for those specifying) we were busy until Friday.  It’s been hectic to say the least.

Friday was going to be my wind down day for the week – I normally try to do as little overtime as possible (I’ve had burnout in the past, and really do not want it a second time), but this week it has had to be done.  I think that we are there now – there are a few last bugs to solve, but unless there are more changes in specs we are finished.  With everything going on I was busy all day – with my thoughts going ten to the dozen; s much for the wind down.

Now for the merge and release…  There is a usability test at the start of next month, and we need to be live before then. 

Breath…

This week I have also had an issue with the after effects of last week’s laser.  I was expecting the pain; I was expecting the rash like after effects of having your hair and follicles burnt.  What I wasn’t expecting of still having the ‘rash’ now, and only having been able to shave properly for the first time yesterday.  That was really annoying!  I was supposed to be going to some friends, as Stace, on Wednesday.

They are really great people, and even though they have never seen ‘her’ they always treat me as Stacy.  Always – and it means the world to me that they do.  I was really looking forward to actually going as Stace, and having their support.  I give some coaching to him for his work, and we normally do this in one of the local cafes – it would have been nice to have been out as Stace with him.  But on Wednesday there is no way my skin was going to let me do that.  I shaved, in order to get ready but the results were not great.  (In case you had not read it in the sentence that was some English understatement there).  It’s shallow I know, but it would not have been good for my confidence to have been out looking like that for one of my first times in public.  So ‘male’ me went again…  That was such a disappointment and anti-climax from the build-up I had during the day.  Oh well next time (and not in the week after laser!).

Breath…

And I have some personal projects to start at home as well…  There are three that have priority with me.  The first is to do a small website, using HTML 5 and jQuery.  It’s the way that we have to move at work, and whilst I am not a frontline developer anymore, and whilst I have never enjoyed the HTML end of development, I think it’s important to know these things when I supposed to a working foreman to my team.

Second, we are thinking of moving towards using Scrum more in the office.  We were supposed to be doing that a while ago, but it never really materialised.  I want to get up to speed with project management using Scrum and see which of our future projects I can apply it too.  I think that the developers would really like it, though I am not sure that the business would be able to cope with the initial hit that it is going to take to move from what we have to where we need to be.  And without the support of the business it’s just not going to happen…

Finally…  I want to do some problem solving with my team.  I have a number of very good, intelligent developers in my team but I think there is an issue of some of them thinking using the keyboard – and that is something I want to change.  When in university we spent the first half of the first development course not actually in front of a computer.  We did problem after problem, with increasing complexity and spent the time developing the skills that you need for solving issues – something that has left me in good stead ever since.  I really want to spend time here as I think that this more than anything else is going to help lift the level of the department – the ability to see what the problem is, and figure out how to solve it is more important in creating quality solutions that having x design patterns (also important!) in your head.

I think.

(Incidentally if anyone knows of some nice online resources for any of those things please let me know!)

Breath.

Hopefully this week is going to go a little simpler.  Though I somehow doubt it ;p

Stace