Lox - Archived Entries for 2009 / 10

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Planning a new trip: [Sunday 25th October 2009]

And so we are again planning a trip to Asia, this time I have to go to the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Korea and Japan.

Manila is going to be a new entry, as I have never been there, and it's going to take 4 full days of the trip to cover, including a Saturday to go around the city.
The rest of the trip is going to be the usual rush around airports and clients, but that is something that I am quite used to now.

Leaving Italy for a little ("only" 19 days this time), it's probably going to do me some good, mostly because things at work are getting a bit "stale" and it has been quite a long time since I went to Asia (June/July was the last trip). Travelling is certainly one of the positive sides of my work, although, before you start envying me for travelling abroad, after the first two trips all becomes very "normal" and the only aspects that you tend to see are the sleepless nights and the long time spent on flights (also this time I am going to ride 10 planes, 1 bullet train and 1 ship in 19 days)...

How long can I keep this rhythm? I do not know, but I do not hide the fact that if I could find a "different" job it would be a nice change. In a way travelling so much means that you do not really have time to do the things that you like at home.

For example I was planning to start playing football again, in a very light and easy going way, just to move a little and also because I miss doing sports a lot. Well I could not find any team to play in, and just today my cousin might hook me up with some of his mates that I used to play with in the past. Yet, I am leaving in 8 days, so in any case I am going to be able to play only when I go back...

Oh well, joys and woes of the international jet-set traveller (as Rob would say)!

Last note goes for FELIX LANG: welcome mate, I hope to meet you sooner or later!!!
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Low Morale: [Wednesday 6th October 2009]

Low morale. Yes, the past few days will probably win the star for the lowest point under the happiness point of view of 2009.

There are several reasons, mostly linked with the work environment where I happen to be at the moment, but the ramifications into other aspects of life are quite strong too.

Things at work have been pretty shite of recent, the company is undergoing yet another spell of financial crisis, this time induced by the banks that promised us some money in June and that did not send anything yet.
Unfortunately this means that we need to do all sorts of things to show figures that are completely unreal, most of these practices have been made legal by the crappy government that we have now, some are still illegal but I guess I need not to worry about it. On the top of that we need to get in orders of course, but the foolish choices of the directors got our stock levels to be totally low, and even if you manage to close in a deal with a client we do not get to send anything because the products are not there...

As if this is not enough the whole company (fuelled by the trade unions) is pointing the sales division as the culprit of all this mess, even though we really have little to do with it.

Do we face a serious threat of being shut down? Probably, but surely even if we survive this 2009 we do not have any certainty that 2010 will actually TAKE PLACE for us...

In this frame-set, the whole personnel is really unsatisfied, downhearted and sad, and even though I have tried not to be dragged into the general feelings I seem to have started walking down that path too. It's not so easy to play a "deaf ear" every single day, sooner or later these generalized feelings start to sink in.

Yesterday we went to see a possible house to buy, we liked the place, but all of a sudden reality set in and I have been thinking all day that even if we ever get to find a house that we can afford, how in the world am I going to take out a loan in this situation? What if I loose my job 2 months afterwards, it could mean loosing all the savings that I will put in the venture. So the quite crappy feeling of not being able to move forward is also entertaining me recently.

I have tried to look for other jobs but it seems that nothing is out there for me, no calls, no interviews, it's really a bad moment.

Lastly, just because I want to vent it all out, sports. A colleague of mine told me that I could join the team that he's playing in, but all of a sudden all the training matches that they have to make, all the meetings and league games seem to be cancelled at the last minute. I know that he just joined them so maybe he cannot get another member in, but for three good weeks I have been feverishly hoping to go back on the field, just to prove to myself that my knee is now ok. I even went running to keep fit, but now that I start realizing that there is not going to be a match for me I also gave that up.

Ok time to go to bed, positive things of today have been the fact that the judges ruled against the infamous law that Berlusconi's government tried to pass and the movie "Inglorious Bastards" that I think is one of the best films I have seen in years, at the same level as Pulp Fiction.

Great job Quentin!
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