CoffeeDog Daily

Right Monday morning and my daughter’s on school holidays and unfortunately my lovely wife has been struck down with this cold bug that’s going around…

Anyway start of week 2, isn’t it strange and frustrating, when you are not looking for a new role / job etc.. recruitment agencies are constantly on the phone / email to you saying “Hey this new role / vacancy has come up and we thought you would be the ideal candidate – what’s your current situation” and then when you are out of work silence….. no one rings, I rang three agencies this morning (all of whom I have registered with and had meetings with over the past couple of days) just to check in with them and see what’s happening etc… with all three either I was told, “the person you’re after is in a meeting, leave me your name and number and I’ll get them to ring you” or I rang them directly and it went straight to their answer phone…. have any of them rung me back….. guess what NO!!!

I’m not letting that get to me, I’ve had some success and as of today I have 3 interviews penciled in for the next 10 days…which isn’t too shabby. I am also heading down to the library to find a book on roasting your own coffee beans…. CoffeeDog won’t just happen by itself, now I need to find where I can buy un roasted coffee beans from, so that’s going to either be Trademe or Moore Wilsons (food wholesalers for my UK friends) unless I can find an alternative.

Next step is to clear the garage (as all new small businesses get started in the garage…) so I can have some space to roast the beans, in the mean time they are predicting it to get very cold here, someone mentioned 2 metres of snow in the South Island, it would be cool to get a flurry of the white stuff here but I doubt it. Meanwhile both the dog and the cat are currently flat out lying on the carpet just where the sun is shining…. Have a great day everyone and I hope the week is a good one.

Morning from CoffeeDog – Yep winter is definitely here, it was cold on Plimmerton beach this morning, but Paris still decided it was not too cold to go for a swim – all I can say is either very very brave or just plain stupid.. Thank god for the new delivery of wood, the fire is definitely pumping out heat.

So a couple of steps forward and then several steps back over the past two days…. On the positive note I have an interview today for a short term contract with ANZ bank they need a Test Manager for 2-3 months with a possibility of an extension after that…. Secondly I have an invite to meet with a company director who’s looking to set up a TaaS (that’s Testing as a Service for the uninitiated) offering so that’s next Wednesday evening with drinks after which sounds promising….

As I mentioned also several steps back… When I worked with Unisys, when I learn’t of my redundancy being official, I checked with HR and asked “When will the redundancy payment be made”…the email that came back stated 6th July…well it’s the 7th and no payment has been made… I raised it with them to be told “well it does take time….” my response was “Well if you can make someone redundant within a week, surely you can make sure they get paid within the following week” it’s these little things that alter people’s perspective as to whether recommend someone as a good employer or not.

So it looks like a quiet weekend, though I don’t think between the hours of 7-30 and 9-20pm on Saturday is going to be too quiet as the mighty All Blacks take on the British & Irish Lions in the last test at Eden Park…got to say All Blacks by two tries…

Then onto chasing up the agencies, they have had over a week to see what’s going on in the market, time for them to earn their money I think…..

Anyway I hope you are enjoying my words and thoughts please feel free to leave a comment as it would be great to here from you…. Have a great weekend and GO ALL BLACKs……

Kia Ora people, and welcome to the CoffeeDog blog, the coffee dog in question is my black lab Paris…

What made me want to write this blog, well 10 days ago when I was in work, an email appeared out of no where inviting me to attend a consultation meeting around the re-structure of the organisation….Gulp!.. and so the last crazy 10 days started….

I’m mid 40’s living in NZ with my wife, daughter, cat and the CoffeeDog this blog is named after, I have worked within the IT industry since I was 19 and it’s given me a decent career, took the three of us halfway around the world from the UK to NZ (best decision we ever made…but that is for another day).

When I say consultation, most people (me included) think of a two way discussion, setting out the companies options and opportunities for the individual to remain employed… well it was a 5 minute ‘We need to make savings and as there is only one person in the country doing your role (me) we’re disestablishing it and off shoring the work’ so no real consultation.. one week later I’m sitting in our kitchen – Linkedin up to date, ringing agencies and mainlining coffee…

Then I thought ‘let’s blog about my search for a new role’. You’re only 46 so by no way near the end of your working life and it would help to avoid all the pitfalls like depression, boredom etc..

So that’s brings you up to date.. it’s frustrating I’m ready to hit the ground running at 100kph and yet when you speak to the agencies they are pottering along a 5/10 kph…where’s their enthusiasm, their get up and go…. no wonder people get depressed when their main source of income disappears, well it’s not going to happen to me, I’m going to take this opportunity to catch up on all the jobs that need doing around the house, I’m going to learn to roast my own coffee (really think that CoffeeDog could become the next Mojo’s ) I want to prove to myself and everyone that 46 is not old,46  is not broken and actually it’s only the start of a new challenge…

I hope you will join me in this journey and provide me with your feedback and support.