Back to the Coalface

Well I don’t think I expected to find myself back in an office job ever again, but economic necessity dictates otherwise, and after a whirlwind romance, I’m the “Service Desk Analyst” for a large hotel chain, although the office is located in the less salubrious surroundings of Heathrow. There is an IT Helpdesk, but they mainly just forward issues to me, and I either escalate them to the appropriate in-house team, third-party vendor, or In extremis, sort it myself. Actually I am a third-party myself, as I don’t work for the hotel but for a company who supply some of their IT Services. The Hotel have a sizable IT Department of their own – I’m just “embedded” within it. This week some of the cover engineers have been spending time with me “training” me.

So it’s been a busy first few days trying to learn the systems & procedures of two companies, and keep that bloody service desk call queue down to a manageable size. However, we have an excellent coffee machine that grinds it’s own beans. Coffee. The Oil that lubricates IT. Lunchtimes I get to watch 777’s lumber into the sky, so it’s not all bad. Except for the commute which is hemmed in by the M4/M25 junction of hell. What should be a 20 minute drive can take (as tonight) one hour ten. No direct public transport, it would take 90 minutes & a change of bus, plus whatever delays congestion throws up. That’s why I feel the “infrastructure” money thrown towards HS2 would be better spent on improving local commutability. Commutability? I that even a word? It is now. In fact, it’s now A Thing.

Sleep. Then do it all again.