Saturday 7th September 2013

I am now into my fourth year with my current employer, and during that time my role has changed somewhat, from being the guy who looked after the NCR database to my current role as overseer of quality issues on a multi million Euro project. And if truth be known, my pay has lagged. Lagged by quite a bit, so whan my ex-boss said to me that he guessed I was still being employed on the same terms as I was back in 2010, I knew he wasn't wrong. The big question was, what to do about it?

On top of which there has been some confusion over what my role is; or rather there is some confusion on my side as to what my role is, and why I am still reporting to the same manager I did before the 'promotion'.

Anyway, clarification meeting has taken place and so we shall see what comes of it, maybe even a pay rise. It might happen.

Anyway to Friday.

Friday.

I check out of the hotel, have breakfast and head to the office and straight away I have to go to the building next door for a meeting once again about SAP. So, I sign in, find my way down the corridor to the meeting room and then have a 15 minute training session in which SAP all seemed so reasonable and i say I don't know what I was having all this trouble and say I will crack on with it on Monday now I know what I am doing. And sure as day follows night, I will open SAP on Monday and it will all look like Chinese again, and I will just understand it less than Chinese....

Back to the office; more meetings. I have some day old 'claim cake'. Nice. And lots more coffee before I run out of time and I head to the car to drive to Billund.

Driving in sunshine is a rare treat in Denmark, and the place sure looks purdy with the crops all in, but the countryside all green and healthy. It is a real pleasure to drive through. At the airport, there is chaos at the petrol pumps (I have to refill the hore car) the entire credit card network for filling stations has crashed: we all give up and take the cars back with half-filled tanks. Rebels one and all!

I check in, go to the gastro bar and order a very large Hoegaarden as it is hot and I can. That drunk I buy something for Jools at the Lego shop, check my mails on the wi-fi and settle down to people watch as the Danes are still heading for the Med to top up their tans.

and then it is time to board the flight, I settle in and wait for the taxiing, the safety lecture, and then the revving of the engine as we thunder down the runway and off into the clear blue sky we roar. Over Holland there is a huge thundercloud we have to fly through; the plane dips and dives like a frisky colt, making this uneasy traveller close his eyes and hope that sleep will take me.

The skies clear and we head down the Thames, and over Dartford Crossing to see the whole of the M25 and A13 at a standstill. It looks amazing, every lane full of standing traffic. Before there was any time to think about it, we were getting lower and then touching down. A quick rush to get my case then up to the DLR station to see if I can get to Stratford to catch the quarter past seven train.

I miss it by three minutes, so head to a coffee shop for a huge frozen coffee/mocha thing and a read through of a copy of the sun laying around. It is full of crap. And people clearly by this shit. Murdoch has a lot to answer for, shouldn't the people be informed rather than told of the latest z level celebrity tattoos or whatever?

And then it is time to head down onto the platform, try to get a seat when the train pulls in, and then away we zoom. Over the Essex marshes, under the M25 with its still stationary traffic, under the Thames and into Kent and the gathering gloom of an early autumnal evening.

The weekend has arrived, folks.....