Busy at home, work not so much

So Wednesday of last week the customer in Basingstoke changed their firewall as part of an office rearrange/network upgrade. So of course come Thursday our VPN to our computers in Basingstoke didn't work. Come 2:30pm Thursday afternoon, myself and my colleague decided to take the rest of the day off, having achieved little expect attempting to chase people up in both companies to get it fixed.

Arrive Friday; connection still down. Leave Friday; connection still down. Having not done much more than half do training courses, because well you can't really start something if you're not sure when your going to have to stop.

Monday no improvement.

Tuesday no improvement, though the customer does try setting us up with the one they use for some of their staffs home working. First response from tech support on our end is no that's a massive security hole, so we'll set you up with PC connected to the guest network (in a different room...). Half a day later and we still can't make any connection work.

Now my project manager tells us that day (while home sick no less) is that the reason the customers response has been so bad is there in the middle of an audit. Plus the staff who do the tech support do it as a part time side job alongside there main work of doing all the actual network/telecoms setting up and monitoring for the customer's customers. So he threatens the customer, yes the customer, with us coming to Basingstoke to get things moving. The reason it's a threat is they're very short of space currently, so there's not really anywhere for me and my colleague to sit and work.

End of Tuesday and manager confirms that as it's still down and not likely to be fixed before Friday we should just come and work in Basingstoke for the rest of the week. Well my colleague needed to take his car to the garage today, and so we both decided it would just be simpler if we took yesterday and today off on holiday. Still a more useful use of our time than the last three days in work at least.

Tomorrow though Basingstoke, Monday we'll see, maybe Basingstoke again... I'm just hoping they'll be at least some space on someone's desk for me to work at.

In contrast at home last Friday celebrated my Grandad's 92nd birthday. He is doing well which is always a good thing, so hopefully we'll have a few more birthdays yet. Unfortunately plans didn't get finalised before Friday so I couldn't sort out going to the 36 hour. Which wasn't a bad thing, because I ended up having effectively ten 8' by 3'boards to clean and vanish for the attic.* Thankfully Saturday was dry enough I could get it done. Though as the last two and a half boards were already up in the attic, the combined fumes from the white spirit and the varnish in an enclosed space left me with a headache.

Sunday we celebrated neomogrox new job with a meal out, with Jack and Liz. They came back to ours and we had an afternoon/evening of chatting, playing games and watching stuff.

Yesterday I got on with a few jobs, though not as many as I intended as I got distracted with games. Today the three of us went to Bristol met with Liz and went shopping. I actually bought an article of clothing for the first time in a while, as well as got some fabric for cosplay. The girls got fabric and some pretty dresses, largely using neomogrox's fashion skills; though I did help a little.

I also tried various bits of sushi for the first time. Wasn't actually that impressed with any of it, except the mini iso. Though whether or not that was a factor of what I tried or where we were I can't say.

Tonight, I need to go to bed in about 70 minutes to ensure I actually wake up in time to leave at 7:10am tomorrow morning. I continue to envy people who can wake up in the morning.

*We're having the attic floored so we can use it as storage. The work should be finished tomorrow. Yay!