Back to reality...

We went back to work after the Christmas break last week, but this week it is definitely back to reality, with the kids back at school, my oldest sitting her mock GCSEs, and my husband preparing for a business trip to Australia.

I've therefore been reflecting on the some of the lovely things that we did over the holidays:

• spending new year's eve watching the Creation Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol" (great fun!) followed by dinner at our local Wildwood Restaurant (very tasty!)
• having a lovely, family evening out at the cinema seeing "Pitch Perfect 3" (just as funny as the first two!)
• meeting friends for a walk up Boar's Hill followed by afternoon tea (great company and delicious homemade Christmas cake)
• enjoying lots of family time watching films, playing Scrabble and eating German Christmas biscuits.

We've also got some lovely things to look forward to. We've just booked our family summer holiday (11 nights in Montenegro, which looks beautiful), we'll be watching our oldest daughter playing Juliet in the school production of "Romeo and Juliet", we're booked in to see the play "Blood Brothers" in February, and much more.

That should be enough to get us through this dull and cold January!

The run up to Christmas

We are having a very busy run up to Christmas this year. We have had so much on -- both festive and otherwise -- that it feels a bit like we might hit Christmas somewhat unprepared!

The weekend before last we enjoyed our annual Christmas shopping trip to London. This involves traipsing along Oxford Street, admiring the lights, and spending inordinate amounts of time browsing the John Lewis food hall for Christmas stocking gifts. We also had a lovely lunch in Cafe Rouge Kingsway. This was a good find because, while relatively close to central London shopping, it is located in Holborn, which, at the weekend, is nice and quiet. Perfect for a hassle-free meal with family.

We're off to London again this Saturday to see Pinocchio at the National Theatre with my parents-in-law. We're all a bit old for it now -- the kids included -- but it should be great fun! Sunday will be dedicated to buying the Christmas tree from our local Peachcroft Farm and dressing the house ready for our celebrations.

This week I have two -- yes, two! -- Christmas lunches at work. One with my immediate team and one with my 50-strong department. The first will be a curry at a local curry house and the second will be a full-blown, three-course lunch at St. Hilda's College. Both should be delicious.

On the less exciting front, we have been organising the replacement of our leaking hot water tank (two days this week without heating or hot water in the freezing cold!), having the drains under our house cleaned, sorting out Duke of Edinburgh volunteering and braces for our youngest, supporting our eldest as she revises for her mocks. The list goes on...

Only two more weeks of work and then we'll be there! I'm really looking forward to the break and to enjoying our traditional German celebrations with family on Christmas Eve!

How you view buildings

Something struck me the other day when walking into the building where I work -- how you perceive a building very much depends on your state of mind.

The place where I work has a (fairly) impressive entrance lobby, with a dedicated and very professional receptionist and comfy chairs and corporate literature for waiting visitors. There's a big stairway that sweeps down into the lobby and, when you come down that stairway, those people waiting in the lobby in the comfy chairs look up expectantly.

I remember coming for my interview here. It all seemed rather intimidating at the time -- waiting and watching the stairs for my host to come and collect me. But now that I work there, the building doesn't seem imposing or intimidating at all. It's all quite familiar; it's just where I work, after all.

Isn't it interesting, then, how your mental state or the way you are feeling can affect your perception of concrete things?

Jobs, pay and the future

I had an interesting discussion with my youngest daughter the other day about the future, job opportunities, etc.—the kinds of things we all worry about for our kids.

My daughter was clear that she wanted a good job. ‘What constitutes a good job?’ I asked. ‘One that pays well,’ was her reply. Well, that’s a valid answer. It’s great to have a well-paid job, but is that what makes it a good job? And what about being well paid? As I tried to explain to my daughter, ‘well paid’ is  a relative concept. You may work in the public sector and be lucky enough to have  a ‘well-paid’ job. If so, your notion of ‘well paid’ will be quite different from that of someone who works in the private sector and has a ‘well-paid’ job, simply because salaries are higher in the private sector than in the public sector. ‘Yes, but as I said, my definition of a good job is one that it is well paid,’ replied my daughter, coming right back at me. She’s not a fan of shades of grey!

When you’re young and don’t have any experience of the workplace, it’s easy to think that the ride will be straightforward. Good school education. University. Good degree. A good, well-paid job should follow, shouldn’t it? But that’s not always the case, of course. It can be difficult to get your foot on the first rung of the ladder, let alone end up in a position where you are senior enough to earn a good salary. Furthermore, it’s not just a case of getting a good degree; which degree is highly significant as well. As we all know, a degree in a science or engineering subject is a much surer route to a high earning job than is a degree in the arts or humanities. My daughter would like to do something that involves writing and pointed out to me that I had said that medical writing is well paid. That’s true—it is. But what she’d failed to take on board was my additional point that in order to be a medical writer you need at least a first degree (preferably a PhD) in the life sciences. So, medical writing isn’t an accessible career for someone with a degree in English.

On second thoughts, perhaps it’s better that we’re not aware of all this stuff when we’re young. Maybe it is just best to aim for what you love, in the belief that things will come together exactly as you would wish them to. After all, there’s always the chance that they will—and, if not, maybe it’s best to save up the disappointment and negativity for later!

Back to life, back to reality

My family and I had a lovely Christmas break -- almost two weeks with no work and lots of time just to enjoy ourselves. But that seems plenty and, in some ways, almost too much. There's a danger with having a block of time off work -- that you find you don't want to go back. If you're in non-holiday mode, accustomed to the rhythm of work, then you don't really think about what you're doing, you just carry on as usual. But if you fall out of the habit, then it's hard to get back in to it. And the more you think about returning to it, the less appealing it becomes.

So, perversely, I feel rather relieved to be returning to work (even though I'm not looking forward to it much at all). After all, I know that it'll be much more enjoyable when I'm actually doing it!

There's something strangely surreal about holiday time. And there's something to be said for the routine and banality of  everyday working life.

How the work environment affects employees

I find it fascinating that the environment in which people work can have such an effect on how those people present themselves, both in terms of their style of communication and (more surprisingly) their physical appearance.

For example, I have a friend who used to work in a department which had little team spirit, where the leadership was poor, and where people were by and large not very friendly or helpful. Her reaction to this situation was to dress severely, to scrape her hair back in a tight ponytail, and to adopt an abrasive attitude. All of this actually reflected the fact that she felt unhappy and insecure in her work environment.

My friend then moved to a new department where the atmosphere was quite different. People were friendly and happy, the team was tight-knit and the leadership was good -- and she changed accordingly. She started to wear her hair down, she was smiling and more relaxed, and she adopted a much more approachable persona. She was working in a better place and her behaviour and appearance reflected that.

Employers often seem oblivious to the effect that the company atmosphere has on employees and their behaviour, but this effect is profound. Cultivating a good company spirit results in happier and, I'll wager, more productive employees.

The take away coffee culture

On my walk into work the other day I felt thirsty, and so I popped into a cafe to pick up a bottle of water to take into the office with me.

Something struck me as I emerged -- 95 per cent of the people around me, who were making their way to work just like me, were clutching take away cups of coffee. And almost everyone in the cafe had been purchasing take away coffee, with the exception of one guy who was buying a bottle of water, like me.

There is much talk at the moment of Britain's economy being kept afloat by the (relatively new) coffee shop culture, but I've never thought much about this before now. However, it's incredible that so many people seem to purchase expensive coffee to start off their working days. I wonder what's happened to rolling into the office and making a cup of instant while waiting for your computer to start up?

Not that I can talk, of course. I've never been much of a fan of office kitchens and shared milk that is about to go off!

First names and last names

Even in the informal, everyone-is-equal world of today, first names and last names are still used as indicators of status. This struck me most recently when flying home from Venice. The captain did the usual welcome announcement once we’d all boarded the plane. He referred to himself and his co-pilot by first name and surname, yet introduced the cabin crew by first name only. Why? I assume because pilots are considered more senior in rank, hence ‘better’ than cabin crew. But in fact these two professions are just different – it doesn't make any sense to compare seniority across the two.

The same applies to the health professions. Doctors are referred to by surname and nurses by first name. In the past, of course, nurses were also referred to by surname – back when everyone was known by their title and surname in the workplace. So why have things changed for nurses, but not for doctors? Again, I assume it is to do with perceived seniority. I remember my surprise when the doctor who was called to assist with the delivery of my first child introduced herself by her first name. Even after hours of labour, this struck me as unusual! When the midwives told me that this doctor was coming to assist, they described her as ‘lovely’. She was also young. Maybe that’s why she bucked the naming convention. Or maybe she was keen to establish a rapport with her patients quickly. Either way, this is not the norm.

Some of my elderly relatives lament the fact that it is now usual to call someone by their first name rather than their surname. One of them mentioned this in the context of being a patient in hospital. Now all patients are referred to by first name, whereas in the past they would have been referred to by title and surname. My elderly relative found it demeaning that someone sixty years her junior should address her by her first name.

So, in the past, surnames were the norm outside one's circle of family and friends. But nowadays first names are the norm, except in professions which are considered particularly prestigious or in some way special. It's interesting how these things change.

The changing world of work

I read with interest the recent furore surrounding Greencore. This sandwich manufacturer, which supplies ready made sandwiches to several of the big supermarket chains, hit the news because it had been in Hungary hiring staff, when local unemployed people in Northampton (the factory's base) knew nothing about the vacancies. People were outraged that an employer was looking abroad, rather than locally in the first instance, to hire its staff.

However, what really struck me about this news story was something rather different. First off, I was somewhat surprised that sandwiches were made by people on a production line, having naively assumed that such an activity would be mechanised. It was also interesting that despite the long hours, low pay, and cold conditions that the work entailed, one employee (a graduate from Poland) considered the job "a great opportunity". I know a number of people in similar situations -- highly-qualified graduates from across the EU who work in low paid roles in the catering and hotel business. There simply isn't the work available in their specialist areas in their home countries, or indeed in this country, hence they are forced to  find work where they can. What counts as "a great opportunity", then, is very much relative -- dependent on the particular circumstances in which you find yourself.

Things have changed a lot over the past three decades or so. Graduating in the very early nineties, I was just at the start of the employment situation becoming tougher. Having a good degree from a good university was no longer a passport to anywhere you wanted to go in the world of work. Ten years earlier, and things were quite different. A colleague recently told the story of how he dropped out of university at the end of his first year and then managed to get a job as a radiographer (without any experience in the area). Several years later, he returned to university and studied for an undergraduate and a Masters degree simultaneously! That kind of trajectory simply wouldn't be possible in today's world.

All of this makes me feel nervous for my own children. I (and they) assume that they will go to university but where, exactly, will that lead them? Quite possibly into low paid and/or unskilled roles with few prospects. Or perhaps halfway across the globe in search of something better. Or maybe, just maybe, things will have come full circle over the next decade and the world will again be their oyster.

Public sector employment circle

I am employed in the public sector. The organisation for which I work is entirely government funded. It has no income stream other than that from the government. This means that I am paid by the government for the work that I do.

When I pay my tax and national insurance, some of the money that the government has paid to me goes back to the government to provide services like healthcare, education and pensions for me and my family.

Thus the government pays me so that it can pay itself to provide services for me. All seems a bit of self-referential, really.

Before Midnight

I recently wrote a blog post about two of my favourite films -- "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. I mentioned there that I was looking forward to the next film in the 'series' --"Before Midnight", which I had put on my LoveFilm list.

Luckily for me, it turned out that I didn't have to wait for "Before Midnight" to appear on LoveFilm, because my lovely husband bought me the DVD for Christmas. We've now found time to watch the film, and here are my thoughts.

True to formula, "Before Midnight" takes place (both in the film and in reality) roughly ten years after the previous film, "Before Sunset". "Before Sunset" closed on a cliffhanger with Delpy and Hawke having just met for the first time after their initial encounter ten years previously. They are still strongly attracted to one another, but Hawke is now trapped in a loveless marriage and has a son. At the end of "Before Sunset" it was entirely unclear whether Hawke would return to his unhappy life in the US or remain with Delpy in Paris.

In "Before Midnight", we learn that Hawke did indeed remain with Delpy in Paris--we catch up with them at the end of a summer spent in Greece with their twin girls, aged six, and Hawke's son, now about to start high school. Seeing his son off at the airport, Hawke begins to question the life that he is now living. He may be living with the woman he loves, but he is missing out on his son's youth entirely.

Hawke and Delpy spend their last evening in Greece together without their children--courtesy of the friends with whom they are staying, who have booked a hotel room for them and are providing babysitting. Instead of being a romantic getaway, though, the evening turns into a full-scale row, with Hawke's fears about his son coming to the fore, and the couple's dissatisfaction with their lives and with one another emerging.

The themes that this film covers will be familiar to any long-term couple with kids--loss of romance over the years, how to combine career and family, how difficult it is for both partners to be fulfilled career-wise, the division of domestic labour, loss of identity, ageing, the 'rational' partner versus the 'emotional' partner...

Needless to say, the tone of "Before Midnight" is quite different from the first two films, which are romantic, focussing on the hopes and aspirations of a couple meeting for the first (and second!) time. In "Before Midnight" the romance is gone and reality has set in. It is not a feelgood film, but it does accurately reflect reality--the reality of an established relationship with children.

And that's exactly what I enjoyed about this film--the reality, something with which we can all identify. It's what I enjoyed about the other two films, as well--I could identify with them since they reflected my own experience and thoughts in my twenties, and then my thirties.

If you're looking for something interesting, provocative and conversation-worthy, the "Before..." trilogy comes highly recommended.

Family frustrations

Although I love my kids to bits and love my family life, I sometimes feel frustrated by these things. Trapped, even.

One good example of this is when it comes to jobs. I work part time and I want to do this so that I can reserve some time for my family. So that I can be around when the kids come home from school, so that I can be there when they want a lift to an activity or an event. So that they are not always in after school care rather than at home.

However, I want to continue developing my career as well as offering support to my family. I don't just want to abandon my career, only to find that once the kids are sufficiently grown up, I'm too old and it's too late.

If you are working part time, career development is difficult, as so few roles come up that are both senior and part time. I sometimes feel envious of people who don't have my family ties. People who can move anywhere in the country (or beyond) to take up an opportunity, and who can work full time without feeling that they are short changing another area of their lives.

I have briefly considered working full time again. Focusing on my career rather than my family. But I quickly realise that this is not really what I want. Consider, for example, the recent news article about the woman who juggled a top job in the City with raising a large family. One of her children ended up as a young teenager running amok, mixing with a bad crowd and taking recreational drugs. The woman had to resort to sending her daughter to a US 'boot camp' in order to get her back on the straight and narrow.

That is emphatically not the outcome I want for my children. I want to provide them with time and attention and a steady home life so that, when they leave home, they are equipped to cope in the world and to succeed. I don't want to devolve that responsibility to someone else. And so I continue to work part time and to develop my career as far as I can within those parameters.

Having it all is not about quantity -- having everything, but in fact only focusing on one thing to the detriment of all the others. Having it all (in my opinion) should rather be about quality. About finding the right balance so that you can succeed in all of the areas that you have taken on. After all, what's the point of having it all if half of what you have is, in effect, broken?

Nightmare month at work

I've had a nightmare month at work. There have been many things that have been irritating, but the worst has been the new release of my work's purchasing system, which was introduced at the beginning of November.

You would think that this might be a relatively straightforward exercise--simply transfer the users on the old system to the new system, ensuring that they have the same access rights and responsibilities as previously. But no, no, no.

Some people were OK and could use the new system no problem. But many were not OK. Take my situation--I was a shopper and an approver in the old system. In the new system I can approve (but only by clicking on the 'approve' link in the automated email that the system sends, not by actually going into the system itself!), but I have no shopping responsibility whatsoever.

I have been chasing this up tirelessly, as has the Head of Finance in my department, but to no avail. The systems team simply come back each time saying that I am not a migrating user, i.e. was not a user on the old system. BUT I WAS! Can't they just look at the old system and see that?!

It seems that the solution for me to be able to shop is to do lots of classroom-based training (I've already done lots of online training), including the training for new users -- WHICH I'M NOT!!

So, in the new year, rather than getting on with any real work, I'll be attending various training sessions which I don't actually need. What a ridiculous waste of time!

Job interviews

I have a lot of experience of job interviews -- both experience of sitting on interview panels and of being interviewed myself -- and they always strike me as distinctly weighted in favour of the employer.

Clearly, interviews provide an opportunity for employers to decide whether or not a candidate is to their liking and whether or not they want to hire that person. But I'm also of the opinion that interviews should provide an opportunity for candidates to find out whether or not a hiring company is to their liking (and careers advisers and the like will certainly tell candidates that they should treat interviews as such).

Of course, you can often get a pretty good idea of whether you want to work for a company from  the interview. However, it seems to me that it is nearly always the company, rather than the candidate, who retains the power in this situation. For starters, the company will be interviewing several candidates, not just the one--and in this climate you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be more than one candidate who the company considers 'appointable'. Secondly, interviewers (and others) may encourage candidates to ask questions, but in my experience certain types of question are often not welcome. At interviews, I make a point of asking the questions 'What's it like to work here? What's the culture like?' in an attempt to understand what the people are like and whether the company would be a congenial place to work. Yet these questions often meet with looks of surprise or indirect, meaningless answers. They are simple enough questions and my sense is that (many) employers simply don't like being asked such things. It is, however, considered perfectly acceptable for an interview panel to ask a candidate very similar questions. 'What are your three strongest and your three weakest points?' is a good example.

And then you come to the business of informing candidates of the panel's decision after the interviews. The successful candidate is informed very quickly, of course, but those who are unsuccessful can wait several weeks before being informed, and then this is usually via a standard email from the HR team with no opportunity given to seek feedback. I can't imagine that it would go down too well if a successful candidate kept a company in suspense, taking several weeks to respond to their offer of employment!

When I sit on an interview panel, I do my best to answer candidates' questions as openly and honestly as I can. I also let unsuccessful candidates know the outcome quickly myself, ahead of the impersonal email from the HR team. Not only is this the decent way to treat people who have taken the time and trouble to attend for interview, but it also gives the company the reputation for being decent and honest.

It's just a shame more employers don't seem to see things the same way.

The effect of alcohol

At a work dinner recently, I was struck by the effect that alcohol has on people. I don't really need to say this, of course. We're all aware that people can be affected very strongly by alcohol--getting blind drunk, throwing up in the street, waking up in the morning not remembering what they've done the night before...

But I was struck by the more subtle effect that alcohol can have.

I work with a  bunch of academics who are generally quite shy. They like talking shop (geeky science), but when it comes to interacting socially, really talking to people one on one, building relationships, they're not so good. And, since I'm not a scientist, and so can't talk scientific shop, they're generally at a bit of a loss with me.

However, at our work dinner, this all changed. With a few glasses of wine inside them, they suddenly came alive, engaging me in conversation about all sorts of things.

A bit later on in the evening, the conversation turned to alcohol and one of my newly-talkative colleagues said he thought it was interesting how the British needed alcohol in order to have a good time (he was drawing a comparison with his time living in the States where, he said, his American colleagues managed to have a good time, even without the aid of alcohol!).

His remarks made me smile. I'd consumed barely a glass of wine, was still sober, and had managed to have a good time, conversing with my colleagues in much the same way as I do at work. I felt that his observations may have more to do with his own personal state of mind, rather than being an accurate reflection of the national identity.

Human bingo: never broken a limb?!

We had our work annual retreat the other day. This involves the whole of our department going away to a hotel for two days to talk business without the interruption of everyday working life.

The first day usually starts off with some kind of ice-breaking activity, and this year it was human bingo. Yes, I know, I didn't have a clue what this was either... But I soon found out.

Human bingo involves everyone having a sheet of questions (there are about three different versions of the sheet involving different questions). The aim of the game is for each person to go around the room trying to find a person who can answer 'yes' to one of these questions. Questions are things along the lines of  'Have you seen all the episodes of Friends?' and 'Have you ever been camping?' The first person to have 'yes' answers to all of the questions on their sheet shouts 'Bingo!' and is the winner.

What I found really interesting, though, was that one of the questions on my sheet was 'Have you ever broken a limb?' Try as hard as I might, I couldn't find someone who could answer yes to that particular question. In a room of around 40 people, I thought that was pretty unusual. And I wondered whether it had something to do with the type of people in the room--academics who are far more interested in dealing in the cerebral than the physical.

Not that I can talk--I haven't broken a limb either!

First free promo a roaring success!

Wow! Well, I've done it. I've run my first ever free promo on Amazon!

My first novel, A Matter of Degree, was free yesterday for just the one day. I'd never done it before and I had no idea what to expect. Although I'd worked hard at advertising the promo, I was fully expecting that there would be very few downloads--especially having read several articles saying that the bottom had now fallen out of these promotional events.

But, for me at least, this wasn't the case at all. The number of downloads, both in the UK and the US, way, way exceeded my expectations. And my book entered the Kindle bestseller lists in the Contemporary Romance category on Amazon.co.uk, and both the Women's Fiction category and the Contemporary Fiction category on Amazon.com. It also flew up the Kindle free book charts on both sites.

I still can't quite believe it, but I am very, very happy with the results!

Opinionated workplaces

My workplace is full of academics, which means that everyone has an opinion about everything—and expresses it very loudly. Whether they have any knowledge of, or experience about, the subject on which they are holding forth is, apparently, irrelevant.

At times this can be amusing. At other times, irritating.

These are some of the things that have been discussed with alacrity over recent weeks:

• common childhood diseases and their inoculations (none of the discussants has children)
• what foods should and shouldn't be eaten by pregnant women (none of the discussants is female and none of the discussants has a partner who either is or has been pregnant)
• the salary grade held by non-academic group members (none of the discussants is party to this information)
• where the remaining Boston marathon bomber was hiding out and the brothers’ motives for the bombing (who knew?).

Quite a range of things on which to have an uninformed opinion, I’d say...

Career and parenthood: is part-time working the answer?

Work and parenthood, as we all know, can be hard to combine successfully. However, talking to friends and from my own experience, there is a very specific issue surrounding part-time working and parenting.

I, and several of the people I know, work part time. In this way we are able to keep our careers going (or at least keep one foot in the world of work) while being around for our kids. This situation sounds ideal--not only are we still working, but we can also be there to deliver and pick up from school and, with any luck, have enough flexibility that we can be around for those occasional events that demand parental attention such as sports day and parent meetings at the end of the school day.

However, this kind of part-time working does present problems in itself. For a start, by the time you've taken into account travelling to and from work (if you don't live on your work's doorstep), you are looking at working pretty part time -- probably fifty or sixty per cent of full-time hours at most. And secondly, these kinds of jobs are few and far between. Almost all 'decent' jobs (reasonably high level and fairly well paid) are full time. The result tends to be that you get highly-qualified, highly-experienced individuals working in part-time roles that are well below their capability levels. This situation may be alright for a while, but in the end it can lead to employee frustration and poor job satisfaction.

There is therefore also an issue surrounding how long it makes sense to work part time for, before going full time again and taking your career forward. My oldest child will go to secondary school in September, but my youngest won't move to secondary for another two years after that. And even when they're both there, will I really want them home alone for significant periods of time before my husband and I get home from work? And what about school holidays...?

I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to work part time at present, but it certainly isn't a panacea. It introduces a whole new set of issues--especially for the parent who works part time. Combining work and parenthood just is tough, it seems, particularly if you are aiming for some measure of fulfillment and happiness for the whole family.

Oh, how easy it is to misinterpret via email!

Interesting incident at work the other day.

Via email to a small group of people:

Me: 'Please can you have a quick look at the attached list of interview questions. Let me know if you want to make any changes – otherwise I will print them and put them in your interview packs.'

An unnamed respondent: 'I will take a look at the questions. However they should not be sent to the candidates as they should not be able to prepare answers beforehand!'

Me 'Of course I wouldn't send them to the candidates! I mean the interview packs for you (the panel)!'

Utter. Email. Silence.