Entries Tagged 'Work' ↓

Bum. XRO just dipped near lowest ever to 0.67 – don’t know why I look. The novelty of being involved I suppose.

Switched my desk around today – new office buddy wanted a more ‘collaborate working environment’ – so my second monitor and laptop have changed positions. Feels very weird looking to the left for secondary activities. I’m sure it was the same degree head turn when the monitor was on the right but it feels like a greater degree on the left! It’s quite nice the change of scene – like a little cubby hole in the corner – it does mean I look out into the face of oncoming visitors so I have to look welcoming and approachable. Will also have to watch myself stuffing my lunch into my face with one had while working with the other, and no more crying into my keyboard on bad days! It is good not having my back out into the room.

Someone’s being fiddling with our ‘plant’ in reception … if you stare at it long enough the word XERO should materialise.

Am in the mood for typing typing typing like the wind but when working on new features there’s lots of mouse clicking and taking pictures of screens.

At work on a Saturday – who needs sun stroke or heat exhaustion – supposedly going to be 26 today which is pretty warm for Wellington and it sure is blue out there.

No longer limited to New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, Xero took on the world today with a release of a version that is generic enough that it will allow anyone in the world to use it – you can choose your own currency to input transactions in and choose your own tax rates. Writing the help for it was again a massive job, helped by the able Orange Assistant, but it won’t be an easy ride to Christmas … I’m ashamed to say bits didn’t get finished and I won’t rest until they’re done. Sigh.

It’s my 2nd Xero birthday today.

Highlights are:

• Help Centre is now a standalone website – a hub for a user guide, how do I’s, video demonstrations and other guidance material over 270 html files, several now on their 4th or 5th iteration – as the application changes, the help does too.
• Started tracking the visitor stats mid-March – since then it’s had 44 and a half thousand visitors! Very exciting, and when I first saw all the countries that were visiting the website I was blown away.
• And, 6 weeks ago the Help Centre team expanded – I got an assistant. My first ever and it’s great. Nice to have someone else on the same wavelength with the same interests and priorities – will make some of the mountains easier to manage.

Next year’s plans are:

• To be working in the New York office (yes, that was rather wishful thinking when I said it a year ago – will try again for the upcoming year!)

It’s not that I’m a political fanatic, nor particularly interested in the election results rolling out of the booths tonight … I’m just stuck here at work in front of my computer for the OHMYGOD 6th night running – YIKES. We’ve got a big release tomorrow and having given up the first part of the 15 days I needed to do my work for it to help out my new staff member I was left with 8 days in which to get it done. I couldn’t just leave her sitting there could I? And I couldn’t NOT do the fully effort like I normally do. And I had to get her up to speed enough to help me out this week, which she has done which is FANTASTIC but I still have lots of loose ends to finish. I think I’ve been surviving on about 6 hours sleep a night, and fitful sleeps at that, but have been getting quite a bit done from 8pm – 11 or 12pm after going home for a couple of hours each everning for some dinner. Sometimes I get a bit scared that I won’t be able to go back to concentrating in an office full of people during the day after treating myself to quiet nights. My eyes are beginning to develop quite large bags under them so I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over. So, polling booths have been closed for an hour 40 and we’re at National 48.7% and Labour 31.2% with what looks like (on the bar graph on stuff.co.nz) about a quarter counted.

When I work in the office at the weekend I pull up the Venetian blinds to let as much light in as possible – kind of makes me feel like I’m not really at work for some reason. I’m always intrigued by how cool the reflection of our building looks in the windows of the building across the road and with the blinds open today I’m getting a really good look at it. The oldness of the bank reflected in a modern building. You can also see some of the city rising up behind our old building.

Wahooo! I now have a ‘team’ and I’m it’s leader. After a whirl wind of interviews, second interviews and sleepless nights (hence the blog block over the last couple of weeks) I have an assistant and she’s been on the job this week. She was able to start pretty quickly so thought that was better than having her wait 6-7 weeks until we get back from the States.

I’d been getting more and more anxious about her starting – worrying about how to transfer knowledge without overwhelming and at the right pace. Plus one of the nights I was lying awake I catalogued the roles I’d had in my working career and realised that due to the niche nature of the jobs I end up in, I’ve never really had to share my work with anyone or direct anyone in what they do. Up until now, my roles have been:

• Senior Business Analyst
• Business Planning Analyst
• Planning & Monitoring Advisor
• Documenter
• Product Consultant
• Documentation Consultant
• Application Consultant
• Project Manager
• Intranet Specialist
• Web Designer
• Web Designer
• Team Personal Assistant
• Personal Assistant

So now Team Orange (as people are beginning to call it) is up and running and my Oompa Loompa is fantastic! She’s a really fast learner and scarily similar to me so once we get through all the bits and pieces that will form her job I reckon we’re going to do great as a really well oiled machine. This is her first office job out of university and it’s been a very eye-opening experience going through a whole lot of firsts with her – sitting down at a desk all day, team meetings, argumentative developers, intranet, procedures and most odd, no official start, end, lunch and break times.