A brief period of calm

Wow. What a few months it has been. I've a lot to get off my chest, so excuse me if this blog comes across as more of a sprawling rant than the others!

The big project at work went live on time, but not without a herculean effort. We took on another member of staff but she turned out to be just as poor as the first guy (although it took us longer to discover this and was only really uncovered after her multiple attempts to sabotage our efforts). To this end (and I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, merely stating the truth) I pretty much developed the entire system myself and it nearly killed me. 7 odd weeks working 7 days a week, up to 15 hours a day. My boss and I nearly fell out on a number of occasions, such was the level of stress, and I'm sure I must have written a letter of resignation at least half a dozen times during the project.

The customer has been running the software for around a month now and apart from the odd minor glitch (not unexpected in a development that, due to the nature of the project and the timescales I was making up as I was going along) seems to be doing exactly what it says on the tin. Customer is happy and telling us that they will need to enhance the software in the new year to cover the rest of their UK operations and not just London.

The 7 weeks was made worse by the fact that Mum has been ill. What she thought was a back ache turned out to be two collapsed vertebrae and during the treatment of this (by creating concrete replacements) they've found cancer in the form of lymphoma in her back. They start finding out how to treat this next week, but it's a huge worry for all.

On a positive note though, I have a new member of staff - as of a fortnight ago I had two but one of them quit three days into the job - I don't think our company suited her. He's a nice guy, gets the job done and is proving to be a good assistant. I'm interviewing again next week to fill in the final position - All working towards me being able to have a holiday!

So, fingers crossed I'm entering a period of calm. Hope you all have a great christmas (those of you I don't see or speak to before then) and hope all is good.