View From the Other Side...the Other Side
of Work

by Nancy Halverson

Life settles into somewhat of a routine in mid-fall here. The darkness closes in just after 4:30 pm now, so it feels quite late by the time that I pick up the kids and we make our way home. No outdoor play after we get home anymore. Feed 'em and get 'em to bed -- or whatever activity they're doing.

Just today the winter winds started to blow -- not bad really. Last year we'd been feeling these winds since August (I'm not exaggerating!)

Winter here is cold in a different way. You feel the wind slice right through your coats and hats. And I never had to wear as much wool in Canada -- inside the house! It's the damp I guess. I felt warmer at my parents' place in Peterborough county, at minus 20, than I usually do here at zero -- and in the same coat!

Trouble Conforming, As Usual

My job continues to develop, and I think that I'm doing pretty well. The software is cumbersome -- Oracle based, financial institution users -- not exactly a recipe for innovation. My boss, Alice, has patience with me...even after she asked me to toss out most of my work from my first month on the job. She's encouraged me to work with the style guide open from now on and, whenever I feel the urge to veer off and cut a new style path, I am supposed to ask someone to beat it out of me. Not that they're adverse to my suggestions -- they just will never get anything produced if we take time to redo anything.

So, slow and steady it goes. Style guide open, fingers working as much as possible to get through the software and produce workable help. So much for having my own project! (she said wistfully). I'm sure that even if I'd stayed in Canada, sooner or later I would have run into a heavily organized documentation team, so I don't attribute this to the English experience.

One minor setback in my career path here in England though; I had to cancel the meeting I proposed to organize for 'northern' STC members here in Sheffield. There just wasn't enough energy left at the end of my day to get any publicity done. I've got speakers lined up though, and I'm ready to put it together for a meeting in March. This time, I'll have lots of help (they're starting to come out of the woodwork), and I've already got more interest from the discussion forum than I had for either of my two earlier proposed dates. Maybe failing acts like one of those teaser ads you see on TV; it whets the appetite and gets people into the spirit.

Bright Spot

I'm happy to tell you that my family will be spending the Christmas holidays in France! I've booked the train for us on the 23^rd, and we'll be in the region of Alsace for a few days. The train will take about 11 hours to get us from Sheffield to the city of... what else, Nancy. Really, that's the name of the city. It's just a coincidence that I've booked a holiday near there. We will actually spend Christmas in a town called Colmar, then drive away to Bavaria -- or Switzerland -- and possibly meet up with some friends who just moved to Bavaria.

My long days now are going to pay off with a nice relaxing vacation -- lots of wine, good food, walking in the French countryside, and maybe even some skiing. It's not my much-dreamed-of beach holiday, but it'll be so good to get away for a bit. We get back on the 4^th of January, just in time to go back to work and school.

Good Vacation Time

Oh, and if I complain about a few things in my life in England -- separate cold and hot water taps, hideous carpet, and parking on major roads -- I'll never complain about the vacation allowances. I get 23 days each year (although only 5.5 days until Dec 31, which luckily is all I need for our sojourn). My husband gets 30 days, but then again, as an academic with a light teaching load (heavy research load of course), few people notice if he's around or not! So, we'll all settle in for the winter, listen to the winds howl and the precipitation fall (rain or snow), drink some good wine, and look forward to spring. Oh, but first I'll have to plant some winter flowers -- pansies do quite nicely here through the winter I hear...