A good day at work
Jan. 28th, 2007 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philmophlegmI had a good day at work on Friday. Most people use LJ to tell their friends about bad days at work. I thought it might be nice to use it to tell people about a good day.
You'll either think "That's nice, spreading a little happiness 'n all. What a nice man". Or you'll think "Well that's ok for you, you bastard". If you think you're going to fall into the second category, best not
I was very busy at work (KPMG work) last week. So much so that I didn't manage to take a day to work for Clare Associates. I am supposed to work four days for KPMG and one day for CA. Luckily my boss at CA is very understanding.
So Friday was the extra KPMG day. I do get paid for any hours I work on my day off, up to the seven that a full-timer would work.
This is how my day went:
Get up at the usual time - 7.51. Drive to work. Cold, but dry and sunny, so drive with the roof down. Always a nice feeling. Saltash Tunnel a bit slow, so decide to go around it for a change. This results in driving along the weird left-hand lane of the Tamar Bridge. Think 'How cool is this? I'm on a road suspended from a bridge that is itself a suspension bridge'. Think that it's nice that I have such a spectacular view (the Tamar Estuary) as part of my daily commute. Glad not to work in most big cities.
Arrive at work. Doesn't the newly refurbished office look nice? Everyone likes it. I had the job of liaising with the project managers and the contractors, and it was me who got to decide where everyone sits. Fingers crossed the new coffee machine (which makes real coffee from freshly ground coffee beans) and the water cooler should be here today. 42" high definition plasma TV is now up and working. Feel slight pang of jealousy that the office now has a better telly than I do (whilst our telly is a 42" plasma, it ain't HD - perils of being an early adopter).
Sort out placement of newly arrived whiteboards for meeting rooms. Overjoyed to realise that one of them is a fancy one that can print out what you scribble on it. I certainly didn't ask for that.
Finally sit down at my desk. Perk of being the one doing the organising - I got both a place by the window plus a nice wood desk with fancy handles, that in the past was a partner's desk. We have four partners' desks and only one partner (we used to have four). There's only two people in the office who outrank me, so I made sure that I grabbed the nice desk.
Check email - nothing too difficult or urgent. Check voicemail - ditto. Decide I'm too busy to answer the phone and leave it on voicemail all day. Decide that I probably need to check my email regularly, but not constantly.
Continue on the week's great task. This is developing training material for a global KPMG QPR course. QPR stands for Quality Performance Review. It is part of our audit practice's quality control procedures, essentially auditing the auditors. Running the UK programme is a large part of my job. My particular part of the global training material is adding about fifteen errors to a previously perfect model audit file. Errors in audit methodology or risks that were mentioned but never followed up - that sort of thing. On the course, the participants (who will be the partners in charge of QPR for a particular region or country) will review this file and we'll see if they spot the errors and then discuss what sort of impact a particular error would have on that audit file's overall grade.
It's actually quite interesting work. And I think this to myself as I'm doing it.
Have lunch. Think to myself how lucky that Plymouth (I think uniquely among KPMG offices) has a catering lady who will make sandwiches to order. I have cheddar and salad cream sandwiches on white bread, 'not much spread'. Plus a couple of bars of chocolate and a nutri-grain bar.
The truck bringing the coffee machine has broken down. Our partner is annoyed. It doesn't bother me as I don't touch the stuff. I manage to look busy enough that he doesn't ask me to shout at Facilities.
Get back to work. Realise that I'm getting through these errors so well, that I'll finish this afternoon. Check email and have a quick flick through the usual websites (profootballtalk.com, raiderfans.net, LJ and news.bbc.co.uk).
One final push. Finish at 3.30. Woo-hoo. Some fiddling about and printing stuff out, but I can do that on Tuesday. Check email.
Double woo-hoo. I'm the team leader of a team that has won an 'Encore' award. Apparently in the last audit managers' meeting (which I missed because of an office refurb contractor meeting), they all decided to nominate me and the five secretaries in the office for our work on the refurb. This means I get £1,200 to split how I see fit (it will be evenly) and we all get an extra day of holiday.
Tell the three secretaries who are in the office. Aunty is overjoyed because she's never won one before. Lauren is overjoyed because she can get Thomas Cook vouchers to pay for her holiday to Cancun. Bonnie Prince is just overjoyed. We call Earls and Taxsec and give them the happy news.
Spend remaining 90 minutes of working day looking at the various things I can spend my £200 on. They now have Amazon vouchers, so I add a lot to my wish list. Unfortunately somewhat more than £200.
5.00 go home. Feel smug about being able to go home on time.
You'll either think "That's nice, spreading a little happiness 'n all. What a nice man". Or you'll think "Well that's ok for you, you bastard". If you think you're going to fall into the second category, best not
I was very busy at work (KPMG work) last week. So much so that I didn't manage to take a day to work for Clare Associates. I am supposed to work four days for KPMG and one day for CA. Luckily my boss at CA is very understanding.
So Friday was the extra KPMG day. I do get paid for any hours I work on my day off, up to the seven that a full-timer would work.
This is how my day went:
Get up at the usual time - 7.51. Drive to work. Cold, but dry and sunny, so drive with the roof down. Always a nice feeling. Saltash Tunnel a bit slow, so decide to go around it for a change. This results in driving along the weird left-hand lane of the Tamar Bridge. Think 'How cool is this? I'm on a road suspended from a bridge that is itself a suspension bridge'. Think that it's nice that I have such a spectacular view (the Tamar Estuary) as part of my daily commute. Glad not to work in most big cities.
Arrive at work. Doesn't the newly refurbished office look nice? Everyone likes it. I had the job of liaising with the project managers and the contractors, and it was me who got to decide where everyone sits. Fingers crossed the new coffee machine (which makes real coffee from freshly ground coffee beans) and the water cooler should be here today. 42" high definition plasma TV is now up and working. Feel slight pang of jealousy that the office now has a better telly than I do (whilst our telly is a 42" plasma, it ain't HD - perils of being an early adopter).
Sort out placement of newly arrived whiteboards for meeting rooms. Overjoyed to realise that one of them is a fancy one that can print out what you scribble on it. I certainly didn't ask for that.
Finally sit down at my desk. Perk of being the one doing the organising - I got both a place by the window plus a nice wood desk with fancy handles, that in the past was a partner's desk. We have four partners' desks and only one partner (we used to have four). There's only two people in the office who outrank me, so I made sure that I grabbed the nice desk.
Check email - nothing too difficult or urgent. Check voicemail - ditto. Decide I'm too busy to answer the phone and leave it on voicemail all day. Decide that I probably need to check my email regularly, but not constantly.
Continue on the week's great task. This is developing training material for a global KPMG QPR course. QPR stands for Quality Performance Review. It is part of our audit practice's quality control procedures, essentially auditing the auditors. Running the UK programme is a large part of my job. My particular part of the global training material is adding about fifteen errors to a previously perfect model audit file. Errors in audit methodology or risks that were mentioned but never followed up - that sort of thing. On the course, the participants (who will be the partners in charge of QPR for a particular region or country) will review this file and we'll see if they spot the errors and then discuss what sort of impact a particular error would have on that audit file's overall grade.
It's actually quite interesting work. And I think this to myself as I'm doing it.
Have lunch. Think to myself how lucky that Plymouth (I think uniquely among KPMG offices) has a catering lady who will make sandwiches to order. I have cheddar and salad cream sandwiches on white bread, 'not much spread'. Plus a couple of bars of chocolate and a nutri-grain bar.
The truck bringing the coffee machine has broken down. Our partner is annoyed. It doesn't bother me as I don't touch the stuff. I manage to look busy enough that he doesn't ask me to shout at Facilities.
Get back to work. Realise that I'm getting through these errors so well, that I'll finish this afternoon. Check email and have a quick flick through the usual websites (profootballtalk.com, raiderfans.net, LJ and news.bbc.co.uk).
One final push. Finish at 3.30. Woo-hoo. Some fiddling about and printing stuff out, but I can do that on Tuesday. Check email.
Double woo-hoo. I'm the team leader of a team that has won an 'Encore' award. Apparently in the last audit managers' meeting (which I missed because of an office refurb contractor meeting), they all decided to nominate me and the five secretaries in the office for our work on the refurb. This means I get £1,200 to split how I see fit (it will be evenly) and we all get an extra day of holiday.
Tell the three secretaries who are in the office. Aunty is overjoyed because she's never won one before. Lauren is overjoyed because she can get Thomas Cook vouchers to pay for her holiday to Cancun. Bonnie Prince is just overjoyed. We call Earls and Taxsec and give them the happy news.
Spend remaining 90 minutes of working day looking at the various things I can spend my £200 on. They now have Amazon vouchers, so I add a lot to my wish list. Unfortunately somewhat more than £200.
5.00 go home. Feel smug about being able to go home on time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-31 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 08:42 am (UTC)