The Grand Finale

Well, that's it, all done! We've had out last supper with Nektar Therapeutics UK Ltd - and what a blast it was. We had a meal at the ChinoThai in Bradford - a top meal it was too! Followed by a fewdrinkies in Lloyds next door afterwards.

Unfortunately I had to leave early to get Mini-MaFt else, in the words of Mr-B, "there would have been carnage". It's weird to think that I may never work with these people again, but I'm trying to get a barbeque sorted for over Summer to catch up with everyone. I can but try! So, another chapter in my life over! Best get on with editing Brother-A's wedding video...

My plan forMonday is to head to teh Job Centerto sign on - I hope there aren't too many scum-bags there... I've only been in there once before and I felt dirty when I left!! Maybe it's got better, who knows!

See ya

MaFt

Update

Thought I should update you all! The site is closing so as of Friday 30th June I will be officially redundant and unemployed :(

Went out for a few beers yesterday and then had today off. Tomorrow will see us signing everything we need to sign and then Friday we're off for a meal and some more drinks.

It's weird... I'm gonna have to find another job. I might try it Yosser Hughes style:

GISSA JOB, GO ON, GISSA JOB!

Later

MaFt

Forgot to Mention My New Best Friend!

I had a reply last Friday from my new friend in California, Jazz-Fairy. See previous post: I Am Jack's Headache.

Here's the reply (again, the name has been changed):

Hi Matthew,
Don't be headache. This is Jazz-Fairy, I have been in Nektar more than 8 years. I work in R&D manual filling group in Building 4, California, USA. I am glad to talk to you by email in UK. Your e-mail is really fun and impressed me that you are a very kind person and boss.

My boss (another Matthew) didn't approve my Monday PTO. The problem for me is how I cook the breakfast Sunday middle night and work 7:15 AM Monday morning. I am really headache now. I will be fine and I am always peaceful.

You have a good day!

Jazz-Fairy
Office: 650-xxx-xxx
Cell: 650-xxx-xxx

One thing remains unanswered though... why would you need to cook breakfast in teh middle of the night? Isn't it more appropriate to cook it at breakfast-time in the morning before going to work?! These Oriental-American types crack me up!

MaFt

Slight Change of Plan

After a brief text exchange last night with Brother-A I don't think I'll use the intro I did the other day. Looking at it again it's not really appropriate for the wedding video! I might keep it on the DVD as a 'deleted scene' or as a hidden extra :)

Anyway, we have a meeting today at 2pm where we shall find out our fate... Off to the pub for a last supper of chip butties (bread) and Carling (wine).

MaFt

Crashed The Wedding

I've finally got around to starting Brother-A's wedding video! If you recall from previous episodes of the blog they were due to be wed in Mexico just as the hurricane hit last October. In the end they got married over here in Bradford.

So, take a look at this to see the intro for the video!

MaFt

Ta-ra For Now

Well, we've been sent home from work cos there really is nothing else to do! Just need to wait until the meeting on Monday/Tuesday (still no one really knows...) then it's pretty certain that we're all gonna be redundant!

Have a good weekend, I'm gonna shut down this incredibly slow PC and go take Mini-MaFt to the park for a bit!

See ya

MaFt

I Am Jack's Headache

I'm in wind-up mode today. I think it's gallows humour setting in!

I had two emails from an employee in America asking for some time off:

Subject: PTO second half year/1 day emergency off

Hi Matthew,
I got a call last night that I have guests from south California this Sunday and the following Monday. I will take Monday 6/26/06 off for my emergency PTO. Sorry for the short notice. Please approve.

I have 3 days PTO in August
I have 3 weeks PTO this October instead of December, 2006.
I have 2 days PTO in September.
I will try to fix the date and let you know and approve.

I am very headache because all my friends not inform me more than 1 week for their visiting.

Jazz-Woman (name changed to protect the innocent)

I had one soon after explaining the mix up:

Hi Matthew,
I sent to a wrong person. Please review and approve 1 day PTO.

Matthew Morley,
Sorry for the confusing.

FYI.

Jazz-Lady (name changed to protect the idiot again)

It would appear that Jazz-Dudette was supposed to send it to her boss, Matthew, and not me. Yet another example of Microsofts Auto-Assumption feature of Outlook. Remember kids, "assumption is the brother of all f**k ups"

Well, anyway, I couldn't resist so sent off these replies making out that I had not seen the second one until later on...

Hi Jazz-Girl,

Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem for Monday 26th. However, I only seem to have you down as 1 PTO day in September… I will look into this and let you know my findings. Hopefully it will not make me headache either.

In the mean-time I sincerely hope you are no longer headache and hope you enjoy the time you spend with your friends from Southern California.

Yours,
Matthew

... and then a few minutes later...

Hi again Jazz-Mistress,

It appears that I too was headache and made a mistake in who you were. I thought you were someone else. This is why our figures for September did not match! Who is headache now?!

Please ignore that last email as it was not you who I thought you were! Oh headache.

Enjoy your weekend.

Matthew in Bradford, not in California!

I hope they have a sense of humour! I wonder if they'll reply? They're about 7 hours behind so I won't get anything until later anyway. I think I'll have to set up a sarcastic Out of Office reply for when we all get the chop next week.

See ya

MaFt

Woman-ness

Mock me as much as you feel fit for I believe I am turning into one of the female persuasion... Ya see, yesterday I spent about £110 on new clothes! Well, actually I spent a tenner on new clothes as £100 of it was from a Debenhams gift card from work. While I'm on the subject of work we may have an extra day until we all get made redundant - no one is really quite sure when 'big boss' is coming over next week! It's either Monday or Tuesday.

Debenhams isn't cheap ya know, the stuff I got I could have probably got equivalent items for about £60 but still, it wasn't my money so I'm not too fussed. I'd give you an exact list of what I bought but even if I could remember then I feel that would be far too girly! And I'm not a girl. I could prove it too by posting a photo of my Nether-regions, which is near the Netherlands, but my camera decided it didn't want to work any more... How convenient that was!

Not much to do at work in the run up to the day of the great "Goodbye you lot". Could you tell? Everyone sees to be aware of this and are even considering letting us have a few days off just so we don't waste electricity and run up huge internet bills watching the World Cup live on the BBC website.

Anyway, I'm off for a can of pop!

MaFt

Vista Sunday

Bit of inactivity on the blog... sorry guys! Been having a play with Windows Vista and Office 2007 on my machine at work. I had to get the IT guy to get me some more RAM and a 2nd hard drive though so I could run it (just) and dual-booth with XP so I can still do a bit of work as well!

What's it like? well... erm... it's ok. It's just another operating system - it looks nice though but you need a bloody high-spec PC to get it going well! It's very 'graphical' which obviously uses a lot of resources. Office 2007 has some very nice features though. Still, I think I'll stick with Windows XP and Office 2003 for now. At least until I can afford to have a serious upgrade on my home PC.

Also, had this sent to me: George W Bush 'singing' U2's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' thanks to Telefiend for that one!

See you guys!

MaFt

Long Weekend

13 days to go...

Had a great weekend! Saturday was spent relaxing in the sun listening to the football on the radio for a bit then headed over to Halifax for a bit of shopping while it was quiet. Mini-MaFt isn't far from walking now, he managed 2 steps and can toddle about for a while if he's holding onto someones fingers.


Mini-MaFt posing in his England kit

On Sunday the weather continued to be officially 'rather hot' on the MaFt scale of warmness. Mrs-MaFt had a set of 2 nights to do at work so in the afternoon while she had a nap I headed down to Brother-T and family's house with Mini-MaFt. Sat about in the garden drinking a few beers and playing football with the kids and going on the slide. Ended up staying for quite a while before getting pizza for tea and heading off home.

Yesterday I had the day off work to watch Mini-MaFt while Mrs-MaFt slept. Ended up going over to Shibden Park in Halifax with Mr, Mrs and Mini-L. Had some dead nice ice cream and plonked the kids (Mini-L is a few months younger than Mini-MaFt) on the various swings and slides after having walked around the boating lake that seemed to be surrounded by ducklings! Mrs-L had just got a new camera so was in 'doting parent' mode - I just referred to her as Jonathan after a guy at church who used to take pictures of everything and everyone... It has to be said that she wasn't impressed with that! Still, she got some good photo's - just hope she can figure out how to email them to me. We got back and let the Mini's play on the field while we sat on the rocks and had a few drinks.

Today I came to work...

MaFt

The Countdown Begins

Seventeen days to go until Big Boss comes over from America to decide whether we will all lose our jobs.
Seventeen days to go for management here to try get funding for a management buy out.
Seventeen days to go until there's a good chance I'll get a bit of money.
Seventeen days to go until I may need to find another job.
Seventeen days to go until games 5 and 6 of the 2nd round of the World Cup.

MaFt

Toys Just Aint How They Used To Be

Remember the days when you bought a new toy with your £6 of birthday money and rushed home, ripped it out the box, played with it for half a day then left it forever in the back of your cupboard? Well, those days are long gone. Not just because you can't get any toys for £6 any more but the whole getting it out of the box and playing with it now requires a masters degree in engineering and psychology...

Why do toy makers insist on putting those horrible little ties all over the packaging? A kid just wants a toy to play with right away! By the time the adult (trust me, it's even hard for an adult to get the damn toy out of the box) has removed the toy from teh box the kid doesn't want to know anymore...

What makes it even more frustrating is when they not only put the tie there in the first place, but twist it with a pair of industrial pliers and then stick it down with sellotape as well! I mean, Mini-MaFt is 1; he wants to play with a toy bus that plays music not have to work out how to carefully extract said toy from the grip of the box and ties.

It took us 15 minutes to unpack the bus last night! Bring back Zoids is what I say - box, bag, toy. Dead simple!

MaFt

Happy Birthday!

Mini-MaFt is one today, can't believe how fast it's gone! I can believe how tired we all are though... We had a party for him on Saturday so we were shattered from that and then, to finish off the night, we went to a friends engagement do as well! Still, it was a good weekend. I'm gonna have to remember to update his site again, not done it since March...

More posts later, bit busy at work - lots to get done before the end of the month that I've just been putting off as long as possible... My own fault really... Athough it's nice to blame someone else so I'll blame the mental guys on the busses that always sit next to me.

MaFt

Sand, fivemiledrive and Geek Time

Yesterday's BBQ was good! Mini-MaFt discovered sand, and how funny it makes your mouth feel when you eat it... I also had the nicest pork burgers ever! Seriously, that's no exaggeration! Turns out they got them from a butchers near where my mum works so I might send her to fetch some when she's back.

Anyway, a couple of recommendations for you. First up is a great little CD from the UK punk/emo/rock band fivemiledrive called 'Houston We Have A Pop Song'. A very well done EP with a varied selection of songs on it - it's 3 tracks but each one is unique enough but still having their own sound. Check them out if you like that sort of thing!

fivemiledrive - 'Houston, We Have A Pop Song'

My second recommendation is for users of Firefox and FTP. There's a great little extension called 'fire FTP' which essentially turns Firefox into an FTP client. Great for uploading your website while you're at work ;). Get it for free here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684/.

That's all for now

MaFt

BBQ Time

Knocking off work in 45minutes for the annual company barbeque! SHould be good as the sun's come out now. It was miserable this morning though, hardly barbeque weather! Although it pee'd it down at the MaFt 'n' Family annual barbeque last year but that didn't stop us! Alright, people were indoors but me n Pete still slaved away cooking in the rain outside.

Mmmm, free beer :D

MaFt