Contract Cross-Eyed!

It's 7pm on a Tuesday evening and I am sure I can think of something better to do than trawl through all the emails, finance documents, specification and invitation to tender documents for a procurement done in 2011 to do a cursory check that we have a sufficient audit trail for the VAT decision made.  You know, something better like picking my eyeballs out with a toothpick......

Remind me again why I decided that a 2 year stint learning all about VAT and how it affects government contract would be a great idea.

I have spent nearly 3 hours trawling through the documents and reading the specification and drawing up a nice excel table with my findings and VAT decision.  And that is just one contract out of 20 which apparently 'is the first half' of what I am to consider.

Of course being the freak that I am I can sit here and provide a list of why this exercise has been good for me.  For a start it gives me a level of confidence in my VAT understanding that I didn't have for 2 years and I am learning all about the documents I will soon be putting together for my own contracts.  My new manager thinks it's a great idea to give me a key work objective to upskill the commercial environment in it which could serve me well if I ever was stupid enough to want promotion.

Now you are all riveted aren't you?  Yes I suspect you are now wanting to shove those toothpicks underneath your finger nails.  After all, my confidence and knowledge level holds no interest for you guys.

So what else can I tempt you with?

The fact that I am listening to Christmas songs on the 21st of January?  The fact that it is an album of Christmas songs by a country music?  That I think their voices are lovely and gentle with that slight country twang to the tone of voice?  No?  Well, I thought that would have interested you.  After all, it may show that I am losing my marbles slowly.  On second reflection it may convince you never to read this blog again.

How about a story of how I was eating a family bag of Galaxy Bites earlier today and holding my hand stretched out to keep the bag open on my knee while I was playing a computer game with the other?  How that bag didn't stay on my hand and most of the bites dropped on the floor?  

I suspect you are not surprised by that at all; the fluff bags were though when they heard the clattering.  Within 2 milliseconds they were all started scurrying around to scoop them up.  Well except for Fredster Fluff who never gets involved in any shenanigans for fear of being told off.
 
How about how all 3 girlie fluffs then tried doggy handling my office chair out of the way to get the ones their little necks couldn't stretch too?  How about how Lily fluff has been intermittently trying to get to one she thinks is behind the computer desk and printer all afternoon?  How Abi thinks that as she is so much skinnier she can sneak in between the side of the office desk and wall to try and get to it without me noticing to get it when I am still sat in the office chair? 

How about how all 3 girlie fluffs then displayed a, what would have been impressive under any other circumstances, gang mentality not 20 minutes later when trying to convince me that time had stood still and it wasn't really 2pm but 3.30pm and time for their tea?  How I randomly shouted "SHUT UP! NO!" or that it had absolutely no effect whatsoever?  That it was probably the sugar kicking in that had them so excited because clearly they were not hungry because they had only just eaten so richly?

As you can tell I have been having fun today.

 

IT - the bane of my life

I used to laugh at my mum when I was younger - you may know what I mean; video players were new, cable and satellite TV were years away and VHS had just started replacing BETA Max players.

It's not that they scared your mum but more that they were electronic and that tended to be the husbands domain.  Unless it meant putting a video on to just to play a film mum was stuck as she needed my dad to put the timer on to record anything.  No matter how many times he showed her how to set the timer she couldn't or didn't care to remember.  Looking back on it now maybe she preferred to leave it to my dad as it reinforced how much he cared for her.

Now I look back and think I should never have laughed at my mum. Although I can set a planner quite happily that is about it. In today's world of sky and cable planners there is no need to set the TV timer to record programmes. I'm not much use if something goes wrong with them though which explains why I make a monthly payment to have the satellite company come out and fix it if it isn't easily fixable over the telephone line and some simple instructions!

However, when it comes to computers they are the bane of my life!  Both at work and home so that doesn't make for a lot of stress.......

I have the added problems of having to use voice activated equipment of which I need to spend some serious time getting familiar with the majority of its added features yet the word 'macros' sends fear through my bones. 

I can find my way around MS products quite well though should be able to utilise Excel formulas much better than I do seen as I am an accountant but that is unlikely now that medical advice is that I can't use a keyboard and mouse most of the time if I don't want the pain from RSI and the bulging disc to march on at a pace quicker than a greyhound chases a pretend rabbit!

The worst of it is when PC's and laptops go wrong or the Internet drops.  Having a PC, 2 laptops, an iPad and 2 iPhones in the house everyone looks to me when something goes wrong which is laughable because the first thing I want to do is drop to my knees, pull my hair out and force cocktail sticks under my fingernails!

If the Internet drops Hubby has got used to calling the broadband supplier for me as it is the only thing that will take me from peace and tranquility to tears and desperation in a matter of minutes.  Luckily Hubby knows this and my guess is that he would avoid my tears like his life depended on it. So he sorts it out for me and I am eternally grateful for his patience and understanding. 

When it comes to PC's no such luck.  I am the one to try and get them running faster or decide when it's time to find the money to buy a new one - or should I say wish for a new one.  Luckily Beautiful B now being of working age, and having the majority of her wage available because I was daft enough not to charge her the going rate for board, bought herself a new Apple laptop and is a gift from the gods if she is to be believed.

Hubby's laptop is annoying for him in that the battery no longer holds its charge but he never has it unplugged and only uses it to keep on top of sports results or to play online golf so....meh.  

I use the home PC to do accounts for 2 clubs as well as play the computer games that take my attention away from those accounts. It has been running slow for ages; Beautiful B moaned to me when Zoo Tycoon 2 wouldn't play. Since she installed that the PC has all but gone on strike. Having got to the stage that it takes 10 minutes to wake up, decide intermittently if it wants to shut down the Excel spreadsheet I'm working on, and insist on only allowing me to one one application at a time I decided it needed a vacation to the PC hospital before I lost my last nerve. 

All good you think. No.  Although I have it back cleaned up the hospital could not locate the MS Office key that I should know as Dell installed it for me when I bought it. Problem is I am going to have to locate the receipt and other documents to see if it is listed on there as I certainly wasn't provided with a disc. 

Now is the time to be grateful that my dad always told me to keep documents for 7 years. I knew there was a reason I have 3 or 4 box files of paper in the storage space under my bed.  Matter of haste required as I have accounts to do. If it is lost I can see where some of Beautiful B's board is going to this month!

What I need is one of these: 

To top it all for the past week I have been at my brothers who left me a brand new laptop to play with while he was on holiday. Awful, awful, awful.  Fast I admit but whether it is windows 7 or 8 I hate it. The sidebars are so annoying, popping up whenever they feel like it. When using blogger the zoom decides it wants to move up or down at will. I did wonder whether my belly was getting in the way of something  on the keyboard or maybe messing about with the mouse. Luckily not because I may have booked myself in for gastric band surgery at a rate of knots.  

So I'm glad that I didn't take up the PC shops offer to install Windows 7 on my PC for £99.  

If only I could get the iPad version of blogger to allow me to change the font, colour of the text and justify I wouldn't need to tidy my posts up on a laptop or PC. Maybe I should suggest it in the hope that a) lots of people are telling Blogger its needed, b) they are actually taking note of suggestions and c) they care.  

Of course I could move to a blogger site that allows me to do all of this on an iPad but the idea of moving my archives without losing them and working out how to get the dates of the post correct is terrifying.  Any chance you bloggers out there use such a site and can provide instructions on moving archives?