Phone and job

So, it happened, finally. Yes, I phoned up Orange upgrades, and the Nokia N80's available for upgrade customers. £49.99, but that's fine. So excited.

Very busy at work.

Oh, and Certicom came up with an offer which I've accepted. And I handed in my notice. That was very hard, because Peter (my boss) really feels like a friend, and I know it'll make things difficult. I'm glad that a 2 month notice period will allow us to sort things out. Peter's going to tell people at work after the weekend.

Phoned Tosha, who's frankly bored of having a cold and being very pregnant.

Spoke to a variety of people about the new job, including Kate, Jim, Poll, Si. Tried phoning Mum and Dad, but they're apparently not yet at their hotel, so I emailed them on the boat (they're on a Swan Hellenic cruise, where Dad's lecturing). I'm feeling very happy about the decision, but, bizarrely, rather more excited about my new phone on Monday that the (rather intangible) new job stuff.

Tomorrow? 90th birthday party...

Offers

(backposting) A busy day at work today, which was good. I was hoping to get an offer that would work today. Got one that we needed to work on a bit. At least work kept me busy.

Had a good tutorial with Alan this evening. Some work on exegesis on Jeremiah and Ecclesiastes. Alan's agreed to continue next year as my tutor, as well, which I'm very, very pleased about.

The offer never arrived. Gulp. But I spoke to Anna (HR from Certicom), who explained that she was just waiting for sign-off, so I wasn't too worried.

Lovely to see Jo this morning. I'd actually spent some time with her last night, but that wasn't the plan...

Proper work

(backposting) A major meeting today with other members of a project we're bidding on. Cancelled my flight, and took the train with the others, and spent some good time talking to John.

Heard, on the train, that Certicom were planning to offer me a job. And so I had a few calls with them, trying to sort out the details of the package. I'd already told Moo that it I was offered the job, I was minded to take it, as long as she was happy, and once I got home, we had a good chat about it all. The main issues are:

• will there be more travel? If so, will this be balanced by the fact that I'll be able to spend more time at home?
  
• will Certicom be supportive of my ordination training?
  
• is it risky from a career point of view?
  
• will there be enough interaction with other people to keep me interested and happy, unlike a previous job at Arcot, where I got, frankly, bored and lonely working at home. The main change is that working home has Jo and Moo around most of the time.
  

Back in the UK

(backposting) So, I've obviously never been away to Canada, oh no. Really not. I've been on holiday, of course.

Managed to get an earlier flight to Plymouth for a meeting in the evening (before a sales pitch tomorrow). Met John from work and some people from the project, and had a good evening - even if supper wasn't as good as we'd hoped. Got some sleep on the plane and in the hotel, so felt vaguely human. Good preparation for the meeting tomorrow.

On a side issue, over the time I've been away, I've been rather pleased with myself for keeping the daily office going. Some days, it's been morning prayer, others evening prayer, but I've managed - mainly thanks to the Gideon's Bible in hotel rooms.

on holiday - hmm

(backposting) So, I'm still officially on holiday, but I'm still being interviewed by Certicom. Pretty much everybody from Certicom, starting at breakfast with David Sequino, and then on from there. It all went pretty well, and I felt very positive.

At the end of the day, I headed off to Toronto airport, and flew back home. Well, to Heathrow, anyway. Life's significantly weird.

Sunday, so find a church

(backposting) I woke early, but had got maybe 7 hours over the entire night, which was excellent. I decided to try to find a church, and after some ridiculous confusion about where things were (and over a 3 mile walk), I ended up at The Church of the Holy Spirit for the 0830 communion. I turned up expecting it to be Roman Catholic (from information provided by the hotel), but the fact that the presiding priest was a woman was a bit of a give-away that it might not be. Praying for Rowan Williams and the Anglican communion sealed it.

Bizarrely, the sermon included some issues about changing jobs: God loves messing with coincidences, it appears. I had a good chat with Judith, the incumbent.

Then, to the first interview, with Darryl, at the Intercontinental. A good start. A couple of hours of nothing to do, so I went up the CN tower, and even managed to stand on the glass floor. Only just.

Then I drank some tea in a cafe, then found a church (St Andrew's, where there happened to be some people practicing for a service later on. There, singing, as Julia Churchill (I _think_ this is the right blog). She's a fantastic singer, and the band was good, too. I'm not usually into the sort of music they were doing, but I found it really inspiring, and wished that I'd been able to stay for the service.

After that, a meal with Micke, Harri, Johan and Gil. A good meal, and a great chat - I began to feel that I might fit into the company.

Canada - really?

(backposting - sorry that I've not been able to blog until now (2006-05-19), but you'll see why...) This morning, we spent some time with the lovely neighbours from the Londis shop next door clearing some trees, shrubs, etc. that were up against their wall. Had an interesting chat with Bik about being a Sikh, and various issues around Christianity.

In the afternoon, we started watching the Cup Final (Liverpool vs West Ham). Managed to teach Jo to say "'Pool!", which is, bizarrely, traditional.

And then, around 1630, I left to fly to Toronto via Heathrow. I listened to the end of the match, and Liverpool won, in the end: yay! Phoned Kate - less sober than you might expect...

So, in a plane to Canada.

Why? Because, on Monday, I had a contact from a head-hunter for Certicom. After some discussions, on Thursday I agreed to fly out for a set of interviews, because although I'd not seriously been looking for a new job, the opportunities from both a salary and career point of view just made it impossible not to consider it. So, I flew out to Toronto, and arrived a little before midnight. Slept for about four hours on the plane, which is good, and then to the hotel.