The office move away from sunny Notting Hill (with its overabundance of mediocre restaurants and about 17 branches of Starbucks within walking distance) to West Kensington (with... um... Tesco... and a subsidised cafe in the office building) is happening today... which is why I've been at home all day, rather than at work. Everything (well, almost everything... the significant stuff) was packed away yesterday in preparation. Today, the movers are shifting our crates from one office to the next. Tomorrow, my department pop in to unpack and see what's what.
It's times like this that show you how things have changed (when we bought a competitor a couple of years ago, their Production department basically had to do the move by themselves because the salespeople buggered off and left them to it, whereas we're now paying professionals to do it for us, and all we've had to do is pack), and how things really haven't (one of the salespeople asked if she could 'borrow' a CD or DVD to do a backup of some 'personal stuff' - and let's ignore, for a second, that the salespeople don't have burners in their computers, and she was clearly too dumb to realise - and couldn't understand why I directed her to the stationary shop over the road when the DVDs the company bought had cost pennies - individually - while the ones from the stationary shop would be quite expensive, and so clearly had not considered that 'borrowing' one should lead to a replacement being returned at a later date). While many of my colleagues are looking forward to working in a nice, shiny, modern office, I can't help thinking that it's just going to be the same old monkeys in a new zoo.
For the past two weeks, my boss has been on holiday, which made things a bit... different. Still, after two weeks of not-quite running the show (because I'm one of two Production Managers, and there's a Publishing Director who likes to consider herself important), I feel slightly more confident in my decision-making. Unexpected problems still throw me into a panic (one of my designers being off sick for the Friday - one of our deadline days - before taking last week as holiday, another taking this Monday and Tuesday off sick with a bad throat), I seem to settle down quicker, and get back to just doing stuff, rather than spending the whole day on edge.
Still, some management training wouldn't go amiss...
My problem with Managers stems from the fact that most I've worked for believed that Management was all about telling people what to do... It's really not. It's about making sure things get done, certainly, but it's also about ensuring the staff can get things done. If they can't, you figure out why and develop a solution... If they can, but they're not... That's when you start telling them what to do. Of course, after far too many tyrannical managers, I got lumbered with one who just let everyone do their own sweet thing (which included buggering off at 5.30 on the dot on any press day, regardless of how much work was left to do), before the current management took over and replaced him.
Wow... Eight years with this company... I really do wonder why I bothered sometimes...
Still, in my spare time today, I had considered visiting the Hayes branch of Toys'R'Us, to see if any new TF Movie toys had turned up. In the end, I didn't feel like it (it looks cold out!) so I spent the day reading, listening to music, watching a couple of episodes of Gerry Anderson's CGI version of Captain Scarlet (Season 2! Well done, Mr. Anderson!) and...
Wait for it...
FINALLY getting on to one of the TF repaint projects I came up with more than a year ago!
My friend Paul bought be Snarl from the TF Cybertron line when he visited Canada ages back, little realising I already had one. A short while after that, I got to thinking about this robotic wolf whose tail is a sword and gun... and came up with the idea of repainting him into Cybertron Sabrewulf, as a homage to the monstrous beast created by Rare (nee Ultimate). Ages ago, I bought the paints I wanted to use (three shades of brown and a couple of new metallics) but left Snarl in his packaging until today. Now, I've got him almost half done. Technically, probably more like almost a quarter done... I'm painting the wolf mode, and that's almost half done... Once dried out properly, I intend to transform him and paint the robot mode. Once that's done, I'll touch up whatever needs fixing for 'in between'.
I'm actually very pleased with the results so far. I came up with the clever idea of mixing one of the metallics (Humbrol Enamel MET55) and the dark brown (Humbrol Enable Gloss 10) to create a sort of bronze-y colour and it turned out very successful. Quicker to dry than the brown gloss on its own, and very definitely metallic, I think this will be the perfect colour for the main body of the model... Problem is, I only mixed up a little - intending to test it on one leg only - and used it all up... So now I have to mix up some more, and I'm bound to have trouble matching it, especially if I try for a larger quantity.
Still, it's looking pretty good, for a less than half done model...
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